To Live Like Gods: What We Devour for Gold
Wealth, Desire and Moral Corruption in The Secret History and All That Glitters
The sun bounced off the dark blue water and the wind rustled the leaves of the palm trees – the day Inigo Philbrick was placed into handcuffs and taken to New York to face prosecution for fraud. Inigo, the swashbuckling and charming art dealer/ fraudster, happy to pay his penance for living the high-life for many years without consequence. When faced with consequence, Philbrick remarked “I’d feel more guilt if someone had died”. The flippancy of the remark provokes a chilling thought: what are we willing to tolerate as a morally acceptable pursuit of wealth and luxury? For Philbrick, a “proper heinous crime” seems to require a corpse: where death provides the uncontestable boundary between true evil or simply a crime of opportunity. Before it lies the rules of predator and prey, and ultimately comes down to which one will seize the moment. Carpe diem. But it’s not that simple to determine, is it? In The Secret History, Donna Tartt’s illustrious dark-academia antagonist figurehead, holds an opposing view. Hampden College’s Greek leader, Henry Winter, conjures a corpse, and yet when confronted with the consequences of his actions ultimately destroys himself rather than submit to them. Perhaps the more uncomfortable question is not simply what people are willing to do for the high life, but what are we willing to forgive in those who already possess it. Real life Orlando Whitfield and the fictional Richard Papen expose the human desire to allow wrongdoing to pass because the perpetrators are charming, illustrious or offer us a glimpse into a world we are seduced by. One can become willing to look away, to rationalize, and to accept the rot so long as the surface remains golden. The question, then, is not only what we will devour for gold, but what we will allow others to devour in order to keep us close to it.
There is something grotesque about the picturesque when you want it badly enough. Richard Papen arrives at Hampden susceptible to this seduction: old buildings, Henry’s stacks of
books, elite rituals largely untouched by ordinary life. It is not enough for him to admire the beauty but to inhabit it – become one with it. Henry, and his other classmates offer this life to him. Slowly Richard becomes more accepting of the violences required to preserve it, anything including another person’s life can begin to become an obstacle to the promised land. To Richard, this is not just an aesthetic but an escape where ordinary life is dull and unworthy of living. Richard, an intellect himself, is aware of this flaw as he calls it “a morbid longing for the picturesque”, although he seems unwilling to fight the desire. Henry, and his circle have Richard exactly where they want him: outside the room, looking in. They have made intellectual elitism into a bouncer’s rope, withholding access to the Greek class until Richard is desperate to prove that he belongs. Thus, when the door is opened, Richard is all in because he has spent so long being made to desire it and fight for it.
Admission is only the beginning. Once inside the room, Richard is confronted with the price of remaining there. Bunny is not merely a problem for Henry and the others but a large-scale threat to the life Richard clawed his way up for. A real slash through the picturesque painting. Richard becomes increasingly willing to accept what must be done to preserve it. He frequently highlights Bunny’s horrible behaviour to justify why the group grew to despise him and his “deservedness” to die. In one irritating hangout session Richard concludes “he was an expert at a certain type of psychological warfare… a master of the small, irritating remark that could rankle for days.” His complicity is therefore not born from some innate evil but from the terrifying ease with which desire can make violence seem necessary. The room he once longed to enter becomes something he must now help defend. Henry on the other hand is depicted as a God; justifiable, good and worthy of following “Henry was a mechanical wizard.. His mind was completely unclouded by the ordinary passions that distort the judgement of most people… he
was the architect of our lives, the master of our destinies, and I trusted him implicitly.” Henry hadn’t done anything to earn this God-like worship aside from embodying everything Richard had decided was worthy of worship: intellect, beauty, mystery and exclusivity. But Richard’s
failings are not confined to the picturesque, fictionalized world of Hampden College. The impulse to excuse, rationalize and admire “dirty” behavior when it is packaged in beautiful wrappings and high culture.
Orlando Whitfield worked alongside Inigo Philbrick for years, operating within the same galleries, collectors, investors and high-value art. And like Richard Papen, Whitfield entered the art world out of escape from a dull life to one that is exhilarating, sensual and high-stakes admitting to being a “bored history student”. Yet the warning signs remained easy to overlook. Even investors failed to connect the dots between high-brow transactions and this young man. So long as the image held of luxurious parties, gorgeous women, yachts and international flights the rot was easily missed. Until, of course, the picture burst. Even in his memoir, All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art, Whitfield can’t help but to describe Philbrick in the same God-like view that Richard spoke of Henry – even at one point comparing their relationship to that of Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby. Notable descriptions include; “He had the kind of voice you expect to come dressed in a pastel polo shirt and accompanied by the rhythmic clinking of ice in Scotch.”, and “[his] overall effect is entirely seductive.” What is most unsettling is not that Whitfield once fell for Philbrick’s charms, but that the language of seduction remains even after the fraud and rot has been exposed. Inigo does not become ugly nor does Henry. This admiration reveals how easily aesthetics can interfere with moral judgement. This is a capability each one of us possesses.
There is an important distinction to make between Richard and Whitfield. Richard, eventually becomes a participant in the crimes of Henry and his contemporaries, while Whitfield merely observes… although there is an argument concerning Whitfield’s secret communication to Philbrick while in hiding. This is not to compare and contrast the guilty or innocent but rather between the different forms of complicity. Richard ultimately succumbing to the ugliness to preserve the world he’s largely romanticised. Whitfield, not responsible for any crime but determined to preserve the beautiful person beneath the ugly act. This is the macabre about desiring and wanting to believe in a picturesque lifestyle that we may know to be too good to be true. We know the rot is there, but it forces us to determine which rot is worth tolerating. Beauty, Henry’s intellect, Inigo’s charm, the yachts or art galleries became a sort of ambrosia we are willing to pay for. Every beautiful fantasy has an end credit, Bunny’s murder and Henry’s subsequent suicide is the final straw that allows Richard to no longer pretend his relationship with his desire as healthy. Philbrick’s arrest to the backdrop of palm trees, blue water are sobering to the ecstasy the viewer had been microdosing. Both scenarios open the protagonist’s eyes to the acknowledgement of these evils and yet still miss the world they had been allowed to enter.
Perhaps what we are willing to devour for gold is not only morality but ability to recognize when the beautiful has gone too far. Philbrick believed that a truly heinous crime required a corpse. Perhaps the more disturbing truth is that the moral death comes much earlier: in the first rationalization, the first decision to look away, the first time beauty becomes an excuse. The corpse is simply where the picturesque finally runs out of places to hide.
About the Author
Vanessa Spano is a current LLB candidate at King’s College London, living in London and pursuing a career in Art Law and Art Crime. She previously completed a dual major in History and Criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University).
Alongside her legal studies, Vanessa works as an Assistant Editor for the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art and the female collective Written in the Waves. Her interests extend beyond law and art crime into literature, philosophy and history, and she is an avid reader and traveller. She has also completed programmes in Art Crime and Art History through the prestigious Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
Her academic and professional interests centre on the intersection of law, art, culture and the darker histories surrounding the art world.
