Whither The Arts?
It isn't often that stone steps inspire chills, but to walk where centuries of human feet have literally worn down the stone is to simultaneously become part of history and to realize one's utter insignificance to it. Walking up the steps and into the magnificent structure, the eye is drawn inexorably from the stones below, upward, high beyond the massive columns, up further where the very walls seem to tilt toward each other and meet at dark, dizzying heights. It was 1989, and I was standing inside the massive cathedral in Cologne, Germany.
I had just finished reading a biography of German WWI ace Barron Manfred von Richthofen in which he described his very first airplane ride as a student pilot. As the plane rolled out for takeoff, the prop wash blew Richthofen's leather helmet off, along with his goggles and scarf. As the plane rose, and his gloves were also lost to the blast of wind from the propellor, his attention turned to that of viewing the landscape from the air for the very first time. And he wrote of his astonishment at seeing the spires of the Cologne Cathedral from a great distance.
That Cathedral had been there over 600 years when The Red Barron's canvass and wood plane did battle in the First World War. Those old stone steps were as old as the US Constitution by the time Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World. And yet there we stood in 1989, struck dumb it seemed, trying desperately to comprehend the sheer size and endless intricacies of this colossal structure which literally dwarfed everything around it. To view it from the outside is to feel rather like an ant contemplating a redwood.
To venture inside and see The Shrine of the Three Holy Kings (purported to hold the crowned skulls of the Three Wise Men), or the Gero Cross which dates back to 976, or the legions of statues, is to become virtually intoxicated with the divine devotion that conceived and constructed such a solemn place.
Where is there anything in modernity to compare? Camille Paglia poses just such a question, asking (and answering) the question of why so much of our fine arts have devolved into a "wasteland." "Painting was the prestige genre in the fine arts from the Renaissance on. But painting was dethroned by the brash multimedia revolution of the 1960s and '70s," writes Paglia, who then zeros in on a central point: "What do contemporary artists have to say, and to whom are they saying it? Unfortunately, too many artists have lost touch with the general audience and have retreated to an airless echo chamber."
It's a chamber where the avant-garde first yielded to iconoclasm, which in turn has yielded to unimaginative and vulgar conformity. One need look no further than the artist who submerses a crucifix in urine, and then congratulates himself for bravely giving the finger to orthodoxy, all while carefully avoiding a cartoon of Mohammed so as to avoid getting his head chopped off. So much for breaking new ground.
So where do we now turn for art? Snoop Dog? Our smartphones? I use my smartphone constantly. Thanks to technological wizardry, I can have a conversation with the thing (it even says, "Who's there?" when I say, "Knock knock"), but art it isn't. Among my personal effects is an old pocket watch that belonged to my great grandfather. A functional piece, it retains just enough ornate decoration to hearken back to another time and place. As long as that old watch is around, I feel grounded somehow, which is a feeling that so much of what passes for art fails to elicit. Now, am I channeling my inner fuddy-duddy, or is society losing something? Where art once celebrated eternal truths, what is its point today? To rail against the culture and system that enables it? Again from Paglia:
Capitalism has its weaknesses. But it is capitalism that ended the stranglehold of the hereditary aristocracies, raised the standard of living for most of the world and enabled the emancipation of women. The routine defamation of capitalism by the armchair leftists in academe and the mainstream media has cut young artists and thinkers off from the authentic cultural energies of our time.
"We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, a Jewish nation, or Muslim nation," said President Obama, adding, "We consider ourselves a nation of citizens." This ideology that seeks to disconnect an entire people from their heritage and culture is the same ideology that teaches students to ridicule and scorn the very system that has afforded them a standard of living and a wealth of knowledge that previous generations could never have imagined. To defeat that ideology is to make possible the day when abiding truths are celebrated and the arts again, as in the past, lift the human spirit up, up toward the Author of all that is truly beautiful.
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Comments:
Sep '10
Re: Whither The Arts?
We have come a long way down since then. But just before you posted, Dave, I was listening to something modern that still lifts the spirit towards its Author:
Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium"
Jun '10
Re: Whither The Arts?
I miss beautiful things -- architecture, paintings, and poetry. I am afraid we have swapped utility, technology, and speed for pieces that last.
Yes, I am happy to have the internet. Yes, I am thrilled that medical care (for the time being) is great. But I don't want to trade virtual communication for face to face or loveliness to be practical.
Good post, Dave. Thanks for the validation as well. I didn't know anyone else read Camille Paglia. She asks good questions.
Sep '12
Re: Whither The Arts?
I have stood in that cathedral. It is an aw-inspiring structure. It's survival is close to miraculous as well; much of the city surrounding it was leveled by Allied bombers during WWII. You may have noticed damage to the outside walls as you approached the building.
To the point of your post, Dave, modern art is indeed a wasteland, and increasingly irrelevant. Artists of past ages made their living from commissions of wealthy patrons. An artist who did not please the customer did not survive long. The modern view of the artist's personal vision results, as you and Paglia have stated, in art for the narrowest of audiences: only the artist himself is truly inspired.
Re: Whither The Arts?
My understanding is that after the Nazis attacked the Parliament, Winston Churchill ordered the bombing of the cathedral. When I was there in '89, they were still taking donations for the restoration, and the scaffolding was still up as work was in progress.
In this photo, allied soldiers gather to pray inside the Cathedral after the bombing:
Oct '10
Re: Whither The Arts?
Great essay, Dave. I'm reminded of my own visit to just such a place: the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain (where St. James the Greater is said to be buried). It is quite a humbling experience indeed to stand where millions of pilgrims have traveled to over the course of a millennium.
Re: Whither The Arts?
dogsbody: We have come a long way down since then. But just before you posted, Dave, I was listening to something modern that still lifts the spirit towards its Author:
Morten Lauridsen's "O Magnum Mysterium"
· 29 minutes ago
That is beautiful, by the way. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.
Apr '11
Re: Whither The Arts?
As someone who is young and came of age in the 90s, I have always felt more of a connection to the past in terms of ideals but also in aesthetics. When I was a graduate student, I studied the Italian Renaissance. Even so, it was not until I set foot in St. Peter's and the Duomo in Florence that I felt like I had any understanding. Being able to see things of unimaginable beauty and to experience the visual representation of the best man has to offer is an experience I hope all have a chance to experience. It was truly life-altering and something I'll carry with me always, yet I seem unable to describe it to people who have not undergone a similar experience.
When I come to think of what "culture" has become, it does sadden me a great deal. While I think sometimes we see the "good ol' days" through rose-colored glasses, much of what I see now is just terrible. We seem to be a culture rushing headlong into nihilism. This is why I am taking my students to the Met this year. They need to see some of what the Western world can offer.
Re: Whither The Arts?
Bravo!! Now THAT'S what I call keeping hope alive.
Apr '11
Re: Whither The Arts?
I refuse to allow the beauty that is the Western tradition to go gently into that good night. I will never say that other cultures have not made great contributions (one cannot look at eastern art and Arabic calligraphy for just two examples), but it is impossible for me to ignore the greatness that is the Western world and I refuse to leave my students ignorant of the tradition willed to them by the generations that came before them.
Oct '10
Re: Whither The Arts?
I've wondered about the echo chamber of artists myself. It's kind of bewildering. I once had an artist protest that "identity politics" did not exist and the very concept was a far-right conspiracy. When I explained my own personal experiences with identity politics, he said "well, the activists I know aren't like that." I was not impressed.
Sep '12
Re: Whither The Arts?
I don't know if others will think it will compare, but I've seen modern architecture that's impressed me; the BOK Center in Tulsa, designed by César Pelli. Maybe I'm just a philistine, but I don't understand why one couldn't take that sporting venue as a sign that we're still capable of all that had come before.
Oct '10
Re: Whither The Arts?
"I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them." - Pauline Kael after the 1972 presidential election
Jun '10
Re: Whither The Arts?
Beautiful essay.
I've never seen the Cologne Cathedral, but a few years ago, I had the privilege of standing inside the Cathedral in Toledo, Spain. It was awe-inspiring. Not in the mundane way we use the word "awesome," but it truly created feeling of "awe."
I'm not a Catholic, but I felt deeply that it was a sacred place and a work of art built to honor God. Within that sacred building were several paintings by El Greco, smaller works of art that were animated by the same spirit.
Compare the great cathedrals to the ugly, de-humanized architecture of the twentieth century (epitomized by the horrendous work of Le Corbusier). [I'm on a Tom Wolfe kick, and am in the midst of From Bauhaus to Our House, which documents the nihilism and sheer stupidity underlying modernist architecture]. Modern architecture was supposed to be functional, but it didn't even meet that standard. It was only ugly.
I wouldn't trade the Toledo Cathedral for all the butt-ugly (that's an artistic term) buildings inspired by Le Corbusier and his ilk.
I may be simplistic, but if it ain't beautiful, it ain't art.
Edited on October 7, 2012 at 5:27amApr '12
Re: Whither The Arts?
There's still beauty-- it just tends to be little things, instead of huge, awe-inspiring buildings.
It sounds silly, but some of the most beautiful art I've seen in the last decade was in video games-- the new Guild Wars II even has it built into gameplay, with getting to "vistas" so you can see a slow pan of the lovely place they put so much work into. Most computers won't manage it, true, but even on my machine... wow.
Related, some design details show signs of putting loving work into their making, so it's both lovely and functional. Even my browser has "skins" to make it prettier!
Jun '11
Re: Whither The Arts?
Glad I'm not alone in reading a column by Paglia....
As a professional artist I can confidently say she's both right and wrong: right in that the modern art movement is a vast echo chamber of defunct avante garde ideas, with students unwilling to expose themselves professionally to the marketplace. She is wrong however, in assuming that the premise extends to all art.
The incentive system the art world has established is similar to the world of professional sports - a very small percentage end up in the highest ranks. But unlike sport, the art world moves on subjective values.
The image of a starving artist, selling his/her wares on a street corner is a well-known cliche'. But unlike professional sports, there may very well be great worth in work produced that doesn't get lauded in the NYTimes. We just may be too short-sighted to see it at the time.
Feb '12
Re: Whither The Arts?
When I visited York in 2006 (BTW, the York Minster is the largest cathedral north of the Alps), my tour guide illustrated a point that is all too easy to lose sight of:
The York Minster as it now stands took over 250 years to build -- from 1220 for the foundation to consecration in 1472 . Average generation was 20 years, and average lifetime wasn't much more than 50 through the whole period. So there were folks whose grandfathers had been born while the building was under construction and whose grandchildren would never see it finished.
Can you even imagine our fickle generation, or our parents', or even our grandparents', having the patience to persevere on a project that would take five lifetimes to complete? Our country hasn't even managed to last as long as construction on that cathedral took.
Apr '11
Re: Whither The Arts?
Its funny you should mention that Amy since after my GRE tutoring section, I went to the local mall and into the Apple Store (I love Apple stuff) but it was an entire store of people being distracted by shiny objects. That being said, I don't know if there even is a project that would take that kind of commitment these days since our parents/grandparents managed to put a man on the moon in 10 years (an achievement that has yet to be equaled)
But, you are correct. It is amazing to think of the commitment of people to a project they must have known they would never see it to completion. The idea that one's work would be eternally rewarded must be quite a motivating factor.
Feb '11
Re: Whither The Arts?
Some related thoughts from novelist Mark Helprin, excerpted here.
May '10
Re: Whither The Arts?
Dave, you have expressed why I suffer in box stores and malls and all the soulless, ugly, utilitarian places that crowd the modern world.
The human spirit is made for beauty.
Culture is a barometer of our souls. Clearly, we are not well.
BUT, on the other hand, I do see lots of what John Paul II called "signs of the new spring". I think a renewal is coming.
Apr '12
Re: Whither The Arts?
Dave,
You are an artist. As I started to read, I immediately thought of Ms. Paglia's column, which I had read earlier. But your introduction to it was masterful.