Lowbrow and highbrow art distinctions

Art

What defines high and low art? Why are some museums purveyors of "fine" art, whereas some galleries are confined to "lowbrow" status? Are there even any distinguishing features of the art itself that would place it in one or the other category: high vs. low? Or are definitions of high and low art established by and for the elite to create segregations and class stratifications?

For centuries, class-consciousness has determined access to cultural resources. Art is one of the most important cultural resources. Therefore, determining what is "high" versus "low" art can solidify existing class boundaries and create new ones. Consumers of lowbrow art are permanently designated a lower class status; consumers of fine art can rank themselves among the hoi polloi. In general, low art is that which is part of the popular culture canon. High art is defined more as that which is in the domain of the social elite. Peterson uses adjectives like "discriminating" and "exclusive" to describe the self-conscious features of elite or high culture; and the phrase "undiscriminating mass" to describe the lowbrow consumer.

The creation of an artificial elite within the art consumer community can easily be construed as an ethical issue. After all, access to social and cultural capital determines the ability to be upwardly mobile. Artificially categorizing art as low vs. high also has the potential of restricting access to large segments of creative enterprise. The equation reads the same both ways: when elite social strata do not have access to that which is deemed lowbrow art, it too is missing out on important cultural cues. Believers in the firm delineation of high vs. low point to nebulous notions of value and quality that simply do not exist.

In Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy, Lawrence Levine includes works of literature under the highbrow/lowbrow art rubric. Shakespeare, Levine argues, was never considered high or low art until the nineteenth century. Prior to the nineteenth century, Shakespeare plays were simply dramas or comedies. Audiences from all walks of life would attend the plays, get the jokes, and talk about those jokes around their respective proverbial water coolers. Race and gender might have always been rigidly determined social categories, but class was more mutable when it came to access to cultural emblems like the visual and literary arts (Levine).

In "Cartoon and Comic Classicism," Smooden argues that scholars are deeply conflicted about the boundaries between high and low art. Cartoons, and the analysis of cartoons, are a perfect example of how, when, and why the boundaries between highbrow and lowbrow become blurred. Cartoons are artistically discreet modes of visual culture, and they often convey social and political commentary that is far more in depth than canvases hanging on the walls of art museums. Some mass-produced popular art carries with it an element of subversion, buried beneath the surface and only visible as satire by those keen enough to notice it -- whether high or low on the social ladder. Artists like Mark Ryden embody lowbrow, popular art and yet convey a sense of aesthetics and insight not dissimilar from that of sophisticated animation.