Atheist, and Art Historian Asks, "Should Art Only Be, For Art's Sake?"

THE GUARDIAN
By Alain de Botton

A detail of Descent into Limbo by Andrea Mantegna. Photograph: Sotheby's/AP

You 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. The problem is that modern museums of art fail to tell people directly why art matters, because modernist aesthetics (in which curators are trained) is so deeply suspicious of any hint of an instrumental approach to culture. Christianity, by contrast, never leaves us in any doubt about what art is for: it is a medium to teach us how to live, what to love and what to be afraid of. This leads to a suggestion: what if modern museums of art kept in mind the example of the didactic function of Christian art, in order once in a while to reframe how they presented their collections? [link]