the myth of patronage -- censorship and control

Has the Catholic Church ever been a great patron of art, like it says in all the art history books? Not really. They weren’t art patrons, they were purchasers of art, in the same way modern ad agencies support legions of commercial artists. They had a story to tell, and they hired the most accomplished artists around to make it seem real. These artists were hired guns, and may or may not have believed it themselves.

That can’t be all the art made in those periods, although it does seem to be about all that made it through. The church was censoring art, no doubt, and limiting commercial trade, probably, but those painters didn’t get that good overnight. Endless annunciations would be boring, but other work from the era hasn’t survived. What we have here is not so much an example of patronage as it is wall-to-wall ‘mind-control,’ using art as a bludgeon, and only now that the spell has lifted can we even consider those paintings purely as art.

These days the role of the church, as the major patron and arbiter of aesthetic tastes, has been assumed by a secular bureaucracy, the NEA, accompanied by a vast academic establishment, and like the church before them, the whole mess supported by all of us. Oh, I know their in-house geniuses organize ‘peer-group’ reviews to pass out government largesse to their own, and that those generous and arbitrary foundation grants are carved from the common tax base, but no need to dwell on that part of it now. Just consider the art. Progressive, perhaps, but it’s good to remember the working translation of the term ‘avant-garde’ is ‘no one likes it,’ because if they did, it would be time to move on to something else. It’s a sad fact that actually producing artwork ordinary people might enjoy and relate to is considered ‘selling out’ to the state-supported crowd.

Theistic or secular, this notion of patronage from above is too self-serving to be of much use to art, or in any way fair to the general population. Whatever the motive, it’s the mechanism that’s flawed, so please put that money to other uses. Obviously, their help hasn’t helped, since the art they’ve championed hasn’t penetrated the heartland, and independent artists are still working day jobs. There also isn’t much original art up in houses, looks like their messianic mission to elevate the masses has been a failure. Nothing left for non-profits in each hometown, in the face of shrinking government patronage, except to attempt to re-knit the bond between area artists and their neighbors, and to acknowledge and legitimize the earnest efforts of independent studios. Make it a mission to display area-produced artwork in thoughtful, accessible, and informative groupings, friends of art after all.