ART
AND THE WARPED VISION
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we call talent is not sufficient to produce "art": thousands of people
have enough verbal and narrative skill to write and even to find a
market. Our idea of art embraces, in addition to control of the
medium, a profound and arresting sense of the world, and it is
conceivable that this power, though mainly intellectual, is enhanced
by a disposition, which we would call neurotic, to reject conven–
tional attitudes.
The question remains as to how a view of the world that has
been warped, if only partially, by neurosis can be said to be truth–
ful, objective, or morally stimulating. The question is bound up
with many philosophical considerations, including the very nature
of art and truth, that are themselves in dispute. But this much can
be said: the idea that art is the dispenser of moral and philosophical
truths is only a myth, though a prevailing one in our culture. Like
most _other myths, this one has great suggestive power, linking art
to other pursuits that enlarge our vision and understanding, but it
cannot be applied literally without falling into didacticism.
From the time of Plato and Aristotle there has been an almost
constant pressure, from many different sources, to enlist the arts
in the service of some higher
aim
or some larger truth. Rarely and
only for short spells was it permissible for a novel, say, or a paint–
ing to steer clear of the claims of morality, politics, or religion;
usually it was considered frivolous and irresponsible to think of the
arts in their own terms. At first there was the messianism of Chris–
tianity, then the Protestant ethic, and more recently the growth of
utilitarian ideals, the development of a social conscience, and the
confusion of art with education in the spread of middle and high
culture-all these forces have conspired to get us to believe that art
is supposed to make us better and wiser. There may be some am–
biguity about whether art is by nature concerned with truth and
morality or whether that is its ideal purpose toward which it must
strive at all times. In either case the effect is the same: art has
become an easy prey in our culture to all kinds of theories and
causes that claim to have discovered some medical, moral, or historical
truth.
Now part of the difficulty obviously comes from the fact that
none of the arts is self-contained. Despite the efforts of many for-
