I don't like too much politics in art. That's why I love this Van Gogh landscape painting!
This painting is extremely political though...
Nonsense! There's nothing in this painting that goes against my particular world view, therefore, how can it possibly be percieved as "political" by anyone else?
Well, the Nazis confiscated this painting and sold it to finance their war effort. They labeled it as "Degenerate Art" (Entartete Kunst, Vol. 1, pg. 30) in 1937.
What the heck are you talking about?!"
Yeah, "Degenerate art" was anything the Nazis deemed representative of "...willful corruption by weakness of character, mental disease, and racial impurity." (Ginder, 2004)
Just because an artwork has a political backstory doesn't mean the art itself is political!
Well, that property depicted in the painting exists because it was built by wage-labor and paid for by a working artist (Charles-François Daubigny), whose family benefitted from the broad democratization of the arts after the French Revolution. Also, Daubigny worked for the government in a variety of capacities, which elevated his status amongst his contemporaries (like Van Gogh!). So this house, and this painting would not exist if not for the socio-political landscape of the time.
Okay, okay! Even though that's some trivia about the actual subject of the painting, that's still technically backstory. I just like the brushwork, and the color!
Ah, so you like the formal qualities of the art, indepedent of any kind of messaging or backstory?
Definitely! Exactly that!
That kind of perspective might have gotten you censured by the Soviet Union under Stalin, or ostracized, or publicly criticized, or worse. Yeah, the Soviet Union associated formalism with elitism.
I can't win with you! I just want to admire the beautiful landscape here!
That is exactly the point of an impressionist landscape, so that is totally cool! It's just too bad that a lot of these beautiful landscapes have now been ravaged by climate-change or disrespectful urban development...
Geez! Give it a rest. Next you're gonna tell me that Minecraft is political, or something!
Well, Minecraft is a game about mining and exploiting natural resources, and you're given near universal control over the world...and uh, do you know about those things Notch said on Twitter?
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