Quote:
|
It sounds as though he [John Adams] considers Painting, poetry, et al, as one step above gardening, games, and mere play.
|
Quite the contrary, on my reading. I believe that he was saying that the appreciation and practice of art forms of the sort that he named was of the highest pursuit to which we could aspire -- indeed, he was, as I read the letter in context, fleshing out what had been meant in the Declaration of Independence by the right of the "pursuit of happiness". I think he was expressing his belief in an obligation of his generation to fight for and ensure a society in which higher levels of human pursuit could be enjoyed in peace by his later generations.
He wrote from Paris, where he had been sent by the Continental Congress to solicit France's assistance in the colonies' battles for independence. He was on a war mission, yet his assignment placed him amidst an art culture the likes of which he'd never seen. Though both he and his wife Abigail were deeply schooled in the classics (including, somewhat ironically, the British classics), as would be their children, nothing of the sort he encountered in France had ever visited the American colonial life. Adams felt deeply the spiritual lacuna of that educational deficit, which is why I read the quotation as looking to the higher calling that attended his "war business" -- which was to try to ensure that future generations, if not his, would live in liberty and the freedom, together with the educational infrastructure, to pursue the higher, loftier -- and Adams might say, the more morally realized -- engagements in arts far more gentle than war.
This is quite a distance from equating art with "mere gardening" -- though Adams reveled in his New England farmer's role, when war and politics allowed.
I think Adams' intent was to pay homage to the contributions of those who, as did our grandfathers, fathers, and brothers within memory, engaged in the kinds of selfless, coarse, and sometimes brutal prerequisites to establishing a free and orderly society in which their children could, in peace, "study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain," as we do here on this Forum, which we take for granted even though it would certainly be "illegal" in many oppressively governed countries around the world.
I'm not defending all of his sentiments, just trying to understand their very articulate expression in the context in which they were presented.
I can't recommend too highly the McCullough biography of Adams. There are over a thousand letters extant between Adams and Abigail, and every one of them is a gem with its own facets. It's very important, I believe, for artists to undertake as much "non-art" study as easel time, workshops, videos, and the latest issue of your favorite art magazine. The artwork will be all the richer for it.
Threaded Mode
