The Importance of Being an Artist

Two new Rembrandts arriving in Los Angeles is the happiest news Southern California’s art community has had in a long while, and once again the bearer of the happy tidings is the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Abduction of Europa” and “Daniel and Cyrus Before the Idol Bel” are major paintings by a European master. Purely as acquisitions, they deserve the media fanfare that has marked their coming; however, they have arrived at a moment in art history that makes them more than a mere triumph of astute collecting.

When classic modernism was succeeded by contemporary art at the end of World War II, artists seemed determined to become philosophers. The conceptual art that eventually dominated this period was as much criticism as creation. It was art that set out to make the viewer think.

But if an artist may be a philosopher and make people think, may an artist not also be a novelist and make them dream? If “post-contemporary” artists begin to entertain this possibility, there is no master to whom they will more profitably turn than Rembrandt. Rembrandt was the Shakespeare of the canvas, a genius who could compress pages of narrative and dialogue into a tilt of the head, a gleam of the eye. Artists of all kinds should line up to view these works when they go on display--not just painters but also dancers, photographers, actors, animators, set designers, script writers and novelists. The endlessly suggestive Rembrandt--a tragedian beyond compare but also a brilliant ironist--will say something different to each.

By the way, any doubt that art--from Rembrandt on down--is a factor in the economic as well as the cultural life of California is laid to rest in the California Arts Council’s just-released study “The Arts: A Competitive Advantage for California.” This eye-opening report “quantifies the nonprofit arts in terms of real spending, jobs and income for California.” The nonprofit arts, the study says, “are a good investment returning $2.1 billion to the California economy and generating $77 million in state and local tax revenues.”

Many artists (no surprise here) have a “day job.” Overall only 53% of the average artist’s income comes directly from art. But the artists of Los Angeles County earned an above-average $38,400 in 1992, and 35% of the 2,000 artists responding to the Arts Council survey employed more than 10 others to assist them in arts-related activities.

The intent of the report, transparently but laudably, is to correct the mistaken view of the artist as society’s pampered child. Eighty-six percent of artists vote. What other group can match that number? Fifty percent work as volunteers; 74% contribute to charities. Socially as well as economically, artists are solid citizens.

This is the battered group to which, above all, the Getty’s gift is given. And this is the one group that can express its gratitude by creating new art in return.