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“Klingender's book, striking notes both desperate and defiant, is not typical of the long British tradition of Marxist and Marxist-inspired histories of art that would extend into the 1980s. The so-called social history of art interpreted art as the expression of the interests of communities or classes. In the past, art was paid for and shaped by the elite and the powerful. In the future, art would express the vision and will of democratic collectivities. The reality that art delivered was the reality of economic relations. There was no need for any other origin.” — Christopher S. Wood
Klingender's book, striking notes both desperate and defiant, is not typical of the long British tradition of Marxist and Marxist-inspired histories of art that would extend into the 1980s. The so-called social history of art interpreted art as the expression of the interests of communities or classes. In the past, art was paid for and shaped by the elite and the powerful. In the future, art would express the vision and will of democratic collectivities. The reality that art delivered was the reality of economic relations. There was no need for any other origin.