Books about Lowbrow from Amazon.com

In this unusually wide-ranging study, spanning more than a century and covering such diverse forms of expressive culture as Shakespeare, Central Park, symphonies, jazz, art museums, the Marx Brothers, opera, and vaudeville, a leading cultural historian demonstrates how variable and dynamic cultural boundaries have been and how fragile and recent the cultural categories we have learned to accept as natural and eternal are.

For most of the nineteenth century, a wide variety of expressive forms--Shakespearean drama, opera, orchestral music, painting and sculpture, as well as the writings of such authors as Dickens and Longfellow--enjoyed both high cultural status and mass popularity. In the nineteenth century Americans (in addition to whatever specific ethnic, class, and regional cultures they were part of) shared a public culture less hierarchically organized, less fragmented into relatively rigid adjectival groupings than their descendants were to experience. By the twentieth century this cultural eclecticism and openness became increasingly rare. Cultural space was more sharply defined and less flexible than it had been. The theater, once a microcosm of America--housing both the entire spectrum of the population and the complete range of entertainment from tragedy to farce, juggling to ballet, opera to minstrelsy--now fragmented into discrete spaces catering to distinct audiences and separate genres of expressive culture. The same transition occurred in concert halls, opera houses, and museums. A growing chasm between "serious" and "popular," between "high" and "low" culture came to dominate America's expressive arts.

"If there is a tragedy in this development," Levine comments, "it is not only that millions of Americans were now separated from exposure to such creators as Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Verdi, whom they had enjoyed in various formats for much of the nineteenth century, but also that the rigid cultural categories, once they were in place, made it so difficult for so long for so many to understand the value and importance of the popular art forms that were all around them. Too many of those who considered themselves educated and cultured lost for a significant period--and many have still not regained--their ability to discriminate independently, to sort things out for themselves and understand that simply because a form of expressive culture was widely accessible and highly popular it was not therefore necessarily devoid of any redeeming value or artistic merit."

In this innovative historical exploration, Levine not only traces the emergence of such familiar categories as highbrow and lowbrow at the turn of the century, but helps us to understand more clearly both the process of cultural change and the nature of culture in American society.

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"Lowbrow" it may be called, but high-profile best describes the cultural impact of this contemporary art movement Found everywhere from wine labels and high-end bar accessories to major motion pictures (Teacher's Pet, the upcoming Pink Panther), the visibility of this dynamic work has rapidly increased in the last few years to worldwide recognition and acclaim. Weirdo Deluxe is the first significant manifesto of the genre a riotous blend of pop culture, street culture, pop art, and surrealism and includes profiles of and interviews with 23 leading artists and hundreds of outrageous examples of their work. Special features include an expansive timeline, and peeks at the artists' collections and influences. Weirdo Deluxe is at once a primer and lowbrow art sourcebook as well as a visual homage to pop culture..
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Contemporary art critics are still struggling with the resurgence of outsider art, also called the new undergrounds At the forefront of the clash between highbrow and lowbrow art is Robert Williams. From his early comics work with Zap to his recent magazine Juxtapoz, Williams keeps pushing the public's buttons with his politically incorrect art agenda. The Lowbrow Art of Robert Williams is the fundamental collection of his work, including 16 pages of full-color illustrations and almost 30 pages from Zap. The cover is possibly the most recognizable Williams piece because it was used on a Guns N' Roses album Appetite for Destruction..
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##A fake children’s book in the guise of an illustrated dictionary, with large colorful illustrations, oversize typefaces and simple definitions…featuring a wandering gremlin as comic relief. An A-B-C of "kustom kulture," "lowbrow," and hot-rod cultural terms, presented in a friendly child-like book. The Dizzy Dictionary is twist on a well-known format (the i#He is CEO of West Coast Choppers, a manufacturer of custom-made motorcycles, and the host of Motorcycle Mania and the former series Monster Garage on the Discovery Channel. Other branches of the "West Coast Family" include the Chopperdogs fan club and Jesse's Girl clothing line. Pay Up Sucker Produc#The Pizz has assaulted the world with his distinctive lowbrow paintings for years. An early protege of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, The Pizz has become a well known artist in his own right. He has had seven solo shows at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, as well as shows at a long list of galleries an#He is CEO of West Coast Choppers, a manufacturer of custom-made motorcycles, and the host of Motorcycle Mania and the former series Monster Garage on the Discovery Channel. Other branches of the "West Coast Family" include the Chopperdogs fan club and Jesse's Girl clothing line. Pay Up Sucker Produc#The Pizz has assaulted the world with his distinctive lowbrow paintings for years. An early protege of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, The Pizz has become a well known artist in his own right. He has had seven solo shows at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, as well as shows at a long list of galleries an.
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This book analyzes the differences in content, reader expectation, and social/moral/ethical functions of the three types of novels in America of the 1950s. It challenges the notion that highbrow novels (Lolita) do important cultural work while popular novels contribute to personal and social decay, and examines how time periods influence the moral content of novels.
The book separates popular fiction into lowbrow (Peyton Place) and middlebrow (Man in the Grey Flannel Suit) and explains that lowbrow (like highbrow) evolves from the folklore tradition and contains messages about how to be a good man or good woman and how to find a satisfying niche in the social order. Middlebrow, on the other hand, evolves from myth tradition and relates lessons on what personal adjustments need to be made to succeed in the economic order. Middlebrow novels most reflect the time and place of their writing because conditions for economic survival change more than conditions for social survival. Arguing that what most distinguishes highbrow from lowbrow is the audience, highbrow writers try to separate from the flock; lowbrow writers to include.
This study differs from such well-known studies of popular fiction as John Cawelti's and Janice Radway's in looking beyond the surface features of plot, character, and theme. The book also challenges arguments that novels in which marriage is women's highest triumph and aggressive heroism men's reinforce limiting cultural paradigms..
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In the decades before the Civil War, American society witnessed the emergence of a new form of print culture, as penny papers, mammoth weeklies, giftbooks, fashion magazines, and other ephemeral printed materials brought exuberance and theatricality to public culture and made the practice of reading more controversial. For a short yet pivotal period, argues Isabelle Lehuu, the world of print was turned upside down.

Unlike the printed works of the eighteenth century, produced to educate and refine, the new media aimed to entertain a widening yet diversified public of men and women. As they gained popularity among American readers, these new print forms provoked fierce reactions from cultural arbiters who considered them transgressive. No longer the manly art of intellectual pursuit, reading took on new meaning; reading for pleasure became an act with the power to silently disrupt the social order.

Neither just an epilogue to an earlier age of scarce books and genteel culture nor merely a prologue to the late nineteenth century and its mass culture and commercial literature, the antebellum era marked a significant passage in the history of books and reading in the United States, Lehuu argues..
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