In an era where art is increasingly expected to conform to a rigid moral code, a troubling trend has emerged – the reframing of great artists to fit modern ethical narratives. From Chaïm Soutine to Artemisia Gentileschi, critics and curators have sought to sanitise the complexities and ambiguities that made these artists’ works so powerful and transformative.
Take the case of Soutine, whose paintings of hotel staff on the French Riviera in the 1920s combine tenderness and brutality in equal measure. A recent exhibition review sought to recast Soutine as a “saintly advocate for social justice,” erasing the tangled emotions and moral ambiguities that make his work so intoxicating. Similarly, Gentileschi’s famous painting “Judith Slaying Holofernes” is now widely interpreted as an autobiographical response to her own rape, rather than being appreciated for its baroque splendour and psychological depth.
This “moral turn” in the art world is not limited to the reframing of historical artists. Even contemporary giants like Andy Warhol have been subjected to this treatment, with the Tate Modern’s 2020 exhibition describing the “vampire of the New York scene” as an artist who “provided a safe-space for queer culture.”
The problem with this approach is that it strips art of its capacity to challenge, transform, and expand our understanding of the human condition. By insisting that art must conform to a set of pre-approved moral and political principles, we risk reducing it to mere exemplars of ideological messaging, forfeiting our cultural intelligence in the process.
As Rosanna McLaughlin eloquently argues, ambivalence and moral complexity are not flaws to be excised, but essential qualities that allow art to speak to the dark and complicated nature of being human. Paintings like Gentileschi’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes” or Guston’s disturbing depictions of the Ku Klux Klan do not offer clear-cut moral lessons, but rather plunge the viewer into discomfort, pushing us to question our assumptions and sharpen our thinking.
In the current climate of polarised culture wars, the temptation to use art as a tool for promoting specific political agendas is understandable. But as the resurgent right makes inroads into the arts, we must be wary of the consequences of this approach. If we insist that art must serve a limited set of principles, what happens when an ideology that does not share our values comes to power?
Now, more than ever, is the time to argue for an art that can help us feel more, think more, and know more. By embracing the ambiguity and moral complexity inherent in the greatest works, we can reclaim art’s transformative power and resist the reductive impulses of the culture war. As McLaughlin eloquently states, “Learning to engage with complexity is a necessary skill if we are ever to drag ourselves out of the puerile swamp of the culture war.”