“Ciò che conviene” ovvero l’arte tra economia e politica
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/4745
application/pdf
1973-9494
4745
en
Luigi Canetti
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
events
“What is convenient” or art between economics and politics
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
14
Articles
2014-12-20
2015-02-25
2014-12-20
2015-11-02
157-162
CSCH
Luigi Canetti
2014/12/20
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/4745
157
1973-9494
events
en
162
SETTIS S., 2010, Paesaggio, costituzione, cemento. La battaglia per l’ambiente contro il degrado civile, Torino, Einaudi
“What is convenient” or art between economics and politics
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/4745/4226
14
“
    W       HAT IS CONVENIENT” OR ART BETWEEN ECONOM-
            ICS AND POLITICS



        Luigi Canetti •
        Dipartimento di Beni Culturali,
        Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna (sede di Ravenna), Italy


        Keywords: art, science, university, events




       1. Techniques and signs: towards a historical science of the arts and images

        The second cycle degree course in “History and Conservation of Works of Art”, to
    be merged into the new two-year second cycle degree course in “History, Preservation
    and Enhancement of Artistic and Archaeological Heritage and Landscape”, symboli-
    cally reflects the key aspects that characterize the new Department of Cultural Heri-
    tage of the University of Bologna. This means historical-humanistic perspectives and
    technical-scientific perspectives will converge in order to complement and enhance
    each other. The former are to be understood primarily as critical thinking skills, reflec-
    tion on the method, the “way” (hodós), in other words, the requirements and conditions
    for knowledge, its consequences and effects on the individual, the community, and the




                                                                                                         CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
    environment. In each case, critical knowledge questions the assumptions it makes,
    distancing itself from the cultural conditioning of the observer with regard to the field of
    objects it studies, historicizing the very objects it deals with and the languages it uses
    to define and comprehend them. Therefore, art is not an absolute, a reality that exists
    separately from the environment and the society that produces and defines it, it is
    also a product of history, since it is a means of knowledge and a rich source of experi-
    ences and meanings, of objects and gestures that circumscribe its possible scope. It
    concerns, in fact, history and conservation, the guarantee of an education which inte-
    grates the different technical-scientific sectors dedicated to the analysis, diagnostics,
    restoration and preservation of works of art. This is why it is even more important to
    sharpen awareness regarding the importance of the iconic sign: art, like all languages
    is first and foremost a matter of signs and meanings. Communicative signs provide
    the necessary support for meanings, and no meaning can be given without a semiotic
    carrier, a sign to transmit it. There is no real division between material culture and
    spiritual culture: theology too, is embodied in institutions and in its power over bodies
    and spaces, and each artifact represents the outcome of ideas and conceptions which
    may even be extremely abstract and complex. Human language and imagery have
    evolved, together with gestures, the body and the environment, in a complex relation-
    ship made of reciprocal influences that cannot be separated from each other. The

    • Corresponding author: luigi.canetti@unibo.it

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                                                                            first natural images, together with early works of art, were actually both the real and
                                                                            reproduced tracks left by animal extremities, the material and, at the same time, the
                                                                            metaphysical trace of a presence, a meaning which goes beyond what is perceived
                                                                            by the senses1 [1]. Moreover, since art is technical production and concurrently a set
                                                                            of signs, supports and meanings, it is one of the most important, perhaps the most
                                                                            important modality of trans-figuration in the world2 [2].
                                                                                Art, therefore, has a political function, a critical vocation, it does not simply repro-
                                                                            duce reality, it calls it into question. Art is the ability to make plans and take action using
                                                                            reality. Since ancient times, great political revolutions have always been accompanied
                                                                            by iconoclastic movements and, at the same time, have favored the creation of a new
                                                                            imagery, a renewed repertoire of images, new styles and new meanings.
                                                                                Art has always been closely linked to the environment and landscape: the landscape
                                                                            itself is a cultural and historic element, and Italy, from this point of view, is a vast open-air
                                                                            museum, with its cities and countryside, coasts and valleys, all deeply marked by the di-
                                                                            verse techniques and forms of human activity. The subjects and themes of the figurative
                                                                            arts (not only in landscape paintings), and likewise their constituent materials (from pig-
                                                                            ments to marbles), have been profoundly affected by environmental and territorial fac-
                                                                            tors, and as a result have also been influenced politically and economically. Hence the
                                                                            importance of knowing about the techniques, materials, routes of exchange and commu-
                                                                            nication, in short, everything that has given shape and substance to artistic production,
                                                                            together with its diffusion, perception, degradation and conservation through time.
L. Canetti - “What is convenient” or art between economics and politics




                                                                               2. Heritage and art or the new professional gospel of the ephemeral

                                                                                When it comes to the career opportunities of our graduates it is necessary to move
                                                                            away from the rhetoric of professionalization regarding training courses. Ours is not
                                                                            an introductory course for restoration professionals and neither is it a school of pure
                                                                            theory on image; its ambition is to provide the basic knowledge, the prerequisite, for
                                                                            many occupations, from art criticism to museology, from research to teaching, from the
                                                                            senior management and coordination of agencies tasked with protection (the Italian
                                                                            superintendencies) to specialized publishing, from the management and coordination
                                                                            of restoration work and preservation to cataloguing using state of the art computer
                                                                            systems.
                                                                                But we should not delude ourselves: today jobs and professions have to be invent-
                                                                            ed; even professional openings in teaching are subject to profound revision and para-
                                                                            digm shifts. The important thing is not to give in to the siren-song of the economists,
                                                                            who want to persuade you of the immediate usability, profitability and direct exploita-
                                                                            tion of cultural heritage for commercial purposes and for profit. This, in Italy, has led to
                                                                            the devastation of the environment and territory, to the ruin, then, rather than the pres-
                                                                            ervation of its heritage, and is fueling the destructive and unconstitutional idea of the
                                                                            transferability of public assets3 [3]. Public assets are a guarantee, among other things
                                                                            – as Salvatore Settis has reminded us in an article which appeared in La Repubblica4
                                                                            [4] – of the State’s exercising (i.e. everyone together seen as an organized collective)
                                                                            its primary functions: not only the function of promoting the culture and education of
                                                                            its citizens, therefore, but also their assistance and protection, the promotion of the
                                                                            core values of​​ freedom and labor; in short, the protection of the fundamental rights of
                                                                            democratic citizenship, including those relating to the conservation and valorization of


                                                                      158
artistic and environmental heritage. A humiliating point has been reached with remain-
ing funds from the national lotteries being used to finance cultural heritage when the
usual support channels have dried up.
    Mass media, workers in the sector, managerial rampancy and public mismanagement
are currently transmitting an extremely hazardous message: that of transforming institu-
tions for preservation and conservation, museums and art galleries, into agencies at the
permanent service of the ephemeral. Art and culture are not sophisticated kinds of enter-
tainment, an “anesthetic for the masses” or a “high-class escort” to hide the ugliness and
violence of reality5 [5]. Art and culture have a very high ethical and civil function, they are
the basis of progress. It means studying the past, using all the latest means and research
techniques available, to plan the future, and thus contribute to the overall advancement
of society. Our graduates, however, should not aspire to become entertainers that fill the
leisure time of those travelers who today have become serial tourists. Their course of
study aims, first of all, to provide them with the prerequisites for putting into practice the
fruition of our artistic and environmental heritage with greater awareness of the rights
and duties underlying its conservation and critical knowledge. Only in this way, will they
become the protagonists and creators of innovative projects, of new professional skills
related to art, of ideas and techniques that can, indeed trans-figure the world in order to
make it better because it is more beautiful, and therefore more fair and more true.
    The data regarding public (and private) financing of cultural activities in Italy are well
known, also because they are a sore point, hence it is needless to go into detail here.
It is nevertheless, the only sore point that would be really worth the government’s while
to remedy once and for all, because by doing so, the whole sick body of the country
would be cured. There must be a turning point: a massive investment, both cultural and
financial, to raise awareness of the public nature and civil function that the preservation
and valorization of cultural heritage have. Since the Renaissance, in Italy, the discus-
sion on art has always been first and foremost a discussion about the public interest and




                                                                                                        CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
civil function of art, and not a discussion about personal entertainment6 [6].The fruition
and preservation of cultural heritage are not guaranteed by transforming museums and
landscapes into a Disneyland where you can spend your free time and have fun. It is
not a matter of denying the right to leisure, of course, but to give substance to Article
9 of the Italian Constitution, that bases the principle of the preservation and promotion
of the landscape and cultural heritage on public interest and therefore on knowledge
of the past and on planning for the future of the community. This is what the civil and
moral function of the study of history and the history of art is all about. I am therefore
convinced that good “events”, are those that are able to leave a lasting impression in
our minds and, in turn, may even impact positively on community funds and resources.
They are events that in the first place, consider it important to teach the language and
the meaning of testimonies, that come to us from the past, to future generations. You
can conserve and valorize at best only what you know. The rest is tourism and entertain-
ment hidden under the ‘fig leaf’ of culture. The university, I believe, has more important
duties: without sacrificing the need, which is now pressing, and rightly so, to rethink and
to create new professional profiles that are more integrated with the new technologies
and the new demands of society. It must not and can not give up its specific mission –
that of higher education –, in other words, of critical thinking and social criticism, and
consequently that of designing new research methods and new scenarios for public and
private intervention7 [7]. “Events” with a capital E are those rooted in this awareness, an
awareness of the strategic value of culture as a key resource for a community’s moral


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                                                                            and civil growth, and as a consequence, its economic growth. It is impossible to have
                                                                            a good cultural policy or a good economic policy, I would even say that it is a very bad
                                                                            policy tout court, when valorization is practically reduced to the selling off of cultural her-
                                                                            itage and its lucrative commodification, as has happened in the past and continues to
                                                                            do so. As Martha Nussbaum has shown, the economic impact of good cultural policies
                                                                            is achieved only when there is no need to aim for immediate profit, and if projects and
                                                                            strategies regarding financial statements are not coerced into adapting to criteria and
                                                                            ways of acting within a tight deadline8 [8]. When critical sense grows dull, sooner or later
                                                                            financing channels are occluded. It is evident for all to see, I believe.


                                                                               3. Convenience, civic decorum and public interest

                                                                                 Is it convenient therefore, to invest in culture and in cultural activities? One can
                                                                            better grasp the spirit and meaning of the question if for a moment, one reflects on
                                                                            the ancient Latin and humanistic meaning of convenience. Today, in all fields, what is
                                                                            “convenient” refers to what is useful, in the sense that it provides immediate gain. In
                                                                            Latin, convenientia, from the verb convenire, has a figurative sense that is very close
                                                                            to that of the verb decet, which for us has been minimized in the moralistic sense of
                                                                            ‘decency’. In both classical and Christian, and medieval and humanistic culture too,
                                                                            decet does indeed have a more complex meaning, a meaning, that is at the root of
                                                                            the idea of public good, even though modern constitutions have obliterated or bet-
                                                                            ter, perhaps, internalized this acceptation without ever clarifying it. Therefore, decet
L. Canetti - “What is convenient” or art between economics and politics




                                                                            is what is convenient, in the sense of what is more suitable, more appropriate, more
                                                                            fitting, on account of the beauty and preciousness of the materials, on account of the
                                                                            weight of the intellectual and temporal material resources expended for its realization,
                                                                            to valorize, indeed, to honor and glorify what beauty relates to. And beauty is suited to
                                                                            higher things, the gods and the city, that is to say, the public good par excellence, ac-
                                                                            cording to the ancients. This idea of ​​beauty, mutatis mutandis, also applies to Christian
                                                                            civilization. The monumental and ornamental decor, which somewhat reductively, we
                                                                            have taken to calling Art (with a capital A), since the sixteenth century, has been, what
                                                                            is most fitting, what is most convenient, for higher things: which is why Cassiodorus,
                                                                            in Theodoric’s Ravenna fifteen hundred years ago, linked the decor of the city and its
                                                                            preservation to the decus of the urban and intellectual élites, making it one of the es-
                                                                            sential tasks of the governors. And decus – with the same root, from the verb decet - is
                                                                            moral and intellectual beauty, which indeed should not be separated from decor, in
                                                                            other words, ornamental and monumental beauty.
                                                                                  It would be a great step forward in our social conscience, and I believe, in our ability
                                                                            to plan and in the economic benefits that might even ensue, if we learned to reclaim the
                                                                            profound meaning of the ancient correspondence between territorial and urban deco-
                                                                            rum, and the political and social importance of the cives. The cives are such, since, as
                                                                            a qualifying element of their dignitas, they put caring for art and the landscape before
                                                                            all else. A future of peace and prosperity has its roots in the intelligent, critical and in-
                                                                            novative (not nostalgic, therefore) recovery of our past. So, I think, in the name of the
                                                                            ancient and precious meaning of “convenience”, the planning of a big “event” such
                                                                            as Ravenna European Capital of Culture should be declined. It is only in this way, I
                                                                            believe, that the key to the civil, moral, and economic growth we all hope for, will open
                                                                            the door to new perspectives.


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      Notes
1
      For this topic, please refer to my book Impronte di gloria. Effigie e ornamento
      nell’Europa cristiana, Roma, Carocci, 2012.
2
      In this regard see A. Dal Lago, S. Giordano, Fuori cornice. L’arte oltre l’arte,
      Torino, Einaudi, 2008.
3
      Costituzione della Repubblica italiana, art. 9: «La Repubblica promuove lo
      sviluppo della cultura e la ricerca scientifica e tecnica. Tutela il paesaggio e il
      patrimonio storico e artistico della Nazione».
4
      S. Settis, Musei, direttori a orologeria, in «La Repubblica», 22 giugno 2013, p. 27.
5
      Expressions are borrowed from the penetrating pamphlet by T. Montanari, Le pietre
      e il popolo. Restituire ai cittadini l’arte e la storia delle città italiane, Roma, Minimum
      fax, 2013.
6
      See T. Montanari, A cosa serve Michelangelo?, Torino, Einaudi, 2011, pp. vii-viii.
7
      I fully identify myself with the disenchanted reflections made in this regard by C. Gi-
      unta, L’assedio del presente. Sulla rivoluzione culturale in corso, Bologna, il Mulino,
      2008.
8
      M. C. Nussbaum, Non per profitto. Perché le democrazie hanno bisogno della cultu-
      ra umanistica, Italian trans. Bologna, il Mulino, 2011 (Not for Profit. Why Democracy
      Needs the Humanities, Princeton, Princeton U. P., 2010).


      References


[1]      CANETTI, L., 2012, Impronte di gloria. Effigie e ornamento nell’Europa cristiana,
         Roma, Carocci




                                                                                                          CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
[2]      DAL LAGO, 2008, S. Giordano, Fuori cornice. L’arte oltre l’arte, Torino, Einaudi
[3]      GIUNTA, 2008, L’assedio del presente. Sulla rivoluzione culturale in corso, Bolo-
         gna, il Mulino
[4]      Leone A., Maddalena P., Montanari T., Settis S., 2013, Costituzione incompiuta.
         Arte, paesaggio, ambiente, Torino, Einaudi
[5]      MONTANARI T., 2013, Le pietre e il popolo. Restituire ai cittadini l’arte e la storia
         delle città italiane, Roma, Minimum fax
[6]      MONTANARI T., 2011, A cosa serve Michelangelo?, Torino, Einaudi
[7]      NUSSBAUM M. C., 2011, Non per profitto. Perché le democrazie hanno bisog-
         no della cultura umanistica, Bologna, il Mulino, (Not for Profit. Why Democracy
         Needs the Humanities, Princeton, Princeton U. P., 2010)
[8]      SETTIS S., 2010, Paesaggio, costituzione, cemento. La battaglia per l’ambiente
         contro il degrado civile, Torino, Einaudi




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                                                                               Biographical notes

                                                                               Luigi Canetti (Parma, 1966) is Associate Professor of History of Christianity and
                                                                            Churches in the Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, Ravenna
                                                                            campus, Italy. He is a member of many scientific societies (“International Society for
                                                                            the Study of Medieval Latin”, “Italian Association for the Study of the saints, cults and
                                                                            hagiography”) and several editorial boards; he has worked in the field of hagiography
                                                                            and the cult of saints, the history of images, urban history, folklore culture and cultural
                                                                            memory. His research is characterized by the integration between religious-historical,
                                                                            linguistic and semiotic-cultural and anthropological methodologies. Among his most
                                                                            significant works are, «Gloriosa Civitas». Culto dei santi e società cittadina a Piacenza
                                                                            nel Medioevo, Bologna 1993; L’invenzione della memoria: il culto e l’immagine di Do-
                                                                            menico nella storia di primi frati Predicatori, Spoleto 1996; Frammenti di eternità. Corpi
                                                                            e reliquie tra Antichità e Medioevo, Roma 2002; Il passero spennato. Riti, agiografia
                                                                            e memoria dal Tardoantico al Medioevo, Spoleto 2007; Impronte di gloria. Effigie e
                                                                            ornamento nell’Europa cristiana, Roma 2012.
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