The anti-Enlightenment art of the Chapman brothers in the UK

The columnist Johann Hari deplores the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman on show at the Tate Liverpool until March 4th. He considers it "a kind of punk art that spits in your face, ... . The Chapmans' declared aim is an old one, offered by fascists and priests for the past 300 years: to puncture and destroy [The Enlightenment]. .... Francisco Goya was one of the first great artists of the Enlightenment. In 1799, in his famous Caprichos etchings, he caricatured the religious figures who controlled Spain, and he lauded the secular and liberal politicians who fought against them. It was his Enlightenment commitment to showing the unvarnished truth that later made him paint war-scenes as they really were, for the first time. ... In 2003, the Chapmans bought some of Goya's original prints - and vandalised them. Where Goya drew with documentary clarity the agonised victims of war, the Chapmans painted the jeering faces of clowns and puppies over them."

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