The case for elitism

Arising from \u27The Public and the Arts\u27 study by the Arts Council of Ireland in 2006, a series of commentators were commissioned to write about \u27The Value of the Arts\u27 from their own perspective. Emer O\u27Kelly argues, \u27The purpose of art is to elevate the spirit, extend the intellectual horizons, and fire the imagination. Throughout history the greatest art has done this so successfully that it still demands undivided attention, grabbing us by the throat and knocking the breath from our bodies. It has literally stopped the generations in their tracks. That is the elite of art, the work that we can all agree has a mysterious, overwhelming transcendence; sometimes it may not actually appeal, but its greatness is indisputable. Most art can only aspire to such monumental effect. The rest ranges from the excellent and startlingly effective, through the disturbing, the beautiful, the evocative, the challenging, down through the stages to the predictable, the banal, and the trite and vulgar. At lower levels art becomes a matter of contemporary dispute between those who want the recognisable and comfortable and those who are eager for challenge. But it has nearly always been the challenging art that has survived its own time. The comfortable, easy reflections have faded and been lost as today\u27s comfortable and easy reflections will probably fade and be lost. But then the arguments remain as to the nature of challenge: is the art good merely because it challenges current opinion, and if so is that enough? Where does the balance lie between progress and the nature of artistic achievement? \u2