In an era where every aspect of culture is scrutinised through a moral lens, a troubling trend is reshaping how we view historical art. Critics and curators are increasingly reframing the legacies of great artists, from the baroque to the postmodern, to fit neatly within modern ethical narratives. This practice, however, risks erasing the very glorious ambivalence that makes their work powerful and enduring.
The Sanitisation of Chaïm Soutine
The experience of encountering Chaïm Soutine's work is often one of profound discomfort. His 1920s portraits of hotel staff on the French Riviera are masterpieces of tender brutality, where the brushstroke seems to both caress and violate the subject. Yet, a recent review of an exhibition of these works presented a startlingly different artist: one with a "profoundly compassionate and humane eye" who "sympathetically drifted to the underclass".
This sanitised vision ignores the known biography of a complex, difficult man and, more importantly, the intoxicating moral complexity of the paintings themselves. The power of Soutine's art lies in its invitation to contemplate our own discordant drives—the fine line between desire and exploitation, affection and brutality. To reframe him as a straightforward social justice advocate is to deny audiences that challenging engagement.
Historical Revisionism in Major Institutions
This "moral turn" is not confined to art criticism. It has become embedded in the practices of major cultural institutions. In 2020, Tate Modern's Andy Warhol exhibition described the famously amoral pop artist as having "provided a safe-space for queer culture". This reframing feels particularly incongruous for an artist who fetishised electric chairs and mined tragedy for his screenprints.
Similarly, the National Gallery's 2020 exhibition of Artemisia Gentileschi placed documents from her rapist's trial in the opening rooms, firmly positioning her assault as the primary key to interpreting her work, such as Judith Slaying Holofernes (c 1620). While her experience is historically significant, this focus can reductively tie a female artist's work solely to trauma, potentially overlooking her technical mastery and broader artistic vision.
The Cost of Intolerance to Ambivalence
The fear of ambivalence reached a peak in 2020 with the postponement of a major touring exhibition of Philip Guston's work across the US and UK. Guston's late paintings of cartoonish Ku Klux Klansmen immerse the viewer in the deeply uncomfortable, banal reality of racism. After the Black Lives Matter protests, organisers delayed the show until his "message of social and racial justice" could be "more clearly interpreted".
When the show finally opened at Tate Modern in 2023, efforts were made to position Guston firmly within a social justice lineage. As one critic noted, this reflects an era where "paintings and the public can no longer be left alone in a room together". The institutional hand-holding assumes audiences cannot grapple with complexity without explicit moral guidance.
A Dangerous Precedent for Cultural Discourse
While the principles of equality and inclusion are vital in society, applying them as a rigid filter to all art compromises critical thinking. It reduces art to mere exemplars of pre-approved ideas. Furthermore, it sets a dangerous precedent. If we insist art must promote a limited set of principles, what happens when ideologies that don't share those values gain power in cultural institutions?
We have seen signs of this globally, from the Trump administration targeting grants to arts organisations, to Giorgia Meloni appointing a right-wing president of the Venice Biennale. The tool of moralistic interpretation can be wielded by any side of the political spectrum.
Art's unique power is its ability to express the inexpressible, to sit with fundamental ambivalences and conflicting emotions that are part of being human. From Gentileschi's psychological chiaroscuro to Warhol's profound voyeurism and Soutine's tender brutality, great art challenges us. To strip it of this capacity for the sake of clear moral messaging is a profound cultural loss. Now is the time to argue for an art that helps us feel more, think more, and know more—in all its complicated, glorious, and unsettling ambiguity.
