The Importance of Art

Glenn Reynolds' interview with Camile Paglia is worth watching. There is an important point that is raised and lost -- Paglia is moving too fast to recognize it -- which is that a recovery of conservative ideas is necessarily tied to a new birth of conservative art.  There is a huge tradition that she raises, from stained glass windows in cathedrals to the kind of soaring and spiritual music of bygone ages.  We could still make this; we don't.

That's our fault, and it is where we need to focus our efforts if we are to persuade the culture to follow us.  What people follow with their hearts is a vision of beauty.  All the greatest beauty is on our side, but for some reason, we have forgotten how to make and to deploy it.

3 comments:

Gringo said...

While I am not a churchgoer, I have a great affinity for choral music of years past, which is invariably done with a religious setting. I have more choral music CDs than I have CDs of Western Swing, to give you an idea of my leanings.

There has been some good choral music produced in the 20th century, such as what Arvo Pärt has composed.

As for visual art, might I suggest Elvis on velvet? [As a barrage of rotten tomatoes gets virtually thrown my way.]

One problem with art and conservatives is that the "artist community" in the US is very strongly moonbat left. Yet even here there are flowers sprouting in cracks in the cement. A cousin and her husband are entrepreneurs who sell their artwork. Perhaps as a consequence of their being entrepreneurs, I have noticed in recent years they are not as doctrinaire leftist as they used to be.

douglas said...

I was stunned during my last visit to my alma mater to see a flyer posted for a Christian student group. This at a very progressive architecture only school. I know they may be leftist Christians, but that would be, on average, a rightward shift. I think there is a movement for conservatives and religious to be more likely to go into the arts than there has been for a while. You just hope they end up bringing conservative views into the art world, and not progressive views into their religion or the conservative movement.

Tom said...

I agree with Grim.

However it is that we got to this point, the answer now is to encourage conservatives, and those of other persuasions, to become producers. We need to suffer through the training programs that will put us into professorships, give us the abilities to produce great art in all its forms, increase our numbers in the newsrooms, etc.