The paintings on the cave walls in France are strikingly handsome. There is a great powerful buffalo in a cave at Font-de-Gaume with a huge chest and shoulders and a rather fine, elegant back end. The lines are powerful and graceful. Any modern artist would have been glad to have done it. In The Story of Painting by H. W and Dora Janson suggested it was probably done as a search for power over the beast, not for its beauty since they are almost always found deep in the caves where it is dark Had the art been for admiration, the Jansons believe it would have been done in a conspicuous place.
Perhaps. But if the wish to conquer and kill the beast were the only drive, they could have drawn a few circles and sticks. There had to be almost a love affair with the majesty, the power, to have done it so beautifully. Simpatico. In the art, he became one with the beast.
Art is part of man, a realization of history and often enough a leader of it. The tale of the knight with his forbidden lady’s scarf about his neck, David’s painting of the Death of Marat, the figure of the American patriot with his fife and drum, his bandage, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the flag-sparked Uncle Sam’s “I want you” or the girl with her head scarf with her muscled arm ready to weld a bomber, icons of history.
Sometimes when a country’s leaders decide on a questionable path, art is used to sway the people. The art is not a true reflection of the soul. It is a reflection of a good portion of what is wrong with us, the lust for power, the need to corral the herd.
In times of war, our creativity has been used to inspire, to give heart, and sometimes mistakenly to hate in order to prevail.
At first glance, it doesn’t seem so terribly tragic to falsify art. With a thoughtless disregard it seems only a little white lie, an April Fools’ Day Joke. Sometimes with the written words a Baal, a false god is created and the painter is co-opted into the scheme. Joseph Stalin and Hitler both used art to justify the state. Hitler even planned his architecture to make a solid front with the written word and paintings to soak the country in the tale of the thousand year Reich.
Started by Franklin Roosevelt in the thirties to make work by supporting arts and artists, the National Endowment of The Arts became the distributor of Uncle Sam’s largess. In the last twenty-thirty years the program has been greatly criticized for much of the sacrilegious and ugly trash it has sponsored. In the case of public radio, it has been accused of biased programming.
A few years ago the Senate accused the arts community of harboring, being a part of the Communist party. The members were blackmailed into giving the names of their comrades. Once a name was given the opportunity to work in the field was denied. The dismal affair added nothing to the security or well-being of the country.
The other day, another shameful act was added to the story of the arts in the United States.
The White House held a telephone conference call with important artists who had voted for Obama in the last election. Among them were the leaders of the NEA , for one, a Mr. Yosi Sergeant. Mr. Sergeant said since the program was still being formed they were working on a system whereby they could speak to each other safely as he wasn’t sure of the legality of all this. The government was a major funder for the NEA.
The White House was teaming up with the artists (a special hand-picked group) gallery owners, musicians, film makers, to “push the president and his administration ” by producing art for the benefit or Obama’s programs, health care, education, the environment.
One of the listeners in this call was a Patrick Courrielche, who taped the conversation. The White House denied it, but the tape exists.
This is blatant propaganda of the worst kind. The NEA is the largest receiver of federal financing, possibly the only arts organization that does.
The voice urged the listeners to make photos, blogs, videos “to make a stink”. ” And we do know how to make a stink.”
The arts are the most sacred gift of any civilization. It is true that in recent years there has been some terrible junk, but that will in time disappear. Good art is self-cleansing.
It is too bad the NEA and Obama are not self-cleansing.
