Art on its own terms The late Walter Kerr's theater criticism appeared in these pages in the early 1950s, but his artistic insight endures See why
Kerr, Walter
THE LAST WORD
ART ON ITS OWN TERNS
Walter Kerr
Walter Kerr, who died last month at the age of eighty-three, was Commonweal's drama critic from 1950-52. This article is condensed from his "Where the...
...It is the correct procedure, and we have no business dealing in makeshifts.ing in makeshifts...
...An element in nature is absent, in its true proportion at least, in their works...
...This article is condensed from his "Where the Author Meets the Critics," Commonweal, April 7, 1950...
...The sad feature of these conflicts is that they are unnecessary...
...Now the moralist's fear of art arises from this very requirement for beauty...
...It means that nothing is present which ought not to be there, and that nothing essential is absent...
...He is under no obligation to evaluate the work as morally objectionable or unobjectionable...
...When pietistic writers turn out narratives in which sin either does not exist or is depicted without its motivating attractiveness, or turn out characters meant as models for emulation rather than imitations of such people as do exist, they too lack integrity...
...The Catholic who would deal with the arts at the present time may think it necessary to turn himself into a schizophrenic...
...It will improve taste among the Catholic laity, providing proper standards in place of the uncritical praise now showered on whatever seems "safe" and the uncritical condemnation of whatever seems "sordid...
...He must discard the notion of integrity for fear of the damage integrity may do...
...Those who are responsible for the moral guidance of men have an honest fear that if art were ever given its autonomy, were ever allowed to be judged by its own appropriate standards, it would somehow run off with the whole kit and caboodle of the Christian body...
...It should be obvious that moralistic judgment is unnecessary, having been precluded by a judgment formed within the proper boundaries...
...This distinction between an aesthetic and a moral judgment, permitting as it does the aesthetic to take care of the work of art on its own terms, may in some quarters seem mere hair-splitting, designed for the intellectual comfort of the artist but with little practical value...
...Fear is the keynote of all this...
...It permits the artist to understand what is required of him, without nervous a priori moral injunctions which send him submissively to his work with one eye shut—or defiantly to his work, leaving the church behind him...
...Saint Thomas resolved the issue when he stated his requirements for beauty...
...He has only to ask, or let the critic ask: Is it art, or is it not art...
...In place of a truth which beauty requires, he substitutes an ideal of untruth, as though an untruth were less capable of doing damage...
...To do all this he must ignore or abandon aesthetic norms...
...When the pietist counsels us to draw men not as they are but as they ought to be—to play down sin and play up virtue—he is asking us to alter the proportions, to omit something, to falsify the universe as it actually exists under the permitting hand of God...
...If Catholics as a whole have produced relatively little valid art in this country it is primarily for this reason...
...On the other hand, this is just how much of what is called Catholic criticism does speak of books and plays...
...Integrity means wholeness...
...If beauty demands that the wholeness of nature be imitated, and if, for instance, sin is to be found in nature, then sin must be found in art...
...I think it is fair enough to say that, among rank-and-file Catholics, the moral evaluation of art is the only evaluation now being made...
...The artifact cannot commit a sin...
...It will produce better art by Catholics and help discourage the bad art associated with Catholicism in this coun-try...
...It would be to alter the universe as God made or permitted it, as though to improve on it...
...It should also be noted that no matter how high the "moral" praise for the pietistic work, it remains incapable of giving the work any artistic stature whatever...
...THE LAST WORD ART ON ITS OWN TERNS Walter Kerr Walter Kerr, who died last month at the age of eighty-three, was Commonweal's drama critic from 1950-52...
...Of these three—integrity, proportion, and clarity—the first sheds a great deal of light on our present problem...
...To eliminate sin studiously would be to destroy the integrity of the work...
...On the one hand his most respected mentors among Thomist philosophers assure him that art is a thing made, not a thing done, and hence not subject to moral evaluation...
...The moralist, then, may retire his own forms of judgment without fear...
...The above judgments have been arrived at through exclusively aesthetic and philosophically appropriate norms...
...But however good his intentions, what he produces is not true, not beautiful, and certainly not good...
...He simplifies the universe, makes it over into something easier and more obvious...
...I think the procedure matters a great deal, and here are some of the ways in which it matters: It permits the philosopher and the priest to talk the same language, and to mean the same things, which is always desirable...
...The only questions were moral questions, morally phrased...
...When I made a lecture tour among Catholic organizations recently, not a single question was asked me regarding the artistic merits of anything...
Vol. 123 • November 1996 • No. 19
