The sociological approach to the understanding of the predisposition to art and
cultural consumption – which is at odds with the standard Kantian aesthetic philos-
ophy in which the purity of aesthetic contemplation derives from ‘disinterested
pleasure’ – owes much to Bourdieu and Darbel’s
L’amour de l’art
(1969; trans-
lated in 1991 as
For the Love of Art),
based on a series of visitor surveys at various
French art museums in the 1960s. The work challenged the ‘myth of innate taste’;
it set out to define the social conditions which made this experience – Kant’s
phrase that ‘the beautiful is that which pleases without concept’ – and the people
for whom it is possible (art lovers and so-called ‘people of taste’). ‘Free entry is
also optional entry’ or a ‘false generosity’, according to Bourdieu and Darbel, as it
is ‘reserved for those who, equipped with the ability to appreciate works of art,
have the privilege of making use of this freedom’ (Bourdieu and Darbel 1991:
109–13). That cultural consumption, such as visiting art museums, is closely
linked to educational level (whether measured by qualifications or length of
schooling) and secondarily to social origin remains an important conclusion.
Bourdieu’s
La Distinction
(1979; translated in 1984 as
Distinction)
continued
the general thesis – as the book’s subtitle, ‘a social critique of the judgement of
taste’, suggests – of the earlier text (in terms of formal education and the family).
‘To the socially recognized hierarchy of the arts, and within each of them, of
genres, of schools, or periods, corresponds a social hierarchy of the consumers.
This predisposes tastes to function as markers of “class”’ (Bourdieu 1984: 1–2). A
three-zone model of cultural taste, representing a hierarchy of tastes and prefer-
ences which correspond to education and social class, is proffered: legitimate (e.g.
the
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