Seven Lively Arts

Published in 1924, this landmark work of cultural criticism made an audacious claim: that popular entertainment deserved the same serious attention as any elevated art form. Gilbert Seldes championed seven foundational arts of the modern age, the movies, jazz, popular songs, the Broadway musical, comic strips, sports, and sensational journalism, arguing that these forms possessed a vitality and authenticity that more established arts had lost. With erudition and genuine delight, he dissected the craftsmanship behind Charlie Chaplin's genius, the intricate rhythms of jazz, and the raw energy of baseball, insisting that mass culture could contain genuine beauty. This book essentially founded the study of popular culture as a legitimate intellectual pursuit, offering a passionate defense of the pleasures available to ordinary Americans rather than elite audiences. A century later, Seldes's infectious enthusiasm for art made by and for many remains bracing: an insistence that joy and skill need not be enemies of beauty, and that the future of art might look nothing like its past.