Chapter 3

Art as Ideology

Part of the task of a Marxist art history ought to be to reveal the

work of art as ideology. (Clark 1977a, p. 3)

The major focus of critiques of traditional studies of literature,

art and culture in general, from Marxists and sociologists, has
probably been the task of exposing the ideological nature of art. 1 A
secondary concern has been to expose the ideological nature of art
criticism and literary criticism. 2 This is opposed to approaches
which see art as somehow 'above' historical and perspectival
determinants, and the history of art as the intrinsic development of
style, independent of social or historical factors outside the
aesthetic sphere. These approaches themselves are shown to be
partial and historically specific, and thus, in a particular sense,
ideologicaI.3 Works of art, on the contrary, are not closed,
self-contained and transcendent entities, but are the product of
specific historical practices on the part of identifiable social groups
in given conditions, and therefore bear the imprint of the ideas,
values and conditions of existence of those groups, and their
representatives in particular artists. In this chapter, I want to look
at what is meant by the claim that art is ideological, and to review
some of the work on the theory of ideology in general and the
analysis of art in particular in order to try to arrive at an adequate
understanding of art as ideology. Some problems with the notion
of 'ideology' itself will be raised in this connection; others will be
discussed in the following two chapters.

J. Wolff, The Social Production of Art

© Janet Wolff 1981
50 The Social Production of Art
The theory of ideology
Although there is some agreement about the fact that art is
ideological, there is unfortunately a good deal of disagreement
about what 'ideology' is. Even within the Marxist tradition (and
there are also non-Marxist concepts of 'ideology') there are
controversies about what Marx actually meant, about what the
implications of the Marxist theory of ideology are, and about a
variety of epistemological, sociological and other issues which
follow from this theory. 4 Williams identifies three common
versions of the concept in Marxist writing. 5 Alan Hunt recalls that
Gurvitch 'discovered no less than thirteen different meanings of
"ideology" in Marx'. 6 And Colin Sumner lists ten main
definitions of the concept 'currently on offer',7 all of which, he
says, would cite Marx for authority and claim to be interpretations
of his texts. There is disagreement about what ideologies are, and
there is also disagreement about how ideologies are related to other
aspects of social life. I do not propose either to engage in the
pursuit of ascertaining 'what Marx really meant', or to adjudicate
between the numerous positions and analyses and their competing
definitions of 'ideology'. Instead, I shall take the easier path of
using that concept of 'ideology' which seems to me to be the most
useful and to have the best analytical value. It is one which, I
happen to think, does derive from Marx, or at least from one ofthe
chief ways in which he discusses ideologies; no doubt Marxolog-
ists will be able to dispute this.
Put most simply, the theory of ideology states that the ideas and
beliefs people have are systematically related to their actual and
material conditions of existence. This formulation is carefully
agnostic on a number of crucial points of dispute. In the first place,
it does not specify what form this relationship takes, or how
material conditions of existence produce ideas. Secondly, it does
not indicate how we are to conceive of 'people' - whether in terms
of class, nation, sex, or anything else - and I do not believe it is
possible to give a general formulation in these terms. Thirdly, it
does not identify particular conditions of existence as primary, for
similar reasons. And fourthly, it does not commit itself on the
question of whether or not these ideas and beliefs may be true, or
whether they are necessarily false. 8