Should art tell us what to think?

Alain de Botton argues that art should be less ambiguous. Is he right?

Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project at London's Tate Modern. Source.

Are art galleries the new churches? Alain de Botton seems to think so. In a recent online article for The Guardian, he implies that galleries have become a contemporary congregation point for atheists and agnostics. Is this really true? I'm not so sure. But de Botton is keen to stress the point, arguing that art museums as they currently stand are inadequate to their newly appointed role: 'The problem is that modern museums of art fail to tell people directly why art matters, because modernist aesthetics (in which curators are trained) is so deeply suspicious of any hint of an instrumental approach to culture.' This, we are told, is a bad thing: 'Christianity, by contrast, never leaves us in any doubt about what art is for: it is a medium to teach us how to live, what to love and what to be afraid of.' So what is he suggesting?

First of all, is de Botton correct when he says that art galleries lack an instrumental approach? I would suggest the opposite. Galleries are under a great pressure to pull in visitors and generate revenue. A lot of thought and care goes into the venue, layout and presentation of exhibitions. Each gallery is designed with visitor pathways in mind: we wander through galleries in a suggestive state, and are gently persuaded to form judgements and opinions. Names we recognise are placed next to names we don't, to suggest connections, similarities, or even differences that we might not have thought about ourselves.

To me, it seems clear that art galleries enact an instrumental approach to culture. From the labels that imply the value of a work with a caption, to the signs reading 'Modernism', 'Postmodernism' or 'Expressionism': all signs generate narratives that guide our understanding, and, perhaps more importantly, our opinion. Meanings are generated by these signs, by the position of the artworks, by the swell of crowds, and our attitudes are generated accordingly. Everything is by design. Even the classic debate about the value of modern art is, to some degree, a masterwork of the galleries themselves: artworks are acquired to generate discussion, even controversy, and are arranged to guide the spectator's thoughts and feelings.

But de Botton might be right when he says that the art gallery privileges a certain kind of ambiguity. It resists telling us what art is for in the most direct terms. But isn't that what we like about art galleries? If we don't like what we see, isn't it more fun to be able to mock the exhibitions and feel entitled to our opinion? If we have a special connection with a work of art, is it not special because we feel we have found it for ourselves? To me, art is something that can be fun to talk about, but it's also something private, something I can connect with on a personal level. I find that being told what is important about an artwork is the same as being told what artworks to like, which ones we should value and which ones we should ignore. Why do I want to be told what to love, what to be afraid of?

As de Botton raises the subject of religion, why don't we think about the word 'spiritual'? It is a word that defines the religious beliefs and inclinations of millions of people. It is something private and otherworldly, something rare and mystical, something ambiguous. Pre-packaged truths might be convenient for dinner parties or evening cocktails, a way to sound clever and sophisticated, but that does not make them instrumental to a happy life. Ambiguities allow us to think for ourselves, they allow us to daydream about the world without restrictions or external limits. Ambiguities can open up new possibilities, they can challenge politics, morality and public opinion. Ambiguities might be art's greatest gift.

Marcel Proust on reading newspapers

20th century novelist on the sensationalism of the daily news

Marcel Proust, quoted in Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Save Your Life:

That abominable and sensual act called reading the newspaper, thanks to which all the misfortunes and cataclysms in the universe over the last twenty-four hours, the battles which cost the lives of fifty thousand men, the murders, the strikes, the bankruptcies, the fires, the poisonings, the suicides, the divorces, the cruel emotions of statesmen and actors, are transformed for us, who don't even care, into a morning treat, blending in wonderfully, in a particularly exciting and tonic way, with the recommended ingestion of a few sips of café au lait.

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Marcel Proust's Obituary

La Rouchefoucauld's Maxims

Alain de Botton reviews the maxims of François de La Rochefoucauld

La Rochefoucauld believed in a different picture of the mind. Arguments are like eels: however logical, they may slip from the mind's weak grasp unless fixed by beautiful sentences. La Rochefoucauld is therefore an inspiration to anyone who feels divided between the role of a philosopher and a writer: he suggests that you can have the best of both worlds, and indeed went on to inspire some of the greatest of philosophers. It isn't accidental that he turns out to have been dearly loved by, among others, Kierkegaard, Leopardi, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Cioran. La Rochefoucauld reminds us that great pessimism doesn't have to be depressing: to read him is like sucking the juice from the bitterest lime, and enjoying it. [Read More]

Alain de Botton, 'Book Of A Lifetime: Maxims, By La Rochefoucauld'

The Independent, 23 October 2009

Alain de Botton Responds to his Critics

Popular contemporary philosopher responds to recent criticism

Alain de Botton has been at the receiving end of some rather scathing judgments lately. After reading a negative review of his new book written by Caleb Crain for the New York Times, de Botton wrote a personal attack on the reviewer's personal website. The message, intended as a private communication between de Botton and Crain, criticizes the reviewer for an unfair and 'manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value'. Alain de Botton summarizes by stating: 'I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude.'

It is interesting to note that since the comments de Botton were made publicly, he has to some extent regretted his rather aggressive outburst. But, nonetheless, de Botton maintains that the New York Times published an unfair and aggressively negative review of his recent work. The website Reluctant Habits is currently featuring an article in which de Botton constructively responds to his critics, which you can read by clicking here.

I'm not one to judge de Botton's aggression in this matter. I think it's ironic that a supposedly philosophical writer of self-help books could be quite so quick to lose his temper, but I can see his point. I also think that there is a tendency to judge de Botton's writing a little too hastily. It's not Plato, but as airline paperbacks go it's not a bad footnote. Toby Lichtig springs to his defence in today's Times Literary Supplement, and goes as far as to compare Alain de Botton's attitude to that of Samuel Beckett, a bold move indeed:

What de Botton’s critics tend to ignore is his literary brilliance. Label him a “social commentator” rather than a “philosopher” and the arguments against him start to fall away; relabel him a “writer” and they disintegrate entirely. With his stress on better living, he has been compared to Montaigne, but his elegant, tortuous sentences owe more to Marcel Proust, about whom de Botton wrote an early book. Philosophically, he is perhaps closer to Samuel Beckett, who also wrote a youthful monograph on Proust. De Botton is a connoisseur of bathos. Few contemporary cultural critics have such a keen eye for hubris, such a witty grasp of juxtaposition. His every observation is framed by an acute awareness of absurdity, offset by a tenderness for human folly. “The impulse to exaggerate the significance of what we are doing, far from being an intellectual error, is really life itself coursing through us”, he concludes at the end of The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, before triumphantly proclaiming: “Let death find us as we are building up our matchstick protests against its waves”.

Toby Lichtig, 'All Work and No Play'

Times Literary Supplement, 3 July 2009