Category: Art

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The other day I posted a blog about Roger Kimball’s “What the Right Gets Wrong About Art. For some reason, I was having a difficult time finishing the post. Every time I worked on this post I found myself trying to cover too much ground and I was having trouble connecting all that I wanted to say. At the time, I decided to post what I had (see here) and return to the part I was having trouble with.

Kimball’s larger point was that because the Right abandoned culture, the Left took over and this was why Art is all crap now. You know the sad old song — things used to be better in the good old days. Within this criticism, he referred to a troubling quote about race from the Australian Philosopher David Stove. David Stove writes:

Western Europe found that its anti-academy had become its academy ‘even in the twinkling of an eye.’ The galleries were suddenly full of the art of African societies formerly the most despised. Victorian architecture was all at once the object of a universal detestation, or rather horror. Black music began its long and excruciating revenge on the white man. The Jazz Age, in short, had arrived.

Kimball is being provocative without context. What does this mean in Kimball’s larger argumen? He fails to incorporates what Stove is saying into his argument. So it lies there like a big old sore that everybody can see but everyone is too polite to talk about. There is clearly a racist wack here at African Art and Black Music.

Maybe Kimball thought his readers should be able to connect the dots without his help but I fear then that I am being dragged into an argument of my making and not Kimball’s. Ignoring it however is allowing such a comment to go unchallenged. It’s like letting old people get away with using the N Word. They are too old to change and you want to keep the old fellow calm in case you cause a heart attack. This maybe true but then Grandpa gets the idea that he can spew his racist’s thinking with impunity.

The question, I have, is does he agree with Stove? If African art was previously despised why was it despised and what is his opinion on it. Even if he is talking about primitive art, which isn’t clear at all, what does this art have to do with the Left or Right wing. If the art predates the present political divisions, how can the Right abandoning culture have anything to do with the Art these people produced. Also, if the primitive nature of the art is setting him off, how does he feel about the art of early homo sapiens drawn in the caves. It is hardly beautiful by present standards, but it is definitely art. Why is Jazz (or as Stove puts it black music) the revenge of the black man on the white man? These are volatile statements that require more explanation. Kimball just drops it in and never mentions it again. I can only, then, assume that he agrees with Stove’s racist sentiments.

The real problem here is the limits of Kimball’s definition of art — it has to have a universal agreement about beauty. Everyone, everywhere has to agree that it is beautiful. Which is an impossible standard. Why not just good (art I like) and bad (art I don’t like). Kimball admits that most art is bad art. If he would have left it at that, I could have gotten on board with him. A lot of modern is crap but then there are very few pieces of great. Which makes sense. This is the whole reason critics point out what they think is good. They are trying to differentiate it from the every day piece of art.

I am not sure why he abandons the bad art/good art distinction for art has to be beautiful. He has a political agenda here that is blinding him to this much easier standard. But he hates the art he sees as Left Wing statements that he will not even dignify it with the art designation. Then he adds barely formed racial animus to his equation that leaves me wondering — what is really upset about.

Kimball seems to harken back to the days when art was the Sistine Chapel and Shakespeare. An Art that had very limited reach until the 20th century. Confined to the elites of Europe and North America, Art was strictly defined by this class because they were the only ones who really knew anything about art. But regular people all over the globe had very little contact. The technological advances of the 20th century brought art to an enormous number of people. Unfortunately for Kimball and company, their reaction to this was different than these elites had hoped. Instead of wanting to perpetuate these old ideas of art, they used them as a stepping stone for something completely new.

It is perfectly fine not to like it but to say it doesn’t even pass the muster of art is ridiculous. Who gave you the deciding vote? The better approach would be for the Right to start creating Art that the world might want to see. No one is stopping them. Why isn’t it happening instead of whining about what gets passed off as art these days.

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I read Right Wing writers from time to time just in case lightening strikes and there is something valuable there. More often than not though it is a lot of whining about how the world used to be a better place before the modern world intruded on it. Roger Kimball represents this type of Right Wing writer.

Kimball knows what he is talking about. Some might even call him an intellectual. He has read all the right books, seen all the right art which enables him to throw the great names out with the best of them — Nietzsche, Marx, Van Gogh, Duchamp, Warhol and on and on. Dada that, Avant-Garde this. He gives the impression of someone who knows what he is talking about. But when all is said and done it is still whining and he reaches a shrill filled pitch in What the Right Gets Wrong About Art.

I provide the link above but don’t feel compelled to read it. It is difficult reading. He overwhelms the reader with his knowledge about art, history and philosophy. You might know a few things about art but he knows a lot of things. And I mean a lot but it rarely helps his argument. He is just rolling off facts at a rapid clip that I sometimes forgo what exactly was he talking abou. You can’t really argue with him which I think is the point. So be warned, don’t get too bogged down on reading this article, it will only make you crazy.

What I learned was that he truly hates modern art. He hates the artists who produce them. He hates the institutions who support them. He hates the politics the art is associated with. Modern Art is ugly. Furthermore, the art critic is unable to assess art as art because art is also political. The critic should only have to look at the canvas, the brush strokes, the colors and not consider anything about what might be going on in the artist’s life to make him paint this particular piece of art.

By this standard then Kimball would have you look at the statue of David without knowing any of the biblical history regarding David. In Kimball’s view, a person can be completely ignorant of the story of David and still be able to appreciate the art. Probably But that isn’t how it happens, is it? Most people who see the statue also know the story of David. Kimball acts as if artists before 1900 were simply creating beautiful art straight out of their heads instead of producing art that their benefactors wanted to see and, more importantly, buy.

From the title of his article, I was expecting a call to arms for right wingers to get out their paint brushes and canvases and start painting. Instead it really is a tirade against modern art without the context of how this is important and why a right wing movement in art would improve both culture and then politics. Kimball gives a weak analysis of why right wingers surrendered culture and art to the left. Apparently Right wingers don’t take art seriously because it isn’t necessary for life, not like business and science. Then, what is Kimball’s idea for changing this?

If Art is a luxury in the minds of the Right, an idea that Kimball obviously disagrees with, how does he propose changing what appears to be a very fixed idea among Right Wing people. Kimball offers the idea of beauty that art brings to life. The beauty of art gives human beings a glimpse at something greater than ordinary life. So why aren’t Right Wingers willing to give up on numbers and embrace beauty? Not a clue. More importantly, how does this change. Kimball has no ideas on how to change this dynamic.

I suspect Kimball sees the futility of his situation. The Right just isn’t interested in Culture. They are interested in Business and, to a lesser degree, Religion. They want a society committed to Capitalism and Christianity and have little interest beyond that which puts Kimball in a difficult position. The Left disagrees with him and the Right doesn’t care.

The truth is that there is nothing stopping Right Wingers from getting out their paintbrushes and having a go at it. As Kimball admits, it was the Right who abandoned culture, what then needs to happen is for the right to try and reclaim it and stop this awful whining. This also means that if politics is downstream from culture then Kimball is in big trouble trying to change anything until Right Wingers get out of the pews and the board room and into the art studio.