Skidmore College

Art and Ethics?The (F)utility of Art

Author(s): JOYCE CAROL OATES
Source: Salmagundi, No. 111 (Summer 1996), pp. 75-85
Published by: Skidmore College
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40535989 .
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Artand Ethics?The (F)utility

ofArt
BY JOYCE CAROL OATES
Nothing
beyondtheState,abovetheState,againsttheState.Everything
totheState,fortheState,in theState.
- BenitoMussolini
Allartis quiteuseless.
-Oscar Wilde

The issue for the artist,of course, is: whose ethics? whose
morality?whose standardsof propriety?whose community?whose cenwhose State?
sors? whose judges?-prosecutors?-jailers?-executioners?
The customsof thetribemay seem to outside witnessesto be as
arbitraryas language itself-language, in which words for things arc
understoodto be not-things-but,withinthe tribe,theyare rarelynegotiable.Stillless are theyviolable by theindividualexceptat greatrisk.(As
thedistressingcase ofSalman Rushdiehas made clear.) Whatever"taboo"
is, out of what chthoniandarknessit arises, one thingabout "taboo" is
clear: you violate itonly at a price. The reigningethicsof a societyis the
stonewall againstwhichtheindividualmay flinghimself,to no avail- or
be flung,and broken.As thepoet FrankBidartsays in one of his poems
fromIn The WesternNight: Collected Poems 1965-90:
1. Man is a MORAL animal.
- IF you convince
2. You can get humanbeings to do anything

76

JOYCE CAROL OATES

themit is moral.
3. You can convince humanbeings anythingis moral.
Even if one does not incur the wrathof the authorities,or, in a "free"
democracylikeourown,thewrathofelectedor self-appointedcensors,the
artist'srelationshipto ethicsis always problematic,paradoxical. Always
thereis thequestionnotonlyof whose ethicsbuttheissue of art'spurpose
in thecommunity:If artexists as a mediumby which"ethical" messages
are conveyed,an implicitmoralitysanctioned,why troublewith"art" at
all? Why theambiguous- and ambagious- strategiesof "art"? "If I had
a message," Ernest Hemingway is said to have said, "I would send a
telegram."This wittyrejoindermakes us laugh, suggestingas it does a
naive questionor an impertinent
demand; yet,in moreelevated quarters,
wheretheartistis notunderattackbutindeed may be highlyrespected,it
is commonto encounterquestionsof "theme,""vision," "world-view," as
ifsuchmightbe extractedfromthebodyoftheartist's work;as ifsuchwere
somehow distinctand separablefromtheexperienceoftheart-workitself,
available fora sortof economical freeze-drying.
Whatwas yourpurpose
in writingthis? Whatwere you tryingto convey?Is thishow you see the
world?
In the artist'sown experience,of course, art is fundamentally
indefinable,unsayable;thereis somethingsacred about itsdemandsupon
thesoul, somethinginherently
mysteriousin theformsittakes,no less than
in its contents.Henry James's metaphorof the art of fictionas a "dim
underworld,[a] greatglazed tankof art"in which"strangesubjectsfloat"
is a compellingone, in theparable-likestory"The Middle Years," as is his
rhapsodicinsistenceupon theessential"madness" of artat theconclusion
ofthat story.Here is a contemporarynovelist,MarilynneRobinson:
The novel cherishes what is unuttered, uncountenanced,
uninvolved-the heart's darkness and bitterness.It will not
embarrasstheguiltiestsecretwithrevelation.All sortsofquestions
flourishin thismurkyatmosphere.What is the self? How does
identitytake shape? ...What is guiltand how is it to be borne in
the absence of justice or expiation?These questions change as
soon as theyare put into words because theyhave theirmost

Art& Ethics

77

profound meaning as sensation, in aching discomfortslike

loneliness,awkwardness,emptiness,and dread.
All writersknow this truth:thingschange as theyare put into words
because theyhave theirmostprofoundmeaningas sensation,theheart's
passion and convictionpriorto any linguisticeffortto explain, express,
summarize,dramatize.We know- beforewe comprehendthe termsof
ourveryknowing.We violatethebeautifulsubtletiesofourartbyspeaking
reductivelyof it, yet how else can we speak of it,at all? Or perhaps we
cannot,and should not,except in the verytermsof art:
Tell all theTruthbut tell it slantSuccess in Circuitlies
Too brightforour infirmDelight
The Truth's superbsurprise
As Lightningto theChildreneased
Withexplanationkind
The Truthmustdazzle gradually
Or everyman be blind.
(Emily Dickinson, 1129,c. 1868)
"Art" does afterall suggest "artifice"- even "artificial."Certainlyit standsin a pertinentrelationshipto "nature"- "natural."But the
enemies of art deny this metaphysical distinction,equating what is
metaphoricalwiththeirperceptionof whatis "real," as ifa photographof
a landscape were the landscape, or a word the very thingor concept it
indicates, with the power, too, to do harm. And the artist's power to
expose hypocrisyand fraudhas always evoked fearin
questionauthority,
thecustodiansof the State.
Yet the artistis the perpetualantagonistof what is fixed and
"known"- whatis "moral,""ethical,""good." If itis suggested,however
responds,
obliquely,thattheartistshoulddo x, y,z, he or she instinctively
like StephenDedalus of A Portraitof theArtist,"I will not serve." In its
earliestenergiesin theindividual,artis likelyto be expressiveof adolescentrebellion,forthetypicalartistbeginsin adolescence, defininghim-or

JOYCE CAROL OATES

78

herselfagainstfamily,authority,
a worldof elders.Here is thevoice of the
in
David
Thoreau's
Waiden:
youngrebel, Henry
Old deeds forold people, and new deeds fornew... I have lived
some thirtyyears on thisplanet,and I have yetto hear the first
syllableofvaluable oreven earnestadvice frommyseniors.They
have told me nothing,and probablycannottellme any thing,to
thepurpose. Here is life,an experimentto a greatextentuntried
by me; but it does notavail me thattheyhave triedit.
Thoreau, bornDavid Henry,switchedhis given names about as a young
man; themostprimaryact of self [re]creationis naming.
The voice of rebellionrunsthroughour classic Americanliteradefiantvoice. It is the
ture,whichis on thewhole a youthful,
idiosyncratic,
voice of whichMelville approvesso passionatelyin Hawthorne'sMosses
froman Old Manse: "Thereis thegrandtruthaboutNathanielHawthorne.
He says NO! in thunder;buttheDevil himselfcannotmake himsay yes."
Unheroicin everyway except themostcrucial is Melville's Bartlebythe
Scrivener,whose responsetoeveryreasonablesuggestionputtohimis the
terse, "I would prefernot to"- Bartleby,formerlyof the Dead Letter
Officein Washington;who eventually,like Kafka's HungerArtist,starves
to deathout of sheerstubbornisolationfrommankind.Our most subversive poetic voice of the nineteenthcenturyis surelyEmily Dickinson,
whose stubbornsense ofherown worthsustainedherthroughthecomposing of 1,775 remarkablepoems, mostof themunpublishedand unknown
duringherlifetime.Dickinson was theonly memberof herfamilynot to
declare herselfa Christian;her quick, sly observationson the subject of
God suggesta skeptic's detachmentand bemusement:
Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attemptto rise.
Three times,'tis said, a sinkingman
Comes up to face the skies,
And thendeclines forever
To thatabhorredabode,
Where hope and he partcompany-

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79

Forhe is graspedofGod.
The Maker'scordialvisage,
Howevergoodto see,
we mustadmitit,
Is shunned,
Like an adversity.
(1718,?)
written
thesortofgenteelladies'verse,whether
Thisis hardly
by
femaleor male poets,likelyto have beenpublishedin generalinterest
in Dickinson'stime.Nor
magazineslikeAtlanticMonthly
God is indeeda jealous GodHe cannotbearto see
notwithHim
Thatwe hadrather
Butwitheachotherplay.
(1719, ?)
word-clusters
onthepage,itsbreathless
s poetry
TheverylookofDickinson*
ofpolishedlines,buttherapidflight
thatsuggest,nottheponderousness
herslantrhymes,
is boldlyiconoclastic;
ofthought,
off-rhythms
perverse
virtual
a
cadences
or
broken-off
, a poetry
andfading
metapoetry
suggest
with
of a heightened
self-consciousness,
contemporary ourown
starkly
in themost
time.This is a poeticimagination
capable of expressing,
"I"
is
narrator
Dickinson's
emotions.
most
the
expansive
compactspace,
most
a
and
of
bothan individual singularferocity
figure,
representative
female:
thoughnotexclusively,
frequently,
Theyshutme up inProseAs whena littleGirl
Theyputme in theClosetBecause theylikedme "still"havepeepedStill!Couldthemself
AndseenmyBrain- go round
Theymightas wisehavelodgeda Bird
- in thePound- ...
ForTreason
(613, c. 1862)

JOYCE CAROL OATES

80

Herethe"female"is trappedwithinthe"feminine."
Thereis evidencein
certainofthepoemsthat,forall herreclusiveness,
EmilyDickinsonhad
a senseofherowngenius;sheinhabited
so intenseandall-consuming
an
interior
worldcompete?
world,howcouldan "exterior"
Dare yousee a Soul at theWhiteHeatl
ThencrouchwithinthedoorRed- is theFire'scommontint
ButwhenthevividOre
Has vanquishedRame' s conditions,
It quiversfromtheForge
Without
a color,butthelight
Blaze...
Of unanointed
(365, c. 1862)
Thisis theinterior
all thatthepoetchoosestorevealdrama;theexterior,
I hidemyselfwithinmyflower,
ThatfadingfromyourVase,
feelformeYou, unsuspecting,
Almosta loneliness.
(903, c. 1864)
The fadingcadences,thediminished
finalline:thisis an exquisiteart,in
whichsubjectandlanguageareperfectly
fused.In other,
rawer
seemingly
is thesubjectitself;themind'sterrifying
the
poems,turbulence
autonomy,
self-surrender
to
madness:
dissolution,
poet's
passion,
The Brain,withinitsGroove
- andtrue
Runsevenly
Butleta Splinterswerve
Twere easierforYouTo puta Current
back-

WhenFloodshaveslittheHillsAndscoopeda Turnpike
forThemselves
Andtrodden
outtheMills(556, c.l 862)

Art& Ethics

81

Emily Dickinson is our great American poet of inwardness; kin to, if

anyone,Rainer Maria Rilke and GerardManley Hopkins.
The quintessential^ visible poet of rebellionis the dandy; the
androgyne; the celebrant of fin-de-sicleexcess who, in the style of
Baudelaire, Huysmanns,Wilde floutsnot only authoritybut good taste,
prudence,"common"sense.Who else butOscar Wilde is ourexemplar?--he
who made theobservationthat,whengivinga public lecture,itis notwhat
one says butwhatone wears thatmatters.(TouringtheUnited States and
Canada in 1882, lecturingto promulgate"beauty,"Wilde chose his eyecatchingcostumes withcare: a greatgreencoat thatfell past his ankles,
collar and cuffstrimmedwithsealskin; anothercoat lined withlavender
silk; shirtswithwide Lord Byron collars; brightlycolored necktiesand
handkerchiefs;black velvet suits withpuffedupper sleeves and frillsof
fine lace; knee-breeches,black hose, patent leather shoes with bright
buckles.) As Wilde's mentorWalterPateroffereda "vision" in Studies in
theHistoryoftheRenaissance( 1873) to"regardall thingsandprinciples...as
inconstantmodes or fashions"- "to burnalways withthishard,gem-like
ofaestheticculture...as
flame,tomaintainthisecstasy"- torealize"thetruth
a new formof thecontemplativelife"- "forartcomes to you proposing
franklyto give nothingbut the highestqualityto yourmomentsas they
pass, and simply for those moments' sake"- so Oscar Wilde, with a
self-publicist'sflairfortheprovocative,pushes aestheticismto a sortof
inverted,orpervertedethics."Lying,thetellingofbeautifuluntruethings,
is theproperaim of Art,"Wilde says in "The Decay of Lying"; and, more
famouslyelsewhere,intheprologueto ThePictureofDorian Gray(1891),
"No artisthas ethical sympathies.An ethical sympathyin an artistis an
unpardonable mannerismof style... Vice and virtue are to the artist
materialsforan art... Those who go beneaththesurfacedo so attheirperil...
All artis quite useless."
In "Modern Fiction," in The CommonReader (1919), Virginia
Woolf statesboldlythat"any methodis right,everymethodis right,that
expresseswhatwe wishto express,ifwe are writers."This is theverysoul
of Modernism, the declaration of the artist's independence from all
prescribedformsof art; the virtualeliminationof any awareness of, let
alone concession to,a communityof readers,an audience whose sympathies should be courted.The artistconstituteshis own audience and, in

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JOYCE CAROL OATES

Goethe's terms,is the sole inhabitantof his universe.Voice, style,sheer

language become subject:"Whatseems beautifultome, whatI shouldlike
to write, is a book about nothing,a book dependent upon nothing
- which would be held togetherby the strengthof its style,"
external,
writesFlaubertin a letterof 186 1. The self-determining
artistbecomes an
in
in
of
the
less
terms
than
moralterms,for
obvious enemy
State,
political
nothingso arouses the furyof thepuritantemperamentas a violationof
"taboo"; throughhistory,fromthe time of Homer to the very present,
depictionsof violentacts of savagerycan be accommodatedin artin a way
that depictions of sexual acts of even "normal" proportionsevidently
cannot.The censoriousAmericanmissionaryspiritempowereda crusader
named AnthonyComstock, founderof the New York Society for the
SuppressionofVice inthewaningyearsofthenineteenth
century,toarrest
writers,
publishers,and booksellersfor"violatingcommunitystandardsof
Christiandecency"; this, the virulentpuritanism,whose "democratic"
power should not be underestimated,interferedwith the publicationof
various editions of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, all but banned Kate
Chopin' s TheAwakeningin 1899, and destroyedChopin' s career;eviscerated Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, banned Joyce's Ulysses; served
summonsesupon booksellersas recentlyas thelate 1950' s (in Syracuse,
New York) forstockingLawrence' s Lady Chatterly's Lover,and threatens
writers,publishers,and booksellersat thepresenttime.The hatredof the
mostreactionarycitizensforthosecitizensperceivedas "free-thinking"
as enemies- is always astonishingtotheartistictemperament,
foritseems
so disproportionateto our perceptionof our own power, political or
otherwise.One violates "ethics"- whatever,in thecommunity,"ethics"
preciselyis- at one's own risk.
From otherquarters,in different
epochs, have come otherdemandsupon theimaginativeartist,otherexpectationsof theuses to which
individualtalentmightbe put.Fromtheideological camp of Mussolini et
al. on theFascist right,fromtheideological camp ofMarx,Lenin,Trotsky
et al. on theCommunist-Socialistleft,theinsistenceis thatartis a function
of society;theartist'ssoul belongs to thestate.And iftheartistrebels?the statecan respondwithcensorship,imprisonment,
exile, death.Plato,
loverof theGood, nonethelessarguedforthebanishmentof thepoet from
his idealized totalitarianRepublic; by his own cruel logic, how could he

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83

have disapprovedof theexecutionof Socrates? Always therehave been

artistswho are themselvesideologues,and some oftheseare majortalents;
George Orwell, for instance, who declared thathis work was written
andfor democraticSocialism." In thiscontext,it
"against totalitarianism
is not surprisingthatotherartistsreactedwitharistocraticdisdain. In his
essay "Artas Establisherof Value," Wallace Stevens boldly remarks,"I
mightbe expectedtospeak ofthesocial, thatis thesociological orpolitical,
obligationof thepoet. He has none." VladimirNabokov snubbed"ideas"
entirely:"Mediocritythriveson 'ideas."' His loathingof ideamongers,as
he called them,like Dostoyevsky, Gorki, Mann, Orwell, Freud ("Dr.
Froid," "thatViennese quack") and his reactionagainstdidactic,"realistic" arthave theirbasis in personal,ifunarticulated,
politicsof an extreme
conservativenature.(Nabokov detestedand seems to have fearedhomosexuals, for instance; thus "homosexuals," as he imagines them, are
portrayedwithcontemptin his workas signs or symbolsof disease.) For
Nabokov, a work of fictionis only justifiedif it supplies "what I shall
bluntlycall aesthetic bliss" (Afterword,Lolita). Echoing one of his
masters,Walter Pater,Nabokov remarksin his memoirSpeak, Memory
that pleasure in such moments arises fromthe conscious savoring of
details,ofcolors,textures,patterns,designs: when"mortalityhas a chance
to peer beyond its own limits."Words are worlds; the worldcan only be
apprehendedthroughtheWord. Ordinaryreality"begins to rotand stink
unless it is transformed
by art."
Nabokov's influence was most prevalent in the Sixties and
Seventies,inspiringanynumberofbright,inventive,iconoclasticyounger
writers,most of themmale. The flatteningof fiction'slandscape to two
dimensions,as in a Magrittepainting,and the insistenceupon fiction's
totallack of relationshipto "reality"had its most eloquent polemicistin
William Gass, who argues in The World Withinthe Wordthatpoetryis
"cathartic"only forthe unserious;therapythroughartis a "delusion"; a
characterin a novel is "any linguisticlocation in a book towardwhich a
great part of the text stands as modifier."The ideal book, therefore,
followingFlaubert,would have onlyone character:language itself.Witty
and provocative as this aesthetic stance is, its limitationsare obvious.
- the "Literatureof
- metafiction
PostModernism-self-reflexivefiction
Exhaustion"- "fabulism": confrontedwith so many voices trumpeting

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JOYCE CAROL OATES

the Wildean premisethatall artis quite useless, thereaderis temptedto

turnaside fromexperimentalfictionaltogether.Younger writers,particularly those whose experience of America differssignificantlyfromthe
largelyunexaminedexperienceof thedominantmajority,of whitemale
heterosexualsof themiddle,educated class, have returnedto otherforms
of fiction,poetry,and drama.Race, gender,class emergeas perspectives
of vision as well as subjectsand "issues"; theworkof our giftedcontemporaries,too rich,too diverse,too manyto even beginto name,frequently
combines experimentalmethod with storytellingof a traditionalsort,
"poetic" and "realistic"simultaneously.
If we persist,we come full circle. The shiftsand currentsof
prevailingaestheticsare a greatMobius stripforeverturningupon itself;
stimulatedby,and reactingagainst,and again stimulatedby thepoliticsof
thetime.If we are toldthatartis onlyfortheState,we rebel; ifwe are told
thatartis useless, futile,we rebel; we are creaturesof self-determination,
yetcreaturesofourtime,deeplyconnectedwithone another,nourishedby
one another,definedby one another,in ways impossible to enumerate.
Consider, forinstance,the Belgian SurrealistRen Magritte,creatorof
"antiart"images inthe1920' s and 30' s; thededicatedexperimentalist
who
claimed that,forhim,artwas a "lamentableexpedient"by whichthought
might be produced. Magritte's most characteristic canvases are
thought-parables,
paradoxes unrelatedto thevisual worldand explicable
in
terms
of
ideas (in one famouspainting,forexample, a canvas
solely
a
depicting landscape is set beforea windowopeningout upon the"real"
landscape; in anotherfamouspainting,"The TreacheryofImages," a pipe
is displayed above the caption,This is not a pipe). Magritterejected as
worthlessthekindof artdesignedto evoke emotionin theviewer,as well
as artdisplayingpainterlyeffects.DuringtheNazi occupationofBelgium,
mode.
however,the artistfoundhimselfsuddenlypaintingin a different
Where his art had always been flat,his images generic,monotonie as
wallpaper,in thisphase of his career,whichlastedfromthespringof 1943
to 1946, Magritte's canvases eruptedin color; the tone of his paintings
became brightand joyful, his brushworktook on an Impressionistic
quality. In this "Renoir period," Magritte obsessively painted warm,
sensuous figures,images clearlyintendedto evoke emotion,even eroticism. Magritte,themostcerebralof artists,believed thatthisworkwas in

Art& Ethics

85

reaction to the Nazi tyrannyand the horrorof war: "My work is a

counter-offensive."
The artist as perpetual antagonist; the artist as supremely
the artistas deeply bonded to his or her world,and in a
self-determined;
meaningfulrelationshipwitha community-thisis theartist'sethics,and
the artist'saesthetics.