MORALITY OF ART. - The question of the morality of art is debated between the opposing theses of those who tend to insert morality into the artistic function itself, and of those who consider art autonomous from morality, so as to legitimize its contravention of every ethical norm.
Of the first tendency are the "metaphysicians" (G. Flores D'Arcais, p. 141 ff.) who, insisting on the theological aspect of the beautiful, hold that art has the intrinsic aptitude to elevate to God, from whom it derives as from its first principle; and the "cathartics" (B. Croce, Ultimi saggi, Bari, 1935, pp. 9-10 and 62 ff.; La Poesia, ibid. 1936, pp. 167-68, 203); who recognize an intimate purifying virtue (κέθαρσις) in artistic activity, which therefore would exclude whatever can prove repellent to the moral conscience.
Of the second tendency are, on the one hand, the "amoralists" (B. Croce, Estetica, 7th ed. ibid. 1947, p. 57 ff.), who hold art to be on this side of morality or, in any case, indifferent to it; on the other hand the "separatists" (C. Fidler, Aforismi sull'arte, Milan 1945, p. 76), who consider art and morality as two autonomous activities or functions, and the artist as such independent of morality.
Such positions are the reflection of a more or less one-sided consideration of art and of morality. In particular, against the "metaphysicians" it may be observed that art is indeed a reflection of the divine, but also and above all an affirmation of the human; and against the "cathartics" that art is not always the "gentle" and "honest" Beatrice who suggests elevated senses. And therefore only for love of a thesis can it be asserted (B. Croce, Nuovi saggi di estetica, Bari 1920, p. 130) that it will be art that advises the poet to leave out a word, to pass over a dishonest scene, to purify the sentiment of base hatred, etc. It was Dante's moral sense that caused the evocation of Francesca to be cut short in the line "Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante," not indeed the aesthetic solicitation of art, which would instead have persuaded quite another lingering over the passionate particulars. And likewise it was moral restraint (as, moreover, the author explicitly declared) that induced Manzoni to reduce within the limits of the accent "La sventurata rispose" the murky affair of the nun of Monza. In confirmation it may be observed that it was not art, but morality, renewed to higher senses by Christianity, that in the Middle Ages gave to the poetry of love the courtly and almost mystical tone that detached it from classical-pagan eroticism. Moreover, to incontestably refute the cathartic function of aesthetic activity stands the historical fact, which offers realizations more or less aberrant from ethical demands, and yet received and lived by the conscience of readers in the same sense as the others, that is, as true aesthetic experiences and as authentic works of art.
Against the "amoralists," who fall into the equivocation of considering artistic activity in the abstract, it must be observed that art, in the concrete, is always a function of personality, that is to say it is always an act of a historically determined and morally oriented I. Therefore the neutral or amoral position occurs neither in the artist nor in the work of art, but both the conception of the one and the realization of the other will be either moral or immoral. Art, before being a fact, is an act: a conscious act, because carried out in the reflection of artistic elaboration; a consented act, because carried out in the adherence of aesthetic delight. The artistic act therefore is a taking of a position by one's own interiority, it is a deliberate pronouncement of one's own I; hence a fully imputable act, which renders the artist morally responsible and juridically censurable.
And this is also the argument that invalidates the position of the "separatists"; vain indeed is the attempt to sever human activities from one another, because it is impossible to detach them from the center of the I in which all are unified. Morality is a mode of human acting, not an acting in itself and for itself, such that there could be a moral activity that is only moral activity. Nor, on the other hand, can a human acting be thought that is not morally qualified, that is, that is not moral or immoral.
The problem of the morality of art is the problem of the accord between the demands of morality and the demands of art. If art must express human reality, which is necessarily a mixture of good and evil, it would not seem possible to reconcile the freedom of artistic expression with the restrictiveness of the ethical norm. The problem has been complicated and obscured by a false concept of morality, as if morality meant not seeing and not expressing evil.
Morality or immorality is not in things, but in the manner of seeing and expressing things; therefore morality in art does not mean not expressing evil, but expressing it morally, that is, expressing it as evil, without justifying it, without exalting it, without taking pleasure in it. To express evil is not evil, when it returns to good; and to keep silent about it is a duty, only when expressing it is exalting it. There is a Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, which is set upon the most foul crime, incest with one's own mother, which moreover at certain points is recalled quite crudely. And yet Oedipus Rex is not immoral art, because everything in it is deploration and reprobation of the crime, which culminate in the terrible vengeance that the involuntary culprits consummate upon themselves; so that the drama of guilt is transformed into a tragedy of expiation, and therefore into a true moral exaltation.
To succeed in being moral in art, it is therefore enough to preserve the human sense of things and to portray them in the light that they reflect to the normal conscience. The artist cannot exempt himself from responsibility and save himself from immorality in the name of art, saying that human reality is what it is, and therefore must be expressed such as it is; since morality does not forbid expressing human reality as it is, but expressing it as it is not, that is to say as exaltation when it is perdition, as glory when it is ignominy, as honor when it is infamy, as licit when it is illicit, as just when it is unjust, as good when it is evil. What renders the revelations of the Confessions moral and the narrations of the Decameron immoral is exclusively the attitude of the respective authors before immoral human reality: in the one evil is complacency and exaltation, in the other it is repentance and detestation.
Given the concept of the morality of art as a demand not of excluding immoral reality but rather of its reprobation, the education of the artist to morality must not be understood as closing his eyes to evil, but as giving him the sense of evil, persuading him that the expression of evil in art is licit only when it does not result in a glorification of evil itself, and that therefore he in his artistic expression must in some way redeem immoral reality, setting it forth in its negativity as vividly as possible: to see evil morally and to express it morally. It must be observed, however, that the moral expression of evil does not exclude dangerous suggestion, since either through the exuberance of age or through morbid imbalance it is possible to dwell with a certain exclusivity on the immoral aspect of the work, neglecting its totality in which, so to speak, it is redeemed. Therefore the distinction between moral and dangerous must be maintained in art, regulating on its basis the access of the young to works of art. Another point to be specified is the one-sided consideration of the immoral, which is sometimes reduced to sexual abuse; whereas certainly immoral too are violence and fraud, the oppression and suppression of the innocent, theft and the crime of blood; their exaltation in art, therefore, is likewise excluded by morality.
Finally, it should be noted that the ethical norm is felt as a limit only when it is not lived as custom; for one who has made it an inner norm of life, the ethical norm is an affirmation of self and an act of freedom. And therefore moral adaptation in art must be understood from within, not from without; hence, rather than moralizing art, one should tend to moralize the artist. Moreover, only when it is an inner attitude of the artist does morality not mortify aesthetic quality; and only then can one truly speak of the morality of art, because only then does morality realize itself in a certain way as aesthetic quality.
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Amerigo De Propria