Why Camille Paglia is Alarmed About the Future of Art
Is the rise of secularism behind the general malaise in the fine arts?
- By Camille Paglia
- Smithsonian magazine, November 2012, Subscribe
My first moments of enchantment by beauty occurred in a church and a movie theater. The interior of St. Anthony of Padua church in Endicott, New York, the upstate factory town where I was born, was lined with richly colored stained-glass windows and niches holding life-size plaster statues of saints in sumptuous robes or silver armor. Paying no attention to the action on the altar, I would stare transfixed at those glorious figures, which seemed alive. At the theater downtown, I was mesmerized by the colossal Technicolor images of Hollywood stars, who seemed as numinous as living gods.
Because of those vivid early impressions, my sense of beauty remains skewed toward the lavish and theatrical. The Italian immigrant culture in which I was raised (all four of my grandparents and my mother were born in Italy) esteemed beauty as a primary principle of life. Everything from a mischievous little boy to the cut of a home-sewn lapel or the construction of a stone wall was called bello (beautiful) or bellissimo (very beautiful). There was no borderline between the arts and crafts: The works of Michelangelo—reproduced on souvenir plaques or ashtrays from the Vatican—occupied the same continuum of handiwork as the lacquered wooden nut bowls carved by my uncle or the wedding dresses stitched by my mother and grandmother to earn extra income.
Thanks to the traditional reverence for art and beauty among the Italian country people from whom I came, I have been waging war for decades against the toxic trends in academe (such as postmodernism and post-structuralism) that view art in a reductively ironic or overly politicized way.
As a 40-year veteran teacher in art schools, I am alarmed about the future of American art. Young people today, immersed in a digital universe, love the volatile excitement of virtual reality, but they lack the patience to steadily contemplate a single image—a complex static object such as a great painting or sculpture. The paintings of their world are now video games, with images in febrile motion; their sculptures are the latest-model cellphone, deftly shaped to the hand.
To try to reawaken a more focused mode of seeing, I spent the past five years writing a book (Glittering Images), which charts the evolving styles of Western art during the past 3,000 years. I am asking the reader to stop and scrutinize each picture as if it were a devotional image in a prayer book. My picture choices were certainly influenced by my childhood experiences in church. For example, the Byzantine mosaic of St. John Chrysostom in Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia recalls the gilt statues in St. Anthony’s depicting the martyred twin brothers Sts. Cosmas and Damian, born in third-century Cilicia (now Turkey). And Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych, with its rows of snapshots of Marilyn Monroe as a cheesecake Madonna, is really a holy icon screen like the one in the Eastern Rite church in industrial Pittsburgh where Warhol was baptized.
Although I am an atheist, a religious perspective shapes my view of art—from the first work in my book, a somber wall painting of Isis in Queen Nefertari’s tomb, to Picasso’s epochal Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a brothel scenario that I interpret as a pagan epiphany of ferocious sex goddesses.
One of my premises is that the current malaise in the fine arts is partly due to the rote secularism of the Western professional class, who inhabit a sophisticated but increasingly soulless high-tech world. The revolution of my 1960s generation was about more than politics. Our new multiculturalism also embraced world religions, not as moralistic belief systems but as epic poems conveying spiritual truths about the universe.
Subscribe now for more of Smithsonian's coverage on history, science and nature.
Comments (13)
I liked your article. But I doubt that you are an Atheist!
Posted by Richard Brewste on February 14,2013 | 10:33 AM
Thank you for writing this article!...Thought I'd share what happened concerning Frank Gehry and the Eisenhower Memorial; http://sabinhowardsculpture.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-happened-with-frank-gehry-on.html#comment-form Best regards, Sabin Howard
Posted by sabin howard on December 10,2012 | 10:00 AM
I think this sums up the article: Kids today! If you don't like the art I like, well, you're doing it wrong. And get off my lawn.
Posted by Kate on December 4,2012 | 07:35 PM
One can almost hear the author mutter, "Kids today" as she trudges ten miles barefoot through the snow to work...
Posted by Ronald Bourret on December 4,2012 | 03:47 PM
continued You said: "One of my premises is that the current malaise in the fine arts is partly due to the rote secularism of the Western professional class, who inhabit a sophisticated but increasingly soulless high-tech world." I think it is BECAUSE of the "soulless high-tech world" that people turn to art. If you put art blogs in the search engine you get about 1,520,000,000 results! With quilling you get about 385,000 results. I believe art is doing well and I believe it will increase in importance as more and more people seek relief from the stressors of our ever increasing fast paced world. Even Martha Stewart has joined the Quilling world. And thankfully with the internet more and more people will spread their artistic wings.
Posted by Charlotte Stubbs on November 13,2012 | 04:06 PM
The quilled art work shown is wonderful. I love the various techniques she used in this piece. I too love using monotone colors in my quilled art. I've been quilling for over 50 years and I'm still learning new things or inventing new techniques. As a disabled Quillest (Quilling artist) I've had to learn to do things differently. Thank goodness for adaptive tools and the internet. The number of other Quillests I meet online stimulate me and allow me to “push the envelope” when I quill. When I first started quilling (at age 5) there were limited colors in the quilling strips available and no tools. I learned to quill using a corsage pin. And I didn’t know anyone who quilled. During the 60-70's it seemed that everyone was creating art including quilling. And then the number dwindled. But I see another resurgence of quilling thanks to the internet. As for being worried about the future of the arts...I'm not. Most kids love learning how to create things and even though our world is much faster now many still take the time to enjoy themselves by creating art. Everyday more people join the various art groups on the net. The work these "amateurs" create is original, beautiful and are often pushing the envelope. Many of us teach quilling to others. The number of creative blogs, galleries, websites and groups is huge. The internet has brought art into the lives of all classes and groups of people. continued in next box.
Posted by Charlotte Stubbs on November 13,2012 | 04:06 PM
Dear Camille, as long as we are thinking there will be beautiful and inspiring art in the world. I live in a small town where I see young artists emerging and growing. I see children playing outdoors and exploring their world. I see adults learning crafts outside of the workplace...trying to balance their lives and walk away for a moment to breathe...by walking away from the computer and the phone. I invite you to walk away for one instant from the harried world you live in...and take a walk outside. You are surely welcome to visit our small part of the world.
Posted by Melissa Walter on November 13,2012 | 10:21 AM
While reading Camille Paglia's definition of beauty and her bleak assessment of the future of art, I have to wonder if the author has forgotten history. Many of the "traditional" works of art Ms. Paglia embraces were created when artists, such as Picasso and Warhol, pushed the boundaries of art by experimenting with media and newly-invented styles. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, and while I too appreciate many "traditional" works of art, I value even more the limitless imagination of the creative spirit. I commend Ms. Paglia in her quest to share the art she loves with others. I hope, too, that she will share her love of art.
Posted by Annette Procyson on October 29,2012 | 09:17 PM
Please explain what exactly is pretentious about this article, Tito.
Posted by Dolph on October 29,2012 | 11:21 AM
are you two voting democrat by any chance?
Posted by mordor on October 28,2012 | 02:30 AM
So pretentious.
Posted by tito on October 28,2012 | 06:51 PM
"One of my premises is that the current malaise in the fine arts is partly due to the rote secularism of the Western professional class, who inhabit a sophisticated but increasingly soulless high-tech world." Why do editors hire this writer for anything? "[T]hey lack the patience to steadily contemplate a single image—a complex static object such as a great painting or sculpture." Utterly ridiculous. She needs better students. The students I have in mathematics have no such trouble. Shame on you, Smithsonian Magazine. I expect better from trolls in comment sections on wingnut sites.
Posted by RC on October 28,2012 | 11:50 AM
Laughable.
Posted by Paul Stiga on October 26,2012 | 11:33 AM