Even though it is an empirical truth that works on Objectivism by «independent scholars» are usually pretentious wastes of time, I was particularly eager to read this 500-page treatise on the Objectivist theory of art. Call it a victory of hope over experience. My first disappointment was to discover that about one third of the book is composed of footnotes : about 1,500 of them, over 150 pages ! Academics tend to consider footnotes as a badge of superior scholarship, but let's face it : they are nothing more than material that the author has failed to integrate into the body of his work, clutter from the cutting room floor whose inclusion merely serves to hamper the linear process of reading. In this particular case, about 80 pages into the book, I had to quit reading them, so as to concentrate on the flow of the authors' argument. My second disappointment was that M&K's book is not what it purports to be, i.e. an analysis or a systematization of Rand's esthetics. Much of the relevant source material has been left out or poorly exploited. Rand's art itself could have been studied as an application of her esthetic principles, but it is not. This is all the more unjust as the authors devote four pages to an unproduced scenario which «has been judged by many film professionals one of the best screenplays ever written, if not the best», while they have virtually nothing to say about Rand's own screenplays for «The Fountainhead» and «Love Letters». Most of the references to Rand's esthetics are concentrated in chapters 1 through 4, which analyze the four major essays in Rand's «Romantic Manifesto». The authors agree with the fundamentals of the Objectivist esthetics, but the criticisms they do make are often very unfair or unsubstantiated. As an example of the former, they refute Rand's statement that Vermeer (one of her favorite painters) often chose as subjects «folks next door... to kitchens» by remarking that «only one of his paintings, «Maidservant Pouring Milk», even suggests the vicinity of a kitchen». Isn't that a little too literal a reading ? As an example of unsubstantiated or gratuitous criticism, here is how they reject Rand's classification of the screenplay as a form of drama : «[Rand] may have been somewhat off the mark in considering the screenplay as a species of drama. As Susanne Langer suggests, the strucure of film is closer to narrative fiction that to drama» (p361 n 62.) What we have here is an arbitrary disagreement supported by an argument from authority. This is all the more irresponsible as M&K's rejection of Rand's theory of the screenplay as drama renders them unable to understand why voiceovers and lengthy monologues are inappropriate in film. My third disappointment with the book is that it is mostly focused on negatives, rather than stressing the positive. In fact, M&K are merely using Rand as a springboard (or selling argument ?) to launch their own attack on modernist «art». However cogent and salutary this attack is, I think Rand's own attitude towards modernist «art» was much more rational : there's nothing to say about it, it belongs on a rubbish dump, let's move on to something that makes sense, shall we ? In «What Art Is», you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about so-called «artists» who have friends shoot them in the arm in public or have their cervix examined by the audience as a form of «performative art», while nothing is said of the genuine artists who, under Rand's influence, are currently ushering in a second Renaissance in the arts. Finally, my fourth disappointment with «What Art Is» is that it fails to give credit where credit is due. While adopting virtually all the essentials of Rand's eshetics, M&K spend more time criticizing or smearing Rand than recognizing her greatness. When mentioning the prospect of the exctinction of non-art and the rebirth of art, they do not mention the role of Objectivism in that process but hope that their book «will play some small role in hastening that renaissance». Even more blatant is their injustice towards Leonard Peikoff, whose great accomplishments all «independent Objectivist scholars» invariably belittle. Not only is Peikoff's chapter on Art in «Objectivism : The Philosophy of Ayn Rand» more or less disregarded, but his 1993 lecture on «Modernism and Madness» (published in «The Intellectual Activist», November 1994) is dismissed to a footnote (n. 6 p391) which is not even listed in the index. Such an oversight is all the more troubling as much of "What Art Is" is only a lengthy paraphrase Peikoff's argument in this lecture. For all my strong reservations, however, I am not saying that this book should not be read. Its thorough documentation of the irrationalism of the culture of the twentieth century may provide intellectual ammunition for more focused arguments, and the book does have a few good points to make on Rand's esthetics. M&K's comment on architecture, for instance, could be reduced to a valid syllogism : if (1) «art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments» and (2) «architecture... does not recreate reality» (two statements from Rand's «Romantic Manifesto»), then (3) architecture is not an art. However, I think it is as unjustified to call this book «What Art Is : The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand» as it would be to call a Rand-influenced catalogue of the horrors of the gulag «What Capitalism Is : The Political Theory of Ayn Rand».
