Yesterday evening I sat in the village church for a concert of mostly Baroque music – Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi, Rameau among others, arranged for piano, ,trumpet and soprano. The composers had been contemporaries in their day, and sit together well, although their lives were different in many ways. It struck me that they are now among the principle ambassadors for that foreign country that is the early 18th century. It is through their music that we imagine the vanished world of the 1700s.
Who are the equivalent artists of our time?
Never in the history of the world have so many artists produced so much work for so many—and to so little effect. We produce art insatiably but almost all of it is, at best, of passing interest and value, the throwaway art of a throwaway culture. Critics tell us of the novel, album, or tv series of the week, trying to guide us through the flood of offerings but even the successful ones catch our imagination for a few days or weeks at most before being swept away by the next must-see, must-read, must-hear sensation. Honestly, if cultural production slowed to a tenth of what it is now, who would be worse off?
And what of all this will survive? I can guess that people might listen to the Beatles and Dylan in 300 years’ time but if so what will they make of them? Certainly not what we do. After all, many current listeners of J. S. Bach enjoy his music without sharing his religious faith; I fear he would find that incomprehensible and painful. But the art that survives our time might not be what we most admire. Sir Walter Scott was the widely read novelist of his day but who reads him now? Perhaps Dylan and the Beatles will be relegated to the pages of art history while people actually listen to other parts of our musical landscape.
It’s impossible to know what among our massive production of art will speak to future generations but it will be life-enhancing – that is the only reason for giving time to the art of the past. And by life enhancing, I mean having the potential to bring something to lives that the creator cannot imagine because they belong to another time and place. That might be what we can call great art – something that touches what unites all human beings and yet which is so hard for any of them to see, so wrapped up are they in the specificities of their own transitory worlds.
All we can do is enjoy the art of our time and remember, with humility, that it is likely to be interpreted very differently in future.
Photo: Monument to J.S. Bach, Zhabei District, China, Wikimedia Commons
François Matarasso 
Responses to “What will survive of us”
That is sort of how Anne and I finished the book on the Harrisons – we don’t know how their work will be evaluated in the future – what we know is how it is relevant to the leap of imagination we need to make meantime…
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it seems important to remember that world population in 1750 was 1/11th of today. With a generous understanding of art in mind, I doubt the rate of making has changed. We’re inundated because everything about technologies of preservation and dissemination has ballooned. I doubt the rates of skill or ineptitude, triviality or profundity have changed, however one may judge them. It’s easy to underestimate the effect of there being so many of us, but it does challenge comparisons.
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The change in population is a fair point but I still think we live in an era of cultural overproduction largely because so much of the neoliberal economy depends on the consumption of cultural goods, while the soporific effects of those goods contribute to the quietude of exploited populations.
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Well, that’s kind of an existential impasse. I suppose both can be true, but my preference is to distinguish humans’ intrinsic desire to make art from the systems that exploit it.
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Not so much an impasse because you know I share your preference. It’s just that I value humanity’s creative energy most when it’s outside the grip of mammon – amateur and community art, of course. I know the cultural economy is necessary and much of it is fine but it also produces a lot that is just awful.
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I agree. I’m 76 now, Francoise, and retiring from the world of work – but hoping at last to make some ‘art’. Harking back to my school days when I used to make music and win the art prizes. I might have been a YBA (haha!) and hung dead crows from telegraph wires , or whatever. But what to do in 2025 that might say something relevant to this time?
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I decided to study theatre design, instead of becoming a sculptor, because I was uncomfortable with the idea of art being permanent. I loved/love the idea of theatre/opera being transitory. It’s why I like the practice of artist’s such as Andy Goldsworthy.
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