I"m right now reading a book titled "What Good are the Arts?" by John Carey, the chief book reviewer of The Sunday Times in London. In it, Carey takes a pretty bold stance that can be summed up in two ideas:
A) The fine arts are really meaningless - dance, theater and music don't make us better people. An idiot's response to a painting is just as valid as a college professor's, so why bother trying to be an intellectual elitist?
B) The only art that has meaning is literature. It is here that ideas are clearly expressed and opinions debated. It is the only art capable of both reasoning and criticism. Literature, he argues, 'has the ability inspire the mind far better than any work of conceptual art.' (from the book jacket)
As an arts reporter, you can imagine that this book has me in a mental tizzy. Painting, dance, music - not important? Of course, I agree that every person's reaction to art is valid, even if they vary wildly. But, not important?!?
I wonder - is literature that much better at conveying ideas, reasoning them, and offering critiques? Where in art can we find equally coherent work? And is literature always that coherent? It seems to me that much of it is not well-reasoned at all. And doesn't our appreciation for great literature and well-reasoned ideas depend also upon our level of education?
Of course, Carey cites Shakespeare liberally, as well as Blake, Jane Austen, Tolstoy....it's almost a compendium of the great works of literature. But do these great works make up even one percent of all the work that has been published? It seems in each art form, you might fine one percent which compels, inspires, tells a story, and even persuades...
So - do you agree with Carey? Or can you find examples in other arts where an argument is made as clearly as it is in literature?
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Comments: 7
And then I wonder how I have been changed by art...I remember my first visit to an art museum...the first time I saw an original Van Gogh rather than a print. Did it change my life? No, but it did change my visual perception of the world. And prints would never be enough again.
Theater...wait a minute, he can't include theater as lesser if he is including Shakespeare as great literature. Theater is the whole reason for Shakespeare! What say you?
Perhaps he addresses these issues in his book. If not, I'll hope for a scholarly response to What Good are the Arts? on bookshelves soon!
But to my mind, that is equally true of literature - certain words convey different ideas from person to person - right? What shade of blue do you see when I write the word blue? The same shade I do?
Human beings are not only intellectual, but also sensual, relational, and emotional creatures. Much as some folks hate to admit it, our sensual, relational and emotional well-being are of paramount importance in the quality of our lives. What's more, those aspects of our being often govern our most basic choices--even when we THINK we're acting upon our intellect. Music, art, and dance act in very important ways upon the minds and hearts of their audience. They CAN change lives and societies in powerful ways, for good and for ill. We ignore them, and the important cultural work they do, to our own impoverishment and peril.
John Stuart Mill, a great nineteenth-century student of society, dedicated himself entirely rational thought--until he fell into a long, deep depression that began to lift only after he was roused by a transcendent piece of music.
Communities are brought together by the shared music and art of their heritage. The members of one culture can be introduced to another, seemingly alien, culture, through the same means. Anyone who watched or attended one of the memorial services after September 11, 2001, or who saw a piece of visual art memorializing that day, knows the important emotional, ritual, communal, and spiritual role that music and art played in that moment of the United States' national life. Even such an "art-for-art's-sake" movement as Modernism arose, in part, as a response to a sense of cultural fragmentation and dehumanization in the wake of World War I. What's more, Modernism shaped--and continues to shape--the very buildings out of which our greatest cities have been created. These mediums arise out of important cultural needs and impulses, and they act upon human culture in powerful ways.
It may be true that humankind can't quantify the worth of a particular piece of art, or come to a consensus about its merit. (I would argue that the same is absolutely true of literature. If one took snapshots of the "expert" critical valuation of various modes of literature in say, the 1850s, the 1950s, and 2006, one would find that the three eras defined the purpose of literature differently and exalted vastly divergent types of literary work. And in each era, large groups within the culture valued literary works that were dismissed by the "experts.") The value of an artistic discipline is not determined by one's ability to define a set of empirical standards by which to judge it. The value of a discipline is in the important work it does, day by day, moment by moment, in the lives of individuals, communities, cultures, nations, and, indeed, the world.
Jana - I agree entirely with your idea that emotions, sensations and memories are just as important as words and ideas. Sometimes they play a more subtle role in our lives, at other times they take center stage. A weakness of Carey's argument is that he's dealing with things that are very hard to quantify or even qualify.
Here's an excerpt from Carey's book in which he looks at the lack of benefit of the arts in terms of 'building character' - I have to say, on the whole, I think he's taking an odd and fragmented angle on the topic:
"This chapter has examined various theories about how the arts might improve people, and various notions about what a satisfactorily improved person might be like. It has considered the use of the arts as a means of raising the thoughts and improving the behaviour of the poor and so making them feel less antagonistic toward towards the rich (?!?!). It has gathered evidence from psychologists and art-educationalists who dispute received beliefs about the benefits the arts bestow...It has questioned the equation of art with civilization, and the concept of civilization that such an equation endorses. It has pointed out objections to the belief that literature allows you to know how other people feel. It has examined proposed connections between early child development, art and alternatives to scientific thinking, and has raised doubts in relation to these. It has noted obstacles to believing that sounds made by poetry arouse pre-conscious memories in a morally improving manner. It has contested the common assumption that the ecstatic or transcendant experiences associated with the arts are beneficial."
That last line is the killer, of course. At this point I feel no interest to read further. The cases he cites are isolated, and I've seen so much information that indicates participation in the arts, by doing or by watching, leads to greater civic engagement, better communication skills, goal setting skills, teamwork and team building, etc etc etc....that I can't give his arguments any credit whatsoever.
Imagine a young teenage American boy walks up to a painting in a museum. To use your example, it's Picasso's painting of the massacre at Guernica.
The boy knows nothing of the events that inspired the painting, but he is compelled by the distraught faces, the harsh, strong lines, and the screaming horse. Looking at the chaos he suddenly thinks of news coverage of 9/11, and the fear and hopelessness he felt in the weeks and months following the attack.
In this case, I find the boy's reaction totally valid. In fact, if anything, I believe it elevates the worth of Picasso's painting. The art has managed to continue to speak to people across time, beyond the original events that inspired it. The emotions are transcendant.
By your argument, the boy's reaction is not "meaningful" unless he happens to know his political history as well as his art history. His personal interpretation, then it would seem, means less than that of a college professor who felt no emotion, but knew his names and dates.
How can this be? Is art simply created to be dissected and appreciated for it's derivation, with a cold and intellectual eye? Or is it actually created to inspire emotional response?
I have many a time interviewed an artist about their work. I often ask the question "what do you hope viewers will take away from this piece?" More often than not, the response is "I do not hope for anything specific - each person brings their own ideas and history to a work of art. All I can hope is that it moves them, and makes them think."
Can all these artists be misled?