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Against Art
and Culture
LI A M D EE
Against Art and Culture
 Liam Dee

Against Art
and Culture
Liam Dee
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia

ISBN 978-981-10-7091-4    ISBN 978-981-10-7092-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7092-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958859

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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189721, Singapore
For Ruth Barraclough and Una Dee
 Contents

1 Introduction: What Is Art/Culture and Why Should

You Be Against It?   1

2 Artistic Differences: In Search of a Negation   35

3 Artistic License: The Catechisms of Art/Culture   87

4 Artistic Freedom: Privilege and New Products  131

5 That’s Showbiz! Artistic Form and Control  193

6 Conclusion: O Bailan Todos O No Baila Nadie 273

Index 283

vii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: What Is Art/Culture

and Why Should You Be Against It?

A Portrait of the Artist as a Risible Wanker

From Gilbert and Sullivan’s japes about the pretensions of aesthetes in
Patience to contemporary galleries selling Rothko Paint-by-Numbers Mugs
(Case 2008),1 an easy laugh is always to be had at the expense of art. Nor
is this satirical mirth restricted to obscurantist ‘high art’, with the directors,
authors and rock stars that make up ‘popular culture’ equally vulnerable to
mockery over the pomposity of their ‘creative vision’. Across the spectrum
of art and popular culture there is a constant spray of derision at artistic
hubris, privilege and hollow claims of transcendence. Yet no matter how
broad or vitriolic the ridicule it is hard to find examples where either art or
popular culture is denounced to the point of a full negation.
The aim of this book is to understand and counter this hesitancy and the
first part of that is to overcome the separation of the supposedly different
worlds of art and popular culture. The main reason why so many ‘anti-­art’
positions tend to be riddled with exception clauses and caveats is because
they are usually only against one particular form of art. Despite the gener-
ally accepted position that the boundaries between high art and popular
culture are flimsy and often arbitrary, critiques tend to be either populist
attacks on high art or jeremiads against the aesthetic poverty of pop cul-
ture. In truth the distinction between ‘art’ and ‘culture’ is the first hurdle
one needs to get over before a substantive negation can be undertaken.

© The Author(s) 2018 1

L. Dee, Against Art and Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7092-1_1
2 L. DEE

What Is Art/Culture?

Art as Substance Versus Pop Culture as Mere Style

In keeping with the general condition of journalistic amnesia one revelation
that never fails to re-amaze is that ‘comics are no longer just for kids!’ ‘Once
camp, kitsch and cartoonish, comic books have come of age’ (Thompson
2001, title block). This sentiment comes from an article on the ‘coming of
age’ of comics, nominally evidenced by the films X-Men and Unbreakable,
yet it is really about the ‘adult’ re-invention of superhero comics in the
1980s. The fact that this is news in 2001 tells you how often this non-­story
of pop culture being as complex as ‘art’ bears repeating.2 Particularly
noteworthy for David Thompson (2001, para. 10) is that:

Set against the ‘serious’ contemporary art currently in favour – art that is
conspicuously devoid of content or achievement in its construction –
these comic books are examples of true modern art. Indeed, Watchmen,
Arkham Asylum and Marvels are works of artistic devotion, requiring a
lucidity of imagination and a meticulous commitment measured in years –
qualities that seem beyond the capabilities of the art world’s latest pre-
tenders. Tracey Emin’s soiled bed and Sarah Lucas’s vaginal kebab jokes
are exercises in self-­preoccupation, communicating nothing but the ner-
vous vanity of their makers and conforming entirely to an age in which
celebrity is all.

In a nutshell we have both the conventional way in which ‘art’ is defined

against ‘popular culture’ and an example of just how porous this defini-
tional contrast is. Of course Thompson still believes in this border of
‘artistic devotion’, it is just that he is prepared to swap Tracey Emin at the
checkpoint for Alan Moore, reflecting a general acceptance that any form
of popular culture can be just as ‘complex’ as any venerated gallery mas-
terpiece, if not more so. But all this really tells us is that ‘popular culture’
can be just as good as ‘art’ or that some so-called ‘art’ is as bad as ‘popular
culture’. All the rhetoric about ‘content’ and ‘substance’ is itself devoid of
content and substance, either being little more than vacuous opinion
(‘Gee, that Mona Lisa sure is deep’) or else so broad as to basically describe
nearly anything (‘Gee, that Game of Thrones is as complex as the predator–
prey relationship in a sewer ecosystem’).
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 3

Vague and Positive: Defining the Indefinable

Indeed it would seem that ‘art’ and ‘culture’ are supposed to exist in some
quantum field where any attempt to locate them definitively is impossible.
Raymond Williams ([1976] 1983, 87) notes that culture is one of the ‘most
complicated words in the English language’ and, while we laugh at old-
fashioned definitions based on moral edification, the concept of ‘art’ is still
dominated by mystical bullshit. On the one hand there is an implied notion
that both are indefinable and yet also conceptually crammed full of grandiose
and amazing defining qualities.
Sure we have some notion that art and culture are inherently good, that
they involve working in particular mediums (indeed an ‘artist’ still acts as a
default synonym for ‘painter’), that they are vehicles for ‘personal
expression’, and that beauty and elegance are constitutive. More importantly
there is a widespread belief that what art and culture share is a timeless,
natural quality that unifies everything from Werner Herzog, to tribal
ceremonies, medieval religious iconography and Palaeolithic cave paintings.
Yet these definitions are, at best, overly inclusive and thus not particularly
useful. More often they are vapid metaphysical drivel without a shred of
decent evidence to back them up. Nonetheless everyone from artists to
government departments to philosophers continually perpetuates them.
Thus when you ask artists for definitions you’ll still get stuff like this:
‘What is art for? To make meaning happen!’ (Antin 2007, 204). Even if we
assume multi-media artist Eleanor Antin is not talking about your com-
mon-or-garden ‘meaning’ but a grandiose ‘Meaning-of-Life’, there is no
indication as to how art does this, just the usual assumption that art is deep
without having to be proven so. Perhaps the problem is that practitioners
are too close and are liable to the poetic excess they work in. To get a better
grasp on the subject we need a bit of distance provided by art critics:

‘Art may be hard to define, but whatever it is, it’s a step removed from real-
ity.’ In one breath, [music critic, Anthony] Tommasini, a modest man, says
that he can’t define it; doesn’t know what it is; nevertheless will define it;
will tell us, in effect, that he knows exactly what it is, when he writes the
words ‘a step removed from reality.’ (Lentricchia and McAuliffe 2002, 351)

Soon the dreams of anti-matter engines will be realised simply by plac-

ing Rodin sculptures and Picasso’s blue-period paintings into a rocket;
releasing energy as they obliterate the matter of reality. Seriously though,
while the ‘virtual’ nature of art could be a useful distinction, the way it is
4 L. DEE

conceived makes all forms of play and entertainment art, as well as ignoring
all the ways art is immersed in grubby day-to-day business and politics.
Perhaps more important is the stress on art being hard to define, something
that seems to persist even in the realms of state officialdom.
Thus, though the distinction between art and ‘non-art’ is one the law has
put its considerable wisdom to revealing, numerous cases, such as Whistler
v. Ruskin, Hahn v. Duveen, Brancusi v. United States and the Mapplethorpe
trial (Cincinnati v. Contemporary Arts Center), have created impermanent
and contradictory rulings, with judges usually resolving cases without hav-
ing to define art and indeed going out of their way to avoid doing so3
(Mansfield 2005, 30n27; Giry 2002, para. 33). This same uncertainty exists
in the government bureaucracies whose purview covers art and culture:

The [UK] Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS’s) website
admits ‘There is no official government definition of “culture”.’ Efforts
have begun at various levels – from UNESCO, to the European Union, to
DCMS itself – to tackle this issue of language and definition, and progress is
being made, but as the DCMS’s Evidence Toolkit insists, when it comes to
culture, ‘There are no shared definitions, systems and methodologies.’
(Holden 2006, 11)

Clearly we need to go to the rarefied height of philosophy, where mean-

ing is paramount, to nail a definition. For Jean Baudrillard (2005, 63) ‘Art
is a form. A form is something that does not exactly have a history, but a
destiny.’ ‘For me, form has nothing to do with focusing positively on
something, nothing to do with the presence of an object. Form rather has
to do with challenge, seduction, reversibility’ (ibid., 84). So we can test for
art-ness by seeing how challenging, seductive and reversible some ‘form’
is? Is art the only thing that can be a ‘form’? Well I guess we should expect
such enigmas from a postmodernist, a philosophical tendency itself
inspired by the hothouse hyperbole of modern art. But even a more sober
French philosopher, like Alain Badiou, obsessed with the rigours of math-
ematics, has a definition that reads like a teenager’s poem:

I propose to say that a world is an artistic one, a situation of art, a world of

art when it proposes to us a relation between chaotic disposition of sensibil-
ity and what is acceptable as a form. So an artistic situation, in general, is
always something like [a] relation between a chaotic disposition of sensibil-
ity in general (what is in the physical, what is in the audible, and in general)
and what is a form. So it’s a relation (an artistic world) between sensibility
and form. (Badiou [1997] 2005, para. 20)
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 5

Of course one might ask what is not a relation between ‘sensibility’ and
‘form’? Nose-picking? Accountancy? What in human culture is not a massag-
ing of the ‘chaos’ of the corporeal into ‘form’? The separation of ideas from
visceral affect where, art notwithstanding, we are either brains-in-­jars or pure
sensual Id, is inconsistent with lived experience as, to quote Sebastiaan Faber
(2004, 141 emphases in original), we don’t ‘just have ideas but always actively
live them’. Even if you could defend a notion of the purely conceptual (a text
that is absorbed straight into the brain without the sense of sight or touch or
any emotions interceding) and perceptual (an orgasm that escapes any linguis-
tic categorisation, including the word orgasm) these would be such extreme
situations that they would hardly help define art separated from the rest of
normal human social life. Even Badiou ([1997] 2005, para. 20) himself
admits how poor his definition is, though not for the reasons that I point out:

It’s a completely abstract definition, but you can see the nature of the defini-
tion. So, if you want, the state of affairs in the artistic world is always a rela-
tion between something like our experimentation of chaotic sensibility in
general, and the distinction, which is a moving distinction, between form
and inform, or something like that.

Yeah, something like that.

So what about analytical philosophy, which is all about rigorous defini-
tions rather than the stoner hermeneutics and poetic inexactitude of the
‘Continental’ intelligentsia? We are not off to a good start when one of the
most respected and venerable figures of ‘analytical aesthetics’, Arthur
C. Danto (2013, 38 emphasis added), admits that his ‘intuition was this:
The artwork is a material object, some of whose properties belong to the
meaning, and some of which do not.’ So we are still in the realm of gut
feelings and insights that are both banal and silly (an artwork is a ‘material
object’ but only part of it has ‘meaning’ and the rest is as meaningless as a
non-art object like a stop-sign or swastika).
From another analytical aesthete we find that going with your intuition,
rather than being all, like, uptight about facts ’n’ stuff, is also the way to go:

So long as the aesthetic theory succeeds in giving the essence of a great

many art forms, I do not think that we should worry too neurotically about
whether it covers every item in the Modern System of Arts. I maintain that
if we draw a circle around most of the traditional arts (painting, sculpture,
architecture, music, and poetry), together with the sort of everyday creative
activities that I mentioned [for example, whistling, cake-decorating, religious
rituals], we get an interesting grouping. (Zangwill 2002, 117)
6 L. DEE

On the one hand there is a recognition that if you are going to call
yourself an analytical theorist you need to ‘draw circles’ around concepts
and agree on what it is you are analysing. Yet on the other hand there is a
cavalier disregard for obtaining the kind of definition one would expect
from a discipline that aims for the rigours of ‘hard science’.
Nor do things get much better in the realms of analytical philosophers
who more explicitly associate themselves with science … or at least sci-
entism. From a ‘neuroaesthetic’ point of view the ‘translation of concepts
in the artist’s mind onto canvas or into music or literature constitutes art’
(Zekir 2002, 67). So art is what artists do when they are doing art. If
speculative neurology cannot help why not try speculative evolutionary
socio-biology? The most recent and largely praised examples of this ten-
dency are Brian Boyd’s On the Origin of Stories and Denis Dutton’s The Art
Instinct. Neither author has scientific credentials (they are professors of
English and Philosophy respectively) but what they lack in scientific method
(falsifiability, reproducible experiments etc.) they more than make up for in
their invocations to scientific authority.4 For Boyd (2009, 15) you just
throw the word ‘cognitive’ in there to make it sound objective: ‘We can
define art as cognitive play with pattern.’ Once again we have a definition
that assumes a naïve Cartesian view of the world, where we can clearly
demarcate ‘cognitive play with pattern’ from ‘non-cognitive play without
pattern’ (play without rules, meaning or any conceptual framework, of
which, of course, no example is provided). While we finally have a defini-
tion without the ‘something like’, ‘in my opinion’ or ‘can I get back to you’
modifiers it is barely defensible let alone useful for distinguishing art.
Given the swaggering assumptions Dutton (2009, 30) makes that, well
duh, of course art is innate to humans, you would guess that, using the pre-
cise scalpel of science, he would give us a clear, concise definition of art …
and you would be wrong. His definition is twelve(!) ‘characteristic features’,
which he admits massively overlaps with ‘non-art experiences and capaci-
ties’: direct pleasure, skill and virtuosity, style, novelty and creativity, criti-
cism, representation, special focus, expressive individuality, emotional
saturation, intellectual challenge, art traditions and institutions (which is
pretty cheeky for someone who claims to have an intrinsic definition of art
not based on what particular institutions claim is art), and imaginative expe-
rience (ibid., 52–9). So how does this work to define the ultimate ‘anti-art
artwork’, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain? Dutton (2009, 196–200) here con-
torts the concepts of ‘direct pleasure’ (‘like the pleasure of a joke’), ‘skill’
(‘the skill of the artist is present in knowing exactly what unusual, however
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 7

minimal, act will be admired by a sophisticated artworld a­udience’) and

‘expressive individuality’ (‘Fountain is expressive of the artist’s individuality,
so long as we are referring to his gesture in putting forward a urinal as a
work of art’) to the point where they could encompass just about any human
act and then he has the chutzpah to claim that

on a numerical calculation of items on the cluster criteria list, not to mention

the overwhelming agreement of generations of art theorists and art histori-
ans [given that these same ‘experts’ are repeatedly condemned for their anti-­
scientific pedantry and biases I would have thought their approval a problem,
but anyway], the answer is a resounding “Yes, Fountain is a work of art.”
(ibid., 201)

At least some analytic philosophers have been embarrassed enough

with these circular non-definitions to take the path of Ludwig Wittgenstein
in viewing art and culture as a language game that just sort of happened.
The ‘artworld’ or ‘institutional’ theory (which Dutton used as one of his
‘characteristics’) assumes some arbitrary social convention that explains
what art and culture is. ‘We have works of art because we have the institu-
tions. If this weren’t the case we would only have beautiful objects or
fetishes’ (Bürger 1991, 12). This assumes that even though art is a syn-
thetic construct ‘beautiful objects or fetishes’ is a natural, unmediated
­category that needs no ‘institutional’ intercession to give it meaning.
A statement as bald as Peter Bürger’s also makes it seem like galleries and
museums flip a coin on whether to ‘artify’ or ‘fetishise’. For George Dickie
(1993, 74) art is an ‘artifact upon which some society or some subgroup
of society has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation’. This
‘society’ is not like some gallery determining whether a piece is art or not,
no, that would be silly. It is groups of artists who are aware that what they
are doing is art. So art is something that artists are aware of as art.

The History of Art is Not Just Art History

All these feeble attempts to define art and culture assume, explicitly or
otherwise, that what we are dealing with is an intrinsic human property.
Even when attempting to add an historical dimension it is noteworthy
how often this becomes a tacit argument for essentialism: ‘The pantheon
of art is not a timeless presence which offers itself to pure aesthetic con-
sciousness but the assembled achievements of the human mind as it has
8 L. DEE

realized itself historically’ (Gadamer 1984, 86). So art changes over time
but only inasmuch as more is added to ‘the assembled achievements of the
human mind’. I disagree.
Neither art nor culture is an atavistic expression that merely varies in
manifestation over time; there is no such thing as ‘primal human expres-
sion’. Every act and mode of expression is mediated by the conditions of
social life within which it takes place. The attempt to conflate religious
iconography or Palaeolithic cave markings to what is now called ‘art’ is at
best lazy and at worst a tendentious attempt to cover dirty historical tracks.
It is these tracks that actually give us a proper understanding of art and
culture.

When the Greeks of the classical period wanted to characterize the basic
nature of painting and sculpture, poetry and music, dance and theatre, i.e.
things we today call works of art, most of them agreed that such things
were…the result of an activity they named mimesis. (Sörbom 2002, 19)

If the term sounds familiar it should, it is from this word that we derive
the term mimicry and it is basically referring to the same thing: deliber-
ately copying perceived reality. The production of ‘mimemata’ (the actual
sculpture, poem etc.) was an act of ‘techne’, which translates as ‘skill’, such
that it referred to technical craft rather than expressive genius and could
include activities like carpentry (ibid., 20–4). Indeed Larry Shiner (2001,
20–1) notes that even the notion of mimemata did not constitute a cate-
gory of ‘mimetic arts’ distinct enough to be separated from other forms of
making.
I deliberately start with ancient Greece because for standard Western
art history this is the origin point from which you can draw a straight line
to a SoHo gallery or a Department of Culture funding report. For this
reason it is the best way to contrast what is ‘art’ or ‘culture’ and what is
mimemata. This is not simply a case of ‘toe-may-toe/toe-mart-toe’; a
‘mimetician’ or technités was not just another term for ‘artist’. There was
none of the amorphous humanism around understanding what a mimeti-
cian did, they had a clear function to imitate reality the way modern car-
tographers or photojournalists ‘imitate’ reality. True, their representations
were bound to the mystical and divine, but until modern techno-science
cleansed what constituted the rational there was no clear division between
the theological and the logical. This meant that what we consider ancient
Greek art was ‘thoroughly embedded in social, political, religious, and
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 9

practical contexts, such as the competitive performance of tragedies at the

Athenian festival to Dionysius’ (ibid., 24–5).
This remained the basic understanding of ‘art’ right through medieval
Europe, the term having been adopted from the Latin ars: the power or
capacity to make something in a way that combined what would later
become the separate domains of technology and artisanry (Eco 1986, 93).
It was only when modernity ushered in a new regime of representation
that ars began to fracture into ‘technology’ and ‘art’ to designate different
modes of making and different subjectivities of makers. This is not to say
that concepts like original authorship or differential making did not exist
within techne/ars, but they were never dominant or akin to modern
notions of creativity, a term no one dared use in relationship to painters or
sculptors, due to the blasphemous hubris of comparing oneself to God the
Creator (Tatarkiewicz 1970, 55).
Before creativity could be stolen from the feudal God and given to artists
by a Promethean modernity, art had to be purified of its general mimetic
capacity. This was achieved by a scientific rationality that rendered techne/ars
redundant with the birth of a new mimesis and new mimetic technologies
not dependent on religious interpretation. What was the representative
power of theatre or music compared to scientific instruments like telescopes
and barometers or media technologies like the printing press? Under the
regime of modern rationality the world was divided up into different realms
of specialisation and it was through this process that the corpse of techne/ars
was carved up in order to see if there was anything useful for this new society
to extract from it. The initial division began during the Renaissance when
the ‘liberal’ and ‘mechanical’ arts were separated. The latter would dissolve
into the modern technological apparatus while ‘liberal arts’, as the world of
general intellectual skill, would be further refined to the point where the
only real surviving branch was the ‘fine arts’5 (ibid.).
These ‘fine arts’ were so-called because they referred to expressions of
beauty only attainable through subjective feelings too delicate to be out-
sourced to some mechanical analogue. By the nineteenth century all other
forms of ‘art’ had withered away such that ‘fine art’ essentially became ‘art’.
By the twentieth century, with the advent of modernism, there was no
more need for an expression to be ‘beautiful’ in order for it to represent the
irreducible feelings of artistic genius (Shiner 2001, 221). Consequently
‘fine art’ would, once again, become just another art, but one where it was
clear the determinant was not general mimetic skill but the mysterious
realm of self-expression.
10 L. DEE

It’s the Singer Not the Song: Pure Expression and the Sacred Self
No longer a vessel to represent the feudal or classical divine, art was saved
from redundancy by the needs of a new, modern magic: bourgeois6 sub-
jectivity. While the Enlightenment was a battle against ancient superstition
it was a battle that usually invoked humanism against dogmatic theology
and this meant dealing with all the irrational elements of human subjectivity.
Indeed many modern thinkers embraced the passions as a remedial force
to counter an overly cold rationality. Rationalists, like Immanuel Kant, saw
sensuous perception as integral to knowledge formation and moral phi-
losophers, like Anthony Cooper (the Earl of Shaftesbury) and Francis
Hutcheson, invoked human sensitivity and imagination, rather than tech-
nocratic reason or self-interest, as the foundation for modern social rela-
tions. Unfortunately technocratic reason and self-interest dominated
emerging capitalist societies, so those looking for creative passion and
mystery, without reverting to feudal religiosity, venerated the fine arts as a
vehicle for pure creative expression. Based in the artist’s imagination and
feeling for beauty, the fine arts were seen to be uncompromised by the
dreary and disappointing laws of capitalist and scientific causality.
This notion of creative expression as distinct from all other forms of
representation became a fundamental tenet of the new cult of art, however
it was problematic from the outset. John Neubauer (1986, 7) makes the
important point that the ideas of the Romantic movement about expres-
sion were not really non-mimetic, but rather a refinement of a mimesis of
the emotions. In fact he asks: ‘Can one express without expressing, and
thereby representing, something? […] In a fundamental sense, expression
always represents’ (ibid., 6). This points to one of the problems of con-
ceiving art as pure expressive symbolism or even just isolating it as a ‘sign-­
object’ (Cassar 2008, 32–7), ‘wholly or specifically signifying’ (Ryan
1992, 10), or exhibiting ‘sign value’ (Bourdieu (1992) 1996, 141–2).
The notion that art and culture are distinctly symbolic is fundamental
to all the definitions I have reviewed and critiqued so far and it is a notion
that needs to be directly confronted if we are to truly understand what art
and culture are. It is part of our everyday common sense that the symbols
that make up a phone book are merely information, data, facts that are
used up as fuel for communication. These mundane symbols have no
autonomous existence, they merely serve as shorthand or even mirrors for
an external objective reality. In contrast the symbols that make up a poem
are never totally absorbed by communication; we understand that if we
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 11

totally understood it the poem would cease to be a poem; it would become

rational mimesis (an instruction, plea, list, affidavit etc.). Artistic symbols
are given an autonomous existence and are deemed to bend the light of
reality through the imagination of the creator and perceiver. This is not
simply a function of complexity or inscrutability; the phone book could be
a manual to a nuclear reactor or a smiley face, the poem could be a simple
description of a tree or pictographic blank verse. The problem is even a
smiley face does not simply reflect reality.
You don’t need to eat peyote or be a disciple of a New Age cult to find
the notion of objective symbols problematic. Why not just start with the
diversity of human languages across time and space when confronted with
describing the same ‘reality’, or the way perception of supposedly universal
‘data’ like colour or sound is mediated by cultural variance.7 From here we
can examine some of the more abstract givens, like simple addition, the
archetype of a self-sufficient symbolic expression. Thomas Tymoczko (1984,
453) points out that while the plus sign seems to have only one possible
meaning, regardless of how it is used, it actually requires interpretative work;
‘+’ being a sign for quaddition (a more obscure mathematical function) as
well as addition.
The fact that symbolic systems, like mathematics, can predict and mod-
ify the ‘external world’ is usually taken as evidence that they are perfectly at
one with said world, or with a higher reality that governs our mortal plane
of existence. Yet whether we are talking Platonic forms or empirical com-
mon sense, even the most rigorous structures of techno-scientific meaning
are still exercises in probabilities not absolute certainties.8 As Theodor
Adorno (1990, 4–5) pointed out, there is a constant tension between our
abstract conceptions of the world and heterogeneous reality, which is
continuously overflowing our various arrays of symbols. The point, and it
is a very important one, is not that every symbol is ‘constructed’ out of
pure whim, it is that all symbols, from the simplest gestures to the most
ornate codes have an element of creative excess and need for
interpretative work that cannot be removed. This is why a urinal could
be Duchamp’s Fountain or ‘just a urinal’. The difference between the
symbols that constitute art and those that are merely ‘functional’ is one of
social convention, though the distinction between art and functionality is
not arbitrary and is driven by many demands, including the political
imperative to deny the fundamentally social nature of creative work.
Our symbolic systems are produced collectively and always shared,
which is why we are able to use them to communicate, however i­mperfectly,
12 L. DEE

with others. It is not just that behind every Nobel Laureate is an

­unrecognised assistant, it is that there are whole teams and institutions
whose contributions are taken for granted. Rather than standing on the
shoulders of giants, scientists are usually just standing on the shoulders of
hundreds of other scientists:

Researchers, particularly experimental researchers, routinely work in large

groups, and it’s no longer strange to see scientific papers that are co-­
authored by ten or twenty people. […] A classic example of this phenome-
non was the discovery, in 1994, of the quantum particle called the ‘top
quark.’ When the discovery was announced, it was credited to 450 different
physicists. (Surowiecki 2005, 161)

But even outside the world of technical experts there is a diffuseness to

so much of our taken-for-granted knowledge, the best example being
those most foundational of symbols that are rarely traced to individual
creators: the very words that make up our languages. This does not mean
reality is produced and interpreted equally by all, indeed it generally
reflects other social inequalities, but it does mean that our symbolic
­interfaces do not emerge self-evidently from nature or as the products of
solitary genius.
However this social creativity is anathema to bourgeois society, which
needs to juggle universal compliance to capitalist techno-science with a
humanist ideology of individual realisation. We are thus sold a social contract
whereby creativity is to be set aside for the ‘subjective’, as a compensation for
the deadening efficiency of the ‘objective’ world. Sure, capitalist rationality
seems to have a hard time predicting and controlling the objective world of
market failures, political corruption and environmental destruction; and
human subjects, whether they be workers-as-­interchangeable-­cogs, women-
as-sexual-meat, citizens-as-statistical-data, are treated as mere objects. But
any blurring of objectivity and subjectivity is kept at bat by the treatment of
instrumental reason as objectivity and the quarantining of creative resources
to art and culture. There is little room between the polar extremes of objective
facts and inscrutable subjectivity for an acknowledgement of shared creativity,
as this threatens to contaminate the separation of powers. Julian Stallabrass
(2004, 9) notes that the ‘continued insistence on the unknowability of art is
strange, particularly since it has been accompanied recently by some
transparently instrumental practices’. But this is only strange if you see
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 13

subjective expression as an intrinsic property of art and culture rather than as

a, shall we say inconsistent, social convention. Just as the chaotic irrationality
of economics, politics and science is externalised as ‘human error’ so too the
cynical calculation and generic uniformity of art and culture is either ignored
or deemed an external intrusion. I will be dealing with this issue in more
detail in Chaps. 4 and 5.
To this end the artist is a vital component of what makes art: ‘We believe
that in the picture there is something of the personality of the artist and if we
are told one day that the picture was not in fact painted by the artist, it ceases
to be a relic and we will disregard it’ (Gimpel 1991, 153). No other element
is as important in an art auction as proof of authorship. It does not matter if
works look exactly the same and are made with exactly the same materials in
exactly the same proportion, if they are attributed to Genius X rather than
Painter X (or even Genius Y) they will be treated as fundamentally different.
In a world of alienation and anonymity, where mundane mass-produced
commodities are made by nameless, interchangeable workers, art and culture
are set apart by the emphasis given to ‘the creator’. It does not matter that
works of art or culture are c­ ollaborative or are ‘inspired’ by other works; they
are treated as totems of the wondrous subjectivity of the painter, poet, ‘film
maker’, writer, performance artist and so forth. This power is such that seem-
ingly any object can become transubstantiated by an artist; Duchamp
famously had functional household devices he made become works of art,
even against his stated intentions (Stallabrass 1999, 42).
It is important to note that this is not about ‘personal expression’ per
se, as not everyone can be an artist, but a ritual to the majestic enigma of
Bourgeois Subjectivity, which runs the gamut from sensitive humanism to
bold innovation. ‘Like the work of art … the bourgeois subject is autono-
mous and self-determining, acknowledges no merely extrinsic law but
instead, in some mysterious fashion, gives the law to itself’ (Eagleton
1990, 23). This very distinct notion of art has been projected back in
time, as well as carried on the gunboat of Western imperialism across
space, ‘elevating’ functional mimetic devices like dot paintings and masks
to beautiful, useless acts of ‘personal expression’.

Art as Genius Elite vs. Culture as Human Expression

Of course not every totem carver or ceremonial basket weaver could be
given the status of ‘artist’—most ‘primitive products’ being consigned to
the wastelands of the ‘fetish’9 or, in more enlightened times, ‘ethnographic
14 L. DEE

artifact’—as the magic of pure creative expression only worked under a

sacred veil of exclusivity. This was most clearly marked in the change, from
the late eighteenth century, of the meaning of genius from ‘general dispo-
sition’ to ‘exalted ability’, mirroring the separation between art as ‘general
skill’ and art as ‘transcendent, creative skill’ (Williams [1958] 1963, 15).
The realisation of ‘genius’ as a category of exclusivity is most clearly evi-
dent in Thomas Carlyle’s depiction of the heroic ‘Man-of-Letters’ (ibid.,
63 and 95–6). Only once it was established in the artistic realm did this
modern notion of genius transfer to other domains, such as scientific
invention and military achievements.
Yet this elitism ran counter to the bourgeois ideals of democracy and
human universality that were also supposed to be imbued in art. In lieu of
resolving this contradiction, by making bourgeois society a place of demo-
cratic creativity, a synonymous term was needed to help carry the awkward
baggage of being both select and universal. While ‘art’ went from general-
ity to exclusivity ‘culture’ has gone the other way; becoming art’s more
egalitarian sibling.
Deriving from the Latin colare, referring to the tending of growing
plants, ‘culture’ kept the original connotation in terms like ‘agriculture’
and ‘cultivation’, but the notion of ‘growth’ was expanded to refer to
human development (Miller 2009, 89; Williams [1976] 1983, 87–90).
The ‘development’ in mind was largely from uncouth barbarian to educated
bourgeois citizen, with the newly-formed fine arts deemed the supreme
marker of human achievement. Yet there was a more radical strand of the
educated bourgeoisie who believed that the concept of ‘culture’ should be
more inclusive and capture something deeper about humanity than just
how well you used a salad fork. In his Ideas on the Philosophy of the History
of Mankind Johann Gottfried von Herder challenged the Eurocentric,
elitist notion of human development and instead referred to ‘culture’ in a
universal manner (Williams [1976] 1983, 89). This was continued and
developed by Herder’s Romantic successors to make ‘culture’ a more
spiritual, egalitarian expression of humanity than ‘civilisation’, which was
the dominant term at the time (ibid.; Marcuse 1972, 103). These ideas
gave rise to the use of ‘culture’ as simply a human ‘way of life’, popularised
by the anthropologist Franz Boas. Through this anthropology ‘human
groups previously assumed to be closer to nature and, hence, also to our
own forbears and which, as a consequence, were thought to possess culture
in relatively small amounts, were now thought of as the bearers of real
cultures’ (Kahn 1989, 11).
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 15

Yet, while the world of culture/humanity was extended, it was done so

by reinforcing the separation of culture and nature. Even elements of
human society like economics and politics are often seen as fundamentally
driven by animalistic laws of necessity; economists using the brute axiom
of supply and demand and biologists able to refer to conniving social ani-
mals like chimpanzees as political10 (Angier 2008; de Waal [1982] 2007).
On the other hand there is much more controversy about assigning ani-
mals ‘culture’ over ‘instinct’ and, indeed, humans are often referred to as
the distinctive ‘cultural animal’ (see Horne 2004, 95 for example). Both
‘art’ and ‘culture’ are thus clearly the concepts of human expression tran-
scending rational or natural dictates. But they have an important distinc-
tion: one makes this expression extraordinary the other makes it ordinary.
It is, in other words, a way to have the cake of exceptional elitism (art) and
eat egalitarian inclusion (culture) too.
When we want transcendent significance to dignify the hierarchical ritu-
als of the gallery or awards ceremony, and keep the focus away from grubby
social-material realities, we go for the clout of art; thus the ­transubstantiation
of mere pop singers to ‘recording artists’ when receiving shiny statuettes.
When we are trying to downplay absurd metaphysical connotations and
justify social-material realities, like government funding, we go for the neu-
tral description of culture. Thus ‘art history’ has often become ‘visual cul-
ture’ in academia to make it more relevant and to defuse uncomfortable
questions about why this arrangement of symbols is worth studying but
this other arrangement is not. Of course art can be used in a neutral man-
ner (an ‘artist’ is a recognised profession and not simply a brag) and culture
still maintains some of the connotations of an earlier snobbish discrimina-
tion, but what all this means is that both terms can be used to express the
higher values of human achievement as well as ordinary human existence
depending on the context. However the most common binary is that
between art and popular culture, the latter being another coinage of
Herder’s to highlight an ‘authentic’ culture of the people as opposed to the
artifice of ‘learned culture’ (Traube 1996, 130). Later ‘popular culture’
would come to be associated with an artifice of its own, that of the com-
mercial amusements manufactured for the urban working class. Yet, as
noted at the beginning, this debate over the significance of popular culture
has never been settled.
The artificial nature of popular culture is supposed to come from the
fact that it lacks the surplus signification, the overflow of symbols beyond
mere mimesis, of art and is thus a function (and function is the word) of
16 L. DEE

base entertainment drives and not subjective expression. There are in fact
many aspects of what is called popular culture where this is the case, where
the products are as formulaic and interchangeable as McDonald’s Happy
Meals and have a similar lack of emphasis on the creator’s identity. However
this is hardly the fundamental experience of popular culture; apart from
issues of ‘aesthetic complexity’ mentioned at the beginning, comics, films,
rock music and so forth are sold on the names of the creators rather than
just genre, company brand or characters.11
It is for this reason that ‘art’ and ‘popular culture’ have danced together
so intimately, even if this proximity has been marked by tension. Nor is this
simply some recent disruption wrought by postmodernism, as critics and
champions like to decry or celebrate. John Guillory (1993, 308) points out
how the very industrial production process that birthed a mass ‘popular
culture’ against an elite ‘art’ destabilised the distinction. On the one side
novels and prints could be copied as easily as the text and design on soap
packaging; and on the other, commodities of manifest utility could now
assimilate elements of elaborate design borrowed from the fine arts
(Wedgwood china, or Chippendale furniture). This fluidity continued
through the nineteenth century, from Impressionist incorporation of street
posters to Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé’s celebration of pulp
writers like Edgar Allen Poe; and then on into the early twentieth century,
with popular and ‘folk’ influences clear in the music of Béla Bartók and
Igor Stravinsky, and the animations of Walt Disney and his contemporaries
being recognised by the Museum of Modern Art in the 1930s. This process
continues to the present day, as ‘[w]orks of high culture are now produced
in exactly the same serial forms as those of low culture: the paperback book,
the record or disk, film, radio, and television (where there now exist
specifically high-cultural channels)’ (Frow 1995, 23).
Ironically it is in aspects of ‘high art’ that you will find the greatest
efforts to challenge creative subjectivity and otiosity. While the avant-­
garde artworld continues to replay Duchampian games denigrating the
status of authorship and the distinction between the mundane and the
art object (the success of which will be judged harshly in future chapters)
we are forever being bombarded with the stories of pop culture person-
alities, the source of their creativity and the complex irreducibility of
their work. Almost as part of their life cycle pop actors and musicians
make an effort for credibility by refashioning themselves as complex cre-
ative geniuses with ‘dark sides’ that warrant the magazine covers and
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 17

fifteen-page stories that merely being another plastic entertainment

industry clone could not. Examples of this include many boy-band refu-
gees like Robbie Williams and Justin Timberlake, who seek redemption
for their pre-packaged pasts by collaborating with innovative performers,
recording ‘authentic’ soul or rhythm and blues music and emphasising
their sexual misdemeanours.

Art/Culture
Herder’s egalitarian ‘popular culture’ still resonates in the mass consumer
base of the entertainment industry, but for that part of the industry where
exclusive creative expression matters and is recognised in the status given to
‘the creator’, the difference with ‘the arts’ is one of degree rather than type.
It is for this reason that I have chosen to use the term art/culture to describe
all ‘non-functional’, surplus representation in capitalist modernity
where creative labour is explicitly acknowledged to the point of venera-
tion. I do not do this because the world needs another neologism, certainly
not another lazy portmanteau or compound word. I do it as a rhetorical
rather than semantic gesture and I will not be replacing others’ (mis)use of
art or culture with my clunky hyphenated monstrosity, largely because I
want their (mis)use to be apparent in contrast to mine. I do it to make
explicit the shared qualities of ‘high art’ and ‘popular culture’ (or indeed
‘high culture’ and ‘mass art’) and make clear that I am not referring to ‘skill’
(and all the attendant positive qualities of ‘depth’ and ‘content’) nor an
amorphous ‘way of life’, two qualities that are either anachronistic or delib-
erately vague and which stick to ‘art’ and ‘culture’ respectively like a leech
to a haemophiliac.
Undoubtedly my use of art/culture represents a stroppy desire to
undercut tedious art vs. popular culture debates, which are largely just
ciphers for anxieties over larger political issues like education (which texts
are pedagogically valid?), sexuality (legitimate art vs. illegitimate pornog-
raphy), economics (should the state fund ‘inessentials’ like art), democ-
racy (my taste is authentic, yours’ is elitist) and nationalism (which ‘culture’
gets to be represented and how?). However using the term art/culture is
not an effort to try to smooth over differences. It is in fact a means to
ultimately make the antagonisms around art and popular culture more
apparent and meaningful than the banal ‘culture wars’, which never
critique the very existence of art and/or popular culture.
18 L. DEE

Finding a Negation
From now to the end of consciousness, we are stuck with the task of defending
art. We can only quarrel with one or another means of defense.
—Susan Sontag

Hey, I Didn’t Mean All Art/Culture, Obviously!

Whew, even to admit that art/culture is an historical construct rather than
a timeless expression of human awesomeness takes a lot of effort and
already feels like an act of aggression. Small wonder then that, while con-
troversy and debate constantly rage around art/culture, anything that
hints at a global critique seems to be presaged with an apology for even
daring to raise the subject.
When Edward Said examines the succour given to imperialism by ‘great
art’ he makes it clear that: ‘Doing this by no means involves hurling critical
epithets at European or, generally, Western art and culture by way of a
wholesale condemnation. Not at all’ (Said 1993, 12). In writing the fore-
word for Catherine Clément’s critique of the structural misogyny of opera
narratives, Margaret Reynolds (1997, xii) feels compelled to tell us that
‘Clément loves the opera.’ Is she worried that people might think Clément
is daring to admonish opera as a whole? In the same vein the feminist art
collective the Guerrilla Girls state how much they love art before they go on
to attack the essential misogyny of the artworld, as well as that of Hollywood
(Kollwitz and Kahlo 2012). Why are these caveats necessary? None of these
critiques ever threaten to seriously undermine the fabric of art/culture, so
why the need to head off that unlikely misunderstanding. More importantly,
if such a risk existed of these critiques being seen as fundamental negations
of art/culture should anyone really care? Surely attacking imperialism and
misogyny is more important than the feelings of artists?
But when critiques touch more directly on art/culture the caveats
become even more emphatic. Thus John Berger’s seminal materialist demys-
tification of art cannot exist without the author trying to water it down: ‘We
are not saying that there is nothing left to experience before original works
of art except a sense of awe because they have survived […] We are not say-
ing original works of art are now useless’ (Berger 1972, 30). But perhaps
the most craven and ridiculous ‘clarification’ belongs to Baudrillard. In
response to an interviewer putting his claim that ‘contemporary art is null’
back to him Baudrillard (2005, 62 emphasis in original) drops the provoca-
tive bluntness and resorts to postmodern diplomacy:
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 19

But I do not put myself in a position of truth. Everyone makes his or her
own choices. If what I say is worthless, just let it drop, that’s all. The article
[in which Baudrillard made his original statements about ‘The Conspiracy
of Art’] was written a little hastily. I should not have started like that.
I should have said that there is a hint of nullity in contemporary art. IS it
null, or isn’t it? What is nullity?

In fact the more one examines even self-proclaimed art/culture detrac-

tors the more one finds a hesitancy to commit to a total condemnation.
On the surface there is no shortage of negative heat against art/culture.
Indeed the history of art/culture is the history of competing condemna-
tions of the art/culture status quo, building up to the kind of wholesale
emphatic denunciations represented by the early twentieth-century avant-­
garde. A good example of this is the Italian Futurists’ demand to ‘set fire to
the library shelves! Turn aside the canals to flood the museums!’ (Boccioni
et al. in Berman 1982, 25), which constitutes a pretty clear negation. Yet
upon closer examination we can see versions of the art vs. culture gambit
being used to make sure things don’t get out of hand. For Futurism ‘cul-
ture’ is the grist of archaically humanist ‘tradition’ to the mill of modern
dynamic art. Yet even this is being generous to the coherence of the Futurist
negation. Despite their adulation of technology, the Futurists did not really
understand technology and largely used traditional artistic forms to express
modernity (painting, poetry etc., with the notable exception of Luigi
Russolo and his anti-music noise machines), often through mythological
symbolism (Benton 1990, 24). Thus Futurism could not even embody a
substantive critique against the emaciated version of ‘culture’ they ostensi-
bly scorned, let alone art/culture as a whole.
And so it is with the inheritors of this negative legacy, such as the band
Atari Teenage Riot and their track ‘Destroy 2000 Years of Culture’ or
Public Enemy’s ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’. The former shares the Futurist’s
amorphous hatred of ‘tradition’ or ‘civilization’, though from a radical left
rather than a fascist perspective, while the latter is even more limited, direct-
ing their ire against a particular icon of the culture industry. Even here it is
against Hollywood as a racialised, commercial entity, the track being about
the perpetuation of racial stereotypes in mainstream movies to appease and
perpetuate the racism of white consumers. At least James Chance (in
Reynolds 2005, 57), of the ‘No Wave’ band Contortions, makes his disgust
less metaphorical: ‘I hate art. It makes me sick…SoHo…should be blown
off the fucking map, along with all the artsy assholes.’ Yet once again it is
20 L. DEE

only one half of the art/culture complex that is the focus of the destructive
rage: the staid, artificial artworld, with its haughty poseurs, rather than
broader popular culture. To be fair Chance, as well as other No Wave acts,
were also avowedly ‘anti-rockist’, but a joint antagonism against rock music
and ‘art’ remained implied rather than programmatic.
Even just trying to give a single name to these negative impulses is diffi-
cult. The violence they express seems in keeping with ‘vandalism’ or ‘icono-
clasm’, yet the destructive urge embedded in each is either non-­specific,
metaphorical and/or relating to mimesis rather than art/culture. The term
that is supposed to relate to art/culture directly is ‘philistinism’, which also
suffers from a lack of clarity and the fact it is more about indifference than
active hostility. Not surprisingly this ambiguous plurality mirrors the defini-
tional ambiguity of art/culture, leading to many forms of critique against
multifarious art/culture-like phantoms. Chapter 2 examines these flailing
tendrils of disparate negation in detail to see how close any of them come to
a total critique of art/culture, and finds that rather than critique many of
them are in fact defences of real art/culture, with the iconoclasm, vandalism
or philistinism being directed at the fraudulent varieties.

The Discreet Faith of the Bourgeoisie

So where does this urge to defend art/culture, even while nominally attack-
ing it, come from? As already mentioned the European bourgeois intelli-
gentsia nurtured art/culture as a vehicle to give their emerging social order
a legitimacy grander than mercantile bean-counting. While the notion of
the artist as the sacred vessel of subjective expression may seem antiquated
a deep-seated investment in the transcendent wonders of art/culture per-
sists. As the gap between modern ideals of self-realisation and the modern
reality of banality and exploitation becomes ever greater the ‘dream fac-
tory’ lure of art/culture remains a better form of bromide to the masses
than moral platitudes about sacrifice and industry. Nor is it just the herd
that console themselves with this fantasy of creativity and freedom. Whether
it is masterpieces in the boardrooms of the most venal corporation, the
revolutionary qualities of cinema being espoused by firebrand academics,
or the votive posters of rock-stars on a working-class teenager’s bedroom
wall, art/culture has cemented itself deeply in the capitalist lifeworld.
This has given art/culture the sense of universalism that was evident in
so many of the definitions examined above and it is why there is so little
interest in viewing art/culture in terms of class interests. No one wants to
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 21

say that something they feel deeply about, and in which they have so much
personally invested, is a class construct, particularly a bourgeois class
construct. Thus the only time class is invoked in relation to art/culture is
to contrast the pretensions of elite poseurs with the authentic, heart-felt
experiences of the true art-lover, whatever their class happens to be.
Indeed the heart-felt passion can be in relation to the most clichéd of
bourgeois tastes, as in Andrew Bowie’s (2002, 73) sarcastic retort to being
labelled an ‘aesthete’:

Pausing to allow the waves of sound of the last movement of Mahler’s Third
Symphony to ebb away, I return to the delights of my glass of Californian
Chardonnay and reflect on the way Dimitri Mitropoulos’s interpretation of
the symphony steers the vital course between the long-term structure,
­sudden transitions, irony, and contrapuntal balance. The wine slowly numbs
the tension of the day in a mixture of fragrant fruit and firm alcohol. Or
something like that. I did listen to Mahler and I did have a glass or three of
Chardonnay. As for the appropriate description, well, Mitropoulos really
does conduct the best performance I have heard: for once the slow final
movement avoids too much sentimentality while retaining its expressive
intensity.

On the one hand this is a snarky response to a perceived attack on the

radical bone fides of Bowie by caricaturing, in a sarcastic manner, his haute
bourgeois identity. On the other hand it is a defence of such refined tastes
as objectively attractive (‘Mitropoulos really does conduct the best perfor-
mance’) and not simply some contrived set of mannerisms deliberately
manufactured to affirm class status.
Even sociological examinations of class and art/culture don’t seem to get
much beyond the above. Karen Lang (1997, 437n134) notes Pierre
Bourdieu as someone who delved deeply into the class connotations of
bourgeois culture, but his ‘class awareness’ was limited to art/culture con-
sumption as a resource for status display, assuming the trans-historical status
of art/culture as a whole and the authenticity of working-class taste in par-
ticular. The result is that only the most egregiously contrived aspects of art/
culture are deemed a matter of ‘class struggle’ and even then there is serious
debate. Where there is no debate is in the fact that there is a fundamental
core of art/culture that is indisputably good and vital to our humanity. In
Chap. 3 I will examine how this core manifests in three components: that
art/culture is fundamentally challenging, moving and ­priceless. Even con-
servative politicians speak with awe about the capacity of art/culture to
22 L. DEE

shake things up, ‘start conversations’ and be edgy, but it is amongst the
­radical bourgeoisie that this capacity has become truly enshrined, to the
point where, based on the rhetoric, you’d think it was only a matter of
time before capitalism, nay instrumental rationalism itself, dissolved under
the onslaught of cinematic releases, gallery openings and performance
poetry. Underlying this faith in art/culture-induced rebellion is the belief
in the capacity of art/culture to persuade us, to move us, to become,
explicitly or otherwise, a spiritual experience. Contrary to the appearance
of staid, hushed consumption, audiences are depicted as being in a constant
state of ecstatic awe. Contrary to the appearance of art/culture as a
commodity, produced and exchanged by some of the most powerful and
venal businesses in the world, is the supposed eternal struggle between
art/culture and commerce. Playing down or just ignoring all the ‘selling
out’ maintains this struggle12 or, if pressed, the consensus seems to be that
any commercialisation (well any crass commercialisation) is an external
attack on art/culture core that is fundamentally not for sale.

So What’s the Problem?

Art does not have the privilege of escaping this provocation, this curiosity.
But it would deserve a special treatment, because it claims to escape banality
the most and that it has the monopoly on a certain sublime, on transcendent
value. I really object to that.
—Jean Baudrillard

So what if the aspirations accorded to art/culture fall a little short, is

that really a reason to adopt some form of philistinism? Well, yes. In
Chaps. 4 and 5 it will be outlined how art/culture does not simply fail to
be challenging, moving or priceless, but how it is fundamentally com-
plicit with regularising and exploitative structures of power. That is why a
full-blown negation is necessary.
Of course any claim that art/culture restricts rather than liberates has
to deal with very real artistic freedom and emotional responses. To simply
claim that all is control and manipulation is patently absurd, but what is
interesting is how the very real autonomy and emotional experience of
art/culture seems to comfortably co-exist with the equally real heteron-
omy and tedium of the non-artistic everyday. My contention is that this
relationship is neither neutral nor parasitic; the artist attaching to the host
 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ART/CULTURE AND WHY SHOULD… 23

system to bring it down from the inside, using the freedom granted to her
to make all of society as liberated and creative as her art/culture oasis.
In fact the autonomy of art/culture augments and even reinforces the
drudgery of ordinary non-creatives.
To understand this you first have to look beyond the simplistic existen-
tial sociology beloved by the fifteen-year-old in all of us. No matter how
we might mock the cloying sentiment ‘listen to your heart rather than
your head’, the belief in a duality between the ‘head’ of Society/The
System—a world of bad-faith, coldly-calculated compromises—and the
‘heart’ of authentic individual emotion and experience outside the grip of
power is deeply ingrained. This fantasy is not just one of the most
hackneyed tropes in art/culture representation, it is one that allows art/
culture to reproduce its own relations of power while appearing to be
external to power. Art/culture is the realm most associated with emotional
authenticity, of creative imagination and passionate fandom that cannot be
dictated to or controlled … except all the times that it can. We openly
acknowledge that art/culture can be used to cynically manipulate our
emotions, such as with cinematic ‘tear-jerkers’ or stories condemned as
dangerous propaganda because of the mix of toxic ideas and compelling
emotional style, yet we refuse to believe this is systemic. In fact when faced
with the quite explicit disciplines of art/culture, from audience etiquette
to the training of performing bodies, these strictures are downplayed,
naturalised or even positively embraced because they are ventilated with
freedoms of expression and taste into which we are encouraged to pour
our ecstatic fervour. After all the passionate investment placed in your
favourite bands, directors, mixed-media artists and so forth you do not
want to contemplate just how compromised said mixed-media artists are
by mundane social forces, so you don’t. Indeed we are more amenable to
accepting the world of mundane social forces precisely because we are
promised an outlet in art/culture that will not be mundane, which will
fulfil our imaginative desires. And if it doesn’t fulfil these desires and does
not seem particularly extraordinary or daring?
Certainly art/culture is given license to ‘fight the power’ and indulge in
a constant circus of rebellion. However, by some amazing set of circum-
stances, these daring affronts never seem to lead to any undermining of the
powerful. The situation is best summed up by The Onion (2009, para. 1):
‘A new motion picture about a resilient underdog who somehow finds the
courage to take on a giant, faceless corporation was released Friday by 20th
Century Fox, a giant, faceless corporation.’ Far from being threatened by
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and resourceful brain he was doubtless planning his campaign,
determining the best method of exploding his bombshell in Deanery
Street.
He paused at last in his restless pacing and turned to his
lieutenant, who knew the man too well to put any direct questions.
“Well, Sellars, we have drawn a blank with Alma Buckley, through
no fault of yours. You couldn’t have done more than you have. We
shall have to precipitate matters, and blow up Clayton-Brookes and
that young impostor, whom the world takes for his nephew, in the
process.”
Sellars would have dearly liked to have an actual inkling of what
his astute leader was planning, but he knew it was useless asking.
Lane never revealed his coups beforehand. When they were
accomplished, he was as frank as he had previously been reticent,
and would explain with perfect candour the processes by which he
had engineered them.
“Well, good-bye, Lane. Sorry the result wasn’t satisfactory. Better
luck next time. Can I get on to any other portion of the job?”
The detective thought not, at the moment; what was left he was
going to take into his own hands. But he praised his able young
lieutenant very highly for the work he had done down at Brinkstone,
the foundation on which the superstructure of the subsequent
investigations had been built.
In the meantime, while Lane was preparing his coup, Rupert
Morrice had been stealthily pursuing his line of investigation.
A passionate man by nature, he had experienced the greatest
difficulty in restraining himself on his return from the jeweller who
had told him that the supposed “birthday” necklace was a worthless
imitation. When his wife returned about five o’clock unconscious of
the tragic happenings during her brief absence, his first impulse was
to follow her up to her room, tell her what he had learned and wring
from her a confession.
But he held himself in by a great exercise of self-control. He
wanted more evidence, he wished to make sure if this was an
isolated instance or one of a series of similar transactions.
As it happened, fortune was adverse to the wrong-doer, and in the
banker’s favour. Mrs. Morrice’s friend was very unwell, and the lady
drove down to her on the two following days to cheer her up, leaving
early in the morning and returning about the same time in the
afternoon. As on the previous occasion, the maid was given a
holiday during the few hours of her mistress’s absence.
The coast therefore was quite clear for Morrice, and he took
advantage of his unique opportunities with grim determination.
Rosabelle alone in the house had an idea that something was going
on from noting the fact that she met him in the hall on one of the
mornings, carrying a small bag and wearing a very grim expression,
as if he were engaged on some urgent but disagreeable business.
In all he took some ten very valuable pieces of jewellery to the
same man for examination. The result in each case was similar, they
were all cleverly executed imitations of the original gifts he had
presented to her. That was enough for him. She had a pretty large
collection, and it might be that a great many of them were not
substitutes; that she had not so far made use of them for her secret
purposes. On those of which he was quite certain from the expert’s
evidence, he reckoned that, even selling at a greatly depreciated
price, she must have realized several thousands of pounds.
On the afternoon of the third day he was pacing his room about
five o’clock like a caged lion, feverishly awaiting his wife’s return,
waiting to confront her with the anonymous letter, and reveal to her
his verification of the charges it contained.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck five, the quarter, and the half-
hour. His face grew darker and darker, as the tide of his righteous
wrath swelled. Six o’clock struck, and no sign of Mrs. Morrice. Then
ten minutes later a telegram was brought to him which after reading
he cast angrily on the floor. It explained that her friend was very
unwell, that she was stopping the night at her house, and would
return home at lunch time to-morrow.
 The storm could not burst to-day on the devoted head of the
woman who had played so foolishly with her husband’s trust in her.
The unexpected delay incensed further the unfortunate financier,
against whom of late fate seemed to have a special grudge.
Rosabelle came in while he was fuming, to ask him for a small
cheque in anticipation of her quarter’s allowance. So preoccupied
was he with his bitter thoughts of the gross way in which he had
been deceived that he wrote the cheque like a man in a dream, and
the girl noticed that his hand trembled. When he looked up to give it
to her, she saw that his face was as black as night.
“Uncle dear, whatever is the matter?” she cried impetuously. For
some little time past she had had an uneasy feeling, one of those
presentiments which occur so often to sensitive people, that there
was trouble of some sort brewing in this household.
“Nothing the matter, my child,” he answered evasively, passing his
hand wearily across his forehead. Much as he loved his pretty niece,
much as he trusted her, he could not as yet reveal to her the cause
of his trouble, betray the woman in whom he had believed—who
bore his honoured name.
But the girl persisted. “But, dearest uncle, you are hiding
something from me. You look so strange, I am sure you are very
much moved. Have you had disturbing news?”
For a little time the unhappy man refrained from answering that
question, inspired by no spirit of girlish curiosity, but by the sincerest
and most loyal affection.
“Yes, my child, I have had bad news, very bad news, I am afraid I
am a poor dissembler,” he said at length. “Later on, under the strict
seal of secrecy, I may tell you the cause of my trouble. But not now,
not now. Run away, my precious little girl, and leave me to my black
mood.”
She dared not worry him further, although her heart was aching for
him. Nobody knew better than she the kind, tender nature underlying
that rather stern exterior. Before she obeyed him, she put her arms
round his neck and kissed him affectionately.
 “Tell me when you please, dear, in your own good time, and your
poor little Rosabelle, to whom you have always been so kind and
generous, will do her best to comfort you.”
“I know you will, you precious, warm-hearted girl.” He clasped her
hand almost convulsively. What he had found out had wounded him
to the core. Nothing hurt this strong, proud man so much as the
discovery that his confidence had been misplaced in those near to
him, that his trust in them had been abused.
“Thank heaven, I have one dear little friend in the world, one dear,
loyal little friend who has never given me a moment’s uneasiness,
who I am confident never will. But run away now, my darling. I
cannot speak yet, even to you, of what is troubling me.”
She obeyed him, and left the room wondering. The words he had
spoken had been very vague, but her quick instinct had prompted
certain suspicions of the cause of his deep perturbation. She was
confident that Mrs. Morrice was at the bottom of it. Had he found out
something to her discredit, and if so, what? Was it possible that Lane
had conceived it to be his duty to report to him that conversation
between aunt and nephew which she had overheard?
They dined alone that night, and she was sure that his deep gloom
must have been noticed by the servants who waited on them. And
she was sure it was not business matters that troubled him. He had
always boasted that he never brought home his office worries with
him, had expressed his contempt for men who did so, who had no
power of detachment. “When a man comes back to his home it is his
duty to make his family happy, and leave his business behind him,”
had been a favourite dictum of his, and to do him justice he had
always acted up to it.
After dinner they went up to the drawing-room, but he made no
pretence of being cheerful. Rosabelle asked if the piano would
disturb him. He shook his head, and she played very softly a few of
her favourite pieces. Suddenly Morrice rose, went to her, and kissed
her.
 “I am wretched company to-night, my little girl,” he said; his face
still wore its hard gloomy expression, but there was a sadness in his
voice that went to the girl’s heart. “You stay here and amuse yourself
as best you can. I am going to my study, and shall not see you again
this evening. Good-night, dear.”
Rosabelle clung to him. “Oh, uncle, can I do nothing to help you?”
He gave her a grateful smile, but shook his head obstinately, and
left the room. She played on a little after he had gone, but she was
full of troubled thoughts, and hardly knew what she was doing.
And Rupert Morrice, the great financier, the successful man of
business, respected by all who knew him, envied by many, sat alone
in his room, devoured by bitter and revengeful thoughts. What had
his wealth done for him, if it failed to buy loyalty from those who were
near to him, on whom he had lavished such kindness and
generosity?
It was only a little past eight o’clock, they had dined early as was
often their custom when they had no company. Would the weary
evening ever come to a close? But when it did, and he went to his
room, he knew he would not be able to sleep.
Suddenly the telephone bell rang. Glad of the momentary
diversion, he crossed to the instrument and unhooked the receiver.
It was Lane’s voice that was speaking. The detective was late at
his office, and it had occurred to him to ring up on the chance of
finding Morrice in and making an appointment for to-morrow
morning. He had that day, after much reflection, judged that it was
time to precipitate matters—to launch his coup.
“Ah, good-evening, Mr. Morrice. I have something of the utmost
importance to communicate to you, and the sooner the better. Can I
see you to-morrow?”
The financier’s deep voice came back through the telephone. “To-
morrow, certainly, any time you please, preferably in the morning.
But, if convenient to you, come round at once. Mrs. Morrice is away;
I am here alone.”
 Lane was rather glad to hear it. He answered that he would come
at once. What he was about to tell Morrice was bound to produce a
violent explosion, but it would not occur while he was in the house.
A few moments later the detective stood in the financier’s private
room, in a mood almost as serious as that of Morrice himself.
 CHAPTER XXI
ROSABELLE HAS A GRIEVANCE

“Y OU have something of importance to communicate to me, Mr.

Lane,” were Morrice’s first words. “Take a seat, please.”
“Something of the greatest importance, and also, I am very sorry
to say, of a most unpleasant nature. You must be prepared to receive
a great shock, Mr. Morrice.”
A grim smile fleeted across the financier’s gloomy countenance.
He had already received a very startling shock, in time he would get
inured to them.
“It concerns a young man named Archibald Brookes who, I
understand, is a frequent visitor at your house, also a member of
your family, the alleged nephew of your wife and also of Sir George
Clayton-Brookes, supposed to be her brother-in-law by the marriage
of his brother Archibald, who died in Australia, to her sister.”
At the two ominous words “alleged” and “supposed,” Morrice
looked keenly at his visitor, but he made no comment. He knew this
was a man who did not speak at random, who carefully weighed his
utterances. What was he going to hear now? Well, nothing would
surprise him after what he had already discovered for himself.
Duplicity came naturally to some temperaments.
The detective went on in his calm, even voice. “It is one of the
disagreeable duties of our profession to make unpleasant
disclosures. I made certain discoveries after taking up this case for
Mr. Richard Croxton which up to the present I have withheld from
you, out of consideration for your feelings. The time is come when
you ought to know the truth. Sir George’s family consisted of himself
and two brothers, there were no sisters. Both of these brothers died
unmarried. Therefore Sir George can have no nephew. Mrs. Morrice
was the only child of a not very successful artist; her mother lost her
life in giving her birth. Therefore the same remark applies to her,
young Archibald Brookes is no more her nephew than he is Sir
George’s. And, of course, it follows that there was no marriage
between her sister and his brother.”
Morrice’s face went very white. “You have satisfied yourself that
there is no flaw in your evidence—that it is quite reliable?”
“Unquestionably,” was the detective’s answer. “My evidence with
regard to your wife is her father’s statement made frequently in the
hearing of several persons. As to Sir George’s brother, a colleague
of mine in Australia made exhaustive inquiries on my behalf and
found that Archibald Brookes senior had never married. I have also
got further evidence from an old friend of mine at Scotland Yard who
has had Sir George and his supposed nephew under observation for
some time; that the young man was brought up under the charge of
a woman named Alma Buckley, a not very prominent member of the
music-hall profession, up to the period when Sir George adopted him
and put about this story. Further, that at the time of his adoption
young Archie Brookes was occupying an insignificant commercial
post in the city of London. Of course, you know nothing of all this?”
The words were not put in the form of a question, but rather
conveyed the assumption that it was impossible the financier could
have any knowledge of such a gross deception.
But they brought to the surface at once that fiery temper which up
to the present he had kept in check.
“What do you take me for, sir? My greatest enemy can never say
of me that I have been guilty of a mean or dishonourable action. Do
you think for a moment, from any motives whatever, even from a
desire to shield one so closely related to me, I would be a party to
such a shameful fraud?”
Lane hastened to pour oil on the troubled waters. “Pardon me, Mr.
Morrice, I did not hint at such a thing. I said that, as a matter of
course, you knew nothing about it.”
“It was almost unnecessary that you should say even as much as
that,” growled Morrice, only half appeased. His mind was quick
enough when he chose to exercise it. This man had been rendered
suspicious and distrustful of everybody by his calling, and the sinister
secrets he discovered in the pursuit of it. He had half suspected, or
at any rate thought it within the bounds of possibility, that Morrice
might have some inkling of what had been going on, and he had
chosen this way of provoking a definite disclaimer.
“There are other things it is my duty to tell you,” went on the
detective smoothly; he was not going to take any further notice of
that angry outburst. “For some long time past Mrs. Morrice has been
in the habit of supplying the young man with money. I cannot
estimate the amount that has passed into his hands, but judging
from his extravagant habits, I should say it must be a considerable
sum, much more than the lady could afford if she were to maintain
her position as the wife of a wealthy man.”
A lightning inspiration came to the unfortunate financier. “Am I not
right in saying that you sent me an anonymous letter on this very
subject?”
Lane felt it was useless to prevaricate. “I did. I may be wrong, but I
felt it was the best way to set you on the track. I thought it would be
very painful for you to be warned in a more open and direct way. I
trust that the suspicion I threw out was not justified.”
He said this with a very good show of concern, although he was
certain he had not fired that shot at random. Mrs. Morrice’s avowal
that she had been half ruined, and that it could not go on, had
convinced him that her assistance to young Brookes had not been
confined to a few hundreds out of her annual allowance—these
would have gone no way with such a determined prodigal.
For the first time in his life, Rupert Morrice’s proud head drooped
in deep humiliation. It was terribly degrading to him to listen to the
detective’s merciless recital, to know that the treachery of the woman
who bore his name, to whom he had given an honoured and assured
position, was, as it were, the common property of others.
“Alas,” he said, in a voice from which every trace of anger had
fled, which only expressed feelings of the most unutterable sadness.
“Your suspicions have been fully justified. From whence did you get
all this information that enabled you to make such an accurate
diagnosis of what was happening?”
But Lane was very staunch, and as high-minded as a man could
be in the trying circumstances of such a profession. He would
certainly not give Rosabelle away, for if he did Morrice would be sure
to think she should have come to her uncle first and discussed with
him the propriety of going to Lane at all. He had in a manner rather
stolen a march upon her, but she should not suffer.
“You must excuse me, Mr. Morrice, if I am unable to answer that
very natural question. I always like to be as frank as possible with my
clients, but there are times when, from motives perfectly satisfactory
to myself, I am unable to reveal the means by which I obtain our
information.”
Morrice made no reply. He would have dearly loved to know, but
he was fair-minded enough to appreciate the detective’s excuse.
Probably he had obtained his knowledge from some prying servant
in the house who had kept a close watch upon his wife. Lane was
not the man to despise the assistance of any instrument, however
humble. Not for one moment did it occur to Morrice that his niece
was implicated in the matter.
“And now, Mr. Morrice, I don’t wish to ask you more than I can
help, for I can fully understand how you must be suffering, and how
painful it must be for you to talk over these things with a stranger.
But you say that my suspicions are confirmed—in short, you have
made your investigations and found what I surmised, that a
considerable number of jewels have been realized, and imitations
put in their place. Am I right in saying that it means a large sum?”
“Several thousands of pounds, even taking into account the
depreciated price which could be obtained for them,” was Morrice’s
answer.
“I guessed it. But I doubt if it has all gone into the pockets of young
Brookes. Mind you, I have no actual evidence of what I am going to
say—it is, if you like, absolute theory—but Sir George is in this game
and has engineered it from the beginning. They are in this together,
depend upon it. Which gets the better share I cannot say; I should
fancy the older and more experienced rogue.”
“I daresay you are right,” said Morrice wearily. “We know him to be
a rogue from his being a party to this nephew fraud. And yet he
poses as a rich man, although Mrs. Morrice has more than once
dropped a hint that he is fast dissipating his money at the gaming-
table.”
So that was his vice attributed to him by one who knew too well,
thought the detective. That accounted for his being well-off one day
and a pauper the next.
After exacting from Morrice a promise that he would not use the
information in any way, Lane told him what he had picked up from
his friend at Scotland Yard, viz. that Sir George was strongly
suspected of being in league with high-class crooks.
The unhappy financier sat crushed and humbled by all these
terrible revelations. His world seemed falling about his ears—his
wife, of whose integrity he had never entertained the slightest
suspicion, the friend and confidant, the associate in a vile deception,
of a man of good birth and position strongly suspected of being
engaged in criminal enterprises. He had never taken kindly to Sir
George; he was too plausible and artificial for his liking. For the
supposed nephew he had entertained a good-natured contempt. But
he had never harboured the faintest idea that they were a couple of
base scoundrels.
Lane rose to go. Later on he would have to say more to Mr.
Morrice, but to-night he had said enough.
“I think you told me over the telephone that your wife was away. I
suppose you have said nothing to her yet?”
“Nothing,” answered Morrice, with a face like granite. “I have not
had time. It was only to-day that I got the full amount of proof I
wanted. If it had only concerned itself with one article of jewellery, or
a couple at the outside, I might have thought she had sold them to
defray some gambling debt, some bills that she was ashamed to tell
me about.”
“Quite so, Mr. Morrice. But I take it when your wife returns you will
confront her and extort a confession.”
Nothing could have been grimmer than the husband’s expression
as he answered. It was easy to see he would be as hard as flint
when his righteous wrath was aroused—pitiless, unforgiving.
“Of course. And please, Mr. Lane, do not speak of her as my wife.
The law, I know, will not sever the tie for such a cause as this, but so
far as I am concerned that tie is already severed. She returns to-
morrow, and in another twenty-four hours the same roof will not
shelter us. I shall not leave her to starve; I shall make her a decent
allowance, and she can live out the rest of her shameful life in the
society of friends congenial to her—this scoundrel Clayton-Brookes
and the rascal whose aunt she pretends to be—perhaps the woman
Alma Buckley, of whom I have never heard.”
“And whom she visits secretly,” interposed Lane. “I have had her
watched and know that for a fact.”
“Ah, I am not surprised; in fact, nothing would surprise me now.
Mark you, I shall not publish to the world the story of her treachery.
Why should I fill the mouths of curious fools? It would not undo my
wrongs nor alleviate my bitter humiliation. I shall agree with her to
concoct some tale of incompatibility extending over many years and
culminating in a separation absolutely necessary for the peace of
mind of both. The truth will be known for certain to two people, you
and myself, perhaps a third—my niece Rosabelle Sheldon. You, I am
convinced, Mr. Lane, are a man of discretion and will keep your
knowledge to yourself.”
Lane assured him that the secrets of all his clients were sacred to
him. One last question he put before he left.
“You will make her confess who this so-called Archie Brookes
really is?”
And Morrice’s voice was as hard as iron as he answered: “You
may rely upon me to do my best. Good-night, sir. What I have
learned through your masterly activities has been inexpressibly
painful, but thank heaven I know at last the foes in my own
household. I shall no longer live in a fool’s paradise.”
Shortly after Lane’s departure he went to his room, but try as he
would, sleep refused her kindly solace. The man had been shaken to
the very foundation of his being.
On his way out Lane found Rosabelle waiting for him in the hall as
on a previous occasion; she had heard of his visit from one of the
servants.
“Why are you here to-night?” she whispered. “Has anything of
importance happened?”
“A great deal,” Lane whispered back. “It was not till the last
moment I made up my mind to come, but certain things happened
which rendered it necessary to hasten matters. I have not time to tell
you now, it would take too long. Slip down to my office to-morrow
morning as early as you can.”
Much wondering, the girl promised she would be there as near ten
o’clock as possible.
“And just one last word, Miss Sheldon. I have told your uncle that
young Brookes has been sponging on Mrs. Morrice, and much has
been found out. But your name has not been brought in. Forget all
about that conversation you told me of. Best, if your uncle should
question you to-night or to-morrow, to dismiss it from your mind, to
appear surprised as you would have been if you had never
overheard it. I will explain to-morrow. Good-night. I will not stop a
second longer; he might come out any moment and surprise us.”
Restless and impatient for that to-morrow, the girl’s sleep was little
less broken than her uncle’s. What was Lane going to tell her? Was
he going to be perfectly frank after all?
She was there a little before the time appointed, but Lane was
disengaged and saw her at once. He made a clean breast of it this
time, and told her everything that had happened from the beginning
of his investigations.
 “I may as well tell you that I went over to Mr. Croxton the other day
and told him all that I knew. And I am afraid you will never forgive
me, Miss Sheldon, when you know that I made it a condition of my
confidence that he should keep it to himself till I removed the
embargo. But I had my reasons, reasons which I can’t very well
explain and which, I am sure, would be unconvincing to you.”
Rosabelle was very shocked at her aunt’s duplicity and disgusted
when she learned the truth about Archie Brookes. But she was not
so preoccupied with the emotions to which his recital gave rise as
not to be more than a little hurt that Lane had kept her in the dark
longer than anybody else.
“I suppose the truth is you have a contempt for women, and place
no trust in them?” she said resentfully.
The detective made the most diplomatic answer he could in the
circumstances, apparently with a satisfactory result. Anyway, they
parted good friends.
 CHAPTER XXII
HUSBAND AND WIFE

M ORRICE stayed in the next day waiting for the return of his wife
from her country visit. She was to arrive home in time for lunch.
About twelve o’clock Rosabelle came into his room; she had just
returned from her visit to Lane.
“Oh, uncle, there is a strange young man in the hall with a letter for
auntie. He says his instructions are to give it into her own hands. He
was told that she would be back before lunch-time, and he said he
would wait. He seems rather mysterious. Would you like to see
him?”
Morrice nodded his head and strode into the hall, where he found
standing a sallow-faced young fellow, quite a youth, with a tall
footman mounting guard over him, as it were, on the look-out for
felonious attempts.
“What is it you’re wanting, my man?” he asked roughly. He did not,
any more than his servant, like the appearance of the fellow, who
seemed a furtive kind of creature with a shifty expression.
The furtive one explained hesitatingly in a strong cockney accent:
“A letter for Mrs. Morrice, sir. I was to be sure and give it into no
hands but her own.”
Something very suspicious about this, certainly. Morrice thought a
moment, pondering as to the best way to proceed with this rather
unprepossessing specimen of humanity. He had a common and
unintelligent kind of face, but he looked as if he possessed a fair
share of low cunning.
A week ago Morrice would have thought nothing of such an
incident; he would have told the man to come later when his wife
would have returned. But recent events had developed certain
faculties and made him anxious to probe everything to the bottom, to
scent mystery in every trifling act.
“Who sent you with the letter, and gave you such precise
instructions, my man?”
The answer came back: “Mrs. Macdonald, sir.”
Morrice’s brows contracted. He was as sure as he could be of
anything that the man was telling a lie.
“Mrs. Macdonald, eh? Where does she live?” was the next
question.
This time the answer did not come as readily; there was a
perceptible hesitation. Morrice guessed the reason as rapidly as
Lane himself would have done. The sender of the letter had primed
the messenger with a false address. Out of loyalty to his employer,
he had been cudgelling his rather slow brains to invent one.
“Number 16 Belle-Vue Mansions, Hogarth Road, Putney,” he said,
speaking after that slight hesitation with a certain glibness that was
likely to carry conviction.
Morrice did not know of any woman of the name of Macdonald
amongst his wife’s acquaintances. Still, that might mean nothing; it
might be a begging letter which the writer had taken these unusual
means of getting to her.
“Let me have a look at the envelope,” demanded Morrice.
The shabby, furtive-looking young fellow began to appear a bit
uneasy, with the dictatorial master of the house regarding him with
anything but a favourable eye, the young girl standing in the
background who seemed no more friendly, and the tall footman
standing before the door, barring a sudden exit.
“Beg pardon, sir, but my orders was most precise to only give it
into the hands of the lady herself.”
Morrice saw that he must change his tactics. He took from his
pocket a couple of treasury-notes which made a pleasant crackle as
he flourished them before the youth’s face.
 “You see these, don’t you? I take it you haven’t got too much
money. They are yours if you let me see the envelope, only the
envelope. I don’t want to take your letter,” he added with a cunning
that was quite a recent development of his character. “As soon as
I’ve seen that you can go out and come back in an hour when Mrs.
Morrice will have returned home.”
The youth fell into the trap. Slowly he produced from his pocket
the letter which he held gingerly between his finger and thumb for
the inspection of the superscription on the envelope. Quick as
lightning, Morrice snatched at it and put his hand behind his back,
throwing at him with his disengaged hand the treasury-notes he had
promised.
“Now get out of this, my fine fellow, and never dare to come to this
house again with such an impudent message. Tell Mrs. Macdonald
of Putney, or whoever it may be that sent you, that Mr. Morrice
insisted on having that letter, and that it will be given to Mrs. Morrice
on her return.”
The furtive creature slunk away; after that drastic action he had no
more fight in him. Morrice remembered the waiting footman whose
impassive countenance did not betray any surprise at this rather
extraordinary scene over what seemed a trifle, and turned to his
niece with a smile that was decidedly forced.
“Never heard of such cheek in my life. Some impudent mendicant,
I expect. By gad, they are up to all sorts of dodges nowadays.”
He marched back into his own room, and Rosabelle went to hers
to think over what this action of her uncle’s meant. It was evident he
attached considerable significance to that letter which was only to be
delivered into Mrs. Morrice’s hands. What was he going to do with it?
Well, it did not much matter. He knew enough now, and in a very
short time the bolt would fall, according to what Lane had told her.
Morrice had made up his mind what to do with it. Never in his life
had he opened correspondence not intended for his perusal; never
again, he hoped, would he be forced to resort to such a mean action.
But everything was fair now; it was justifiable to meet cunning with
cunning, duplicity with corresponding duplicity.
He opened that letter with the sure instinct that it would be of help
to him, and he was not deceived. There was no address and no
signature. Evidently the handwriting was too well known to Mrs.
Morrice to require either. It was very brief; but even if he had not
known what he already did, it would have revealed to him a great
portion of what he had lately learned.
“A young man has been to see me, says he is not a
professional detective, and doesn’t look like one, but very
keen. Wanted to get out of me all about your early life. Of
course, he got nothing. The worst is he seems to know
something about Archie, knows that I brought him up. Be
on your guard; I am afraid trouble is brewing.”
He put this damaging missive in his pocket along with the
anonymous letter, and presently went up to his wife’s room to await
her return to the home which, he had resolved, should no longer
shelter a woman who had deceived him so grossly. He guessed at
once the writer of this warning note—it could be none other than
Alma Buckley, the friend of her youth. The reference to her having
brought up the man known as Archie Brookes proved that beyond
the possibility of doubt.
How long it seemed before the minutes passed and the door
opened to admit the familiar figure! Preoccupied with her own
thoughts, Mrs. Morrice hardly looked at her husband as she
advanced to give him the perfunctory kiss which is one of the
courtesies of a placid and unemotional married life.
But when he drew back with a gesture of something like
repugnance from the proffered caress, she noted for the first time the
terrible expression on his face, and was overcome with a deadly
fear.
“What is the matter? Why are you looking like that?” she gasped in
a trembling voice.
 Consumed inwardly with fury as Morrice was, he exercised great
control over himself. He knew that he would put himself at a
disadvantage if he stormed and raged; he must overwhelm this
wretched woman with the pitiless logic of the facts he had
accumulated. He must act the part of the pitiless judge rather than
that of the impassioned advocate.
He advanced to the door and turned the key, then came back to
her and pointed to a chair. There was a cold and studied deliberation
about his movements that filled her guilty soul with a fearful terror.
“Sit there while I speak to you,” he said in a harsh and grating
voice. “You have much to account to me for. Read that.”
He drew the anonymous letter from his pocket and flung it in her
lap.
Like one dazed, she drew it from the envelope with trembling
fingers, and very slowly, for her thoughts were in terrible confusion,
mastered its accusing contents. Then she looked up at him with a
face from which all the colour had fled, leaving it ghastly to look at.
“It is a lie,” she stammered in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
“It is the truth,” he thundered, “and you are as shameless in the
hour of your detection as you have been in your career of fraud and
deceit.”
“Prove it,” she cried faintly, still feebly trying to oppose his
gathering anger.
“You have lived with me a good many years,” he said witheringly,
“and yet you know so little of me as to think I should speak like that if
I were not sure I was on firm ground. And yet perhaps you have
some excuse. I have been a blind fool so long that you were justified
in your hopes I should continue blind to the end. Well, that letter
opened my eyes. Your fortunate absence gave me facilities that it
might have been difficult to create. I have taken several of the most
valuable articles in your collection and had them examined. Need I
tell you the result? Your guilty face shows plainly enough that you
need no telling.”
 And then her faint efforts at bravado broke down.
“Forgive me,” she moaned. “I yielded in a moment of temptation.
Many women have done the same; they were my own property after
all,” she added with a feeble effort at self-justification.
That answer only provoked him the more. “A moment of
temptation,” he repeated with scornful emphasis. “Rather many
moments of temptation. This has been going on for years; these
things were realized piece by piece. And now tell me—for I will have
the truth out of you before you leave this room—where have these
thousands gone, what have you got to show for them?”
It was a long time before she could steady her trembling lips to
speak, and when she did the words were so low that he could only
just catch them.
“Nothing. I have been a terribly extravagant woman. I have lost
large sums of money at cards. You never guessed that I was a
secret gambler—there is not a year in which I have not overstepped
my allowance, generous as it was. I was afraid to come to you.”
He silenced her with a scornful wave of the hand. “Lies, lies, every
word you have uttered! You have done none of these things you
pretend; it is an excuse you have invented in your desperation.”
He drew himself up to his full height and pointed a menacing finger
at the stricken woman. “Will you tell me where these thousands have
gone? No, you are silent. Well then, I will tell you—not in gambling
debts, not in unnecessary personal luxuries—no, if it were so I would
be readier to forgive. They have gone to support the extravagance of
that wretched idler and spendthrift who is known by the name of
Archie Brookes. Do you dare to deny it?”
She recognized that he knew too much, that further prevarication
was useless. “I do not deny it,” she answered in a moaning voice.
And after a little pause he proceeded with his denunciation.
“It is as well that you do not, seeing I know everything. Well, bad
as that is, there is worse behind. I have learned more; I know that
you, in conjunction with that smooth scoundrel Clayton-Brookes,