Is culture immoral?
The question came to me wandering Fort Worth’s wondrous Kimbell Museum. Jane and I were visiting Texas, celebrating our return to travel after an eighteen-month time out for bones to mend. Nothing rejoices us more than immersing ourselves in the art of the past. That mankind is capable of such magnificence bolsters hope. Our species is Longfellow’s
little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
The horrors we’re capable of glare from the headlines. Our souls felt in need of refreshment.
What could be better than the best of Bellini, Mantegna, Cranach, Titian, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Hals, Tiepolo, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs, Goya, David, Corot, Courbet, Turner, Delacroix, Manet, Monet, Caillebotte, Gauguin, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Miro, to name a few – not to mention Michelangelo’s first painting (when he was twelve!) – in a sublime space designed by the astonishing Louis Kahn? Nothing! And yet… doubt wormed into my ecstasy… wasn’t this privilege for the privileged? Didn’t so much wealth lavished here deprive others in need? Didn’t our voracity for beauty contradict our politics?
Human nature tends to endorse its preferences as praiseworthy. We readily forgive any lapses from high ideals. Yeh, I’m no saint, but others are worse! – thus does nimble Reason exonerate. The queasiest questions may be most worth asking. Are the fine arts morally OK?
Don’t let’s argue arts’ redemptive power for those untrained to appreciate. To hear a symphony, you must know a little about its language, structure, etc.; the import of Picasso, say, may not be obvious to a neophyte.
Let’s concede, too, that investment in the arts is a sort of flaunting by plutocrats. The rosters of arts benefactors (including your correspondent, when I can afford it) are populated by boasters. No gift is disinterested; we give to get, even if our receipt is only a sense of doing right.
Love of beauty comes with a cost. A dollar to a museum is not spent on soup kitchens.
And yet – wandering, gazing, wide-eyed and open-hearted – I can’t help thinking these marvels are not superfluities but our best reasons for being. Humanity seems to be the only species that concerns itself with more than our survival. We strive – toward glories we can hardly define. “Beauty,” concluded a young Emerson, “is its own excuse for being.” Many don’t have the time, energy, or training to admire the beautiful – they’re too busy existing. But some, a lucky few, have the time – and the urgency – to transcend our mereness by making or partaking of art. And that yearning upward by this fortunate fraction insensibly lifts us all – to more sympathy, humility, appreciation of human capability, joy. That Miro could have painted that unforgettable portrait of his pal – this image sticks with me – is, well, miraculous. And if one or a few of us can accomplish such marvels, maybe our species is worth preserving.
Am I wriggling out of a prickly moral predicament, bending language to exculpate an ignoble appetite? Could be – but I don’t think so. Humanity, I’ve come to conclude, is abominable: witness our behavior to one another! Yet we alone can achieve more and be better than we’ve been. We can transcend ourselves. Beauty, more than an excuse for being, is our credential. The news has gotten me – and all of us – in the dumps. But the chambers of the Kimbell lifted us up. Yes, we can – and must – be better. Better angels are not a metaphor – they hover – hear their wings.