Much ado about ... what, exactly?

In a long article in the Guardian, Jamie Doward reveals American billionaire Howard F Ahmanson Jr's sponsorship of a Caravaggio exhibition at the British National Gallery:

Day after day the crowds flock to the National Gallery's 'Caravaggio: The Final Years' exhibition, fascinated in equal measures by the artist's debauched lifestyle and the power of his paintings.

The 17th-century painter, who was alleged to have kept a boy lover and slept with a dagger by his bed, scandalised the Roman Catholic church's senior hierarchy as much for his hedonistic ways as his shocking depictions of the Virgin Mary, for which he used his prostitute muse as a model.

But what the crowds are unlikely to appreciate is that the acclaimed exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous donation of a reclusive US millionaire who bankrolled a fundamentalist religious movement founded by a man who endorsed the execution of homosexuals and adulterers.

So? Well, for one thing, it would be better if the taxpayer, rather than a right-wing weirdo, funded the arts:

But the fact that one of the gallery's most popular exhibitions of all time, described by critics as 'heart-stopping' and 'magnificent', has been funded by the Ahmansons is likely to reignite the debate over arts funding in Britain. Last year Charles Samaurez Smith, the National's director, said the gallery suffered from a £1.7 million shortfall in government funding in real terms. The huge funding gap has meant the gallery has had little choice but to seek out the patronage of wealthy philanthropists.

Doward goes on to expose Ahmanson's connections to a number of right-wing and ulta-right-wing causes and groups, including anti-gay groups and the Republican Party.

Really, if Ahmanson wants to fund an exhibition by a hedonist artist, why should anyone care? I suppose it's not proper to have Ahmanson's filthy lucre sponsoring an exhibition of the works of an alleged pedophile. Interesting? I guess. News-worthy? No.