Reading Response 1: The Social Production of Art

 In the first chapter of Janet Wolff's book, 'The Social Production of Art', she approaches the social nature of artistic creativity from a sociological standpoint. Wolff applies the social and economic viewpoints of Carl Marx to explain where creativity stands within Westernized society.

Chapter 1 Key Points:

• The generalized Western ideas and views of artists are that they are people who create art through divine inspiration; artists are glorified for their creative work and are treated like a separate entity of a society.
• A master painter of portraits is no more creative or brilliant than a scientific genius, both shaped by society and the 'capitalist mode of production'.
• The artist, like all people of a culture, are shaped by their culture which is reflected through their creativity.
• Creativity is bound by the artist's social norms, values, and ideological beliefs; therefore creativity is not a product of intellectual freedom because free will essentially does not exist.
• Although creativity of the human mind has it's limits, these limits are malleable, allowing the artist to creatively extend their art past social normalities.

Janet Wolff explains that creative nature is not just found within an artist. Creativity can be expressed through the creation and design of everything in our daily lives; advertisements, our cars, and architecture as examples. Even though artistic creativity is present in almost every aspect of society, general stereotypes of the artist and their work being divine or 'extra-human' creates an unrealistic social status. Wolf says, “I will argue that many other people are involved in producing the work, that social and ideological factors determine or affect the writer/painter's work, and that audiences and readers play an active and participatory role in creating the finished product.” The artist is not separate from society but rather tightly entwined within it. In our present day society, art is a means of economic growth by being mass produced and sold by the thousands. When an artist creates and sells their works of art, they are essentially creating a product, which is not different than a carpenter making a chair and selling it. When producing their product to make money, they create something that people will want which shapes their creativity. Who is to say that a computer software designer is not an artist. They are making something by having an idea, using tools and a method to create it, and then presenting it to the rest of society. This is exactly what an 'artist' does.