ART AND SOCIETYfavored subject for empirical investigation not
only in the countries of Central and Western
Europe but also in the United States.
Why should art, as a subject for sociological
study, have been so neglected as to have virtually
disappeared from mention in American textbooks
for half a century after World War I? In large part
this reflected the inherent tension between soci-
ology and art, which, as noted by Pierre Bourdieu,
make an ‘‘odd couple.’’ Artists, believing in the
uniqueness of the original creator, resented the
social scientist’s attempt to demystify their achieve-
ments by dissecting the role of the artist in society,
by questioning to what extent artists are ‘‘born’’
rather than ‘‘made,’’ by conceptualizing artistic
works as the products of collective rather than
individual action, by anthropologically approach-
ing art institutions, by studying the importance of
networks in artistic success, and by investigating
the economic correlates of artistic productivity.
Many scholars in the humanities were also skepti-
cal. For them the appeal of art is something of a
mystery and best left that way; they could hardly
relate to the attempts of social scientists who, in
their quest for objectivity, sought to eliminate any
evaluative component from their own research.
This practice of disregarding one’s own personal
preferences and tastes hardly seemed legitimate to
aestheticians. Moreover, in pursuing a rigorous
methodology, many sociologists chose to study
only those problems that could yield readily to
statistical analysis, and art did not seem to be one
of those. They also preferred to focus on subjects
that were important in the solution of social prob-
lems, and, in the United States, the arts were not
generally regarded as high on this list.
Nonetheless, there has been—especially since
the late 1960s—a slow but steady movement to-
ward the development of a sociology of the arts.
This is due, in part, to a narrowing of the intellec-
tual gulf between the humanistic and sociological
approaches. On the one hand, art historians have
legitimated the study of art within its social con-
text, and, on the other, mainstream sociology has
become more hospitable to the use of other than
purely ‘‘scientistic’’ methodology. In part this prog-
ress resulted from the expanded contacts of Ameri-
can sociologists after World War II with their
counterparts in other countries where art is re-
garded as a vital social institution and a public
good. And just as art must be understood and
studied within its social context, so too the grow-
ing sociological interest in the arts reflects the
growing importance of the arts within American
society and the recognition of this importance by
the government. Despite the concerted opposi-
tion of those who believe there is no role for
government in funding the arts, at every level of
government—federal, state, and local—arrange-
ments for the support of grassroots arts have
become institutionalized.
A small but dedicated number of scholars can
be credited with sparking this postwar advance-
ment of theory and research in the sociology of
culture and, more specifically, in the sociology of
the arts. The latter term, though not unknown
before then, began to surface with some frequency
in the 1950s; thus, in 1954 a session on the sociolo-
gy of art was listed in the program of the annual
meeting of the American Sociological Association.
In 1957 a symposium on the arts and human
behavior at the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences served as a catalyst for the
production of a book, based partially on papers
presented there. In its preface, the editor, Robert
N. Wilson, concluded that a sociology of art, though
in the early stages of its development, was not yet
ripe for formalization. Nonetheless, Wilson’s book
included a number of articles based on empirical
research that attracted attention. In one, Cynthia
White, an art historian, and Harrison White, a
Harvard sociologist, reported on their investiga-
tion into institutional change in the French paint-
ing world and how this affected artistic careers.
Later expanded and published in book form as
Canvases and Careers (1965), this research provides
a working example of how a changing art form
might best be studied and understood within its
historical and social context.Perhaps the most important step toward the
development of the field in these postwar years
came with the publication of a collection of read-
ings edited by Milton Albrecht, James Barnett, and
Mason Griff (1970). Clearly titled as to subject
matter—The Sociology of Art and Literature—it was
intended to serve a classroom purpose but also to
advance an institutional approach to its study. In
one article, originally published in 1968, Albrecht
oriented the reader to art as an institution, using
art as a collective term for a wide variety of aesthet-
ic products, including literature, the visual arts,
and music. In another (‘‘The Sociology of Art’’),