A post in which I ponder the nature of art and genius

I apologize in advance, gentle reader, for the surfeit of unanswered questions posed in this entry. Such is the nature of pondering - asking yourself questions for which either there are no answers, or you don't know them...

I’ve been doing some thinking about The Magic Flute, Mozart, art, etc.

Thinking back over the performance Wednesday night, I am struck by how Mozart wrote on two different levels. There were definitely high-flown themes (integrity, honor, stoicism, etc) on display; yet the character you loved was Papageno, who stole every scene. Next to him Tamino seemed stodgy and inflexible – honorable, but not that interesting.

On the one hand, I wonder how much of the lofty ideals were required elements. At the time Mozart wrote The Magic Flute, he was working as an independent agent. His works had to sell or to be performed. The traditional themes for music were history, legend, folklore, and mythology (aka Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen). Mozart’s music was exquisite, and there is no doubt that he was religious. He wrote many religious works, and was a lifelong member of the Catholic Church. But he was known to be a lover of practical jokes and scatological humor. I can’t help but wonder if the opera he really wanted to write was about Papageno (particularly in light of the profound influence the Opera Buffa had on him), and he had to include Tamino to make the work ‘respectable’ and marketable. I also wonder how much intentional parody of traditional themes was intended in the character of Tamino – who, as performed Wednesday night, could well have been a caricature of the Virtuous Hero.

There is a similar mix of the mundane and the transcendent in the works of Shakespeare. On the one hand, high flown themes of love, honor, valor, and loyalty; but on the other hand low-brow jokes and comedic asides and crudities clearly aimed at the gallery. So were these artists who catered to the lowest common denominator to sell tickets and fill the seats? Or were these men of more plebeian tastes who were forced into some obeisance to classical formulas to appease social mores? Is their genius shown by the fact that they are able to get the lofty themes across in nonetheless beloved works? Or does that just make them good marketers? Have these works survived because of their undeniable artistry, or because they filled the seats? Is it the nature of genius to refuse compromise, or to use compromise for the greater good or to extend the life of your work? I wonder if more high-minded or talented works have been lost to history because they weren’t as popular. I also wonder if years from now people will still be watching the Marx Brothers when Dark Victory is long forgotten. Is time the only test? Perceptions change, and merit is certainly not something that can be judged objectively – particularly in the context of one time period. Strauss’s works were basically derided as dance music in his lifetime, but now he is considered a gifted composer. Dickens was the JK Rowling of his time, and his books are now studied as literature.

This coincidentally leads me to the movies of John Waters, which I have been re-watching this week. On the surface, of course, his films are of the most puerile and base of the genre. He has embraced the moniker ‘Prince of Puke’. Yet in listening to the director’s commentary this week on Pink Flamingos, he reveals that originally there was a ‘magic mirror’ device used by the villainess Connie Marble to ask “Who is the filthiest person alive?” The device didn’t work technically, due to the limited budget, and was cut from the film; but hearing about it made me look at the movie in a new way. Couldn’t Divine’s character Babs Johnson in fact be an anti-hero version of Snow White – her complete rejection of virtue being the repudiation of older values? If that’s the case, then the movie is a social commentary, and certainly art; a theory bolstered by its selection for the Museum of Modern Art’s theater and film collection. That is definitely a marked change in perception on a movie that was not only widely banned upon release, but for which Waters was repeatedly arrested for showing.

So is it nobler to write high-minded less interesting things that people won’t read, or to pander to common tastes and slip in themes that may be more enriching? I suppose it does no good to expound on a virtuous theme if your work reaches no one. But on the other hand, should art be used as a medium to illustrate virtuous themes at all? Is the definition of art something that teaches, instructs or illuminates; or is it merely the illustration of the creator’s thoughts regardless of its effect on anyone else? Is art defined by effect or creation? I suppose that’s the dilemma of the artist – or indeed of culture in general. The things I see in society bother me - the continuing wave of anti-intellectualism in particular. It’s unfashionable to be smart. That makes you a nerd. So where is the next generation of doctors to come from? Television has apparently abandoned even the form of any kind of redeeming theme in their no-holds-barred race to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Voyeurism (in the form of the ‘reality show’) has replaced wit. Even the majority of published books now seem more like sit-com pilots than literature. Because of the huge publishing houses, if a book can’t sell millions, it doesn’t get printed. Gone are the days when publishers chose books based on merit or talent.

Extrapolated, this is the dilemma of civilizations. Societies that have become too erudite, too focused on being civilized – in other words too civil – have invariably fallen at the hands of more militant barbarians (i.e. Imperial China, overrun by the military might of the British, or Rome, overrun by Germanic invaders {albeit that both societies were propped up by slave labor and a rigidly defined caste system}). So perhaps we need a mix of the common along with the refined in order to thrive, or to survive? I suppose that would be the blessing, or the curse, of human nature, depending on your perspective.

Never has more information been more readily available to more people. The internet is a treasure trove of art, information, music, and literature at our very fingertips. Yet the majority of profitable websites, the ones people visit, market pornography. I’m not a prude or a prig. I can enjoy my baser side, and at times revel in the artless splendor of the mundane. And Lord knows I have no room to get on a soapbox about porn. But there are times that my spirit hungers for more substantial nourishments. There are times that I crave something beyond the common. That is a hunger that seems to be not only increasingly ridiculed, but disappearing. It will be a sad day for this world, and for humanity, if that hunger dies.