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"Voice of Fire", a Barnett Newman "Painting"
Ah, "Voice of Fire." If you criticize the spending of that amount of money on a panel consisting of three stripes—the type of design you would see at a shopping mall food court— you’re obviously some narrow-minded Philistine, judging something of which you have no cultural knowledge, something that’s out of your cultural experience. “Voice of Fire” is a genuine Barnett Newman painting, after all. A national art gallery paid $1.76 million for it, so it must be worth the money. Hey, for that kind of money, it has to be a masterpiece!
The emperor has no clothes. If no one knew it was a genuine Barnett Newman, “Voice of Fire” might fetch as much as $10 at a yard sale—the value of the canvas or plywood or whatever it’s painted on (the thing is pretty big).
It’s unlikely anyone in their right mind would hang a poster-size reproduction of “Voice of Fire” on their wall. But lots of people hang reproductions of “The Music Lesson.”
From a commercial standpoint, the National Gallery in Ottawa has probably recouped its financial investment in “Voice of Fire” from the admission fees of incredulous visitors who just had to find out for themselves if the gallery actually did purchase a panel painted with three stripes for $1.76 million, and did provide wall space for it, instead of a work of art.
As for music ... a cultural relativist would insist that you have to consider a musical piece within its cultural milieu, so all music is equally valid. There’s no such thing as a “good” song or a “bad” song. Artistic merit is too subjective to be judged or measured. A 12-year-old’s first attempt at songwriting has just as much artistic merit as “Georgia On My Mind.”
This kind of thinking is utterly delusional because it ignores or denies the reality of evolved human nature.