What Shakespeare Can Teach Us About the Arts & Technology
Artistic practices as forms of positive resistance
In the late 1580s a young William Shakespeare, then in his early twenties, left his wife and children in Stratford-upon-Avon to pursue a career as an actor. We do not know for certain the circumstances that took him there, but we do know that once he got there, he became what was known as a “hireling” in one of the playing troupes cropping up like mushrooms in Elizabethan London. In other words, he became an apprentice, perhaps not even taking the stage at first but helping the company with costumes, ticket sales, and the like.
Eventually he was given parts and, by at least one report, was taken to be a rather good actor. By and by, he learned his craft, and at one point, again for reasons we cannot be sure of, he tried his hand at writing plays.
Research into this period of Shakespeare’s life reveals his writing to have been influenced by a wide variety of sources, such as the intense education in classical rhetoric he most likely received at King Edward VI grammar school in Stratford, which included both the study and imitation of pieces from ancient Roman drama, as well as by the plays of several of his contemporaries, in particular John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, and Christopher Marlowe. Shakespeare’s work blossomed, to put it mildly, and before long he became a part-owner or “sharer” in his own troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, ownership that included the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames.[1]
What Shakespeare’s story tells us is that his journey toward becoming the greatest playwright in the English language was made possible by his participation in a practice, namely the practice of stage drama.
What are the characteristics of the practice of stage drama as undertaken by Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men?
Their practice was pursued within a community of masters and apprentices, where the apprentices underwent a regimen of training designed to help them achieve mastery in the acting craft.
It was a community devoted to common goods internal to the practice (such as facility in imaginatively inhabiting a character and speaking blank verse with articulation and projection). Common goods are goods that are neither “mine” nor “yours” but “ours.” They only come into being as shared.
The common goods internal to the practice are distinguished from goods external to the practice (e.g. money, fame, honor, power, pleasure).
Consider another example of an artistic practice: that of painting in the Florence of the Cinquecento. As Piero Formica has described it, the practice of painting in 15th-century Florence took place in a bottega, or workshop, “in which master artists were committed to teaching new artists, talents were nurtured, new techniques were at work, and new artistic forms came to light with artists competing among themselves but also working together.”[2] Ian Wallace adds that the Renaissance bottega would have been accompanied by a studiolo, “a word that has the sense of a study, a room for contemplation, which would be a separate space.”[3]
A rough definition of an artistic practice is a social space in which apprentices train under masters in order to develop the artistic virtues (as well as the moral and intellectual virtues) that define mastery in the given craft.
An artistic practice is thus a form of positive resistance that, like a barbell, makes possible the growth of the “muscle” that is artistic excellence.
Last week, in reflecting upon the relationship between technology, art, and resistance, I said the following:
The prospect of technology-as-magic tempts us to give up on skill.
For an artist this is death. For it means giving up on the difficult good of the habit of art.
Another way of putting this thought is to say that technology-as-magic tempts us away from life within artistic practices, where the apprentice submits to the wisdom and discipline of the master in order to acquire those virtues, or excellences, characteristic of mastery in the given craft.
How does technology-as-magic tempt the artist?
By making it possible for the apprentice to produce and distribute works of art without experiencing positive “friction” from established masters in the field. The wisdom, experience, and discipline of the master can be set aside so that the apprentice can take his work straight to market.
A writer of short stories, for example, can finish a story and, without having to bother with a professional editor or even a proofreader, put the story up for sale immediately on Amazon.
A band can bypass the need for a manager and a record label by posting music immediately to YouTube or Spotify or any number of other platforms.
It is a familiar adage that technology democratizes. But real excellence in the arts is more of an aristocracy. And the best art is developed within the context of practices.
In making these points I am not forgetting the upside for artists to digital technology: the ability to circumvent mainstream arts and entertainment industry gatekeepers (executives, agents, managers, editors, etc.), gatekeepers who may be suspect because they regularly ignore or reject petitions to get through the gates for other than artistic reasons.
It could well be that it is better for an artist to take his or her wares to market without the mediation of traditional gatekeepers.
Nonetheless, it is not best for the artist to produce and distribute work that is not in some fashion the result of participation in an artistic practice.
Artists must learn from Shakespeare and from Renaissance painters the following: positive resistance in the form of artistic practices is indispensable, and that any use of technology, whether a trapdoor on an Elizabethan stage or a digital platform, should only be used if it supports the practice.
But what say you?
The story about Shakespeare that begins this post is quoted from my forthcoming book, The Way of Beauty: A Philosophical Reflection on the Arts, to be published by Word on Fire Academic in June 2024. Early reviews of the book have said the following:
“This is literally the best book on beauty that I have ever read: the most convincing, clear, and comprehensive; the most eye-opening and satisfying; the most insightful and delightful. It is a masterpiece. I do not use that word lightly, but there is no other word for it.”
–Dr. Peter Kreeft, Professor of Philosophy, Boston College, and author of Socrates’ Children (Word on Fire 2023)
“Daniel McInerny’s book clarifies why we enjoy works of art—pictures, music, drama and movies, poetry and novels—and it also shows why we revere such works: not as ends in themselves, but because they place us in the truthful presence of what they depict. The book reactivates Aristotle’s understanding of mimesis and Aquinas’s enhancement of it. It shows how art elevates what it displays as well as the community that experiences it. It is a metaphysical and theological reflection on the arts, written in the style and spirit of C. S. Lewis: limpid prose, abundant citations, colorful examples. A book to study and learn from, then to browse in and enjoy.”
—Msgr. Robert Sokolowski, Elizabeth Breckenridge Caldwell Professor of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America
[1] For the details of this biographical sketch, I draw mostly from Park Honan’s Shakespeare: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), chapters 7-8
[2] Piero Formica, “The Innovative Coworking Spaces of 15th-Century Italy,” Harvard Business Review, hbr.org, April 27, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/04/the-innovative-coworking-spaces-of-15th-century-italy, accessed October 16, 2023.
[3] Ian Wallace, “The Evolution of the Artist’s Studio, From Renaissance Bottega to Assembly Line,” Artspace, artspace.com, June 11, 2014, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/art_market/the-evolution-of-the-artists-studio-52374, accessed October 16, 2023.
“The prospect of technology-as-magic tempts us to give up on skill.
For an artist this is death. For it means giving up on the difficult good of the habit of art.”
I thought this was extremely well said and cutting to the core. Getting trusted feedback is vital to your art; it is hard to step back and really critique yourself. I do not have a group anymore, but in the past I have found the criticism and advice from other artists invaluable. Thanks for the thought provoking article.
“Technology-as-magic” -- love this phrase. It explains the dilemma of those who would hastily comment within social media sites regardless of their skill in prose and punctuation. I am indeed happy to have re-discovered this author on Substack. However, it is getting harder to find skill and worth in the social media universe. Harder still to justify the time spent when I could be an apprentice somewhere...