Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Ellen T. Harris -1 Not everyone knows how to dislike art. Many claim this ability, but actually most people never learn it. Contrary to popular belief, disliking art is an activity that requires serious contemplation and practice. The controversy surrounding the reauthorization of the National Endowment for the Arts concerns how we as a nation will respond to art that some people claim not to like. We have two alternatives. We can teach people how to dislike art properly on some thoughtful, considered basis, or we can accept the kneejerk judgments that are damaging to the artist, the country, and the critic. Following are four ways to dislike art. Three are bad; only one is good. Ignore art. The easiest reaction to art is to ignore what you don't think you will like. Do not attend the exhibit; do not purchase the work. Do not go to the play or concert. This solution does no direct harm to the art or to the artist, but it does harm the person who makes the judgment without experiencing the art. Art asks us to involve ourselves, our thoughts, and our emotions; it does not necessarily ask that we like it or pronounce it beautiful. Art is not and never has been an escape from reality, and 20th-century artists are hardly the first to engage difficult topics. The raw political awareness, for example in works by Alban Berg and Pablo Picasso in the first half of the century and by Milan Kundera and Primo Levi in the second half is strongly based in the work of the greatest artists of the past. That is, by reading Shakespeare or Dickens, by listening to Mozart or Verdi, by viewing Titian or Van Gogh, we learn about religion, politics, and love, and we also learn about religious discrimination, political corruption, and hatred. By fully engaging ourselves with the art, we can learn to face the emotions these issues raise in us, and we can grow as individuals. By ignoring art, we lose this opportunity. Reject art. A more powerful way to dislike art is to legislate against it. One can prohibit or refuse to finance art that one decides is offensive or degenerate or that fails to support the prevailing guidelines on political thought, religious belief, and sensuality. Nazi Germany in the 1930's, Soviet Russia after 1932, and Moslem Iran since 1979 have prohibited art for these reasons. The United States has roundly denounced these actions, as well as the widespread artistic repression during the 1966 Cultural Revolution in China. But if the United States were to restrict its support of the arts based on content, as Congress is threatening to do through new or continued restrictions on grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, our country would begin walking down this very same path. At the very least, it is hypocritical to embrace art that criticizes governments other than our own and offends religions and oversteps social mores other than our own under the banner of freedom, while denying those same freedoms to our own artists. At the worst, by restricting support to artists on the content rather than the quality of their art, thus forcing some of our most talented artists out of the field for lack of funding, we risk lowering the level of artistic contributions from our own society and culture to posterity. History shows that censorship of political, religious, or erotic content does not only weed out the weak and peripheral artists, as its modern proponents would like to believe, but also strikes the greatest. For example, George Frideric Handel was dismissed in 1713 by his employer, the Elector of Hanover, later George I of England, for composing a Te Deum and Jubilate celebrating the Peace Articles of 1711, which England had negotiated unilaterally with France leaving her allies to fend for themselves. As members of the Grand Alliance, the Hanoverians were horrified. To take another example, douard Manet's painting "Olympia" was considered obscene at its first exhibition in 1865, and the picture had to be protected from angry cane- and umbrella-brandishing mobs. In 1867, because his works had largely been rejected by the official arbiters of painting, he was reduced to exhibiting his paintings in a street stall. Even after more than 20 years, when Claude Monet fought ferociously and successfully to persuade the French government to buy the painting in 1889, the debate with government officials who continued to find the work indecent was front-page news for almost a year. Condemn artists. It is, of course, a very small step from prohibiting certain forms and works of art to condemning the artists. For referring to Stalin in a derogatory manner, novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested in 1945 and spent eight years in prison camps. Because the music of Paul Hindemith was composed in an atonal idiom, it was officially boycotted by the Nazis in 1934, and Wilhelm Furtwngler, who had dared to schedule a premiere of Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler," was dismissed from his conducting and administrative posts. Neither Hindemith nor Furtwngler was Jewish, but the Nazis condemned them for failing to follow established artistic standards. Similarly, the Soviet Union banned the music of Sergey Prokofiev and Dmitry Shostakovich in 1948 for "anti-democratic tendencies" and for their adherence to a "cult of atonality, dissonance and discord." More recently, Salman Rushdie was forced to go into hiding because the late Ayatollah Khomeini condemned him to death for inferred criticisms of the Islamic religion in Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. President Vclav Havel of Czechoslovakia was once imprisoned for the views presented in his plays. In the United States, the recent condemnation of the work of the late Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano for homoeroticism and religious sacrilege is not so different from past prohibitions in other countries. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington cancelled an exhibition of Mapplethorpe's photographs after some members of Congress threatened to try to cut off future federal support for the institution, and the director of a Cincinnati museum was arrested and indicted on obscenity charges for displaying the same exhibition. Last year Congress placed restrictions on the types of art that may be supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, to insure that works deemed obscene under local community standards will not be supported by federal funds. It is sadly ironic that just as the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are recognizing and encouraging their formerly censored artists, the United States is moving to restrict its formerly free artists. And there can be no doubt that blanket financial restrictions not only effect a successful form of censorship but are intended to do so. Artists deprived of a means of support must turn to other ways to earn a living. But the burden of these restrictions does not fall on the artists alone. When individuals or institutions who have exhibited or would exhibit controversial work are persecuted, prosecuted, and denied future federal support, we as a nation stray far from the path of democracy and freedom into the shadow of totalitarian traditions. Dislike art. When we allow ourselves to become engaged with art and challenged by it, we do not blindly agree to like all art. Art disliked is not necessarily bad, immoral, or even difficult. Art is broader than individual taste. One can dislike categories, such as abstract art, portraiture, or landscapes; picaresque, epistolary, or stream-of- consciousness novels; or atonal, programmatic, or operatic music. One can also dislike individual works. This demeans neither the artist nor the critic, for art is art whether or not it is liked, and the critic who makes no distinctions is no critic at all. Disliking art is an important part of art appreciation and should not be confused with ignorance, rejections, or condemnation. It certainly should not be considered a reason for censorship. Once we determine that we dislike a work, we should ask ourselves why we respond as we do. This engages us with the artist's point of view and often allows us to examine our values and beliefs. For example, many have said that they dislike Serrano's "Piss Christ," a very large and stunning photograph of a crucifix bathed in golden light; we must ask why. What does this image mean and why does it have such visceral power? To some, because the artist claims to have submerged the crucifix in his own urine, the photograph is a rejection of their most sacred beliefs. To others, it is more than a rejection; it is a defamation. Unfortunately, this reaction has frequently occurred without any reference to the visual image itself, and one might realistically compare it to how the Ayatollah Khomeini reacted to Rushdie's book. In both cases, attacking the art and the artist has done nothing to strengthen religion; such attacks only encourage fanatacism. Art rarely allows a single interpretation. Serrano's photograph, for example, may seem defamatory to some, but to others it may speak of the conflict between Christ's divinity and humanity. The concept of God made Man is difficult and mysterious, just as the artist's powerful image is ambiguous and even mysterious. Its glowing color and the diagonal streak of blurring seem to portray a heavenly aura reaching down to the Christ figure. The artist's use of a provocative title complicates and deepens the photograph's meaning; without it the image could be an sacred icon. Regardless of interpretation, this work, because of its materials, could be and probably will be disliked by many. This does not mean, however, that the photograph is not good art, nor does it mean that the work should be rejected or censored. Although individuals are free to dislike visual, written, or musical depictions of specific subjects on the basis of personal belief, no individual work of art can legitimately be disliked without being seen, heard, or read. Disliking art, rather than disliking subjects, demands critical judgment. One can dislike the subject of Titian's magnificent "Tarquin and Lucretia," a very realistic and violent rape, and still recognize the painting's aesthetic beauty. Art does not have to be liked or beautiful or innocent to be art. It must, however, be seen or heard, and it must strike your soul, your mind, or both. Good art moves your emotions or makes you think. We should be ever thankful that we have artists among us who can make us cry, scream, or wonder. Disliked art and art with disliked subjects can be as powerful as liked art, sometimes more powerful. It deserves both our attention and our protection. If this country restricts federal support for the arts, the variety and richness of art that a democracy allows will suffer. As in the past, when wealthy upper-class individuals acted as patrons, the arbiters of taste once again will be limited to the wealthy few who can afford to purchase or commission art. A democratic base of artistic taste, on the other hand, demands government support without restrictions on content. Such support guarantees our freedom to dislike art, without ignoring, rejecting, or condemning it. Ellen T. Harris is associate provost for the arts and professor of music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.