To the editor:

There were so many inaccuracies in Scott Wilson’s letter, “NEA Not OK” from Monday’s Iowa State Daily that, as a specialist in twentieth century art, I felt compelled to respond.

It is a little difficult to know just where to begin because of the number of misrepresentations. I’ll have to limit myself to just the most glaring examples.

He mentions the Constructivists in what he calls “eastern bloc countries.”

The Constructivists were practicing their art in the 1920s, and at that time there were no eastern bloc countries.

Government support was discontinued not because the work was too difficult to understand but because the free thought of the radical Constructivists wasn’t suitable as a vehicle for Soviet propaganda when Stalin took power.

Wilson asserts that Hitler went to art school as a young man. This is not true.

Hitler applied to the art academy but was denied admission because of the low quality of his work.

Nazis had no more use for the modernists than the U.S.S.R. had, and for the same reasons: It was seen as a symbol of freedom, and if there is one thing that right wing pundits cannot tolerate, it is freedom.

Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass of 1863 was indeed exhibited in the Salon de R‚fuses, as he states, but he seems to be unaware that this was a government-sponsored exhibit and it speaks to the liberalism and broad-mindedness of the Second Empire.

As such, it supports an argument for the importance of the subsidization of even controversial art by an enlightened regime.

“Which government programs supported the post-impressionists?” he asks. None.

Perhaps if there had been more government support, Van Gogh might have not committed suicide in an asylum, Gauguin and Cezanne might have not had to die in poverty.

Where his argument becomes truly absurd and almost paranoid is in his assertion that the 1930s WPA program was a CIA front organization!

There was no CIA during the 1930s. The WPA was a depression-era work relief program. It gave thousands of artists working space and $25 a week, it sponsored community art centers, traveling exhibitions, murals in public spaces (like our own Ames post office), and brought art to regions like Iowa that had little previous exposure to art.

It was not propagandistic — in fact, many artists openly criticized the government in their work.

It was discontinued before the U.S. entry into World War II. The CIA was founded in the postwar era.

Like so many people on the right of the political spectrum, from Jesse Helms to Pat Buchanan, inaccuracies, half-truths and misrepresentations are used to bolster specious arguments.

Whether this is intentional maliciousness on the part of Mr. Wilson or just plain ignorance I’m not sure.

If the NEA were discontinued, it would be areas like Iowa that would be hardest hit.

The Museum of Modern Art or the Metropolitan Opera in New York would probably be able to survive.

The Des Moines Art Center would probably not. Does that 36 cents a year really infringe so much on your touted “freedom loving Americanism?”

Some would call this being conservative. I would call it being cheap.

Dennis Raverty

Assistant professor

Art history