Art of Vice

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

This comment by Robert Frost first came to my attention as an art student. I immediately made it my rule, more by instinct, than by reason. Liberal arts college art departments host a steady stream of visiting, post-graduate artists, all professionals of one kind or another, and each on the cutting edge. While all are engaging to hear lecture, a few push the limits of being challenging, going out of their way to be provocative.

“Shock the bourgeoisie” was the battle cry of artists for so long that I expected no less when I matriculated. To be honest, I looked forward to it. In reality it was surprising how much had changed from what was contemporary when I was in school, and what had been asserted in preceding epochs, material by then familiar to all students of art. The new narrative was unexpected. 

Thanks to sage advice, like the comment by Robert Frost, it began to make sense. The guest lecturers which gave hearers the most grief were the very ones you thought about the most, and for the longest time. As my own educational horizon widened, it was inevitable that a notion of a golden mean would develop, building on the precept laid-down by Robert Frost. Not the numerical golden mean, although it is included in the general concept, but the matter addressed by Aristotle in his Ethics. 

A philosophy of art appreciation was what I was getting. By analogy, the mean between two extremes was, for art, a quotient of aesthetic frivolity at one extreme and, at the other extreme, subject matter of grave importance. Both extremes were “vice” and in need of mediation. As virtue in general is a mean between two extremes, the ideal work of art might be defined as a beautiful harmony of material choices.

Impatient to leap ahead, as I was then, to Aristotle's Politics, and it being asserted there that democracy is the best form form of government, it followed that the ideal citizen is a cooperative individual, not a renegade or conspirator, balloting rationally and contented with the outcome. Even so, artistically, every citizen has preferences, at times very far apart, but always predicated on polity-wide inclusion. 

Before leaving ethics for the higher ideal of politics, a definition of individual aesthetic preference could be envisioned, a personal rationale of taste. While art appreciation is more within the scope of politics, creativity remains a solitary action and, if politics are predicated on differences of opinion (with comity), individual aesthetic satisfaction is a golden mean between the twin vices of the extreme.

Indeed, as Epicurus tells us, pleasure is virtue. The simplicity of the axiom was mostly lost on austere Greeks. It remained for Romans to appreciate, and enlarge upon the cultural potential of criticism, argument in matters of taste and, with Horace, Satire was born, Rome's unique contribution to art. His influence can be felt into modern times. 

Greek hero worship was replaced by the Roman paragon, the man-of-virtue, as a practical matter. The monolithic Imperium Romanum allowed only one greatest one, and the emperor could be expected to attend the satirizing repartee of which he was often the subject. Satire was implicitly stoic, which was also perfected by the Romans, and the rules were codified in the advancing science of Rhetoric. The culture of the Roman citizen was thus a ratio of wit and humor, the ability to accept, as well as to give, criticism. 

The graphic art of Brian Higgins can be viewed at: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/8-brian-higgins

One-of-a-kind works of art can be viewed at: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1840403