What is actually the distinction between highbrow and lowbrow? What does it mean to be highbrow? And what is the lowbrow culture? In this post, I aim to answer these questions, and explain where the terms lowbrow and highbrow came from. I’ll give you some highbrow and lowbrow examples of literature, comedy, and art. We’ll also talk about the middlebrow and the nobrow… So come join me on this journey into the ‘brow’ culture!
Highbrow and lowbrow art
As many of you know, I love to create digital art. More precisely, pop-surreal digital art. If you’ve heard about popsurrealism, you probably know that it’s often referred to as LOWBROW as well.
L O W B R O W… what a funny term.
As I got more into lowbrow art, I started wondering about where the word actually came from.
Hence, I sat down at my laptop and began to look more into the origins of lowbrow.
And I got curious… if there’s something like LOWbrow, shouldn’t there be something like HIGHbrow as well? And maybe even a MIDDLEbrow?
Yes, there really are. So let’s get into it.
Where did the terms lowbrow and highbrow come from?
The terms lowbrow and highbrow both originated in the early nineteenth century, coming from a science with the name of phrenology. I had never heard about it.
So what is phrenology? Phrenology has long been proved absurd and isn’t in use any more today. It’s the study of the shape and size of the human forehead in order to derive character and mental abilities of a person.
The brow measured intelligence. A high forehead meant a high intellect, while a low forehead was an indication of stupidity. The lower the brow, the more underdeveloped the person was. Conversely, the higher the brow, the more knowledgeable and sophisticated.
The first time one can find the term ‘highbrow‘ in print is in 1884. Subsequently, a reporter of the The Sun of New York City, Will Irvin, popularized it in 1902.
Phrenology became most popular towards the end of the 19th century and was used to validate the racial theories of that period, and later on of the Nazis.
What does it mean to be highbrow?
When reading this, are you not astonished that modern civilization and science haven’t done away with the terms highbrow and lowbrow as yet?
Well, I was quite surprised that highbrow and lowbrow are still in use, regarding where they came from.
However, nowadays, their original meaning has shifted, but they are still common to define the – alleged – prestige of all kinds of artistic expression.
Highbrow is still synonymous with intellectual. It can also mean elite, and generally carries the meaning of ‘high culture’.
Highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow are used as categories for culture in general – arts, fashion, furniture, dance, food, and so on.
Highbrow vs Lowbrow in literature, comedy, music, ...
When used for music, highbrow refers to classical music. Everything mainstream, like pop, rock, hip hop, etc., is considered lowbrow.
In terms of highbrow vs lowbrow literature, highbrow describes literary fiction, classic novels, and poetry.
Highbrow literature examples are The Trial by Franz Kafka, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, and the novels by Virginia Woolf, such as To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway.
Examples of lowbrow literature would be science fiction, fantasy, and romance, such as Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling, Ready Player One by Ernest Klein, and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
There’s also highbrow vs lowbrow comedy. Highbrow comedy is a more sophisticated form of comic entertainment, requiring an understanding of figures of speech, analogies, irony, and sarcasm.
The lowbrow is often criticized for being less adult. Critics feel that it infantilizes people, and makes them more ignorant, crass, and immoral.
What is lowbrow culture?
As we’ve seen above, the meaning of lowbrow – as opposed to highbrow – describes a person or any type of artistic expression with ‘little taste and intellectual demand’.
Lowbrow Culture, however, relates to the underground visual art movement that arose in Los Angeles, California, in the late 1970s.
It’s a populist art movement – also known as pop-art – with its roots in underground comic, punk music, tiki culture, and hot-rod cultures of the street.
What Is The Difference Between Lowbrow And Highbrow?
Highbrow generally stands for ‘intellectually demanding’ cultural pursuits. Keeping the historical origin of the term in mind, highbrow works tended to be aesthetically and philosophically more challenging. They were somewhat reserved for the upper and upper-middle classes, as only they could afford an education.
As snobbery and outdated this may seem – after all, education is affordable to most people in all countries – the intellectual level is a major criterion of distinction between highbrow vs lowbrow.
As opposed to highbrow, lowbrow is easy to consume and designed to entertain. It’s readily accessible to all people. That’s why the first lowbrow artworks were very much like street art. They appeared on walls, so that everybody could see and enjoy them.
Highbrow and lowbrow art
The lowbrow is typically produced by the ‘common’ people themselves. It simply arises out of an intrinsic interest for enjoyment and pleasure within communities. Remember, the first lowbrow artists were entirely self-taught.
They were ‘normal‘ people without any education and expertise in art. They simply enjoyed the ‘lowbrow art’.
For many years, the ‘art establishment’ and mainstream critics didn’t recognize lowbrow as an art movement in its own right.
The highbrow, on the other hand, is not readily accessible to everybody. It may be difficult to understand, requiring an education in rhetorics, foreign cultures, philosophy, theology, and the like.
Another distinctive factor between highbrow and lowbrow is the method of production. Lowbrow is produced for the masses. Highbrow is produced for a small circle of people – connoisseurs of a certain matter of interest.
The highbrow gave rise to the lowbrow, and it also spawned the middlebrow…
Now what is the middlebrow?
Out of the three, the ‘middlebrow’ has always been the most debatable and hardest to define.
The middlebrow is said to imitate the highbrow and the lowbrow. It’s something for the masses, the mainstream. Its character is usually commercial and homogeneous.
Culturally, the middlebrow is exactly between the intellectual pursuits of the highbrow, and the pleasure-seeking endeavors of the lowbrow.
The middlebrow is more complex and demanding than the rather simple and plain entertainment of the lowbrow. But on the other hand, it’s not as profound and onerous as the highbrow.
One point of criticism that was often brought forward against the middlebrow is that it is pretentious. Virginia Woolf, the English ‘highbrow‘ novelist, for example, claimed that middlebrow readers bought books in order to impress, rather than to really read them.
In her eyes, these middlebrows strived to pretend a deeper, intellectual engagement with the arts, while actually not being capable of understanding their genuine cultural value. They were pursuers of shallow aspirations like ‘money, fame, power, and prestige’.
From highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow to nobrow
Even though it started off from an inferior position, the lowbrow movement has its firmly secured position in today’s art world.
Lowbrow, middlebrow, and highbrow nowadays describe categories that imply a certain set of aesthetic and cultural features.
It’s not about intellectual differences anymore. But rather about a diversity of tastes, trends, and opinions that are all equal – just different.
As we’re moving into an era where we, as a society, are learning to value diversity more and more, some argue that we’re now approaching the ‘nobrow’.
In his book When Highbrow Meets Lowbrow: Popular Culture and the Rise of Nowbrow, Peter Swirski writes about moving into a post-brow era, postulating that the rigid distinction between highbrow and lowbrow is ‘incapable of doing justice to the complexity and artistry of cultural production’.
John Seabrook, author of Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture, considers the disappearance of highbrow and lowbrow because our modern society is ‘ruled by marketing’, resulting in ‘aesthetic worth being measured by units shipped’.
Art appreciation now officially ‘has the right’ to be uncritical, unrestricted, and straightforward. People are free to enjoy what they enjoy.
As there doesn’t need to be an intellectual reason to appreciate high culture, lowbrow art appreciation must no longer be characterized by a lack of such.
Art can be what is really is: freedom, enjoyment, creativity with no limits.
(All images displayed in this post are copyright to their respective owners and solely used for educational purposes.)
I hope you enjoyed this little post about ‘What is the difference between Lowbrow and Highbrow?’ and were able to get something out of it. What’s your favorite type of art? And your opinion about ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture? Let me know in the comments! Cheers, Angie 🌟
