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Marxism Materialism and Art

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that art is not an autonomous realm of individual genius or pure self-expression, but a material product of historically specific social relations. Against the idealist conception that art reflects only the artist's spirit or the internal development of artistic traditions, O'Shea contends that artistic production is rooted in the material conditions of each epoch — from the ritual practices of primitive communism, through the propaganda functions of feudal religious art, to the commodity form of art under capitalism. The central thesis is that the development of the productive forces — shorter working hours, cheaper technology, the internet — is creating the material basis for a genuinely democratic and revolutionary art, one that will be transformed and intensified by the resurgence of class struggle.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on the classical Marxist tradition of historical materialism, specifically the base-superstructure model as elaborated by Marx and Engels. Art is treated as part of the ideological superstructure, shaped by — but not mechanically reducible to — the economic base. The article also engages with Engels's dialectical materialism, emphasising the interaction between ideas and material reality rather than a crude economic determinism.

The argument sits within a broader Marxist tradition of aesthetic theory that includes Leon Trotsky's Literature and Revolution, which insisted that art has its own internal dynamic while being conditioned by social development, and Georg Lukács's work on realism and the historical novel. It also implicitly draws on the Frankfurt School's critique of the culture industry — the distinction between "fine art" and "entertainment" echoes Adorno and Horkheimer — but rejects their pessimism in favour of a revolutionary perspective.

The article's treatment of beauty as an evolved biological capacity linked to pattern recognition and survival is an unusual but materialist move: it grounds aesthetics in human evolutionary history rather than in transcendental or idealist categories.

Conjunctural Relevance

Written in 2015, the article situates itself in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis and the subsequent global upsurge in class struggle. O'Shea identifies a lull in struggle from the 1980s onwards — the period of neoliberal hegemony — which produced a pessimistic, negative artistic mood. The crisis from 2008 is presented as a turning point that will transform this pessimism into explicitly revolutionary art, comparable to the artistic radicalisation of the 1960s and 1970s.

The article identifies specific material developments that are reshaping artistic production:

  • The cheapening of recording technology, making professional-quality equipment accessible to workers
  • The internet as a near-free global platform for distribution
  • Reduced working hours (though slow and inconsistent) freeing time and energy for artistic production

These developments, the article argues, are undermining the traditional bourgeois division between fine art (dependent on capitalist patronage or state funding) and entertainment (controlled by media monopolies). The conjuncture is thus one in which the material conditions for a democratic, working-class art are emerging, even as the political consciousness required to give it revolutionary content is still developing.

Where the Argument Continues

The article is necessarily schematic — it covers the entire history of art from the Stone Age to the present in a single essay. Several areas are left underdeveloped:

  • The specific relationship between art and revolutionary organisation: how do revolutionary parties relate to artists and artistic movements? Trotsky's Literature and Revolution and the debates in the early Soviet Union are the obvious reference points.
  • The question of artistic form: the article focuses on the social function and material basis of art, but says little about how formal innovations relate to social content. The work of Lukács on realism versus modernism, or Brecht's epic theatre, would extend this discussion.
  • The political economy of the contemporary art market: the article mentions bourgeois collectors and the Turner Prize but does not analyse the role of finance capital in the art market, the use of art as a store of value for the super-rich, or the function of museums and galleries in reproducing class ideology.

These gaps are addressed in other IDOM articles on culture and in the broader Marxist tradition. The article's concluding claim — that revolutionary art will arise from class struggle — points towards the need for concrete analysis of specific artistic movements and their relationship to working-class politics.

Connections

  • Trotsky, Literature and Revolution: The classic Marxist text on the relationship between art and social revolution, arguing for the relative autonomy of artistic development while insisting on its class character.
  • Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction": Benjamin's analysis of how technological changes in reproduction transform the social function of art is a direct precursor to O'Shea's argument about the internet and cheap recording technology.
  • Georg Lukács, The Historical Novel: Lukács's analysis of how the bourgeois novel emerged from specific historical conditions provides a model for the kind of materialist literary criticism the article gestures towards.
  • Adorno and Horkheimer, "The Culture Industry": The article's distinction between fine art and entertainment echoes the Frankfurt School's critique of mass culture, though O'Shea rejects their pessimism.
  • Engels, Dialectics of Nature: The article's evolutionary account of beauty as pattern recognition draws on Engels's materialist approach to natural science.
  • Marx, The German Ideology: The foundational text for the historical materialist approach to consciousness and ideology that underpins the article.

Key Quotes

  1. "The social world of people is just part of a wider material reality which is a vast web of interconnections. That is why Marxism, as the science of revolution, cannot be neatly separated off from science as a whole."

  2. "In fact no primitive art is produced for its own sake. Primitive peoples don't even have a word for art. What we call artistic production is inextricably linked in with the culture as a whole, how people organise together and do things to survive and reproduce."

  3. "Only in the bourgeois world has the idea become the norm that the primary purposes of art are the self-expression of the artist and the entertainment of the public. The material basis for this is the sale of the works and performances of artists and musicians on the open market."

  4. "Some of the greatest artists, in particular, have transcended the narrow interests of the capitalist class to create works that were profoundly critical of the dog-eat-dog world of the bourgeois market."

  5. "The material basis for this artistic change is, as usual, the development of the forces of production. For some people at least, working hours are shorter and work less physically demanding than a century ago, even though that change has been slow and inconsistent."

  6. "Revolutionary art arises from material conditions and class struggle and will in turn reinforce that class struggle. In the most practical way, it will once again be demonstrated that art plays an integral part in social change and is not merely a beautiful decoration."