Art as Moral Chaos

In art, beauty has to be won, but the work becomes harder as the sheer noise of desecration drowns out the quiet voices murmuring in the heart of things.

An amazing article in City Journal taking to task the abstract and post-modern shock-art of the 21st century. While I don’t agree 100% with his position, philosopher Roger Scruton makes quite a case for reclaiming Beauty in art. For example, check out this incendiary paragraph:

Wherever beauty lies in wait for us, there arises a desire to preempt its appeal, to smother it with scenes of destruction. Hence the many works of contemporary art that rely on shocks administered to our failing faith in human nature — such as the crucifix pickled in urine by Andres Serrano. Hence the scenes of cannibalism, dismemberment, and meaningless pain with which contemporary cinema abounds, with directors like Quentin Tarantino having little else in their emotional repertories. Hence the invasion of pop music by rap, whose words and rhythms speak of unremitting violence…

His point further on is that we humans have a supernatural need for Beauty. When today’s artists desecrate Beauty they are intentionally debasing the sacred. Maybe out of fear or anger or protest. “Every now and then,” Scruton says, “we are jolted out of our complacency and feel ourselves to be in the presence of something vastly more significant than our present interests and desires. We sense the reality of something precious and mysterious, which reaches out to us with a claim that is, in some way, not of this world.” Something which is uncanny and frightening and something against which we struggle.

Is contemporary art merely “moral chaos?” Is Beauty still a worthwhile standard for artists? Is it enough to just want to express something through art? Is postmodernism a worthless dead end of anxiety? What art do you like these days?