Elle Purnell: It’s Time For The Right To Make Art Great (And Beautiful) Again

New York City recently revealed a bizarre statue of a female figure with spaghetti-arms and horns, slathered with gaudy golden atop one its appellate courtshouses. The apparent effort to one-up Boston’s new “Embrace” sculpture — which purports to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but resembles feces at best and a male appendage at worst — looks like what you might imagine if the Starbucks logo and Medusa had an unholy merger. Perhaps fittingly, the figure named in tribute to The fight against abortion is more demonish than feminine.

Conservatives respond to public “art” Installations like this will complain about the discomfort of seeing such ugliness on streets and in parks. These people may be able to see that these acts of rebellion against beauty are a reflection of a cultural contempt for religion and the natural order of human nature (as Nathan Stone pointed out in these pages). here). But one thing conservatives rarely do in response — for fiscal reasons or otherwise — is create alternative, better art.

Why not use the money that Republicans give to their favorite charity? political consultant You can use the money to pay monuments and sculptures for your cultural heritage. Imagine a beautiful installation of art that celebrates the family unit, the sanctity or femininity of men or women.

Can’t find a skilled artist who will accept such a job? Offer more art programs at Christian and classical schools. A large portion of culture is ignoring the objective nature truth and beauty. Art that is beautiful, orderly, and without any political motives is on mission.

You could also ask why, according to @PoliticalMath on Twitter suggestedBuilding “classically inspired statues of Clarence Thomas” — a jurist far more worthy than the late Justice Ginsburg (who reportedly helped inspire New York’s new golden goblin)? What about Thomas Sowell, Phyllis Schlafly, Whittaker Chambers or any other Founding Fathers whose statues once united are being torn down? Lululemon-clad revolutionaries? Left-leaning cities can commission art installations that reflect deconstructionist values. Red localities have the option to install murals and statues that celebrate traditional values in their communities.

It doesn’t have to stop at strictly decorative art, either; architecture has just as much capacity to reflect ugliness and beauty alike. Conservatives have long complained of the lack of beauty and ugliness in architecture. sterile ugliness of modern government buildings. Just compare the Smithsonian Castle to the museum conglomerate’s more recent buildings, or compare the delightfully appointed 1845 Florida Capitol dome (complete with appropriately southern candy-cane awnings) to the phallic skyscraper that superseded it in the 1970s.

Once, government buildings were designed to reflect the high expectations of the architects who built them. A courthouse, believed to house justice and law, which are principles rooted in natural laws, was designed with the laws, order, symmetry and beauty of nature in mind. Its architectural structure, which now represents the cubicle identity of government, reflects its transformation into a bureaucratic dictatorship, and all the incomprehensible nature (and loveliness!) of a customer service department.

Therefore, local leaders who value beauty and goodness should design their municipal buildings accordingly. The courthouses, town halls as well as state capitols and public library should be beautiful, clean places that encourage the gathering of communities and the pursuit for the good. Not concrete prisons that sucking the life out their dour occupants. Private organizations can do this as well, including educational institutions and community establishments such theaters.

The same holds true for churchesThese people have every reason to worship beauty and to revere the source and Creator of beauty. As American Christianity largely sterilizes its gathering places and strips them of any physical reminders of God’s glory and loveliness, a revival of those eternity-directed reminders is warranted.

If we believe in objective moral reality — if we believe that men and women have immutable differences by design, that values like hard work and family loyalty and love of our communities have transcendental moral worth, and that evils like abortion are not just personally but morally offensive — then we must believe that the thing we call “beauty” is no more a mere human construction than the nuclear family or the principle of personal responsibility for a man’s own actions.

Those who believe such a thing as beauty exists — that art can be an act of worship and not just an act of protest — have every reason to possess the artistic upper hand. We have a rich heritage of Western art that celebrates beauty, order, and the imago Dei.

Perhaps the most important period in art history is the European Renaissance. This period produced masterpieces that are still unmatched. A “renaissance” It is simply the rebirth of or revival of something. According to this definition, Western civilization’s self-loathing is due for a revival in art that aims to inspire beauty and truth rather than chaos. “resistance,” the word chosen by the creator of New York’s latest installation to describe Her work.

There are legitimate logistical and social roadblocks that conservatives must overcome “building our own” Institutions like banks and social media platforms lose customers because the existing monopolies have canceled them for their political views. But building our own good art and architecture as a foil to monstrosities like New York’s golden abortion witch is something the right can and should do, far better and far more often.

Elle Purnell, an assistant editor at The Federalist has received her B.A. Patrick Henry College in government with a minor for journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_etreynolds.

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