“Savonarola Preaching Against Prodigality” by Ludwig von Langenmantel
Is there such a thing as “true art”? To answer this, it must first be admitted what exactly “art” is to begin with. Drawing upon traditional and contemporary understandings of this term, it would appear that this vast domain contains two divisions. This first species of art involves creation or interpretation of beauty by representation. Examples of this kind of art are poetry, sculpture, literature, painting, and music. The second species of art, however, is the more commonplace—this being a trade which involves the acquisition and performance of a skill typically not related to the liberal arts. Thus the culinary arts and the martial arts fall under this kind of art.1 It is the former category that will be the focus of this article, for it is this form of art that contains the greater spiritual value. For works of the creative arts, depending upon the disposition of the wielder, influence the beholder by either enriching their soul or infecting it with evil.
Because Art must point to Beauty to be truly artistic, it must also point to the Good—for Beauty and Goodness are in themselves linked together alongside Truth. It is no mere coincidence that the word “beautiful” shares the same etymology as “beatitude”—beatus—for to possess Beauty in one’s soul is to achieve happiness; and do we not all long for happiness? Art then must guide us by exposing us to Beauty, Goodness, and Truth to that enjoyment of transcendent bliss. Now, in defining what is moral and immoral in the realm of artistic depiction, we must make a clear distinction between works that unveil the ugliness of vice and those that glorify vice. Representations that depict immoral subjects with the first end in view, such as Dante’s Inferno and Huysmans’ En Route, help us to see vice for the unhappy thing it really is, and thus we are pointed by such works towards Goodness; thus they can rightly be called art. On the other hand, representations that are manifestly produced to illustrate the superiority or even equality of vice to virtue seduce us from the path of happiness. Therefore, immoral representations are perversions of Art itself, because in feigning to be art, these representations act in direct opposition to what art is meant to embody; or in other words, in suggesting corruption, they take us away from achieving happiness. If such miserable excuses for creative work do not lead one to the point of detesting the idea of Beauty itself, and in turn despairing of Goodness and Truth, enough contact with it will make one inevitably believe that it can hold equal status with artistic works that truly embody the idea of Art. Such a corruption of mind is similar to the error that holds Satan to be equal in power to God, and is therefore as dangerous as it is preposterous. Thus bad or false art ought to be banned and destroyed on these accounts, and moreover to guard against the weaknesses of man’s fallen nature. Since, however, this point has unfortunately been challenged by many, and because few take up this necessary charge, it requires further elaboration in our benighted age. Drawing upon proofs firstly from reason, and then faith, this author shall demonstrate that “bad art” and “good art” cannot be reasonably held as subjective categories and, following from this, bad art has no right to exist just as good art has a right to exist.
To the ire of many Plato argued strongly against that deceptive principle known as “free speech” or “artistic freedom”; yet few know that his aesthetic views were not solely negative in nature. It was not as if he opposed Art in principle—for he was no Philistine—but that in his view forbidding immoral representations was a necessary corollary to the harmony of a well-ordered society, and that in turn true art ought to be patronized and promoted to enrich the lives of all. What is this “true art”? As he writes in the Republic, only those works which represent what he terms “the image of the good” can be true art:2
(Republic 3.401)
But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our state? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and deformity in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practicing his art in our state, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let us rather search for artists who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.
Man has a higher reason which enables him to create art to begin with—but with the other powers of reason that he possesses, this power must be used responsibly. And indeed, Plato would have granted that true form of art—the tragedy—the freedom it deserves, for when directed by the mind of a wise author, it proves one of the most illustrative lessons to mankind that vice under any of its seven capital species is not according to “the beauty of reason”. He would, however, have been staunchly against the promotion or even mere tolerance for that so-called “art” which morally deforms the youth. In the destruction of the minds and souls of many an impressionable child, the ramifications for society at large are monstrous, as is evident in our times where the laissez-faire attitude towards art oppresses us.
For instance, it has become increasingly common for boys and girls as young as their thirteenth year3 to imbibe the “images of moral deformity” openly tolerated on the Internet and in print, and consequently, the poor minds and hearts of these youths are ruthlessly abused by their indulgence—all the while the Liberal-Marxist system is content to stand by with its hands folded in the name of “free speech”. For the sake of a corrupt abstraction, the innocence of millions is ruined, with the damage being nearly irrevocable: the epidemic of sexual abuse, whether committed by adults against minors or committed by minors against one another, is largely a result of this “tolerance”. The astoundingly perverse things that are described in smut and acted out on the screen will not remain there—they will impress themselves on their unfortunate viewers. Lustful fantasy will not be suppressed by further use, but only enticed; and given enough obsession, these dark designs can and will be translated into the real world by the obsessed. How many young men and women have suffered lust addiction and have carried this affliction into marriage (if they even got so far as this) and there it finally ruined them, breaking up what would have otherwise been a promising family! And this trend shows no sign of breaking in our younger generation. But even among the pre-Internet generations, there are many who have gone through similar heartbreak as a result of lustful habits that began in the pre-digital age but found themselves rekindled by filth they encountered in the digital world. Innocence, therefore, is not a naive fantasy but a reality of life in need of defense; should the youth not dwell in a “land of health” both in body and in mind? Should they be denied the “good in everything” for the sake of not offending perverts? The pervert is an antisocial being, for he sets himself against the family; but the state exists for the family, not the family for the state. Civil society could do well without the pervert, but it could not survive without the family, that state within a state that gives vitality to what would otherwise inevitably progress into a pile of ruins.
We must behold something; not only must bad art be prohibited, but the state must also support good art. Just as our governments today fund trash in the name of “supporting the arts”, the resources of that same system could easily be diverted to the support of that which truly deserves the name of art. For the artist is worthy of his hire as well as the laborer; but if the state will not support artists who are “gifted to discern the beautiful and the graceful”, then organizations should be formed by those who care for true art to patronize them. Though there were many abuses that arose from the Italian Renaissance, it is evident to all that some of the greatest art in the history of the world came out of that movement. Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio—did these men have the finances to support themselves? Absolutely not! It was the support of the Church and noble families that enabled these men to work and produce their masterpieces, and that moreover commissioned them projects to begin with. How many countless men, regardless of their spiritual convictions or lack thereof, have found themselves sublimely uplifted by viewing Michelangelo’s Pietà or Caraviaggo’s The Calling of St. Matthew? In this consideration, one must also recognize the fact that the Renaissance that birthed such works was not the only movement that involved the state and the higher elements of society patronizing true art, as many others like it have occurred throughout history—which in turn makes what Plato is arguing on this point all the more practical. If the state has the ability and indeed the right to support true art, it possesses likewise the ability and right to suppress bad art.
To write of Right and Art is not mere contrivance; for if Art is to have any value at all, it must be ultimately objective in nature. Otherwise, if art is entirely subjective (as is a common claim in our times) then Art itself is so vast in scope that it is practically meaningless. Therefore Art must involve objectivity on some level, and objective aesthetic value implies an objective moral standard. Thus as Fr. Copleston notes, if one holds to an absolute or objective morality one must see that Plato’s artistic judgments were entirely reasonable:4
(A History of Philosophy: Vol. I., 227)
We may think that Plato exaggerated the bad results that would follow from the admission of the great works of Greek literature, but the principle that animated him must be admitted by all who seriously believe in an objective moral law, even if they quarrel with his particular applications of the principle. For, granted the existence of the soul and of an absolute moral code, it is the duty of the public authorities to prevent the ruin of the morality of the members of the State so far as they can, and so far as the particular acts of prevention employed will not be of greater harm. To speak of the absolute rights of Art is simply nonsense, and Plato was quite justified in not letting himself be disturbed by any such trashy considerations.
The inherent desire for justice in human nature points to an objective moral law; and thus in understanding our natural inclination towards objective morality, we can come to realize that, as Fr. Copleston illustrates, though one can easily disagree with Plato’s “particular application” of his principle of censorship, the “principle that animated him” is entirely logical. But when we come to the consideration of how the laissez-faire mentality damages the soul, there we find something difficult for many in our age to accept. Though the existence of the soul is something that can be reached even by mere reason, the whole truth of it is contained in the religion of Christ. If one wishes, therefore, to understand something of the true damage that immoral representations causes to the soul, it is to the Faith one must turn.
The Holy Catholic Church has wisely understood the truth of Art and defended it against the vicious assaults of the iconoclasts, both ancient and modern. She, better than any, has properly gauged the inestimable value of Art, for she alone possesses true knowledge of the human soul. While others who lived before Christ, such as Plato, could only see the value of the soul in a dim light, the Church has seen it correctly and enlightened men to the truth of it because she was founded by He who is “the light of the world” (John 8:12). In considering this matter further, must we not repeat the words of Saint Peter in this regard? “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:69). Who better to go to for the reality of man’s nature than its very Author? And what did the Logos tell us of the soul? Did He not tell us of that end for which we were made and the end for which men have condemned themselves through sin?
In the safeguarding of souls to aid them towards eternal happiness, the Church has therefore not only promoted the creation of genuine artwork, but has also sanctioned the destruction and censorship of representations that push him astray into perdition. Upon this basis, she has exercised her divine authority in all the Arts; but perhaps her just persecutions have been no greater felt than in the literary world. Writing near the close of the nineteenth century, Pope Leo XIII, explaining Holy Mother Church’s consistent opposition to immoral books, explained that:5
(“Apostolic Constitution Officiorum ac Munerum”)
Nothing can be conceived more pernicious, more apt to defile souls, through its contempt of religion, and its manifold allurements to sin. Wherefore the Church, who is the custodian and vindicator of the integrity of faith and morals, fearful of so great an evil, has from an early date realized that remedies must be applied against this plague; and for this reason she has ever striven, as far as lay in her power, to restrain men from the reading of bad books, as from a deadly poison. The early days of the Church were witnesses to the earnest zeal of St. Paul in this respect; and every subsequent age has witnessed the vigilance of the Fathers, the commands of the bishops, and the decrees of Councils in a similar direction.
As the Holy Father here states, the Church’s duty to restrict and even commit to flames immoral representations did not begin with that excellent safeguard of morals, the wrongfully vilified Index of Forbidden Books,6 but began even in her infancy. Therefore this aspect of Church authority can rightly be said to belong to Sacred Tradition; consequently the principle of free speech was never Catholic and can never be. Man will abuse this supposed right—our fallen nature confesses it, and the sorry example of the modern publishing industry is only further proof of this fact. It was possible and even necessary for the Church to baptize the censor, but never the license of the tongue or of the written word. And who truly can cast stones at her for this state of affairs? Only ignorant fools who scoff and understand nothing of the sublime nature of the Great Commission. For by her very nature, the Church must care about the moral good of souls over some intellectual abstraction about the inherent good of every person and the need therefore to “express” themselves in whatsoever way they may choose.
Our moral theology testifies to this fact on a more personal level, for as the eminent Fr. Müller writes: “Assuredly, if we are bound by every principle of our religion to avoid bad company, we are equally bound to avoid bad books; for of all evil, corrupting company, the worst is a bad book” (The Sinner’s Return to God, 433).7 One of the reasons for the good Redemptorist’s statement that bad books are indeed the “worst” form of company is the following: a bad person lives and dies; but a bad book, if not destroyed by a prudent soul or the ravages of time, remains around to corrupt still more souls. If St. Paul’s command: “Be not seduced: Evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33) applies to persons, does it not follow that it must also apply to books? After all, there are numerous sayings about how books are like friends; therefore, if we choose bad books to be in our company, is this not the same as willingly associating with immoral persons?8 Furthermore, while there may be hope that contact with a sinner may convert him to the ways of God, this cannot be said of a bad book; there is, as Plato observed, no point in arguing with the words of a text for “they go on telling you the same thing forever” (Phaedrus 275e).9 Let us therefore instead engage with those texts and those many specimens of other forms of art that ennoble us with a vision of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth; these shall help us on our pilgrimage from our earthly home to the happiness we long for, which is beatitude—the vision of God.
Now, the position that has been just presented will inevitably be met with severe criticism by those—whether they claim to be of the Right, of the Left, or of the Center—who stand for the principle of free speech. In view of this, it shall be demonstrated that their standpoint is inherently untenable, for taken to its logical conclusion it wrecks both art and man.
In the first place, these advocates are plainly hypocrites and fools; there is almost always something they want banned, despite this latent desire contradicting their stated belief. For a historical example, one only needs to turn to that of the famous writer John Milton, who argued for this principle in his treatise Areopagitica—yet seemingly overcome by his heretical bigotry, added the exception that the writings of Catholics ought to be censored near the end of this text supposedly about “freedom of the press”! This contradiction in Milton’s thinking becomes all the more laughable when one learns that he would go on to become the censor of Mercurius Politics, the Cromwellian regime’s main news organ.10 His intellectual heirs are no better; one only needs to study the case of the talented author Orson Scott Card, who has been blacklisted by the Liberal-Marxist publishing industry for more than a decade over his personal views. What views are these that placed this winner of a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award under the ban of these cheerleaders of free speech? His views, drawn from his Mormon beliefs, against the sin of Sodom that were privately stated on a website not even connected to his public career. It is only the methods of the censorious “free speech” advocates that differ; while Milton supported the supposed right of the state to censor the written voices of the true followers of Christ, the publishing industry acts as a state within the state, using its ideological hegemony to push out authors who do not conform to their perverse agenda. In either case, it is apparent that those who cry the loudest in favor of “free speech” become the harshest censors when given the power to censor others.
However, even if there are true believers among these advocates who would never censor or support the censoring of any representation, their position is still fraught with fault. They simply cannot answer the aforementioned arguments that have been made on the basis of reason and faith, for they deny the worth of the soul or at least devalue it in the service of an abstract ideal. “Art for Art’s sake” is no art at all, for if there is no such thing as good or bad art in a moral sense, there is no moral value—and therefore no value at all—in Art. If art is, at the very least, meant to convey a higher experience and not solely to be judged on mere appearances, it must involve morality in some shape. But if the moral element is removed, then we are left only with the aesthetic value; but then what happens when this value becomes—as in our time—totally subjective to the rotten eyes of the “experts”? It follows, therefore, that such an ideal puts into question the very existence of Art itself; for how can there be an “Art” if its standards are practically meaningless?
Without the prohibition and eradication of bad art, it will therefore be difficult for men to discern true art from the false. Bad art is like counterfeit currency: its value is entirely false, and must be suppressed by the authorities to prevent the ruin of the public. While the financial destruction of a society is indeed lamentable, is there not a worse peril than that of a widespread corruption of faith and morals? And indeed, has not this greater danger been “enjoyed” by the United States since obscenity was unjustly declared “free speech” in the Satanic Sixties? Has it not dramatically increased since the proliferation of the Internet and social media on a world-wide scale? Indeed, having the “world at our fingertips” has proven the optimists such as Milton entirely wrong; the people have access to countless hours and pages of knowledge at their beckoning, and what do the most of them use it for? Mindless entertainment and pornography, to the exclusion of Art—to the exclusion of the Good, Beautiful, and the True! We must return to sanity: there can be no true appreciation of Art without the exclusion of filth and obscenity that pretends to conform to it.
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To find a more conventional basis for this claim, see for reference “Art.” The American Heritage Dictionary. Fifth ed.
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Republic. Translated by Jowett. Classical and Medieval Literary Criticism: Translations and Interpretations, edited by Alex Preminger, Leon Golden, O. B. Harrison, Jr., and Kevin Kerrane. Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co. 1983. p. 63. -
“What’s the Average Age of a Child’s First Exposure to Porn?” Fight The New Drug.
https://fightthenewdrug.org/real-average-age-of-first-exposure/.
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Copleston S.J., Fr. Fredrick Charles. A History of Philosophy: Vol. I: Rome and Greece. Image Books. 1993. p. 227.
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Pope Leo XIII. “Apostolic Constitution Officiorum ac Munerum.” (January 27, 1897). The Great Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII. Benzinger Brothers. pp. 407-408.
https://archive.org/details/greatencyclicall00cath/page/406/mode/2up?view=theater.
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For more information concerning this subject, the following work is recommended:
Betten S.J., Francis S. The Roman Index of Forbidden Books: Briefly Explained for Catholic Booklovers and Students. R. Herder Book Co. 1920.
https://archive.org/details/romanindexofforb00bettiala/page/n1/mode/2up.
See also the following article:
Plese, Matthew. “The Index of Forbidden Books.” Fatima Center. 25 Aug. 2021.
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Müller C.Ss.R., Fr. Michael. The Sinner’s Return to God: The Prodigal Son. Refuge of Sinners Publishing. 2015. p. 433.
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Ought this not to be said also of bad websites and other such dark corners of the Internet?
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Phaedrus. Translated by R. Hackforth. Plato: The Collected Dialogues, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton University Press. 2009. p. 521. -
Davis, Kevin R. “John Milton.” Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. 1 Jan. 2009.