Utilitarian art
I am basically sitting here waiting for the mail to come back with some proofs this morning. Meanwhile, it would seem Alain de Botton has decided to have something to say about utilitarian art (you're supposed to connect that to crochet, incase you don't). Here are some of his latest tweets:
What's wrong with 'utilitarian' art, so long as the utility is a complex and noble one? See Oedipus The King...
Those who love art most often complain that it doesn't do enough: but it is in the end only ever a suggestion, not an order.
Art for art's sake shouldn't ever be taken to imply that art shouldn't have a mission. All great art has a mission.
People are always declaring that art is bad when it's didactic, forgetting Sophocles, Dante, Voltaire, Tolstoy...
Aesthetic risk: to digest complexity to the point that half the audience declare it stupidity.
Immaturity = an exaggerated fear of hearing suggestions about what to do and feel.
Modernism assumes that it's a sign of maturity never to need guidance. Augustine would declare it evidence of 'superbia' or pride.