«(...)And because critics made fools of
themselves in the mid-19th century, by preferring the salon art of
Bouguereau to the innovative visions of Manet, few critics today will
venture an adverse judgment
of anything that presents itself as an
original gesture, however offensive or banal. Hence the
continuing
scandal of the Turner Prize - which is not a scandal at all, since
nobody in a position to
say so has pointed out that the Emperor has
no clothes.
Many people conclude that art is not
what it was once cracked up to be, that it is not about the
beautiful, the sublime and the transcendent, but that it is a skill
like any other and that the greatest
part of the skill is
self-advertisement. Find a way of drawing attention to yourself,
whether with
words or images or noises; get the right connections,
the right agent and the right kind of subsidy,
and you too can be an
artist. Of course, talent is important. But it is a talent for
attracting attention,
rather than for seeking and finding the eye of
God. Just look at what Christo achieved, simply by
wrapping
buildings, and even sections of the Australian coastline, in plastic
sheets! It took talent of
a quite special kind to get someone else
to pay for such a prank, and then to be paid again for doing
it.(...)» in «
What has art got to do with beauty these days?» of
Roger Scruton
