Social Functions of Art

This editorial introduction discusses the ways contemporary art has dealt with cultural and physical displacement, spiritual homelessness, migrant and divided identity, issues of indigeneity and cognitive colonization. It focuses on the complexity of the artist's engagement in a world which has not only brought people together across many divides, but has also, in the process, alienated them from each other and from their environment.

This article analyses the social role of the artists focusing on the interactions between artistic critique and social change in the context of “the new spirit of capitalism” and the “imperative to creativity”. Nowadays the main rationales of a pragmatically-oriented public support for the arts are the economic and social benefits provided by artistic activities. Meanwhile it is a commonplace of the artistic mainstream to conceive and practice art as a tool of critique aiming to subvert capitalism. Is it possible to conciliate these divergent standpoints but which both deem art as a mere instrument and to prevent them falling back into the modern utopianism? Can we consider the social function of art without subjecting it to a strict calculation in terms of efficiency and control or, on the contrary, to blend into a social-and-political critique that borders on the radical utopianism? By answering these questions, the article aims to clarify the relationship between the artistic critique and the dynamic of capitalism, and to evaluate the role that artists have/could play in the social change.

Dedicated to the diffusion of the devotional portrait diptych in the Low Countries, this article demonstrates that this genre of paintings was not as popular as often stated, but was instead a particular type of painting which was circulated in very specific ways and contexts. The dukes of Burgundy - especially Philip the Good - made devotional portrait diptychs popular in the first half of the 15th century, before being imitated by several noble men, who commissioned such works of art for Rogier van der Weyden between 1450 and 1460. While we do not know any diptych from the years 1460-1480, the two next decades mark the peak of production of such diptychs, most of them being produced by or for the citizens of Bruges; the probable presence of the "Diptych of Jean Gros" in this town surely explains this revival. During the first decades of the 16th century, Margaret of Austria promoted this genre once more, and several members of her circle followed her example by commissioning such diptychs. The scheme of diffusion of devotional portrait diptychs in the Low Countries attests to their capacity to express the social ambition and prestige of the person portrayed, as well as their devotional function.

Hans Georg Nägeli (1773-1836) ist für die Musikwissenschaft ein Vorläufer Eduard Hanslicks, für die Musikpädagogik ein Schüler Pestalozzis, für die Sozialgeschichte der Musik ein „Sängervater“. Doch weder innerhalb des Koordinatensystems einer Geschichte der Musikästhetik noch im Rahmen der Suche nach historischen Modellen und Anregungen für aktuelle reformpädagogische Diskussionen lassen Nägelis Interventionen sich verstehen. Selbst um Teilbereiche seines Werks und Wirkens begreifen zu können, muss man den „ganzen Nägeli“ in den Blick nehmen.

Miriam Roner tut genau das und konzentriert sich dabei auf drei Kernarbeitsfelder: Nägelis Tätigkeit als Musikalienhändler und Verleger, als Gründer und Leiter eines Sing-Instituts in Zürich sowie als Autor einer Theorie der Musik, die in den Vorlesungen über Musik mit Berücksichtigung der Dilettanten (1826) ihre prominente Zusammenfassung erhalten hat. Das bunte Nebeneinander der Tätigkeit als Geschäftsmann, Komponist, Lehrer und Theoretiker wird zusammengehalten
durch eine verbindende, übergreifende Problemstellung: Nägeli praktiziert und versteht Musik als spannungsvolles Ineinander von Autonomie und sozialer Funktion.