The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

724 THE FREEMAN Decemberhas taught us - is real, and outthere waiting to be experienced.What shall a painter resort towhen the ideology of the age convinceshim and his potential publicthat matter is the ultimate realityand beauty a mere illusion? LetPicasso answer:When I was young I was possessedby the religion of great art. But, asthe years passed, I realized that artas one conceived it up to the end ofthe 1880's was, from then on, dying,condemned, and finished and that thepretended artistic activity of today,despite all its superabundance, wasnothing but a manifestation of itsagony.As for me, from cubism on I havesatisfied these gentlemen (rich peoplewho are looking for something extravagant)and the critics also withall the many bizarre notions whichhave come into my head and the lessthey understood the more they admiredthem.... Today, as you know,I anl famous· and rich. But when Iam alone with my soul, I haven't thecourage to consider myself as anartist. 4One more quotation, this timefrom Joseph Wood Krutch, generalizingabout modern artists:They no longer represent anythingin the external world, because theyno longer believe that the world which4 Quoted by Joseph Wood Krutch inAnd Even If You Do (New York: Wm.Morrow & Co., 1967) p. 186.exists outside of man in any wayshares or supports human aspirationsand values or has any meaningfor him.')Art once celebrated the greatnessof the human spirit and man'saspiration for the divine; greatart reconciled man to his fate."We are saved by beauty," wroteDostoevsky. Art now is the reachingout for bizarre forms of selfexpressionby more or less interestingpersonalities; or it becomesoutright buffoonery and charlatanism.GoodnessThe fifth big idea has to do withethics; it is the conviction thatmoral values are really embeddedin the nature of things, and thatmen have the capacity and are underthe necessity of choosing thegood and eschewing evil. Given arevival of belief in reason and freewill I am confident that ethicalquestions will be brought withinthe human capacity to resolve. Butif we succumb to the attacks onreason and free will, and if weaccept the ideology of Materialismwe will seek in vain for some substitutefor ethics. We reduce moralityto legality; we confuse whatis right with what works; or whatadvantages us, or what pleases us.These things, including utilitari-5 Ibid., p. 185.