Art and Morals

- *black and white photograph of a Bernini

"WHY CAN'T WE CREATE THIS TODAY?"

- *shot of the nave of St. Peter’s

"RELIGION IS BEAUTY"

- *two minute clip of some Mozart

"WE TURNED FROM CHRISTIANITY AND WE LOST THIS!"

I confess I am desperately tired of these nannyish lamentations. Not, you understand, because I don't like Bernini or St. Peter’s, and certainly not because I stand opposed to Christianity. The reason why I tire of these dull recombinations, the reason I begin to froth at the mouth at the mere mention of a tweet from TRADGODART or WESTERNBEAUTY, is this: these shallow minded men are turning Christian morality into a sort of cargo cult; they seem to think that all great art is somehow downstream from 'family values'; and they train their followers to expect, from a world-denying religion, worldly things; an absurdity that can only lead to bitter disappointment for the suckers taken in by it.

The most cursory glance at the history of Western art will make plain the fact, the incontrovertible fact, that art flourished only occasionally in alliance with, and very often IN OPPOSITION TO, Christian morality. Of course the Church was the source of a great many commissions, but the Reformers were right in arguing that the increasing attachment of bishops, cardinals and popes to marble temples and frolicking deities represented, on the whole, a turning away from the Faith. Hence the bonfires of Savonarola, and the panicked addition of fig leaves in the wake of the Council of Trent.

Are we really supposed to believe that Christian morals and ‘family values’ were the source of Florentine greatness? Baron Clarke thought otherwise, and said as much in his famous essay:

“Vasari, when he asked himself why it was in Florence, more than elsewhere, that men became perfect in the arts, gave us his first answer: “The spirit of criticism. The air of Florence making minds naturally free, and not content with mediocrity.” And this harsh, outspoken criticism meant that there was no gap of incomprehension between the intelligent patron and the artist.”

Florence gave birth to the Renaissance because she was the first of the Italian cities to recover the ἀγών, the spirit of ruthless competition that ran like an electric current through Greek society. This is why Burckhardt, in his magisterial study of Renaissance civilization, devotes an entire chapter to the cult of fame, the revival of which began with men like Dante:

"In the other countries of Europe the different classes of society lived apart, each with its own mediæval caste sense of honour. The poetical fame of the Troubadours and Minnesänger was peculiar to the knightly order. But in Italy social equality had appeared before the time of the tyrannies or the democracies. We there find early traces of a general society, having, as will be shown more fully later on, a common ground in Latin and Italian literature; and such a ground was needed for this new element in life to grow in. To this must be added that the Roman authors, who were now zealously studied, and especially Cicero, the most read and admired of all, are filled and saturated with the conception of fame, and that their subject itself—the universal empire of Rome—stood as a permanent ideal before the minds of Italians. From henceforth all the aspirations and achievements of the people were governed by a moral postulate, which was still unknown elsewhere in Europe.

Here, again, as in all essential points, the first witness to be called is Dante. He strove for the poet’s garland with all the power of his soul. As publicist and man of letters, he laid stress on the fact that what he did was new, and that he wished not only to be, but to be esteemed the first in his own walks. . . And in his great poem he firmly maintains the emptiness of fame, although in a manner which betrays that his heart was not set free from the longing for it."

While we're on the subject of poetry, it is not an exaggeration to say that the first vernacular poetry in Europe, the poetry that directly preceded men like Dante and Petrarch, emerged in a land where paganism had lingered on much later than almost anywhere else, namely Provence. The earliest extant example of Occitan poetry, that is, poetry freed from monastic Latin, is a magic hymn used by women during childbirth, and the greatest troubadours were patronised by Cathar lords who rejected the Church and all of the sacraments in favour of Gnosticism and a belief in metempsychosis that crops up again in the Quattrocento. And let’s not forget the great tradition of love poetry that stretched from Sicily to Scotland, and which recognised no god save Amor.

Again, I have no bone to pick with Christian morality. I am a believer. But it is foolish to suggest that a faith which has lived in constant tension with Europe’s pagan undercurrent was responsible for that paganism coming into full flower in the Renaissance. Are we tribesmen on a Pacific island? Should be cobble together an idol shaped like a cargo plane in hopes of a crate of condensed milk being parachuted in? Or should we recognise that extensive training from early childhood, a burning desire for ever flowing fame, and the generous patronage of open minded and decidedly undogmatic men are the prerequisites for great art? Show me a painter or a poet that lived for ‘family values’ and not for his art. He will be mediocre at best.