Art Sickness

Letters from O'Brien #28

Dear Mr Smith,

This will be a short letter about the rise of modern and postmodern art, and what I see as the deliberate removal of beauty. It’s been on my mind, so here I go…

It has been rather obvious to me that an attack on beauty and art has taken place, alongside the so called ‘death of God’, in Europe since the 19th century. A quick survey of art over the past century shows there has been no pause in this accelerating and corrosive attack. Although I have already touched on the role of art (and its importance) in a previous letter, what I have not touched on is the perceived offensive nature of what I would consider good art.

What I mean is there is something fundamentally ‘good’ about certain works of art in my opinion. Powerful artwork has remained powerful because it holds and transmits universal truths between itself and the observer. Whether it be telling a story or simply displaying beauty, works of art which are true are confronting in one way or another.

NIHILISTS AND ART

As Roger Scruton once wrote, one of the primary motivating factors for the atheist worldview is to escape from the ‘eye of judgement’ watching over him. I feel this is a good point. For the nihilistic (and often resentful or disenfranchised) atheist, one of the primary goals is to remove God from the picture (literally). I believe it is this mindset which has helped tear down the classical ideas of universal narrative and beauty, since in both cases it calls the atheist to be confronted with an author of such narratives and beauty.

Beauty is perhaps the most potent in this respect, since beauty reflects the divine. Where beauty exists, so too does its opposite. What is beautiful causes offense for those who wish to do away with hierarchy and natural order. As a Dostoevsky character once put it; in the ideal society, attractive faces would be illegal. Beauty assumes difference, difference assumes order and hierarchy, both assume a creator, and all are offensive.

Another major element within great art is narrative and calling. Great paintings compel change and all the observer can do is absorb. This is why visual storytelling through such artistic methods as painting or sculpting was once held in such high regard. Not only did it re-present divine beauty, but it also held either a narrative framework (the heroes journey) or a compelling call to action for the observer, as if it were calling one out in to something greater. To the nihilist and the atheist, there are few things more offensive and confronting than this.

This offense stems from the fact that the atheist believes that there is ‘order’ but only as a result of scientific laws. Apart from this, the universe of the atheist is purely contingent. Things just are, and we must blindly accept that without question, since questioning is pointless. Of course, this is an absurd and hollow worldview, and those who embrace it must reduce their own existence to the most microscopic measurement – the random, meaningless accumulation of atoms. Beauty cannot really exist in this way. Neither can truth or meaning exist in any real sense. Everything is merely a contingent event, often described in reductionist scientific or medical language. Joy - for example - is nothing more than a chemical reaction which can be presumably explained away at the microscopic level, using pure material as the basis and endpoint.

SPIRITUAL SICKNESS

I think this alludes to something deeper on the cultural level, beyond the nihilist and the atheist. Works of art reflect the spirit of the culture and the individual. This is no more evident then when witnessing what emerged following Nietzsche’s ‘Death of God’. That is - as mentioned earlier - the lack of beauty, substance (narrative or calling), form, etc. Since the artist reflects his own spirit in his work, his work is also a portal into his own being. This is evident in the work of modernist expressionist ‘artists’ such as Jackson Pollock and Jeff Koons, who’s work reflects nothing of divine beauty or value. The work of both artists could be lost forever and there would be no loss bar the evidence of cultural bankruptcy. What the paint-splattered canvases of Pollock re-presents is a formless and story-less reflection of his own state, and by extensions the spiritual state of those he surrounded himself with, and that which he spent his time dwelling on. Unless, of course, I’m reading him wrongly and the art was purely a commercial, opportunistic ploy to capitalize on a rather empty trend in modernism. Then you’d have to ask if he were an artist at all.

A culture in which nothing of beauty is produced is a society which lacks direction, comprehension, and value for both the culture and the individual. If you were to walk in to an art exhibit today you may get that exact feeling of hollowness. There is nothing there. It is like walking in to a void. Or perhaps it is like walking in to the soul of the culture and the artist, and seeing the sickness reflected across the walls. In this way, I fail to believe that anyone seriously ‘defends’ modern and postmodern art. They merely claim to defend it and find value in it, as it helps them justify their hatred for God and reality. Or there is simply a commercial or social advantage to gush over such emptiness. I’m not trying to be overly dramatic – I really do feel the desperate emptiness of much contemporary ‘art’.

By extension, the same corrosion can be seen in an increasing number of TV series and films. Narrative value is lowered to the point of absurdity, often focusing on reductionistic topics such as race issues, sex, drug use, and materialistic hedonism. There is an increasing lack of depth and flavour, and more importantly of calling and inspiration. It is yet another example of this cultural and spiritual sickness…

I highlight these things because they are manifestations of a problem across the cultural landscape of modernity that’s so ubiquitous we are mostly oblivious. If we are indeed living in a society which does not require fixing, then we would see objective beauty and meaning emanating from it. We currently do not. This means that the issues facing western civilisation emanate not only from the cultural and society at large, but from the hearts of the individuals within it. Obviously this is not everyone, there are examples of stunningly beautiful art, music, film, architecture with narrative and meaning that moves people in a positive way. There are many who seek and embody beauty and meaning. We are not without hope! But the collective manifestation, the majority of commissioned or commercial art, is woefully empty and suggests a collective heart that is just as empty.

From the archive:

Schizophrenic Art

The Spirit

Art