And this has been standing here for centuries. The premier work of man perhaps in the whole Western world, and it’s without a signature: Chartres. A celebration to God’s glory and to the dignity of man. All that’s left, most artists seem to feel these days, is man. Naked, poor, forked radish. There aren’t any celebrations. Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is a universe which is disposable. You know, it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand, choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust, to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us to accomplish.
Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash. The triumphs and the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life. We’re going to die. ‘Be of good heart,’ cry the dead artists out of the living past. Our songs will all be silenced — but what of it? Go on singing. Maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much.
— Orson Welles, F for Fake
(A hearty thanks to Greg at The Daily Grail for the welcome inspiration/provocation to post this.)
I’m not sure any scientist would describe the universe as “disposable”. The universe is an amazing, beautiful place, full of wonders. If there’s no god, that doesn’t change that.
I wonder about people who need a god in order to see the beauty in life. Mr Welles was wrong; there ARE celebrations. Every day, the wise celebrate life and the wonder of it.
Welles’ sentiment is less that there is nothing to appreciate, more so that human civilization is insignificant in the grandness of the universe and time. The entire world or “universe” we have made for ourselves could be over in just a moment, regardless of how sublime it is.