Madam, - How delicious, how salubrious it was to read Kevin Myers's magisterial tirade against modernist art (An Irishman's Diary, September 2nd).
The only aspect of Mr Myers's thesis with which I disagree is his assertion that artists such as Klee, Kandinsky, Chagall, Mondrian, Ernst, Dali, Miro and Picasso "were immensely capable artists who could have enriched the world with their talents, had they not been tempted by the poisoned apples of lazy abstraction, etc." This is mere speculation. These artists are famous largely because they were identified as key individuals in what I regard as the catastrophic decay of the once brilliant tradition of Western visual art. One might as well admire Karl Marx for his contribution to politics as Marcel Duchamp for his contribution to art.
I think of the 20th century as the "gullible" century. Around 1900 all manner of ideas and institutions were in decline, many deservedly so. Unfortunately, many of the notions that replaced them were remarkably foolish: theosophy, fascism and communism to name but three of the major inspirations. The early 20th century zeitgeist was fiercely critical of an allegedly corrupt past, while embracing, with uncritical religious zeal, whatever new crackpot solution was proferred.
The evolution of modernist art fits this same pattern like a glove. - Yours, etc.,
COLIN BRENNAN,
Nutley Square,
Dublin 4.
Madam, - It was with true dismay that I read Kevin Myers's inflammatory screed unmercifully castigating Peggy Guggenheim to the point of irresponsibility exhorting arson to the Venice Guggenheim Museum.
Mr Myers either doesn't tell us the whole story or gets it all wrong. When "Peggy" was buying "a picture a day" it was Paris in 1940 at the outset of the second World War. No mention is made that she was. in most cases, the buyers of "last resort" whose purchases often provided the desperately urgent funds that enabled innumerable artists to escape a Europe about to be engulfed by the Nazis.
Nor is mention made that her "Art of This Century" gallery in New York was designed by the gifted refugee architect from Vienna, Friederich Kiesler, and she exhibited many of those artists (including Tanguy) who had sought refuge in New York during the war. For many, her gallery was a lifeline during those difficult and unheralded years.
Where Mr Myers gets it all wrong is in his admonition "to bring a can of petrol and a lighter" to the Venice Guggenheim. His call is 70 years late and should have been addressed to the then new powers in Berlin citing the liberal and free thinking volumes of the Berlin Library, whereupon his words would have been listened to and acted upon attentively.
Further, he gets it all wrong, wishing he had visited the "little ex-corporal in Munich to speak to using a large claw-hammer". He would seem better equipped to have had an in-depth discussion with the little corporal about an upcoming art exhibit entitled "Entartete Kunst" for which his credentials as lead curator would have been impeccable. - Yours, etc.,
RAYMOND LEARSY,
c/o Mount Juliet Conrad,
Thomastown,
Co Kilkenny.