On Jan 4, 2009, at 10:47 AM, William Conger wrote:
Which brings us back to Miller's topic re Nazi art. Do we only
judge the artists' gifts and talents in assessing their art or do
we also include morality in the mix? A tough question, made tougher
by any look at historical context for so much art, but can the moral
intent issue be ignored?
What are the moral calibrations?
Usually, in judging or appreciating artworks, man non-moral criteria
are used (quality, craftsmanship, materials, etc.) and few moral ones.
In fact, such questions as "Does the work have an ennobling
[pernicious, laudatory, despicable] effect?" seem to occur either at
the outset of the evaluating or at the end. "Geez, what a repulsively
jingoistic picture. End of story. " or "All in all, it's a tour de
force, and it shows us the importance of ____________."
Related to an outright moral evaluation of a work is the claim that
the work addresses or embodies a great theme. This is frequently heard
in comments about Shakespeare ("Besides the brilliance of his plays,
he touched on timeless themes of great human reach."), for example.
Moral criteria do not overlap or subsume any of the aesthetic criteria
(unless the aesthetic criteria specifically include something about
the moral purposefulness of the work), so the moral judgment of a work
is basically independent of it aesthetic merit.
However, often aesthetic criteria do encompass the moral, in the case
of artificial, extraneous, or otherwise external sentiment of one kind
or another; such as the treacly sentimentality of Kinkade-genre images
(Timberlake, the big-eyed children, Bob Ross and the "happy trees,"
Simbari, etc.); Soviet-style workers' paradise posters; religious or
patriotic music and images; even pornography.
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
