It's sweet, but u by might it also make us tearful*
7. Sainte ClMpelle Virgin and Clnld. before 1279
We appreciate beauty more when we are aware of life's troubles.
8. Henri Fantin-Latour, Chrysanthemums. 1871
9. Henri Fantin-Latour. Self Portrait as a Young Man. с Л 860s
The more difficult our lives, the more a graceful depiction of a flower might move us. The tears - if they come - are in response not to how sad the image is, but how pretty. The man who painted a picture of humble, beautiful chrysanthemums in a vase was, as his self-portrait suggests, intensely aware of the tragedy of existence (8, 9). The self- portrait should put to rest any worry that the artist has presented us with a cheerful image out of misplaced innocence. Henri Fantin-Latour knew all about tragedy, but his acquaintance with it made him all the more alive to its opposites.
Consider the difference between a child playing with an adult and an adult playing with a child. The child's joy is naive, and such joy is a lovely thing. But the adults joy is placed within a recollection of the tribulations of existence, which makes it poignant. That's what 'moves' us, and sometimes makes us cry. It's a loss if we condemn all art that is gracious and sweet as sentimental and in denial. In fact, such work can only affect us because we know what reality is usually like. The pleasure of pretty art draws on dissatisfaction: if we did not find life difficult, beauty would not have the appeal it does. Were we to consider the project of creating a robot that could love beauty, we would have to do something apparently rather cruel, by ensuring that it was able to hate itself, to feel confused and frustrated, to suffer and hope that it didn't have to suffer, for it is against this kind of background that beautiful art becomes important to us, rather than merely nice. Not that we should worry. For the next few centuries at least, we have problems enough to ensure that pretty pictures are in no danger of losing their hold over us.
A lot of the world's art isn't just pretty; it seems to go further, presenting us with a thoroughgoing idealization of life. This can be even more troubling to contemporary sensibilities. The Royal College of Physicians stands in the middle of Edinburgh's New Town (10). Imagine the proceedings that are supposed to go on in this building - all dignity, erudition and calm authority, exactly the sort of professional face the doctors of Edinburgh would no doubt like to present. The building turns an august front to the world, demanding respect, even reverence. It embodies an idealization.
Idealization in art has a bad name because it seems to involve endowing something or someone (a profession, a person) with virtues more glowing than they actually possess, while disguising any imperfections with polish and subterfuge. In modern use, the notion of idealization carries a pejorative charge, as the idealizing artist strips away whatever is awkward or disturbing, leaving only the positive. The worry is that
if we arc attracted to such simplified objects, if we praise them and take pleasure in them, we will do an injustice to reality.
For example, a painting that presents the countryside as a serene and elegant location for pleasure might be criticized for excluding the economic realities upon which the vision depends (11). Where arc the servants who must bring the wine and fruit? Where are the peasants the leisured class rely on for their income? The fear is that in loving the picture, we ignore crucial aspects of existence, and even, in a sense, condone the exploitation of servants and peasants.
More titan simply pretty. this is an 'ideal'.
10. Thomas Hamilton. The Royal College of Physicians. Edinburgh, 1845
A more personal issue can also be at stake. We may worry that a person who has an idealized conception of some parts of life will be less able to cope with the messiness of actual existence. Someone who imagines that little children are always sweet will approach a family weekend with alarmingly brittle and unhelpful expectations, and may turn away in disgust from perfectly normal behaviour and make unreasonable demands on the conduct of their own and other people's offspring. It is hardly surprising, then, if being 'realistic' - the antidote to idealization - is judged a cornerstone of maturity, which in turn accounts for certain accepted artistic reputations. It is now normal to rate George Grosz, with his relentless exposure of the darkness below
civilized institutions, more highly than Angelica Kauffmann and her pretty visions of Arcadian life (12, 13). Grosz seems to give us reality; Kauffmann a dream.
However, it is worth examining why idealization was for long periods of history understood to be a central aspiration of art. When painters present things as better than they are, they do not generally do so because their eyes are closed to imperfections. When we look at The Artist in the Character of Design Listening to the Inspiration of Poetry, we should not assume that Angelica Kauffmann was unaware of the realities of women's lives in the eighteenth century. She was attempting to give expression to her longings for harmony and fruitful endeavour, longings that were particularly intense because Kauffmann was so exposed to her own and others' failings (in 1767, when she was 26, she was tricked into marriage by a sociopathic adventurer who posed as a Swedish count).
We should be able to enjoy an ideal image without regarding it as a false picture of how things usually are. A beautiful, though partial, vision can be all the more precious to us because we are so aware ot how rarely lite satisfies our desires. Returning to the neoclassical facade of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, we should allow ourselves to enjoy it as an image of professional decorum and expertise without fearing that we are colluding with a subterfuge being played on a gullible public. The ideal it stands for is genuinely noble. We can love the ideal while being perfectly aware of the fallibility and imperfect motives of the group of men who commissioned its representation.
The apparent opposite of idealization - caricature - has a lot to teach us about how ideal images can be important to us. We are very much at ease with the idea, exemplified by caricature, that simplification and exaggeration can reveal valuable insights that arc lost or watered down in ordinary experience.
We can take this approach and apply it to idealized images, too. Strategic exaggerations of what is good can perform the critical function of distilling and concentrating the hope we need to chart a path through the difficulties of life.
Hasn 't most of reality been edited out?
II. Antoinc Wattcau, Rendez-vous de chasse (Meeting on the Hunt}, c.1717-8
Both are distortions; both serve a purpose.
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12. George Grow., The Pillars of Society. 1926
13. Angelica Kauffimnn, The Artist in the Character of Design Listening to the Inspiration of Poetry, 1782
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Sorrow
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is teach us how to suffer more successfully. Consider Richard Serra's Fernando Pessoa (14). It is encouraging a profound engagement with sadness. The outward chatter of society is typically cheerful and upbeat - confess a problem to someone and they tend at once to look for a solution and point us in a brighter direction. But Serras work does not deny our troubles; it doesn't tell us to cheer up. It tells us that sorrow is written into the contract of life. The large scale and overtly monumental character of the work constitute a declaration of the normality of sorrow. Just as Nelson's Column in the centre of Trafalgar Square in London is confident that we will admit the importance of naval heroism, so Serra's Fernando Pessoa, named after the Portuguese poet who knew about sorrow (4Oh salty sea, how much of your salt / is tears from Portugal') is confident that we will recognize and respond to the legitimate place of the most sombre and solemn emotions. Rather than be alone with such moods, the work proclaims them as central and universal features of life.