One journey to find the value of art

Wednesday 20 April 2005

Sitting on the train at King's Cross, waiting for the train to pull away. A few noisy kids in the seats in front of me.

Six hours ago I was on the train from Hatfield. I had a funny thought then, how I should have missed the train because it leaves at 17:23, and I only entered the ticket office at 17:26. Since I had to be at the Tate Britain at 18:30 there was no way I'd be on time if I had to wait for the next one.

The temptation to attribute some meaning to my good fortune was considerable, and I did just that, thinking that it was meant to be, it was done for me. I liked that, it being a completely self-serving notion of course. Stopping short of contemplating just how that could have happened, such as a supernatural intelligence's plan for me, I indulged my New Age belief without trying to pinpoint it, and retraced it, observing to myself how, if I should enquire, I would probably find that the commuter train is on average quite often 7 minutes late and my meaning has a statistical incidence that makes its significance suspect.

And so, pleased at having it both ways almost at the same time I continued reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle on the way to meet C and attend a discussion at the Tate Britain to find an answer to the pressing question: "What is the value of art?".

They were a panel of three, and Robert Boyce facilitated. The original person couldn't make it so his slightly uninformed comments are understandable. He didn't give many. I have no idea what the official reason for the discussion was as C organised the outing, but there was certainly a promotional aspect to it - both Matthew Kieran and John Carey are recently published authors and their books were for sale afterwards.

They are introduced, and the first thing to notice is the difference in age: Matthew is in his thirties and has a trendy image, and forever leans to one side in his chair. He is lecturer in philosophy at Leeds University. John is a lot older - but mentally razor-sharp - and Merton professor of literature at Oxford university.

Each got a turn to give their view on the subject, and explain his book's thesis. Matthew, whose favourite phrases are "in a certain kind of way" and "as it were", talked about Vermeer and Gillian Waring's photos and Michelangelo's Mary, and tried to emphasise the continuity between traditional art and contemporary art. His main point may be summarised as there being better and worse reasons to value art, and that there are, as it were, objective values, in a certain kind of way. He is also interested in the originality of the masters. He talked about Holbein's Ambassadors, where a skull emerges when you look at the painting from one perspective, implying how changing one's perspective can change meaning, for instance revealing that death lurks in the midst of important people.

John Carey on the other hand takes a slightly more pessimistic view. He started by mentioning possible reasons people might value art: a feeling of superiority over others is one (after all, people depend on differences for their individual selfhood); or, following Boudier (?) it may simply be a matter of taste because in life "you choose everything"; or in the vein of D.L. Williams who wrote The Mind in the Cave, it's about separating oneself from other people. He reasoned that Homo Sapiens tried to differentiate itself from Neanderthals by eg. graphics and wearing certain accessories or clothes - and eventually subjugated them and killed them all. Or something like that.

Then there is the question of rapture or ecstacy - many people have done research on this in relation to artistic experience and concluded that it's certainly not unique to artistic experience. For instance Marghanita Laski in Ecstacy and Bill Buford in Among the Thugs. This already raises the question whether artistic experience can necessarily be a morally good thing, but he answers it more fully. In the 19th century the answer would have been yes, but these days few people seem to agree. The Kreitlers in Psychology of the Arts concluded that there is no reason to think that behaviour can be changed by art. For good measure John mentioned that Hitler was a great art patron who accumulated possibly the largest collection of art in history. Is art a sign of civilisation then? To some it seems like a monument to privilege and social inequality.

For John the question boils down to a matter of taste. He considers the alternatives - perhaps an external supernatural agent can evaluate it, God for instance. Or neuroscience can reveal its value as it maps experiences to brain areas. Finally interpersonal comparison - "my judgement is better than yours" - could account for it. But none of these reasons he finds convincing.

There were several questions from the floor (C asked one) after the initial bit of debate between them, but all in all I felt the discussion was too short. Afterwards a number of people I talked to thought that when it was stopped it was merely for intermission. But there was the book signing then and as we both were taken in by the evening I bought Matthew's Revealing art and C bought John's What good are the arts?. I tried to get mine signed but it took ages as there was such a swirl of girls constantly hovering around Matthew that I almost didn't get my gap.

And then the evening suddenly got good. What on earth made me think of turning down the offer of joining everyone at the pub?! Well I didn't abstain in the end, and it's all thanks to a newfound friend that C made who convinced me not to go off looking for a restaurant instead. Oh what a pleasure to meet people who enjoy talking about literature, philosophy! Many of the people seem somehow connected to Matthew, knowing him from somewhere. He is clearly highly intelligent, but this is another unique skill. I immediately saw that he is in fact a bit of a celebrity.

But what a lovely, surprising evening ... isn't it ever so tempting again to recall that I almost missed my train, almost non-started off the evening, and therefore it was meant to be? Like art this thought may be little more than self-indulgence - or it is simply beneficial for my well-being. A more logical investigation quickly reveals the quicksand under that satisfying belief.

I'm now going to stop here but not before stating that although I thought John's arguments were more congruent and concise than Matthew's (Matthew improvises very well, but not everybody followed his philosophy style arguments, and he didn't always bring them together) his is a very relativistic view that leaves open too much. It's the postmodernist view, and it's very vulnerable. Not wrong as such, but vulnerable. Matthew's reasonable values may or may not be better, he wasn't specific enough.