Art Review: Plague Art, to Rivet, Horrify, or Heal

I read a story in the New York Times by Paul Theroux on the national lockdown, the one that’s crashed the economy and thrown more than 26 million Americans out of work. “This peculiarity we are now experiencing,” he wrote, “the nearest thing to a world war . . . is the essence of tragedy and an occasion for license or retribution.”

Is this “the nearest thing to a world war?” We can’t time travel to London during the Blitz, and don’t we think life in the trenches at the Somme was by a magnitude or two worse than life during COVID-19? After we get a vaccine, I hope our scientists work on a perspective pill.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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I read a story in the New York Times by Paul Theroux on the national lockdown, the one that’s crashed the economy and thrown more than 26 million Americans out of work. “This peculiarity we are now experiencing,” he wrote, “the nearest thing to a world war . . . is the essence of tragedy and an occasion for license or retribution.”

Is this “the nearest thing to a world war?” We can’t time travel to London during the Blitz, and don’t we think life in the trenches at the Somme was by a magnitude or two worse than life during COVID-19? After we get a vaccine, I hope our scientists work on a perspective pill.