ABSTRACT
Visual art used to be neglected in the sociology of culture. Recently, however, it has received more attention, with significant empirical studies by David Halle (1993) on American homes and Colin Painter (2002) focusing on Britain. Michael Grenfell and Cheryl Hardy (2003, 2007) have also built on Bourdieu’s framework to discuss contemporary cultural practices in visual art, including museum and art gallery usage practices in Europe and the US as well as historical developments in painting. They confirm Bourdieu’s view that the organising structure of society coordinates individuals’ senses and perceptions of their surroundings in terms of their class positions. Museum audiences remain middle class despite measures taken by governments and management to improve their accessibility. Familiarity with painters and schools of painting continues to correlate with social class in a world where class and education shape entry into the cultivated world. Craig Upright (2004), also inspired by Bourdieu, shows in a study of the US that it is not just the transmission of cultural capital and previous socialisation from education and family that affects cultural practices, but also current social relationships and, in particular, marriage, an issue we explore further in Chapter 12. A contrary view is advanced by Tak Wing Chan and John Goldthorpe (2007), who examined attendance at art galleries and museums in the UK as part of their discussion of social stratification and cultural consumption. Operating with a narrow interpretation of Bourdieu, they sought a direct homology between class and cultural taste. In its absence, they argue instead for the importance of status and, consequently, the insignificance of economic relations. Referring to our work (Silva, 2006), they imply that taste in visual art is not connected with class; a claim which, for reasons that will become clear, we disagree with.
