The Conspiracy of Good Taste: William Morris, Cecil Sharp, Clough Williams-Ellis and the Repression of Working Class Culture in the 20th Century

Front Cover
Working Press, 1993 - Art - 128 pages

"The Conspiracy of Good Taste is a passionate analysis of the way working class culture has been appropriated and sanitised by middle class mediators of taste. Using the case studies of William Morris, Cecil Sharp and Clough William-Ellis, Szczelkun challenges their often widely seen role as enlightened political artists. He persuasively argues that there is a classist agenda that includes concepts of good taste that amount to oppression of true working class culture. The work also grapples with class identity as a context for the author's critique. The book will certainly have you thinking carefully about taste, class and who dictates what is accepted culture. The book is tightly written, very readable and is a good start to exploring Szczelkun's other work." Richard Turner

From inside the book

 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
1
CECIL SHARP
39
CLOUGH WILLIAMSELLIS
61
Copyright

4 other sections not shown

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The Conspiracy of Good Taste: William Morris, Cecil Sharp and Clough ...
Stefan Szczelkun
Limited preview - 2016

Common terms and phrases

19th century aesthetic amongst architectural aristocratic artist Arts & Crafts audience beauty became Bob Pegg Bourdieu bourgeois Britain British Caygill Cecil Sharp Chartists civilised class culture class identity class oppression classism Clough Williams-Ellis clubs collected collectors common Crafts Movement dance dirty songs dominant class dominant culture E.P.Thompson emotion England English Ernest Belfort Bax exploitation expression fantasy Hardy & Ward housing human hurt intellectual intuitive judgement Kant Labour lack land language later League live Maguire Mary Neal Mattie Kay medieval middle class Morris's music hall myth oppressor culture organised Peacehaven people's perhaps philosophy planners poetry political popular Portmeirion produced published quoted by Thompson rational realised reality reason recognised repression rock music romantic Ruskin sense shanty sing social socialist society song taste thing Tom Maguire town tradition upper class urban values vernacular violence wealth whilst William Morris workers

About the author (1993)

Stefan studied architecture in the late Sixties before realising he wanted to be an artist. He then engaged in a long process of self-discovery of what it meant to be a second generation Polish immigrant and a working class person who wanted to work in a middle-class profession. In the process of his explorations he took part of a series of artists collectives. Realising that these exciting groups were not in the books on art history he decided to do a doctoral study of the group he was currently part of - Exploding Cinema. He completed his PhD at the Royal College of Art in 2002 and was working at Westminster University until his recent retirement.

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Conspiracy of Good Taste: William Morris, Cecil Sharp, Clough Williams-Ellis and the Repression of Working Class Culture in the 20th Century
AuthorStefan A. Szczelkun
Editionillustrated, revised
PublisherWorking Press, 1993
ISBN1870736699, 9781870736695
Length128 pages
Subjects ›  ›  › 

Art / Movements / Modernism
Art / Popular Culture
History / Europe / Great Britain / General
Philosophy / Movements / Critical Theory
  
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