OXFORD: In the late 1960s Yehudi Menuhin dedicated a performance of Beethoven's violin concerto to "the indomitable and defiant spirit of man." Do we still look at the arts in that way? To be sure, the paperback, the cd, the technical quality of art reproduction provide millions of people with entry tickets to Malraux's musee imaginaire of all culture. But as the inhuman tenor of this century comes to condition our feelings, the terrible impotence of culture stands naked.
OXFORD: In the late 1960s Yehudi Menuhin dedicated a performance of Beethoven's violin concerto to "the indomitable and defiant spirit of man." Do we still look at the arts in that way? To be sure, the paperback, the cd, the technical quality of art reproduction provide millions of people with entry tickets to Malraux's musee imaginaire of all culture. But as the inhuman tenor of this century comes to condition our feelings, the terrible impotence of culture stands naked.