A rising class abandons realistic art for heroic styles as it nears confrontation

Evidence

Yet Plekhanov’s discussion of the eighteenth-century drame bourgeois already showed that the relationship of art to a rising class did not have to be analyzed in the simplistic terms of realistic content. The historical and artistic phenomenon under analysis is indeed the paradoxical fact that as the French middle classes drew closer to their moment of truth, the realistic and sentimental drama in prose which had seemed in the 1750’s to be their most characteristic production, and of which Diderot was the theoretician, fell into disfavor before the renewed popularity of the heroic costume drama, with its origins in the taste of an upper-class public. In the long run, of course, this apparent revival turned out to have heralded the birth of an art movement which was essentially middle class: that of neoclassicism, to which the costume paintings of David are a monument. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 745

Categorization

• XREF: This is the dialectical reversal of content-versus-form analysis Jameson inherits from Lukács and Adorno; connects to the reader’s broader project of tracing Frankfurt-school mediation. — connects to: A class adopts heroic imagery only when it turns to aggressive confrontation — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 745; Class ascendancy cannot quietly mature within the regime it aims to replace — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 382
• DEFINE: Illustrates the core dialectical move: class expression operates through style and form, not merely realistic content.
• SHARE: The drame bourgeois giving way to neoclassical heroic costume drama as the bourgeoisie nears confrontation is a striking inversion worth sending to anyone working on class and aesthetic form.

Broader Connections

• A class adopts heroic imagery only when it turns to aggressive confrontation #corroborates (0.95) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 745
• Class ascendancy cannot quietly mature within the regime it aims to replace #qualifies (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 382