art and politics

If politicians were painters, with FDR as Titian and Churchill as Rubens, then Attlee would be the Vermeer of the profession: precise, restrained—and long undervalued. Bill Clinton might aspire to the heights of Salvador Dalí (and believe himself complimented by the comparison), Tony Blair to the standing - and cupidity - of Damien Hirst.

In the arts, moral seriousness speaks to an economy of form and aesthetic restraint ...

Tony Judt, 'Austerity', (NYRB)