Nov 8, 2013

YES, CANVAS LOVES ME, DE BOTTON TELLS ME SO.


     Good news for wealthy, but overstressed, professionals with “Jobs to go to, bills to pay [and] homes to manage.” Inner peace is within reach. Easily, so. No religion to study or yoga mats to lug around like a Sherpa. According to Alain de Botton in his article, “Art For Life’s Sake” (WSJ 11/2-3/13) the path to serenity leads not to the mountain top, but through  a museum.
         
     Mr. de Botton begins with several assumptions: that people need help with “some of the troubles of inner life,” that visual art is “uniquely well-suited” to the task and that he has anything of value to say on the subject. The first assumption is validated by the existence of the self-help industry. The second is obvious to anyone who can find a museum with a map.The third merits examination, but only because the author is wallowing in cultural approbation. In addition to writing for The Wall Street Journal, Alain de Botton has written four bestsellers, co-founded a demi-philosophical dodge called “The School of Life” in London and, most impressively, salon moi, is a member of two Royal Societies. Assuming, of course, that they aren’t The Royal Mountebank Society and The Royal Institute of Charlatans.

The first painting that Mr. De Botton addresses is The Linen Closet by the 17th century Dutch painter, Pieter de Hooch. It shows two servants stocking the eponymous cupboard. “But this picture moves us because the truth of its message is so radiant. If only we, like de Hooch, knew how to recognize the value of ordinary routine, many of our burdens would be lifted.” If only he, like de Hooch, knew that this depiction of ordinary routine was preceded by centuries of exclusively religious art, the value of observing domestic chores would be self-evident. The only lifting of burdens, by the way, is being done by the servants in the painting.
Ironically, it’s their daily routine.

The next work of art is the black-and-white photograph, North Atlantic Ocean, Cliffs of Moher by Hiroshi Sugimoto. Mr. De Botton calls it “abstract” and then proceeds to talk about it in terms of sea, sky and horizon. See here, Alain, it’s either abstract or figurative, recognizable or not. Throwing around terms like that undercuts your authority and undermines your “radiant message.” In this case, a Desiderata-like disquisition about going placidly amid the haste.
          
     Finally, we have Claude Monet’s Impressionist masterpiece, Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lillies. De Botton defends its popularity against charges of vulgar “prettiness.” The precious aesthetes who supposedly make these charges deem it to be an unworthy distraction from “war, disease, political error, immorality.” Our guru, on the other hand, writes, “It is this kind of despondency that art is well-suited to correct and that explains the well-founded enthusiasm for prettiness.” All this talk about prettiness obscures the fact that when this work was painted, it was considered so radical and disturbing that it wasn’t worthy of being displayed with respectable art. Yet, today, Monet is considered so mainstream that Alain De Botton feels compelled to defend him. We could use a different Horatio, however, at this particular bridge. Instead of praising society for finally embracing Impressionism, de Botton’s “radiant message” is “Flowers in spring, blue skies, children running on the beach . . . these are the visual symbols of hope. Cheerfulness is an achievement and hope is something to celebrate.” Writing like that is the hallmark of nothing except greeting cards. As H.L. Mencken wrote about Pres. Warren G. Harding’s command of the English language, “It drags itself out of a dark abysm of pish and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of posh.”
         
     I seem to be alone, though, in not regarding Alain de Botton as a “renaissance man” of our time – unless you mean Machiavelli or a Borgia pope. To me, he’s more Rev. Ike than Sister Wendy and aspires to be Dr. Phil. Yet, his elevation continues at the bottom of the page where his WSJ article appears. The biographical note states not only that “Art As Therapy,” a book-length version of the above insights (co-authored with John Armstrong) has been published, but “From March to August 2014, Messrs. de Botton and Armstrong will rehang and recaption the works in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam according to the approach outlined in the book.” I’m trying to picture that, but all I see is a museum lobby with three different admission desks: one says, “Feeling Lonely,” another says, “Feeling Religious” and  the third says, “Feeling Cheap.” The curatorial discussions, though, could be fascinating: “Where should we hang Rembrandt’s The Night Watch? In the Jewelry Collection or the Trouble Sleeping Gallery?”

Far be it from me to insist that there is only one path to enlighten-ment. Buddhism counts eight of them. As for different types of therapy, I agree with the American newspaper columnist and author of Fables In Slang, George Ade, who wrote, “A good jolly is worth whatever you pay for it.” Yet, humbugs abound. So, for the last word on Alain de Botton, I defer to Ade’s contemporary, L. Frank Baum, who, in The Wizard of Oz, wrote, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

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