Is art man's highest achievement, or is its value just a matter of opinion? The incorrigible Jason Rapert, state senator and professional Philistine from Bigelow, has his own decided opinion on the matter, and it's a lot more decided than it is thoughtful.
As for the rest of us, we might do well to consider the guidance offered by these concise words from the founder of the Vienna Secessionist school of art back in another century: "To every age its art, to every art its freedom." But there will always be those whose idea of artistic freedom is to trash it by imposing their own straitjacket of a definition on it.
The history of the Vienna school itself might well be titled Art Interrupted, for when the First World War came along, all such art--and the freedom to practice it--was put on hold for the duration. And today we are left with the kind of censor whose vision of the future is a state Capitol grounds cluttered with all sorts of gimcrack "art." From a tinny replica of the Ten Commandments to an equally tasteful or distasteful display of every conceivable kind of statuary that ever graced or disgraced that site. In short, a kind of catalog of statuary monuments from which to pick and choose. Call it statuary rape of the landscape.
Would you prefer a monument to the brave Confederate women who kept the home fires burning while their men were off fighting the War of Northern Aggression, or a carnival-like duplicate of the worst moments in Western history? What, no cupids and curlicues? No toy models of a biblical Jerusalem for tourists to get lost in? Anything will do except just sweeping the Capitol grounds free of all such impedimenta to where the grounds end and a visitor must return to humdrum reality.
The notion that simpler is better seems alien to the Jason Raperts of the world still stuck in the Victorian age. The hope that Arkansas might be spared such visual horrors is proving in vain thanks to their tireless efforts. How nice it would be if they just gave it a rest. Instead their zealotry is matched by their tastelessness.
It is all too much to be taken seriously by those of us who yearn for a beautiful simplicity instead of a convoluted complexity. But there will always be those whose idea of art might better be called the funhouse mirror school. And any resemblance to the real thing may prove only coincidental.
Art remains the highest attainment of Western man and the most characteristic aspect of Homo sapiens, for what other species has left us evidence like the cave drawings discovered by those who ventured beneath the surface to examine them?
Who knows? One of these days explorers might come across a caricature down there of a politician very much resembling our contemporary Jason Rapert propounding more bad ideas than he can possibly control. For they seem to control him. Instead of being a source of notions and nostrums, he is only their end product. And is left bereft of any originality or creativity. Without a real idea that might enthrall the rest of us. Whatever irritation his politics provide, they inspire more pity than admiration. He seems lost in a world he didn't make but that made him.
Oh, art! What sins are committed in thy name! Their variety may be endless, but they all have at their base an all too human vanity. And I do mean base. As opposed to noble. The existence of Brother Rapert among us in this day and deluded age is enough to refute the whole theory of evolution. If he's looking for convincing proof of the descent of man, he need only look in a mirror. Unbounded by any sense of propriety or modesty, off he soars into the wild blue yonder. And not since Icarus has a figure so invited a crash landing. But why take the rest of us along for the ride? Thanks but no thanks.
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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 11/02/2016