November 3, 2013.

Art for Life's Sake

She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. She had regained some of her colour, and appeared very much better.

Art enjoys such financial and cultural prestige that it's easy to forget the confusion that persists about what it's really for. Questions like "What is this painting about?" or "Why should this old sculpture matter to me?" have a way of sounding impudent and crass. Nice people generally don't ask such things, except in the privacy of their hearts, on their way down the concrete steps of white-walled galleries.

"It's nothing," she repeated shortly. "I only gave my wrist a bit of a bang. Thanks, comrade!"

Meanwhile, the art establishment proceeds under the assumption that art can have no purpose in any instrumental or utilitarian sense. It exists "for art's sake," and to ask anything more of it is to muddy pure and sacred waters.

And with that she walked on in the direction in which she had been going, as briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. There was no question that she had done it intentionally. It was something small and flat. As he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his pocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap of paper folded into a square.

This refusal to name a purpose seems profoundly mistaken. If art is to deserve its privileges (and it does), we have to learn how to state more clearly what it is for and why it matters in a busy world. I would argue that art matters for therapeutic reasons. It is a medium uniquely well suited to helping us with some of the troubles of inner life: our desire for material things, our fear of the unknown, our longing for love, our need for hope.