BLOOD AND BEAUTY

has an eye—catching hue with a glossy sheen. It will stick

to a surface, so you can draw or make designs with it (on
the skin of the Aborigine youths, its shimmering cross—
Blood and beauty hatched patterns evoke the archetypal era of the
‘Dream Time’). Blood is our human essence—Dracula
sucks it up as he creates the undead. Blood can be holy
or noble, the sacrificial blood of martyrs or soldiers.
Spots of blood on sheets indicate the loss of virginity
A rude awakening at the Aesthetics Society and passage to adulthood. Blood can also be contamin-
ated and ‘dangerous’, the blood of syphilis or Aids.
n one morning at our American Society for Obviously, blood has a host of expressive and symbolic
O Aesthetics conference, a small group of associations.
people straggled into a room at 9 a.m., to be
jolted awake by slides and videos on ‘The Aesthetics of
Blood in Contemporary Art’. We saw the blood of Blood and ritual
Mayan kings and of aboriginal Australian youths at ini—
tiation ceremonies. We saw blood poured over statues But does blood in kooky modern (urban, industrial,
in Mali and Spurting from sacrificial water buffaloes in First World) art mean what it does in ‘primitive’ rituals?
Borneo. Some of the blood was more recent and closer Some people advocate a theory of art as ritual: ordinary
to home. Buckets of blood drenched performance art— objects or acts acquire symbolic significance through
ists and droplets of blood oozed from the lips of Orlan, incorporation into a shared belief system. When the
who is redesigning herself through plastic surgery to Mayan king shed blood before the multitude in
resemble famous beauties in Western art. Something Palenque by piercing his own penis and drawing a thin
was guaranteed to disgust almost everyone there. reed through it three times, he exhibited his shaman—
Why has blood been used in so much art? One reason istic ability to contact the land of the undead. Some
is that it has interesting similarities to paint. Fresh blood artists seek to recreate a similar sense of art as ritual.
 BLOOD AND BEAUTY BLOOD AND BEAUTY

Diamanda Galas fuses operatic wizardry, light shows, producing symbolic value by the use of ceremonies, ges—
and glistening blood in her Plague Mass, supposedly to tures, and artefacts. Rituals of many world religions
exorcise pain in the era of Aids. Hermann Nitsch, the involve rich colour, design, and pageantry. But ritual
Viennese founder of the Orgies Mystery Theatre, prom— theory does not account for the sometimes strange,
ises catharsis through a combination of music, painting, intense activities of modern artists, as when a perform—
wine-pressing, and ceremonial pouring of animal blood ance artist uses blood. For participants in a ritual, clarity
and entrails. You can read all about it on his Web site at and agreement of purpose are central; the ritual
www.nitsch.org. reinforces the community’s proper relation to God or
Such rituals are not altogether alien to the European nature through gestures that everyone knows and
tradition: there is a lot of blood in its two primary understands. But audiences who see and react to a
lineages, the Judaeo-Christian and the Greco-Roman. modern artist do not enter in with shared beliefs and
Jahweh required sacrifices as parts of His covenant with values, or with prior knowledge of what will transpire.
the Hebrews, and Agamemnon, like Abraham, faced a Most modern art, in the context of theatre, gallery, or
divine command to slit the throat of his own child. The concert hall, lacks the background reinforcement of
blood ofJesus is so sacred that it is symbolically drunk to pervasive community belief that provides meaning in
this day by believing Christians as promising redemp— terms of catharsis, sacrifice, or initiation. Far from audi—
tion and eternal life. Western art has always reflected ences coming to feel part of a group, sometimes they
these myths and religious stories: Homeric heroes won get shocked and abandon the community. This hap—
godly favour by sacrificing animals, and the Roman tra- pened in Minneapolis when performance artist Ron
gedies of Lucan and Seneca piled up more body parts Athey, who is HIV-positive, cut the flesh of a fellow per-
than Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. former on stage and then hung blood-soaked paper
Renaissance paintings showed the blood or lopped towels over the audience, creating a panic. If artists just
heads of martyrs; Shakespeare’s tragedies typically want to shock the bourgeoisie, it becomes pretty hard to
concluded with swordplay and stabbings. distinguish the latest kind of art that gets written up in
A theory of art as ritual might seem plausible, since Artfomm from a Marilyn Manson performance that
art can involve a gathering guided by certain aims, includes Satanic rituals of animal sacrifice on stage.
 BLOOD AND BEAUTY BLOOD AND BEAUTY

The cynical assessment is that blood in contemporary

art does not forge meaningful associations, but pro—
motes entertainment and profit. The art world is a
competitive place, and artists need any edge they can
get, including shock value. John Dewey pointed out in
Art as Experience, in 1934, that artists must strive for
novelty in response to the market:

Industry has been mechanized and an artist cannot

work mechanically for mass production. . . . Artists find
it incumbent . . . to betake themselves to their work as
an isolated means of ‘self—expression.’ In order not to
cater to the trend of economic forces, they often feel
obliged to exaggerate their separateness to the point of
eccentricity.

Damien Hirst, the ‘Britpack’ artist who sparked con-

troversy in the 1990s by displaying macabre high-tech
exhibits of dead sharks, sliced cows, or lambs in vitrines
of formaldehyde, has parlayed his notoriety into success
with his popular Pharmacy restaurant in London. It is
hard to imagine how Hirst’s tableaux of rotting meat
(complete with maggots) helped his image in the food
business—but fame works in mysterious ways.
Some of the most infamous art of recent decades
1 ‘Young British artist’ Damien Hirst won fame with his animals
in vitrines, like this huge shark in The Physical Impossibility ofDeath became controversial because of its startling presenta—
in the Mind of Someone Living ( 1 99 1) . tion of human bodies and body fluids. At the 1999
 BLOOD AND BEAUTY BLOOD AND BEAUTY

Sensation exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the art feel that if a body is to be shown nude, it should
most controversial artwork (‘Virgin Mary’ by Chris resemble Botticelli’s Venus or Michelangelo’s David.
Ofili) even used elephant dung. Controversy erupted These critics seemed unable to find either beauty or
about funding of the US National Endowment for the morality in Serrano’s infamous photograph Piss Christ
Arts (NEA) in the late 1980s after bodies were pene— (see Plate 1). Senator Jesse Helms summed it up, ‘I do
trated and exposed, as blood, urine, and semen became not know Mr Andres Serrano, and I hope I never meet
newly prominent in art. Images like Andres Serrano’s him. Because he is not an artist, he is a jerk.’
Piss Christ (1987) and Robert Mapplethorpe’s jim and Controversies about art and morality are not new, of
Tom, Sausalito (1977) (which showed one man urinat- course. The eighteenth-century philosopher David
ing into another man’s mouth) became key targets for Hume (171 1—1776) also dealt with hard questions
critics of contemporary art. about morality, art, and taste, a key concern of his era. It
It is no accident that this controversial work was is likely that Hume would not have approved of blas-
about religion, as well as body fluids. Symbols of pain phemy, immorality, sex, or the use of body fluids as
and suffering that are central to many religions can be appropriate in art. He felt artists should support
shocking when dislocated from their community. If Enlightenment values of progress and moral improve—
they mix with more secular symbols, their meaning is ment. The writings of Hume and his successor
threatened. Artwork that uses blood or urine enters Immanuel Kant (1 724—1 804) form the basis of modern
into the public sphere without the context of either aesthetic theory, so I turn to them next.
well-understood ritual significance or artistic redemp-
tion through beauty. Probably the critics of modern art
are nostalgic for beautiful and uplifting art like the Sis— Taste and beauty
tine Chapel. There, at least the bloody scenes of martyred
saints or torments of sinners at the Lastjudgement were The term ‘aesthetics’ derives from the Greek word for
wonderfully painted, with a clear moral aim (just as the sensation or perception, aisthesis. It came into promin-
horrors of ancient tragedy were depicted through in- ence as a label for the study of artistic experience (or
spiring poetry). Similarly, some critics of contemporary sensibility) with Alexander Baumgarten (1714—1762).
 BLOOD AND BEAUTY BLOOD AND BEAUTY

The Scottish philosopher David Hume did not use this that Hume’s taste—arbiters only acquired their values
term but spoke of ‘taste’, a refined ability to perceive through cultural indoctrination.
quality in an artwork. ‘Taste’ might seem completely Kant too spoke about judgements of taste but he was
subjective—we all know the saying ‘there’s no account— more concerned with explaining judgements of Beauty.
ing for taste’. Some people have favourite colours and He aimed to show that good judgements in aesthetics
desserts, just as they prefer certain kinds of automobiles are grounded in features of artworks themselves, not
or furniture. Isn’t art just like this? Perhaps you prefer just in us and our preferences. Kant tried to describe
Dickens and Fassbinder, while I prefer Stephen King our human abilities to perceive and categorize the
and Austin Powers; how can you prove that your taste is world around us. There is a complex interplay among
better than mine? Hume and Kant both struggled with our mental faculties including perception, imagination,
this problem. Both men believed that some works of art and intellect or judgement. Kant held that in order to
really are better than others, and that some people have function in the world to achieve our human purposes,
better taste. How could they account for this? we label much of what we sense, often in fairly
The two philosophers took different approaches. unconscious ways. For example, we modern Westerners
Hume emphasized education and experience: men of recognize round flat things out in the world, and we
taste acquire certain abilities that lead to agreement categorize some of these as dinner plates. Then we use
about which authors and artworks are the best. Such them to eat our meals. Similarly, we recognize some
people, he felt, eventually will reach consensus, and in things as food and others as potential threats or
doing so, they set a ‘standard of taste’ which is universal. marriage partners.
These experts can differentiate works of high quality It is not easy to say how we categorize things like red
from less good works. Hume said men of taste must roses as beautiful. The beauty of the roses is not out
‘preserve minds free from prejudice’, but thought there in the world, as the roundness and flatness are in
no one should enjoy immoral attitudes or ‘vicious the plates. If it were, then we would not get into so many
manners’ in art (his examples included Muslim and disagreements of taste. And yet there is some sort of basis
Roman Catholic art marred by over-zealousness). for claiming that the roses are beautiful. After all, there
Sceptics now criticize the narrowness of this View, saying is quite a lot of human agreement that roses are

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beautiful and that cockroaches are ugly. Hume tried to Beauty and disinterestedness
resolve this problem by saying that judgements of taste
are ‘intersubjective’: people with taste tend to agree When I perceive the red rose as beautiful, this is not
with each other. Kant believed that judgements of quite like putting it into my mental cupboard of items
beauty were universal and grounded in the real world, labelled ‘beauty’—nor do I just throw the disgusting
even though they were not actually ‘objective’. How cockroach into my mental trash can of ‘ugly’ items. But
could this be? features of the object almost force me (‘occasion me’)
Kant was a kind of predecessor to modern scientific to label it as I do. The rose might have its own purpose
psychologists who study judgements of beauty by (to reproduce new roses), but that is not why it is beau-
observing infant preferences for faces, tracking Viewers’ tiful. Something about its array of colours and textures
eye movements, or hooking up artists to do magnetic prompts my mental faculties to feel that the object is
resonance images (MRIs)—see also below in Chapter 6. ‘right.’ This rightness is what Kant means by saying that
Kant noted that we typically apply labels or concepts to beautiful objects are purposive. We label an object
the world to classify sensory inputs that suit a purpose. beautiful because it promotes an internal harmony or
For example, when I find a round flat thing in the dish— ‘free play’ of our mental faculties; we call something
washer that I recognize as a plate, I put it away in the ‘beautiful’ when it elicits this pleasure. When you call a
cupboard with other plates, not in the drawer with thing beautiful, you thereby assert that everyone ought
spoons. Beautiful objects do not serve ordinary human to agree. Though the label is prompted by a subjective
purposes, as plates and spoons do. A beautiful rose awareness or feeling of pleasure, it supposedly has
pleases us, but not because we necessarily want to eat it objective application to the world.
or even pick it for a flower arrangement. Kant’s way of Kant warned that enjoyment of beauty was distinct
recognizing this was to say that something beautiful has from other sorts of pleasure. If a ripe strawberry in my
‘purposiveness without a purpose’. This curious phrase garden has a ruby colour, texture, and odour that are so
needs to be further unpacked. delightful that I pop it into my mouth, then the judge-
ment of beauty has been contaminated. In order to
appreciate the beauty of this strawberry, Kant thinks

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our response has to be disinterested—independent of

its purpose and the pleasurable sensations it brings
about. If a viewer responds to Botticelli’s Venus with an
erotic desire, as if she is a pinup, he is actually not
appreciating her for her beauty. And if someone enjoys
looking at a Gauguin painting of Tahiti while fantasiz-
ing about going on vacation there, then they no longer
have an aesthetic relation to its beauty.
Kant was a devout Christian, but he did not think
God played an explanatory role in theories of art and
beauty. To make beautiful art requires human genius,
the special ability to manipulate materials so that they
create a harmony of the faculties causing viewers to
respond with distanced enjoyment. (We will look fur—
ther at an example, Le N6tre’s gardens at Versailles, in
the next chapter.) In summary, for Kant the aesthetic is
experienced when a sensuous object stimulates our
emotions, intellect, and imagination. These faculties
are activated in ‘free play’ rather than in any more
focused and studious way. The beautiful object appeals
to our senses, but in a cool and detached way. A beauti-
ful object’s form and design are the key to the all-
important feature of ‘purposiveness without a purpose’.
We respond to the object’s rightness of design, which
2 Many people believe art should be beautiful and nudes should
be Greek gods and goddesses, like Sandro Botticelli’s Venus from satisfies our imagination and intellect, even though we
Birth of Venus. are not evaluating the object’s purpose.

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Kant’s legacy Bullough, a literature professor at Cambridge, wrote

a famous essay in 1912 that described ‘psychical dis—
Kant developed an account of beauty and of our tance’ as a prerequisite for experiencing art. This was a
responses to it. This was not all there was to his theory of somewhat updated account of Kant’s notion of beauty
art, nor did he insist that all art must be beautiful. But as the ‘free play of imagination’. Bullough argued that
his account of beauty became central to later theories sexual or political subjects tend to block aesthetic
that emphasized the notion of an aesthetic response. consciousness:
Many thinkers held that art should inspire a special and
. [E]xplicit references to organic affections, to the
disinterested response of distance and neutrality. Kant’s
material existence of the body, especially to sexual mat—
View of beauty had ramifications well into the twentieth
ters, lie normally below the Distance-limit, and can be
century, as critics emphasized the aesthetic in urging
touched on by Art only with special precautions.
audiences to appreciate new and challenging artists like
Cézanne, Picasso, and Pollock. Art writers such as Clive Obviously, the works of Mapplethorpe and Serrano
Bell (1 88 1—1 964), Edward Bullough (1 880—1 934), and would be the furthest thing from Bullough’s mind as
Clement Greenberg (1 909—1 994) adopted varying views candidates for the label of ‘Art’.
and wrote for different audiences, but they shared atti— And Greenberg, who was Pollock’s major champion,
tudes in common with Kant’s aesthetics. Bell, for celebrated form as the quality through which a painting
instance, writing in 1 9 14 emphasized ‘Significant Form’ or sculpture refers to its medium and to its own condi—
in art rather than content. ‘Significant Form’ is a par- tions of creation. Seeing what is in a work or what it
ticular combination of lines and colours that stir our ‘says’ is not the point; the astute viewer (with ‘taste’) is
aesthetic emotions. A critic can help others see form in meant to see the work’s very flatness or its way of
art and feel the resulting emotions. These emotions are dealing with paint as paint.
special and lofty: Bell spoke of art as an exalted There are important rivals to this account of art as
encounter with form on Art’s ‘cold white peaks’ and Significant Form; I will consider some later in this book.
insisted that art should have nothing to do with life or But the views of Enlightenment thinkers like Kant and
politics. Hume still reverberate today in discussions of quality,

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morality, beauty, and form. Art experts testified at the different tradition from the aesthetic formalism of
obscenity trial of the Cincinnati gallery that exhibited Kant’s twentieth—century successors.
Mapplethorpe’s work that his photographs counted as
art because of their exquisite formal properties, such
as careful lighting, classical composition, and elegant Defending Serrano
sculptural shapes. In other words, Mapplethorpe’s
work fulfilled the ‘beauty’ expectation required of Lippard’s defence of Serrano uses a three—pronged
true art—even nudes with huge penises should be analysis: she examines (1) his work’s formal and material
viewed with dispassion as cousins of Michelangelo’s properties; (2) its content (the thought or meaning it
David. expresses); and (3) its context, or place in the Western
But how did proponents defend Serrano’s Piss Christ? art tradition. Each step is important, so let us review
This photograph was highly offensive to many people. them in more detail.
Serrano has made other difficult photographs as well: First, Lippard describes how a picture like Piss Christ
his Morgue series zeroes in on gruesome dead bodies. looks and was made. Many people were so disgusted by
Another disturbing image, Heaven and Hell, shows a the title that they could not bear to look at the work;
complacent man (actually the artist Leon Golub) others saw it only in small black and white reproduc—
dressed in red as a Cardinal of the Church standing tions. My students thought that the image showed a
beside the nude and bloody torso of a hanging woman. crucifix in a toilet or in a jar of urine—neither of which
Cabeza ale Vaca features the decapitated head of a cow is true. The actual photograph looks different from a
that unnervingly seems to peek at the viewer. Taking small image in a magazine or book (like the one repro—
on the challenge of explaining such work, critic Lucy duced here)—just as aficionados will say that an Ansel
Lippard wrote about Serrano in Art in America in Adams original has qualities no reproduction can
April 1990. We can look at her review to see how an art convey. Piss Christ is huge for a photograph: 60 by 40
theorist talks about difficult contemporary art. Because inches (roughly five by three feet). It is a Cibachrome, a
she emphasizes the art’s content and Serrano’s emo- colour photograph that is glossy and rich in its colours.
tional and political commentary, Lippard represents a This is a difficult medium to work with because the

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prints’ glassy surfaces are easily ruined by the touch of that in Catholicism, bodily suffering and body fluids
a fingertip or the slightest speck of dust. have been depicted for millennia as sources of religious
Though the photograph was made using (the artist’s power and strength. Vials in churches hold fabric, bits
own) urine and has ‘piss’ in its title, the urine is not of blood, bones, and even skulls that commemorate
recognizable as such. The crucifix looks large and saints and stories of miracles. Instead of being regarded
mysterious, bathed in golden fluid. Lippard writes: with panic or horror, these relics are reverenced. Per—

Piss Christ—the object of censorial furor—is a darkly haps Serrano grew up with and looks back upon a
beautiful photographic image. . . . The small wood—and— somewhat more vital kind of encounter with the spirit-
plastic crucifix becomes virtually monumental as it ual in fleshly form than what he sees in the culture
floats, photographically enlarged, in a deep golden, around him. The artist wanted to condemn the way that
rosy glow that is both ominous and glorious. The bub— culture pays only lip service to a religion without truly
bles wafting across the surface suggest a nebula. Yet the endorsing its values.
work’s title, which is crucial to the enterprise, trans- It is hard to prevent a discussion of form and
forms this easily digestible cultural icon into a sign of materials from spilling over into a discussion of content.
rebellion or an object of disgust simply by changing the We have already begun to take up the second prong of
context in which it is seen.
Lippard’s article by considering the artist’s intended
Serrano’s title is (no doubt intentionally) jarring. It meaning. Serrano told Lippard about his religious
seems we are meant to be torn between being shocked concerns:
and musing over an image that is mysterious, perhaps
I’d been doing religious pictures for two or three years
even reverential.
before I realized I had done a lot of religious pictures! I
With regard to the artwork’s ‘material’ qualities,
had no idea I had this obsession. It’s a Latino thing, but
Lippard explains that Serrano does not regard body
it’s also a European thing, more so than an American
fluids as shameful but as natural. Perhaps his attitude thing.
stems from his cultural background: Serrano is a mem—
ber of a minority group in the United States (he is part Serrano claims that his work was not done to denounce
Honduran and part Afro—Cuban). Lippard points out religion but its institutions—to show how our con-

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temporary culture is commercializing and cheapening democratic values. His lifetime spanned the American
Christianity and its icons. Lippard supports this by not— and French Revolutions and the terrors of the French
ing that the artist produced a group of similar works in and Spanish Peninsular War. His place as a genius in the
1988 (Piss Deities) showing other famous icons of canon of Western art is secure. Appointed official
Western culture afloat in urine, ranging from the Pope painter to the King of Spain in 1 799, Goya is well known
to Satan. Analysis of the content or meaning of other for his images of noblemen in gold-tasselled uniforms
disturbing works, such as Heaven and Hell, requires the and ladies in brilliant satins and silks. He painted
further step of talking about Serrano’s context. familiar Spanish genre scenes like bullfights; but sex
The third point of Lippard’s three-pronged defence and politics were never far from his art. His enticing but
of Serrano then goes beyond discussing his work’s for- controversial Naked Maja brought him to the attention
mal properties or themes to address his inspirations of the Spanish Inquisition.
and artistic antecedents. Serrano speaks of his ‘strong Goya witnessed tumultuous political events when
ties to the Spanish tradition of art, which can be both Napoleon’s army invaded Spain; he painted many
violent and beautiful’, mentioning in particular the scenes of battles, revolts, and assassinations, such as his
painter Francisco Goya and filmmaker Luis Bunuel. famous The Executions of May 3, 1808, where innocent
This art—historical context is interesting and important, civilians are gunned down by an inexorable, faceless
but complicated. I will zero in on just the first of these row of Napoleon’s soldiers. At the centre stands a man,
comparisons and look at Goya’s works in more detail, to arms outflung in mortal terror a moment before the
assess whether Lippard has used a reasonable strategy bullets will hit. Another man lies dead in a pool of
in linking Serrano’s controversial contemporary art to blood. Monks hide their faces in horror at the mas-
this prominent and respected Spanish predecessor. sacre. Some would say this scene of death is not so
unusual in Western art. The artist drew on religious
imagery of martyred saints to depict new political
Goya—a precursor?
martyrs.
Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1 746—1 828), a contempor- Goya’s art made people confront the dire possibilities
ary of both Hume and Kant, was a supporter of modern of human nature in moments of extreme crisis. In his

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Caprichos series he created savage images of moral He evoked these scenes repeatedly in disturbing works
depravity, scenes set in brothels and caricatures that in his series of Los desastres de la Guerra (The Horrors of
showed people as chickens and doctors as donkeys. The War) (1 8 10—1 8 14). Goya makes it plain that there were
painter defended his aims (speaking of himself in the no moral winners in this war: a French soldier lounges
third person): while a peasant hangs, but then a peasant hacks away at
a helpless man in uniform. Goya’s sketches seem to
[C]ensoring human errors and Vices—although it reject Enlightenment hopes of progress and human
seems the preserve of oratory and poetry—may also be a improvement and approach moral nihilism in endless
worthy object of painting. As a subject appropriate to
gruesome scenes of beheadings, lynchings, spearings,
his work, he has selected from the multitude of stupid-
spikings, and more.
ities and errors common to every civil society, and from
Even beyond this political despair, the artist seems to
the ordinary obfuscations and lies condoned by custom,
ignorance, or self-interest, those he has deemed most fit
have plunged into bleak hopelessness after a horrific
to furnish material for ridicule, and at the same time to
illness left him deaf. His Black Paintings, done on walls
exercise the author’s imagination. in a room of his own home, are among the most
disturbing in all of art history. Saturn Devouring One of
Some would say that Goya’s moral perspective dif- His Sons depicts the graphic and bloody dismember—
ferentiates him from a modern artist like Serrano. ment of a cannibalistic infanticide. Other images,
Whereas (some think) Serrano sought sensationalism though less bloody and Violent, are even more disturb-
or was too ambiguous about the meaning of images like ing. His Colossus sits huge and menacing upon the land
Piss Christ and Heaven and Hell, Goya’s position seems like an enormous Cyclopean monster. Dog Buried in the
clear and defensible. But this contrast is not so easy to Sand is a pitiful animal overwhelmed by brutal forces of
maintain. Since Goya supported the French Revolution, nature, alone and despairing. It is impossible to View
it is assumed he is a creature of the Enlightenment, these late works of Goya with aesthetic distance. Are
sharing its values with men like Hume and Kant. But they the product of a diseased mind, a sick imagination,
Goya witnessed terrible atrocities, with violence and a temporary lapse of sanity? It would be sheer dogma to
retaliation on both sides during the invasion of Spain. deny that Goya has stopped being a good artist because

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such works are painful or because their moral point

seems obscure.
This brief art historical detour enables us to draw a
positive conclusion about Serrano’s claim to regard
Goya as a forebear whose images combine beauty with
great violence. Remember that such a comparison is a
part of Lucy Lippard’s defence of Serrano’s often
troubling images. Of course, a detractor might say that
Goya is different from Serrano because his artistic abil-
ity was greater, and because he depicted violence not to
sensationalize it or to shock people but precisely in
order to condemn it. Each point has problems. It is
going to be hard to compare any twentieth-century art-
ist to a ‘Great Master’ from the past like Goya. We are
not in a position to know the ultimate judgement of
history; and not being a Goya does not mean that
someone altogether lacks artistic ability. Lippard has
argued, reasonably, that Serrano’s work exhibits skill,
training, thought, and careful preparation.
And second, it is quite possible that Goya is not assert-
ing a morally uplifting message in all his works, but say-
ing instead that human nature is dreadful. A lament can
be a legitimate message in art, even when delivered with
shocking content that prevents us from maintaining
3 Francisco Goya’s Saturn alludes to ancient Greek mythology,
in a disturbing image open to both political and personal our aesthetic distance. Perhaps Serrano meant to insult
interpretations. established religion, but this could stem from a moral

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motivation. When he photographs corpses it may not be at the start of this chapter, such as a Mayan or Australian
to wallow in their decay but to offer anonymous victims Aboriginal tribal gathering. It seems unlikely we are
some moments of human sympathy. Such an aim seeking to contact the gods and higher reality, or
would confirm the continuity between him and his appease spirits of our ancestors.
distinguished artist predecessor Goya. But neither does recent art seem defensible within
an aesthetic theory like Kant’s or Hume’s that rests
upon Beauty, good taste, Significant Form, detached
Conclusion aesthetic emotions, or ‘purposiveness without a pur-
pose’. Many critics do praise the beautiful compositions
Artwork in recent years has incorporated a lot of horror. of Mapplethorpe’s photographs and the elegant styliza—
Photographers have shown corpses or the grisly severed tion of Hirst’s gleaming vitrines with suspended animals
heads of animals, sculptors have displayed rotting meat inside. But even if they find the work beautiful, its start-
with maggots, and performance artists have poured out ling content demands consideration. Perhaps disinter-
buckets of blood. I could have mentioned other highly estedness has some small role in approaching difficult
successful artists with similar subjects: the tortured art by enabling us to try harder to look at and under—
bodies of Francis Bacon’s paintings (which we will con- stand something that seems very repugnant. But the
sider in Chapter 6), or the representations of Nazi work’s content is also very crucial, as I think Hirst’s titles
ovens in Anselm Kiefer’s huge dark canvases. indicate—he confronts viewers directly with tough
So far I have raised doubts about two theories of art. issues, as in the shark piece, entitled The Physical
The theory of art as communal ritual fails to account for Impossibility ofDeath in the Mind ofSomeone Living.
the value and effects of much contemporary art. The By pointing back to works of an important artist from
experience of walking into a spacious, well—lit, and air— the past, Goya, I have argued that contemporary ugly or
conditioned gallery or a modern concert hall may have shocking art like Serrano’s has clear precedents in the
its own ritualistic aspects, but ones completely unlike Western European canon. Art includes notjust works of
those achieved by the sober participants with shared formal beauty to be enjoyed by people with ‘taste’, or
transcendent values at occasions like those I mentioned works with beauty and uplifting moral messages, but

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 BLOOD AND BEAUTY

also works that are ugly and disturbing, with a shatter—

ingly negative moral content. How that content is to be
interpreted remains a matter for more discussion
below.

Freeland, Cynthia. But Is It Art? An Introduction to Art Theory. Ox-

ford, 2001.

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