'Mona Lisa'
Mona Lisa ('La Giocanda' in Italian, 'La Joconde' in French), c. 1503 - 1517
Oil on poplar wood panel, w53 cm x h77 cm (21" x 30")
Musee de Louvre, Paris, France
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Wanted to return to a point I touched on briefly a while back, that the audience for a piece is never 'everyone'. If you make art, this raises two important follow-up questions — what are the possible audiences to aim for, and what sort of audience should be the goal? And I say these are 'important', because as far as factors that decide what work even gets made in the first place, imagined audience is a damn big one. Which is to say that in theory there doesn't have to be a difference between a work I'd make just for myself and something I make with hopes to influence the wider culture, but in practice there usually is, and there certainly is once we get to the revision/response/build-out-further-work phase.
So going to flip the above questions around and focus on the second one first. As far as what audience an artist should be aiming for, of course whatever an artist wants to do for whomever is fine and good etc. But waving that aside, the real question being asked is 'which audience will help me achieve my goals as an artist'. One of the goals is usually (and certainly is for me): I want to do great work before I die (on criteria such as authenticity, originality, technical ability, intellectual and emotional appeal, others may have different criteria). This may then have to fit with other goals, such as financial stability, critical awards, popular appeal, etc., and some of the goals will then be prioritized over others. And all of it may finally be limited and/or directed by natural interests or talents.
So we think about all that and then we assess types of audience for a fit:
- Just yourself. Not possible as anything but a hobby, but can be great for getting more honest work out of yourself (although balanced against a lack of any critical feedback that could make the work better). Things I do in this category: journaling, deliberate practice, experimental pieces.
- One person, or a small handful of people. Think 'private commission', especially portraits. I do a bunch of tiny-audience works like this, and I actually quite like it, because at least you know the few people waiting for it are highly engaged with the piece and good work will be sincerely appreciated.
- Audience chosen by commissioner. E.G. commissions meant for public display (like an office building or town hall). Essentially a form of advertising for whatever person/group did the commissioning, allowing them to make a public statement of their choosing to a target group also of their choosing. Can be great money, but this is about as close as art gets to a generic 'job' rather than something with much personal investment in it. Not that that has to be a problem.
- A specific 'type' of person. Work geared to a profile of your ideal viewer, like what marketing execs use for TV shows or ads. This profile can be created by age, interests, personality, where your ideal viewer lives live, what they buy, big demographic cross-sections on down to tiny ones, linked together to be as specific as you want. Although it can also be as simple and vague as 'stuff made for myself and people who like the stuff I do'.
- A broader 'type' of person — the closest thing possible to mass appeal. Think pop music, or beach reads, where you're appealing to a profile that includes a lot more people ("people who like suspense! people who like catchy music!"). By definition has to be bland and inoffensive enough to work for a wide audience, and there are usually underlying currents of contemporary sounds/looks/patterns that hook audiences, which you have to have the ability to tap into. But if you can, by far the most lucrative.
To belabor the point to all this...I've mentioned before that I play around with fiction writing a bit, and a normal piece of advice in that area is to define your target audience before you begin writing. Basically, who am I writing for and why is this plot/character/writing style going to thrill them? For some reason, the same sort of thinking isn't as prevalent in the visual arts — there's more the idea that the lone genius is going to sit around and whip out something brilliant that people are just going to love some day (after an appropriate period of scorn for being ahead of their time). 'Brilliant', 'people', 'love' aren't defined.
But the even bigger reason that idea's bullshit: artwork is a tool1. It's designed to draw attention to something in particular, designed to make people think or feel or question or notice something specific, no matter how concrete or abstract. And you can't just come up with a 'brilliant' tool that 'people are going to love' — what sort of job is that tool brilliant for? Which people want to do that job, or currently struggle with it? This, by the way and in a nutshell, is why art always needs context — to know how a piece 'succeeds' or 'fails', you have to know what it was designed for, how it ended up being applied, and whether we can still use it today or if it's become part of our 'tool-use' history.
So okay. An artist sits down and thinks seriously about this, and makes decisions about what sort of audience they're aiming at, being responsible with the future of their work and all. But a certain amount of zen is also required, because life is still meaningless chaos.
Case in point, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci2, commonly taken as the world's most famous painting (and that's hard to argue). And why is it so mega-famous? It's undeniably got plenty of technical brilliance and was extremely innovative/influential as a Renaissance portrait. But it started (apparently) as a private commission that somehow didn't make it to the recipient, as Leonardo is believed to have taken it with him when he left Italy for France and continued to work on it privately for some years. And then it was just a 'fine painting' in the French government's collection, and then became to art historians one masterwork out of many from Leonardo in particular and Renaissance artists in general. BUT, then it was stolen in 1911, and was returned 2-ish years later to cheers and an onslaught of looky-loos that continues to this day. Now it's arguably famous for being famous, and not to be pessimistic but I don't know how many visitors could tell you what they really get out of seeing the painting, other than that they've now crossed "see the Mona Lisa" off their bucket lists. Which isn't actually to blame anyone if that is the way they think about it. The painting has a cerebral kind of beauty, but the whole point of it is that it doesn't make demands of or offer much to the viewer...which may actually be a crucial part of the universal appeal.
But to end on a positive note, it is arguable that Leonardo's work would never have been in a position to become what it did if he hadn't already striven to make it the best work he could within his own goals. So in art as in life, you can't make opportunity open up to you, but you can be ready to jump if it does.
NOTES:
1. Artists are also often tools. But that's a little different.
2. There's a new Leonardo biography out by Walter Isaacson. Currently reading it, do recommend.