ANOTHER TAKE ON "WHY ART?"
Submitted by Tommer on June 2, 2009
From CULTURE MONSTER in the LA Times
With the notable exception of Abraham Lincoln, I wish more presidents during their time in office would have opened themselves up to the salutary and formative effects of serious drama. W.H. Auden’s famous line about the relative ineffectuality of art (“For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives/ In the valley of its saying where executives/ Would never want to tamper …”) is no doubt correct when it comes to legislative action. But artists have another power, no less far-reaching for being unseen and immeasurable — the ability to broaden our sensibility by inviting us to experience life through another’s eyes.