Make Art Beautiful Again

Introduction. In the past 100 years, art has cared about dynamism, dadaism, surrealism - about everything except beauty. In a powerful manifesto, artist Mark Miremont says its time forthe resurrection of beauty. A Memo on how art has gone wrong and how it can course correct👇

Miremont argues that a "cynical relativism" is hurting both science and art: "In science, the physicist thinks just because he can, he should design bombs that can kill millions of people. In art, the artist thinks just because he can, he should say a urinal in a gallery is art."

All action is preceded by belief. Our worldview has material consequences: "What we value creates culture. Culture informs action. Action defines history. History determines the present. The values of the 20th century have led us to where we are now." But what values?

Miremont lists them: "Sarcasm, empty intellectualism, decay and the desperate need to shock." These values have led not to beautiful works of art that enrich both the artist and the audience, but to cynical works that alienate the artist from the audience, and both from beauty.

Today, unfortunately, "beauty is commonly believed to have no place in art." Thinkers from "Wilde to Serra" have argued that art is - and should be! - useless. The very meaning of art is diluted beyond meaning: "Anything can be art, if so named."

Miremont writes: "We do not doubt the genius of Dada questioning what art can be. Yet, the values derived from anti-art's nihilistic ontology do not free us, they doom us." Absolute artistic freedom creates not masterpieces, but blank canvases with a $20 million price tag.

Modern art destroys classical ideas of beauty because it can't compete with them: "It is easier to desecrate something of Beauty than to create something of Beauty. The former is lazy intellectualism at best. The latter is the path of art."

Our task isn't to copy classical art, but to make beauty a central concern: "While we reject the values derived from 20th century relativism, this doesn't make us neo-classicists. There were works lacking Beauty before dada and there've been works of Beauty despite dada."

Artists unconcerned with beauty are like scientists dismissive of truth: "Beauty is the purpose of art, just as a building is the purpose of architecture. The utility of art is to inform us of Beauty, just as the utility of science is to inform us of truth."

Bottom line. We need beauty like we need oxygen - it's a "fundamental need." Mark Miremont writes: "Dysfunction in the individual, the family, the society and the world is often due to a lack of Beauty." The contemporary artist's work is cut out:  "to resurrect Beauty."