The "Gift" of Art

Does "art" have value in society? This question came up for me, as a person and as an economist, back in August. Soon after Brooke Astor died on August 13, we paid tribute to her here (see below). We lauded her substantial contribution to, among other institutions, St. Ann's Church in Brooklyn toward the restoration of some of its stained glass windows; we described this as a "marvelous use of her funds". Matt-the-Web-Dude responded. He begged to differ, at least somewhat: nice as this was, he offered, weren't there better uses still for her money: aid to the poor or for disease relief or research? Yes, on the face of it, aid to people would seem a more worthy cause than art restoration. But is that really so, especially for a private donation like Mrs. Astor's?

In her eMo of September 20, "Art Does It First", Mother Crafton talks about the impact of art. The heated controversy in Afghanistan over a scene in the movie of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and the outright danger brought to one of its actors prompted her comments. "Why must such a beautiful book occasion such ugliness?" she moans. "Why cannot art be allowed to perform its healing miracles in the human spirit, its graceful interpretation of one culture to another? Of course, I know the answer: art names what the defenders of power cannot or will not yet name. Art does it first. The future appears first in the imagination, long before it makes its entrance in politics or manners."

Such power, then, art has. It does its work deep inside us, conveying feelings and impressions, even reshaping them sometimes in ways our rational minds can't approach. Listen to another Barbara Crafton appreciation of art, this time music, ". . . it's probably not possible to sing and be hopeless at the same time. You may still be sad – that's what the blues are for – but expressing sorrow through song does something to it, makes it something the soul can handle." [Meditations on the Psalms, 1996, entry for September 28, page 200].

Thus, the feelings in the art, whether it is music or words or colors and forms, come out of the artist's heart and they reach into ours, yielding up some sense of truth that is more fundamental than our minds can fashion or absorb. What a gift from God, then, for artists to have this kind of outwardly pouring imagination; it is not given to everyone.

In the midst of these ethereal musings, there are also down-to-earth practicalities. Artists must eat and have shelter. Art works and instruments must be maintained. If art speaks to people, they will support it and those who produce it. If, instead, it has no enduring appeal, the support will fall away over time and the works will be lost. Most are.

How does the support of art come about? Some is traded or given forth commercially for profit. Beethoven, Michelangelo and Rembrandt are easy examples. Rembrandt, in fact, owned and operated a studio, employing other artists and assistants. In our time, we might name Salvador Dali, Maria Callas and the Beatles. Indeed, commercial popularity wouldn't disqualify a work from being called "art". What matters is whether the music and the words reach inside us and have a long-lasting effect. The Beatles have lasted for 40 years – so far – and they are still deemed melodic and they still sell well.

Popularity, of course, would hardly be the only or even the most significant factor. Consistent support of artists over time also requires moneyed connoisseurs or collectors who can buy original pieces. Further, maintenance of the pieces is painstaking, labor intensive, expensive work. But that means there's a problem: possibly only the rich can afford many examples of true art. What does that do for the rest of us? Are we to be denied access to the feelings and emotions and other benefits embedded in these things? If so, we would then be all the more impoverished.

Thus, we are the beneficiaries of major gifts like Mrs. Astor's. Museums, funded with tax money and/or private donations, provide more. In European countries, public support of the arts is even more direct, with some contemporary artists employed on the public payroll under the aegis of a Ministry of Culture.

In the US, federal, state and local governments all support arts pursuits. The federal effort is coordinated by the National Endowments for the Arts and for Humanities. We were fascinated to learn, though, that these two provide only a tiny fraction of funding for non-profit arts programs. In 2006, the total federal government budget for arts and museums was $1.67 billion. According to analysis by the Urban Institute, this was only about 9% of all relevant arts spending in the economy. And the NEA and NEH budgets themselves were less than one-sixth of the federal amount. The secret is that NEA and NEH grants carry great leverage. Their system of review of projects by art experts outside of government is widely accepted as a standard of artistic worth and elicits additional private support in multiples of the size of individual federal government grants. This means that a modest amount of our federal tax dollars can be the catalyst for far more charitable support of these endeavors, and we don't wind up having politicians or bureaucrats as the arbiters of artistic taste. The occasional media flap over a specific work can be the exception that proves the rule.

So, indeed, Mrs. Astor's gifts to museums and churches – St. Ann's was not at all the only one – are gifts to us all. She certainly gave to many welfare-oriented causes as well, but art holds a special place that indeed makes it an admirable outlet for her largesse and that of others. We gain from the pleasure of its beauty, but more, from the added meaning it helps us find in our own lives.

Thank you, Matt, for raising the question and helping us learn these valuable lessons!

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Also see Seana Anderson's "comment" to our post on Mrs. Astor, where she too highlights the communication of feeling through art and how it can link us together. Further, Barbara's thoughtful words quoted above echo the spirit of some philosophers of art whom I have been reading. Here is a selection, along with other sources on "the art market":

Leo Tolstoy. "What Is Art?" in Aesthetics, edited by Susan Feagin & Patrick Maynard, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp 166-171.

Clive Bell. "The Aesthetic Hypothesis." In Feagin & Maynard, op. cit. pp 15-23.

Mark Sagoff. "On the Aesthetic and Economic Value of Art." In Feagin & Maynard, op. cit. pp 119-128.

William D. Grampp. Pricing the Priceless: Art, Artists and Economics. Basic Books, Inc. 1989.

Tyler Cowen. In Praise of Commercial Culture. Harvard University Press. 1998. Especially Chapter 1, "The Arts in a Market Economy."

National Endowment for the Arts. "How the United States Funds the Arts", Second Edition, January 2007. Sourced from www.nea.gov.