Bill Watterson's iconic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes often featured jokes about so-called "high art,"As a young protagonist, Calvin often found himself the mouthpiece for his creator's thoughts on art and culture. Calvin often fancied himself as an audience, leaving Hobbes to act as the proxy for skeptical, confused newspaper readers across the nation.
Watterson's commentary on artistic trends, and the role of artists in contemporary society, are among the most detailed, nuanced ideas the artist ever put into the mouth of the irreverent young Calvin, who typically strayed from Watterson's astute observations. to arrive at a hilariously iconoclastic conclusion.
throughout Calvin & Hobbes Run, Calvin often dreamed of achieving both critical and commercial acclaim as an artist - but more often than not, found himself consigned to the sad fate of so many creative minds, to be misunderstood by those around him.
10
Calvin, like many great artists, was never really appreciated in his time
First published: October 31, 1990
In the first of a sequence of hilarious Calvin & Hobbes comics, Calvin comes home dismayed that his teacher, Miss Wormwood, dismisses his art as not "Serious."He ran to Hobbs, asking,"Who put Miss Wormwood as an arbiter of aesthetics anyway"And insist that his drawing is "A beautiful work of power and depth"- which is only slightly undermined when Hobbes seeks confirmation that Calvin continued"A stegosaurus in a rocket ship."
The humor of this strip juxtaposes the childish content of Calvin's art with the mature language he uses about it. This is a joke Calvin & Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson would riff on it in increasingly elaborate ways over the next several strips, and would make great use of it repeatedly over the years.
9
Calvin realizes that he is an avant-garde artist
First published: November 1, 1990
Continuing from the previous day's cartoon, this Calvin & Hobbes Pass finds Calvin still stewing over Miss Wormwood's rejection of his stegosaurus drawing - leading him through a fit of convoluted logic and social-critic buzzwords to reach the point where he finally defines himself as "Avant Garde."
Hobbes may get the last laugh here, by asking Calvin if that means he'll have to "Wear silly clothes"- Yet the overall joke of the comic comes from lampooning the popular notion of a pretentious artist, one who talks verbosely about artistic theory in such a way as to emphasize that there is, in fact, little substance to their work. Again, it is an added Level of laugh-out-loud stupidity to the fact that Bill Watterson is depicting the sentiments coming from a child.
8
Calvin quickly abandons his avant-garde ethos in favor of "riches and fame"
First published: November 2, 1990
Having decided that he is an avant-garde creator, Calvin quickly returns to use the complexities of his avant-garde in today's artistic landscape. Just as quickly as he decided in the previous strip that he was on the cutting edge of art and culture, this cartoon It turns out that Calvin is giving up on his artistic ideals in favor of making money. As he explained to Calvin:
When an artist goes to an advertisement, he makes a mockery of his status as a forward and a free thinker. He buys into the crass and shallow values art should transcend. He trades the integrity of his art for wealth and fame.
Immediately after this point, Calvin adds "Oh, what the heck, I'll do it" - to which Hobbes deadpans, "It's not that hard." Here, the joke is less at the expense of Calvin's momentary high artistic ideals, which have merit to them, but rather how quickly he shakes them after contemplating business. Success, a moment that is as pure Calvin as anything in it Calvin and Hobbes History.
7
Calvin's artistic struggle against "Miss Wormwood" comes to an unexpected conclusion
First published: November 3, 1990
in this Calvin & Hobbes Pass, Calvin returns to his feud with Miss Wormwood one last time; After she once again dismissed one of his "Dinosaurs in rocket ships" Drawings, Calvin explains: "The arts are under attack!"However, when Hobbes finally questions why Miss Wormwood is so anti-dinosaurs, Calvin reveals the truth of the matter - she is actually his math teacher, and he was doodling when he should have been practicing arithmetic..
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After all these build up over the course of several days worth of Calvin & Hobbes cartoons, Bill Watterson delivers a hilarious anti-climax here. For all Calvin's histrionics, the quality or the content of his art was never challenged; Rather, he used his position as an "artist" to justify not paying attention in Miss Wormwood's class.
6
Calvin reveals what makes his snowman avant-garde
First published: February 20, 1992
Once again, Calvin throws around the term avant-garde—French for "advanced guard," and used in artistic terms to denote unconventional, boundary-pushing, or innovative art—all while scheming to strike it rich as an artist, two things Which do not necessarily go hand in hand. In this case, Calvin shows his "Neo-regional"-style snowman, meant to"Appeal to popular nostalgia for the simple values of rural America 50 years ago."
Hilariously, in the closing panel of the strip, When Hobbes scratches his head and asks "How is this avant-garde?"Calvin whispers to him that it is"Secretly ironic."Here, Bill Watterson hilariously mixes insightful commentary on artistic trends with childish delusions of grandeur, and the mixture pays off in the form of a particularly memorable. Calvin & Hobbes funny.
5
Calvin proclaims "fine art is dead" and embraces popular art
First published: June 24, 1992
"Fine art is dead, Hobbes", Calvin tells his friend as they play with toys, adding that, "It's irrelevant in today's Culture." Instead, Calvin argues, creating popular art is the only way to reach audiences. At first, his comment comes across as Bill Watterson's thinly-veiled anxiety about being a Contemporary artists - until this is brilliantly subverted in the third panel, When Calvin notes popular art is "The only way to make serious money, and it's important to be an artist”, something that Watterson certainly does not agree with.
Of course, that was the great thing about Calvin—so much of the humor of Calvin & Hobbes Came from the young protagonist's ability to be unnaturally mature and understanding up to a certain point, only to wildly go off course and reach a conclusion that completely undermines everything he said before.
4
Calvin continues to talk about the difference between "fine" and "popular" art forms
First published: June 25, 1992
Building on the previous day's pass, this Calvin & Hobbes installment Calvin further elaborated on "The problem with fine art"And the virtues of their opposites, Notice that popular art offers people something familiar and comforting, as opposed to something new and challenging. This prompts Hobbes to ask "How are the swing sequels this summer?" Calvin, in response, notes that none of them have offered him "Some new plot" - thankfully, in his opinion.
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Once again, Bill Watterson skillfully starts by actually offering a thesis on the division between "Nice"and"Popular" Art - and then finds the humor in it by Calvin taking the complete opposite position of the one that his creator would have. Again, this is Calvin and Hobbes Classic style of comic inversion, or perhaps subversion, in play, and the result is an unforgettable entry in the comic's run.
3
Calvin explains that "style is exhausting" to a busy hubby
First published: January 10, 1993
Calvin's ability to speak eloquently about art is used to great comedic effect in a number of Calvin & Hobbes Cartoons, and this is certainly among the most memorable. again, Calvin brings Hobbes to look at his new snow sculpture - except the young artist proclaims that the entire snow-white landscape is his artGrand Proclamation:
Art is dead! There is nothing more to say! Style is tired and content is pointless. Art has no purpose. All that's left is commodity marketing.
What stands out about this panel is how viscerally readers can feel Bill Watterson's own anxiety about the futility of being an artist in modern society, which is framed as one of Calvin's many flights of fancy. Certainly, Watterson's own feelings are more recognizable on the page as more readers become familiar with Calvin & HobbesBut rarely is the creator's personal opinion so unaffected by the idea of humor as in this room.
2
Calvin explains the difference between "high art" and "low art"
First published: July 20, 1993
Calvin's preoccupation with the difference between "high" and "low" art returns in this cartoon, As he hilariously expands on the distinction for Hobbes' benefit. In a succession of panels, he classifies a painting as high art, a comic strip as low - in a wonderful self-referential dig - and then, somewhat paradoxically, a painting of a comic as high. When Hobbes wonders aloud what "A cartoon of a comic strip illustrationCounts like, Calvin is quick to categorize it as "low art."
Of course, Bill Watterson is having fun here with the inherent precociousness of the distinction—as an artist working in a "low art" medium, but often instilling it with "high art" sensibilities. Calvin & Hobbes The creator knew as well as anyone that the true quality of art cannot be predetermined by its form, but rather must be determined by its content. with Calvin & HobbesWatterson consistently elevated a form of "low art," calling into question the very value of the differentiation.
1
Calvin disdains the very idea of working to sustain his art
First published: July 14, 1995
in this Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, Calvin laments the fact that "Times are tough for us suburban postmodernists"Clarifying that no one finds value in his"Sidewalk drawings," and that neither the government nor any corporations want to finance his work. When Hobbes proposes this Perhaps Calvin can find other income to support his artistic passion, the young artist is angry and scoffing: "What, you mean work?"
Although on the surface the joke here pokes fun at entitled artists, Bill Watterson's commentary in the comic has a deeper layer - that is, he is as appalled as Calvin at the increasingly lack of institutional support for artists in America, and he uses Calvin s"Sidewalk art” as a vector to bring that to reader attention, making this a stand-out example of a Calvin & Hobbes Pass that is used to make a broad national audience think about something from a perspective they may not have considered before.