Marxist analysts of culture, as well as sociologists, have always struggled with the problem of how to explain the social nature of art without making art into an appendage to ideology, that is an expression of class interests. Most Marxist art historians agree that reflection theory, i.e. artistic works a reproduction of the norms and values of a social group - such as the Boston elite for example - is a rather crude way of defining the relations between artistic production and social surroundings. Reviewing various Marxist approaches Janet Wolff tries to find a more subtle approach.

Wolff asserts that all art is ideological, in a broad sense, in that it is socially and historically situated, related to people’s material conditions.

“Works of art (…) are not closed, self-contained and transcendent entities, but are the product of specific historical practices on the part of identifiable social groups in given conditions, and therefore bear the imprint of the ideas, values and conditions of existence of those groups, and their representatives in particular artists” (49).

Marx himself has left ambiguous, contradictory statements on the relation of art to society. In The German Ideology, he affirms that ideas reflect material or class interests; that culture is a representation of the bourgeoisie’s, the ruling classes desire to organize society according to its interests. In Grundrisse (the draft version of his critique of the political economy), he explains the paradox that Greek art, though created by an economically backward people with a slave economy, still sets aesthetic standards and gives us enjoyment. Marx never wrote systematically on the topics of culture and art.

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