Gaia Online

We hold that art is a requirement of human life and happiness. Art is a selective recreation of reality according to an artist’s deepest, most fundamental convictions—such as his views of the nature of the universe, the nature of man, what is knowable, what matters most, what is possible. The purpose of art is to give physical form to such profound abstractions, to make them concrete and observable, and thereby to provide people with a perceptual representation of a particular idea or worldview. This enables people to examine the idea as a physical reality and thus to better understand what it means in practice. In this way, art provides spiritual guidance and fuel for living and achieving one’s goals. Whether a sculpture of a ballerina depicting the skill and grace possible to man—or a novel about great industrialists showing the productive achievement possible to man—or a landscape of a countryside portraying the world as open to man’s investigation and enjoyment—or a painting of a dismal, psychedelic pool hall portraying the world as unstable and inhospitable to man—art brings highly abstract convictions to the perceptual level.

Like everything in the world, art is something specific; thus, it is both knowable and definable. And, like everything man-made, it is properly judged as good or bad by the standard of the requirements of human life on earth.

Thus, we reject the idea that art is whatever any self-proclaimed or allegedly “accomplished” artist happens to slap together or place in a gallery. Neither paint randomly splattered on a canvas, nor a bicycle wheel “cleverly” fastened to a stool, nor a word salad neatly printed on a page is art. Such things are not “bad” art; they are not art at all. Art is not the emotional spewing of irrational impulses, but the selective recreation of reality. Since man grasps reality only by means of reason, the creation of art requires the intense use of this faculty; it requires thought, concentration, mental connections, and the transformation of highly abstract concepts and values into the material of perceptual reality. This is not the province of buffoonery; it is the province of genius—and should be recognized and guarded as such.

We also reject the idea that, within the range of what is art, there are no objective criteria for judging certain works as better than others. Like every legitimate value, a work of art—whether a painting, sculpture, novel, movie, symphony—is a value precisely to the extent that it serves some requirement of a rational being’s life. While there is plenty of room for different tastes within the range of genuine art, there are also within that range objectively better and worse works of art—better and worse by the standards of rationality and man’s spiritual needs.

For instance, since the essence of man’s nature is that he possesses free will, the best art—romantic art—reflects this fact; it depicts man as in control of his life, as capable of reshaping his world according to his values, as the self-made soul that he actually is. For the sake of example here, let us isolate a particular aspect of a work of art: its subject matter. All else being equal (style, composition, technique, etc.), a painting of a hideous woman screaming in terror on the deck of a sinking ship says one thing; a painting of a beautiful woman masterfully handling a catamaran on a windy day says another. Objectively speaking, two such paintings do not have “equal” value; they do not “equally” serve the purpose of art; and they are not “equally” enjoyed by rational people.

Good art—like everything else on which human life and happiness depend—is a product of rational thought and creative effort. This is yet another reason to embrace and advocate capitalism—and the entire philosophy of reason on which it is based. In a rational, capitalist society, artists are fully free to think and to create as they see fit; nothing stands in their way; the right to freedom of expression is recognized as an absolute. Since the guiding social principle in such a society is that of trade—and since there is no “public” funding of the arts—artists who produce works that rational people value tend to thrive; those who produce works that rational people do not value tend to find other professions.