Unintended art

At the beginning of the twentieth century ... novelists began making a case not only that novels were art, but also that certain qualities of certain novels were more artistic than others.

Jane Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

If Jane Smiley is correct in what she says above, and I believe she is, then some of the greatest novels ever written — Pride and Prejudice, Our Mutual Friend, Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, Crime and Punishment, etc. — were written before novels were considered art. Thus the likes of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen were creating art without realizing it. They just wanted to tell good stories.

Folk art might made a good parallel. Unassuming people in isolated places make quilts or carvings because they find them beautiful or clever, not because they are trying to create art that one day might be on display in a museum.

Did the quality of novels become better after they were recognized as art? Maybe. Maybe not. Before the 20th century the quality of novels was measured primarily by their popularity. If people wanted to read them, they must be good. Since then popularity has actually been considered a detriment to art. If people like it, it must not be very good. Or so many in the literary field seem to think.

I am not making a case that a bestseller like Lessons in Chemistry is art. I haven't read it, and I have no idea. But not all books that were bestsellers in the 19th century are recognized as art today. My point is simply that something need not be obscure or difficult to be artful.

Further, some of the worst novels being written today are by authors deliberately trying to create art. And some of the best are written by people just trying to tell good stories.