Art Criticism - The State University of New York

desensitized by the imitated means of the enemy that their vague goal justifies.
(When they urge death for bigots the show is over as far as the republic is
concerned.) And painting and sculpture that aids the political radical becomes
strained and peculiar, displaying affectations of panic that will never convert
the target public. We artists must always expect to lose out in the political and
business world; we who have to patiently explain to the pragmatists what
altruism is cannot expect gentle treatment. Falsely accused of opportunism by
the opportunists, we can only prove our innocence by our unworldliness and
shame them with our vulnerability, like early Christian martyrs, preferring this
to self-lacerations that weaken us. Self-crucifixion requires a little help from
others.
Considering the multiplicity of culture centers in our country, doesn't
it surprise you that the dramatis personae of modern art should be so limited?
There are many provincial Davidsbunds at war with the philistine and dying of
neglect, so bemused are we with the moribund international scene. Are they
willing to trade their b;rthright of independent fame (unachievable ina total
socialization of all our assets above the profit motive) for the kind of guild pride
that nourished the cathedrals and music of the middle ages? I can conceive of
new cathedrals warmed by purposely anonymous paintings and sculpture
donated by artists who no longer wonder: what is there left for art to do?
Through a return to charity, a reuniting of our lonely split personae in a society
where fame is not bargained off for wealth.
"Get the corrupt priests out of modern art and let the layman judge for
himself!" Ah, but it's not that simple. Would you fire the Congress and legislate
by referenda? I don't think you would take that chance. These empty
minds are too vulnerable to destructive pranks, are already reaching for their
anti-Kulchur revolvers, and the other day I heard an archbishop whistling a
singing commercial! Maybe something as seemingly unimportant as an error in
taste has caused the country to take the wrong moral direction. No, we who
have this vocation for making artistic taste a moral imperative as a compensation
for our having been denied the ecstasy of total creativity as in the pasts
miserable in our exacting inquisitions, do this selecting and nullifying only for
your own good. "As things start slipping into anarchy you'll thank us." So
speaks the artist engage.
As a holding company invents phantom small concerns for monopoly
purposes, so were all the confusing art movements only facets of a massive
dissatisfaction for whom any unity was too reminiscent of the monolithic status
quo they were fighting' . Nothing new in experimentation has occurred in
painting and sculpture since 1915. Our new crazes are the result of a youthful
generation reviving history for stability. Ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny,
an individual's painting or sculpting career may duplicate the history of art,
until he ends up with today's pseudo-primitivism (which S. Dali says is the
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Art Criticism