The misanthrope's corner

National Review, August 11, 1997 by Florence King

Miss King is the author of The Florence King Reader and other books.

IN AN effort to prove that Americans have an innate reverence for the arts, Hillary Clinton recently told the story of Dolley Madison's priorities on the night the British burned the White House in 1814. Did the fashionable Dolley think to save her wardrobe, including all those Empire turbans? No, indeed. She saved Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington.

Therefore, implied Mrs. Clinton, the National Endowment for the Arts is, and of right ought to be, first in the hearts of her countrypersons.

Never mind the logic. I'm tired of uncoiling the serpentine corkscrews of the Clintonian mind. Besides, the interesting subject here is art per se. If we look at the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington in the light of recent art controversies, we can see just how awful democracy is.

Framed prints of the Gilbert Stuart portrait hung in every public-school classroom once, leading generations of children to suppose it was a picture of Washington in Heaven because of the white clouds at the bottom. The clouds are the unfinished part; according to one story, Stuart was so awed by his subject that he remained unsatisfied with the work and left it incomplete.

Think of it. A portrait of a white male, by a white male, who left a white hole. Empty canvas going to waste when so many people have never been done in oils. Since there's still some room left in it, why not fill it up? Stick something in there -- an Aztec priest performing open-heart surgery, a lesbian hooked up to a dialysis machine, Marion Barry hooked -- something, anything. It doesn't matter what, as long as it celebrates our Great Diversity and atones for the Great Unpainted.

Sound insane? It shouldn't -- it's precisely the approach to art that We the Connoisseurs tolerate without a peep. Take the "Three Suffragettes" statue that languished in the Capitol cellar for so many years. It shows Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in what appears to be a box seat at a baseball game. It was kept under wraps because it did not "fit," artistically speaking, in the Rotunda, but since when has asymmetry ever bothered feminists? The NOW cows wanted that statue out front where everybody could see it, by God, and never mind sissy stuff like balance and proportion.

They were on the verge of victory when suddenly Rep. Cynthia McKinney and other hob-nailed aesthetes of the #3 sepia persuasion objected to the work because Sojourner Truth (#6 burnt umber) was missing from it. The solution? It got to be inclusive! Whittle a statue of Sojourner Truth and put her in. Where? Don't make no nevermind, just so she in it. But what about the artistic prerogative of the original sculptress? Don't make no nevermind --she white. Well, then, since we're wrecking creative intent, would you prefer Ms. Truth to be whittled in black marble in contrast to the white marble of the rest of the work? Ooooeeee! That be cool! You tellin' it now, sista!

Artistic prerogative and creative intent are no longer sacrosanct, even when inspired by political correctness. Sculptor Lawrence Halprin scrupulously included Braille panels in the FDR Memorial, only to come under fire from blind tourists who complained that the panels were too big to read with fingertips and that some were eight feet off the ground. A Halprin assistant explained the aesthetic reason -- the panels must be big enough to be appreciated at a distance and draw the viewer (whoops!) in -- but it did no good because what was once called "perspective" is now called discrimination. There is only one way to satisfy the blind-fury crowd. Chop those panels off the top and put 'em on the bottom where people can reach 'em, and make the big dots little dots, you dumb bastard, or we'll tie you to your cement and throw you in the Potomac.

IT IS significant that the general public expressed no surprise on learning that giant Braille panels had been included in the memorial. That's because We the Connoisseurs of the United States, being in huddled masses assembled, were no longer capable of being surprised by anything to do with the FDR Memorial. The artistic despotism and aesthetic usurpations committed by both sides in the controversy had already rendered us numb. A decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that I declare the causes which impel me to say this, and so let Facts be submitted to a candid World:

They threatened to tie up traffic with piles of wheelchairs.

They compromised on the wheelchair by putting casters on FDR's regular chair, then gave him a cape as rigid as a piece of sheet metal to hide the casters from all but the most vigilant paranoids, who are now flocking to the memorial to see the casters as tourists once flocked to the Erechtheion to see the fragile marble drapery falling in soft folds from the bosoms of the Karyatids.

They modeled statues on portraits painted from life, then removed the cigarette holder, leaving FDR with two stiff fingers holding nothing.