Memory and Morality
by Fredi Glatz, licensed aesthetico-philosophical analyst
and personal spiritual advisor to Seamus O'Regan's second cousin's Pilates instructor
“Art is morality, and morality art.” That is, neither art nor morality conforms to objective or empirical standards, but only to arbitrary standards particular to a specific group. At least that’s what I said in another article here. Anyway, if morality is art, then changes in art should reflect changes in morality.
One of the categories of art which should best reflect morality is monumental art. Monumental art commemorates the admirable, and admirability is a moral concept. Major monuments commemorate what the powerful or the numerous consider admirable. Lesser monuments (gravestones, for example, or piles of flowers and teddy bears at the sites of unexpected deaths) commemorate what individuals and families consider important.
Okay, I have now succeeded in getting to a point where I can make some use of these photographs I took last summer of monuments in Queen’s Park and on University Avenue in Toronto. University Avenue was extended in the 1920s with the intention of commemorating the battle of Vimy Ridge. The Depression put a crimp in the more ambitious parts of the plan, but today University Avenue is the site of several important memorials. Queen’s Park is the site of the Ontario Legislature, and of a large collection of impressive memorial statuary.
In this article we are going to look at the military memorials to see if they reflect changes over the 113 years from the erection of the earliest memorial we are going to look at.
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Memory and Morality © John FitzGerald, 2008
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