Against the aesthetic—and ascetic—purity of Kantian art, Nerdrum
argues for the validity and vitality of commercial art.^20 In his view, the
need to please an audience actually inspires the artist, brings out the best
in him, and forces him to come to terms with the fundamental subjects
that perennially preoccupy the human heart. In a move calculated to
infuriate all modern aesthetes, Nerdrum goes so far as to praise the cen-
ter of commercialism in art, Hollywood:
Even though the concept of art has achieved a predominant significance in
our time, there are still cultural arenas untouched by this esthetic [sic], i.e.,
Hollywood film productions and the world of literature. One important rea-
son for this is that films and literature depend on great commercial success.
And when you depend on a large audience, you are facing a “vulgus” prob-
lem. The general public wants what speaks to their hearts. Intellectual reflec-
tion will not be satisfying. People wants [sic] love, death and the ocean. Film
and literature are therefore examples of arenas that have not had the eco-
nomic possibility to bringing the ideas of Kant... to realization. (OK, 67)Speaking of “love, death, and the ocean” in December 2000, Nerdrum
perhaps had in mind that most commercial of Hollywood blockbusters,
James Cameron’s Titanic. In any event, he celebrates and identifies with
an art that appeals to a mass audience and welcomes the opportunity to stir
their emotions, no matter how base they may seem to a modernist elite.
Thus Nerdrum believes that modern art has actually been impover-
ished by efforts to shield the artist from the demands of the public, and
he wishes that painting would become more commercial, not less as
modernists have always been demanding. The villain in Nerdrum’s his-
tory of art is explicitly public funding:
In art, on the other hand, and in figurative art in particular, the situation is
quite different; it is dependent on public or semi-public funding to get by.
The reason being quite simply that this commodity, the art commodity does
not easily fall under the definition of mass product.
Personally, I am convinced that art can be made into mass products by pro-
ducing and selling reproductions of paintings in a far greater extent than
what is being done today. This was being done towards the end of the 1800s,
but the practice has all but disappeared due to the isolation of modernism.
Because figurative art has been protected from the masses, it has been free
to realize Kant’s ideas. (OK, 67–68)Nerdrum views government funding of the arts as a kind of economic
protectionism, and like all forms of protectionism, it has a harmful effect
The Importance of Being Odd 19