Should art really be for its own sake alone? | Alain de Botton
If art museums are the new churches, perhaps they should end the veneration of ambiguity and start serving our inner needsYou often hear it said that “museums of art are our new churches”: in other words, in a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion. It’s an intriguing idea, part of the broader ambition that culture should replace scripture, but in practice art museums often abdicate much of their potential to function as new churches (places of consolation, meaning, sanctuary, redemption) through the way they handle the collections entrusted to them.
published date:Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:00:02 GMT
Should art really be for its own sake alone? | Alain de Botton
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Should art really be for its own sake alone? | Alain de Botton
If art museums are the new churches, perhaps they should end the veneration of ambiguity and start serving our inner needsYou often hear it said that “museums of art are our new churches”: in other words, in a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and devotion. It’s an intriguing idea, part of the broader ambition that culture should replace scripture, but in practice art museums often abdicate much of their potential to function as new churches (places of consolation, meaning, sanctuary, redemption) through the way they handle the collections entrusted to them.