Need I say it? We live in a fast paced society, one that continues to accelerate because of decisions made at the executive level of our government; one that reflects notions of libertarian democracy and a history of and tendency toward privatization; one that, as a result of some of its founding principles, forces many students to lend as much time and energy to their unrelated job(s) as to their studies. During my semester at University College London last spring, I remember the disheartened sighs of my peers upon their learning that the yearly price of their education had been raised to a walloping £1000. Incidentally, this is slightly less than what one of my high school teachers paid when she attended the university I intend to graduate from almost fifty years ago—the same university that now costs my family over $30,000 a year.
“But Americans are used to paying more. They start saving early. They are generally wealthier.”
Indeed, let us go one step further: it is often the case in this country that university education is framed first and foremost as a financial commitment. This being so, is it any wonder that the Humanities are forced to argue for their existence? For when financial productivity is the underlying ethic, economic concerns determine the emphasis of school curricula. When Cornell University, the school I attend, began looking for a new president, part of the search criterion held that the candidate should have an interest in the sciences. Why? Because the president's job is primarily as a fundraiser, and science and technology bring in the big bucks. In the year following 9/11, when many universities have seen their endowments shrink, the money these disciplines provide—take the $465 million that Cornell spent on research in 2002 alone—becomes increasingly essential. Meanwhile, the Arts suffer. Indeed, Cornell's soon-to-retire president, Hunter Rawlings III, has seemed intent on contributing to their demise. He recently released a proposal suggesting that the School of Architecture Art and Planning dissolve, with Art being absorbed into the massive cauldron known as the College of Arts and Sciences. That Rawlings is leaving before he can make good on this proposal is reassuring. That the precedent he is setting may reverberate throughout the academic community—Rawlings’s influence extends beyond Ithaca by way of his Chairmanship of both the Ivy League Council and the American Association of Universities—is disconcerting. Such actions are exemplary of the dictum popular among conscientious public school teachers nation-wide that when times are slim, Art is the first thing to go. It is in this matter that its superfluity is taught by way of its absence, and its funding is cut further.
But why shouldn’t it be? Of all the unprofitable areas of study, Art—or “Fine Art,” as those that cling to the tenuous strands of reputability that harness this misunderstood discipline will be apt to call it—must certainly be the one offering the most inappreciable of financial rewards. To compound matters, art can be extraordinarily expensive to produce, as any film student caught between their slender pocketbook and recourse to affordable, easy to use, but visually compromising digital technology can attest to. If there is an upside to these circumstances it is that such areas of study (and here we may as well include the Humanities) contain their own self-filtering mechanism: those pursuing them are more likely to be intrinsically motivated, and, hence, more involved, enthusiastic, and effectual in the classroom setting. But this may only serve to unmask a cruel irony: that the most scholastically dedicated young men and women are the ones being shortchanged by the degenerating attention paid to their disciplines.
Of course this rather platitudinous statement is disrupted by the sometimes non-committal relationship that a certain number of over-privileged students bear to their studies. (Enter my anterior allusion to cynicism). The tension in these lads and lasses is easy to spot; it is the effect of a conflict between inheritance and self-determinism. While money is not an issue for them, it is often the case that the appearance of wealth becomes something to shame, and once again there is a circling of the $. Generalizations are sometimes useful, and appearances count for much in our culture, and, in any case, I do not think it a gross simplification to say that the Humanities, as a social force enacted upon the student, impels a certain amount of outward or material class-consciousness. This mixed with the allure of romanticized notions of bohemianism engenders a version of the 20th Century’s “rich man in a poor man’s shirt” dilemma, something which, in itself, ought not to be given much sympathy, but should be outright condemned in certain cases, particularly when what results from the ever-repudiated-safetynet syndrome inherent in most of these “types” (yes, the rhetoric itself imbibes generalizations) is, nevertheless, a sense of being able to “bail out” at any moment, to say, “I’ll feel the discomforts of the mind no more.” In such cases, the individual’s devotion to his or her academic institution, or discipline, becomes lost or superficialized, or the ideality behind the concept of Alma Mater is laughed at not out of social irony, but because the student knows that his “place in the world” will, inevitably, be better advanced by his pedigree than his diploma. It is a superiority complex that stinks of convolution and self-righteousness, yet we should expect no better from a culture that obsessively quantifies everything, including academic achievement.
Why, then, do I still find myself able to profess such a lack of cynicism toward my educators? Plain and simple, myself responds, because of the devotion that they have shown to me. I have been blessed with great mentors, and only this causes me to believe that if just one teacher or professor becomes a source of true inspiration over a student’s academic career, then “the system” has triumphed in the best way. Furthermore, if every class of students produces one artist among the barrage of those who will enter the "real world" with middle-management positions, we will never have to worry about the humanities evaporating.
Why Art?
Because without it our understanding of ourselves is limited, our picture of the world is, quite literally, incomplete. Because it is a process that mirrors that of our maker. Because it is a discipline, and as such, it requires diligent instruction. If it is not taught, encouraged, fostered, it will atrophy even in those with the greatest potential. Because there is such a lack of it. Cultures are defined by their art—art is culture—yet we don’t see its adequate funding as essential. Because all children are artists. Because, in its most nascent form, it is the foundation for all non-verbal communication as understood in the modern sense. Today it is the seed of our civilization evolved and blossomed and awakened to its own existence. It is the record, monitor, and ultimate justifier of our species’ supposed greatness.
But Art must be anchored by its history, its social and disciplinary context, lest it risk losing relevance. Instruction must be as responsible as it is inspiring, qualities that the Humanities—where apologism finds its only eloquent expression—often embody beautifully. Insularity breeds bad art. It turns self-expression into a deplorable exercise in self-importance. In order to express what is within, we must first look without, and observation is the first step for writers and painters and sculptors and filmmakers and new media artists alike.
Traveling between London and Rome last spring, I was impacted by the stark contrast between the subdued literary tone of the Northern countries and the explosive visual energy of Southern Europe. This experience of strong countervailing stimuli affected me strongly, resonating with my state of mind at the time, and eventually found its expression in a self-portrait pastiche I painted toward the end of my sojourning. The painting effectively portrayed my bewildered internal condition, however, it would have been impossible for me to articulate myself if it were not for the knowledge I had accumulated about the cultural history of my surroundings. Historically, art is always in some way linked to careful observation of the external world. What the Humanities are able to do is contextualize such observation. Abstraction exists only as a kind of filtered projection of patent and original forms, though the emphasis on non-representational art in the last century has greatly challenged our perceptions of the way painting and sculpture should be taught.
Indeed, it seems that Modernism has worked its wrench more on the Visual Arts than on most other expressive media. While many will argue the necessity of observational skills as the foundation for an Art education, dutifully citing that “even Picasso could draw,” still more will see the term “Academic” as pejorative when used in the context of a discussion about Painting or Sculpture. The artists of the first part of the last century succeeded in rescuing us from the tyranny of representation, but they also greatly disturbed the gauge by which art is measured. An offshoot of this is seen when contemporary institutions become the outrage of traditionalists and moralists that believe certain works to be an affront on good values and complain that taxpayers’ hard earned dollars are wasted on the corruption of decency. Take, for instance, the fascisistic council Mayor Giuliani threatened to impose on the New York City art scene following the controversy surrounding the Brooklyn Museum two summers ago. Here, as earlier, it seems that it is in less financially stable times that people begin to retract (often by sealing their purses off) from the boundaries that only art is capable of enlarging. The impression is wholly disquieting, for it suggests that art is a mere luxury, when the only basis for this view is that it only very occasionally enlarges coffers. And yet, those works that are deemed financially viable (I believe the term is “priceless”) are coveted with excessive vigor. Why just as I write this, London’s National Gallery is busy slandering the Duke of Northumberland for his supposedly unethical pawning of a Raphael painting to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles so that he may better absorb the cost of maintaining his estate. It is a pity that these great institutions should squabble over pounds and pence, though it shows the extent to which business-like tactics have infiltrated the Arts.
The most convincing argument I’ve heard made for the Humanities came during my Freshman year Western Civ. course in which Professor Moore spent the first day lecturing on the ways a Liberal Arts education gives the student a perpetual means for life enjoyment by instilling in him an appreciation for the creative and intellectual achievements of his fellow wo/man. Perhaps it is because he spent the rest of the semester demonstrating to us what the model of a devoted educator should be that Professor Moore’s words seem, in retrospect, a formative piece of my development as a student. If there is a thread that binds what I have said here, it is that concerns about money (sometimes there is too much, sometimes too little) generally come as a detriment to creative and intellectual pursuits. Perhaps if we could learn to appreciate creativity more as a fundamental human attribute and less as a commodity we might not be so anxious to draw our funds away from the very thing that rescues us from mediocrity amid uncertain times, for in doing so we are like the sick refusing medicine. As Professor Moore would accord, studies in the Liberal Arts are essential for enabling just such an appreciation. Therefore, in response to the question Why Art? we might now answer Because there are the Humanities.
