Moralism and the Arts

Ian Buruma | Project Syndicate | 6th February 2018

Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Picasso, Balthus, Chuck Close: a rogue’s gallery of the #Metoo movement! Should these artists’ works be dismissed because of misdeeds, proven or otherwise? “To judge the moral component of artistic expression, then, we must look … at the work itself. Some art is meant to provoke … People can do things in works of imagination that they would never do in life.”