IB Philosophy 2.2.3 the Artist and Society Notes

Art, Rules, and Social Conformity

1. Topics 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 examined who the artist is and how the artistic process works across cultures. This final topic in the 2.2 sub-theme asks about the relationship between the artist and the society in which they work.
2. The IB syllabus poses two central questions:
   1. what is the relationship between art, conformity, and censorship, and
   2. to whom is the artist accountable?

Institutional Control and the Avant-Garde Response

1. Every society establishes rules and conventions that govern artistic production. These may be formal (laws against obscenity, blasphemy statutes, copyright regulations) or informal (unwritten norms about taste, decency, and acceptable subjects).
2. Artists must navigate these rules, and their response to them, whether compliance, negotiation, or rebellion, defines their relationship to social conformity.
3. In many historical periods, art has been produced within strict institutional frameworks.
4. Medieval European artists worked within the rules of guilds (professional associations that controlled: who could work as an artist what they could charge, and how they could train;
   1. court painters served the aesthetic preferences of their patrons (the wealthy or powerful clients who funded the work and often dictated its subject matter),
   2. and religious artists followed iconographic conventions (fixed rules about how to depict saints, biblical scenes, and sacred figures) dictated by theological authorities.
5. In these contexts, the artist's freedom was constrained by social expectations and institutional power (these cultural processes are also discussed in 2.2.2).
6. The avant-garde tradition (discussed in 2.2.1) defines the artist precisely by their refusal to conform. From Impressionism's rejection of academic painting to punk rock's assault on musical conventions, the avant-garde artist derives their identity from challenging existing rules.

1. However, the relationship between art and conformity is more complex than simple opposition. Even avant-garde movements develop their own internal conventions: surrealist art follows surrealist principles, minimalist art follows minimalist rules.
2. The rebel who breaks society's rules often ends up creating new rules for others to follow.
3. Pierre Bourdieu, whose concept of cultural capital was discussed in 2.1.3, compared the art world to a competitive game, or "field", where players compete for reputation and status. In this game, both conformity and rebellion are calculated moves: an artist may follow conventions to gain gallery support, or deliberately break them to attract the attention of critics who admire rule-breaking.
4. The appearance of freedom may actually conceal a deeper conformity: even the rebel is playing the game, just with a different strategy.
5. Damien Hirst illustrates the point: his “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” (a shark preserved in formaldehyde) sold for millions, not because of traditional artistic skill but because Hirst mastered the art world as a social game.
   1. He cultivated gallery relationships, generated media controversy, and positioned rebellion itself as a marketable brand.
   2. His apparent defiance of art-world conventions was itself a carefully managed strategy to accumulate cultural capital (the prestige and reputation that translate into money and influence within the art world).

Tradition, Autonomy, and the IB Question

1. The question of conformity connects to 1.6.2 (Social Conditioning): if artists are shaped by the same social forces as everyone else, can they ever truly stand outside society and offer an independent perspective? Or, is artistic "rebellion" itself a product of the social conditions that make it possible?
2. Some philosophical traditions value artistic conformity to tradition rather than innovation.
   1. In Islamic calligraphy, the beauty of the work lies in the faithful execution of established forms, not in individual deviation.
   2. In Japanese Noh theatre, performers follow conventions developed over centuries.
   3. These traditions suggest that artistic excellence can emerge from discipline within rules rather than from breaking them.
3. The overarching Unit 2 question, "Should art have any religious, moral or political message?", is directly relevant here.
4. If art should serve social purposes (education, moral improvement, political change), then conformity to those purposes seems appropriate.
5. If art should be autonomous (as the art-for-art's-sake tradition maintains), then conformity to external demands represents a betrayal of art.
6. For IB students, the relationship between art and conformity provides a framework for analysing specific artworks and artistic movements.
7. Every work of art exists in relation to the rules of its time: it either follows, bends, or breaks those rules, and understanding that relationship is essential for philosophical analysis of art's social significance.