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BY EVAN MANTYKEPOCH TIMES STAFF

NEW YORK—British writer, phi-losopher, and composer Roger Scruton believes that beauty in art does matter and that the modern art of the 20th century has largely lost that beauty.

A BBC documentary from 2009 vividly detailing Scruton’s views on beauty and art is slowly but steadily spreading on the Internet.

Scruton states in his introduc-tion: “I think we are losing beauty, and with it there is the danger of losing the meaning of life.”

For Scruton, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. It is an objective truth—a classical notion, but one that is com-pletely revolutionary in today’s art marketplace.

Take for example Sotheby’s recent sale of Mark Rothko’s seminal “No.1 (Royal Red and Blue)” for $75 million. The work consists of little more than a few rectangles of coordinated colors. Anyone who is not told the value of such art would find it diffi-cult to identify it with beauty or beauty with any dollar value.

As Scruton narrates in his doc-umentary, “In the 20th century, beauty stopped being impor-tant. Art increasingly aimed to disturb and break moral taboos. It was not beauty but originality however achieved.”

The realization among artists and nonartists alike is increas-ingly that the emperor, in this case the art market, is wearing no clothes. Who can really respect an

“emperor” who insists his parad-ing, naked body is cloaked in the finest of garments? To the clear-headed, he’s delusional.

“One day the knowledge that the emperor has no clothes will spread, and the market will crash—but only temporarily,” Scruton said in an email interview.

The true aesthetic value, the beauty, has vanished in modern works that are selling for mil-lions of dollars. In such works, by artists like Rothko, Franz Kline, Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin, the beauty has been replaced by discourse. The lofty ideals of beauty are replaced by a social essay.

Scruton identifies these promi-nent trends visible in today’s art market: “I think the most impor-tant [trends] are the advantage

conferred on people with a plau-sible sales talk, and the way in which the art establishment can replace spiritual with material values, by propagating art that is primarily to be owned rather than to be looked at.”

As for the undervalued art that predates the 20th century, Scru-

ton said that such works have a lot to offer, including “beauty, humanity, and the care of the soul.”

Some of the artists he picks as the greatest include Titian, Tin-toretto, Rembrandt, and Corot.

“Good art appeals to what is best in people and sets them on the path to self-knowledge,” he said.

As for his other insights, Scruton talked about the unified goal of the arts, whether they be fine arts, performing arts, or literary arts:

“They are all attempts to raise their audience from the animal to the spiritual level (except when they attempt the opposite, like the art of desecration today).”

And, if he were endowed with enough funding, he said: “I would establish schools to teach the true disciplines, which are needed: life drawing, perspective and the knowledge of light and shade, in the case of visual art; materials, shadows, proportions and the Orders, in the case of architec-ture; harmony and counterpoint in the case of music; verse forms, rhetorical figures, and the wealth of imaginative knowledge in the case of literature.”

Scruton’s simple yet powerful vision is a return to the best of classical arts. Let’s face it, Scruton is right: The emperor looks much better with clothes on.

DECEMBER 6 – 12, 2012

Why Beauty in Art Matters: Roger ScrutonBBC documentary details philosopher's views on aesthetics

Good art appeals to what is best in people and sets them on the path to self-knowledge. ROGER SCRUTON

“Portrait of Gabrielle Cot,” William Bouguereau (1825–1905), oil on canvas, 1890. Bouguereau was so enchanted by Gabrielle’s inner beauty, he was known to have lost himself in the painting. He produced a work considered one of the finest portrait paintings in history.

“L’Amour au Papillon,” (“Cupid with a Butterfly”), by William Bouguereau, oil on canvas, 1888, about 66 inches by 46 inches, collection of Fred and Sherry Ross.

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“Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite,” by Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902), oil on canvas, circa 1872, about 26 inches by 3 feet, North Carolina Museum of Art.

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For an in-depth look at why beauty maters, watch Scruton’s documentary online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=csBzlE-PQOU

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