Big Ed's Place

My wife and I just watched The Shape of Things, a movie based on a play that has a lot to do with people changing, but also with art. My review will be up on Friday, but I wanted to capture one part of the discussion my wife and I had afterward.

One of the characters, Evelyn, is a Masters of Fine Art candidate and she says near the end that Art is all that really matters. In many ways I agree, but I realized that I have a different spin on the morality of it.

Of course, the question starts with, what is Art? Capital A. My definition is that it’s a way of connecting to others. It’s a short cut to the heart and mind, as an old professor said about poetry. One can spin words and words and words, going through logic and rational argument, and in the end never connect with someone. Yet a simple touch of the hand, or a simple photograph, or the turn of a phrase, may convey more than words could ever do so.

Now I know that sometimes the Artist is trying to provoke. The Art works by connecting to the animal spine and stirring up outrage or the associated emotions. A play dramatizes the plight of holocaust victims. A ‘performance artist’ tries to call attention to the environment.

But provocation does not make a work of Art moral, and by that I mean morally good. After all, the morality of the cause is in the eye of the beholder or creator. The rabble rouser or political hack on talk radio makes a connection to their audience, after all. If Art stirs up a mob that kills people, can it truly be considered moral?

Nor, despite me often believing that Art is an act of channeling the Divine (a post on that some day), I do not believe that Art deserves any elevation to Godhood. Art is a path, a channel, a tool. Art is a mystical and powerful shortcut and an act, and Art done right is Big. But saying Art for Art’s sake justifies itself morally is like saying violence for violence’s sake justifies itself. It may be absolutely true in the boxing arena or football field, or in trying to stop genocide, but it just cannot be blanketly true or blanketly false.

So what shook out of my conversation with my wife is that Art, to be morally good, has to Serve. And by that I mean, it has to be based in Love in the Agape sense. The connection has to result in the audience being better off than they were before.

This is honestly not a tough bar to hurdle. We’re not talking ‘save the world and fix everyone’s problems here’–or at least I’m not, having given up that naivety even before college.  A simple comedy that makes people laugh can leave them better off than they were before. Or a painting of a field that helps instill a sense of peace. Provocation has its place, but provocation is not enough. Inspiration is mandatory. Compare King’s I have a Dream Speech to anything coming out of Fox News to see the difference. King saw his audience as brethren, and not just sheep to be manipulated.

Which brings the discussion full circle. Evelyn manipulates people for her Art, and does so without compassion. And that, I think makes all that she does immoral instead of something truly worthwhile.