You may have noticed I quote a lot of songs, poems, plays, etc. The idea is that if someone has already said what I want to say, but better, it makes no sense trying to “improve” when I can simply quote. I think I have already mentioned that when I come across a particularly excellent sentence in a novel I try to contact the author to simply say “Well done. Thank you!” I have also learned that it is wise to make sure the author is still alive. But that is a story for another day.
The question for today is the extent to which a work of art and the artist who created it are facets of the same entity. Sure, being aware of the effort that goes into finding just the right word and crafting an excellent sentence, I do drop authors an encouraging word to let them know that there is someone out there who is paying attention. But on the other hand that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to be their BFF. Actually it more often works the other way around. I when discover that a friend is a “creative,” author, painter, poet, singer, whatever, I am tempted to ask to see, hear, read, whatever, examples of their work. But there are potential pitfalls on that road. What if I don’t like their efforts? Do I lie? Will they know I am lying? Hopefully, I will find the work as delightful as the person - but there is that element of risk involved.
I was reminded of that risk recently when I asked my wife if she knew the title of a particular song for a John Denver quote I wanted to “borrow” for a piece I was working on and she replied, “I hate his work. He was a terrible man!” We have been married long enough that I knew not to point out that that was not the question I had asked. However, later, her non-answer brought me back to question I hadn’t asked but she had unintentionally answered: What are the critical relationships between an artist and their work? Must I find a Woody Allen film flawed because of questionable decisions he has made in his private life? Do I deny the talent of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s paintings because her patron, Marie Antoinette, was apparently callously oblivious to the harsh lives of the peasants whose deprivations made her opulent life possible - well, at least for a while. Do we deny Picasso’s place in art history because he seemed to switch his artistic style with the acquisition of each new mistress? 6 or 7 depending on what source you consult.
And that last sentence “depending on which source you consult” is one of the two major reasons I believe we need to separate art and artist in any meaningful evaluation of a particular work. I never met John Denver, and to my knowledge neither did my wife. Did Marie really respond to the assertion that the people had no bread with, “Let them eat cake!” If Marie really did blithely advocate cake for the poor, did Elisabeth concur?” Did Picasso say “Oh, the blue painting is Olga, the pink one is Francoise?” If we wish to argue that an artist’s work is a direct manifestation of their personal beliefs and philosophy then we need to be quite sure that the sources we consult regarding those beliefs and philosophies are themselves credible. John Denver was a contemporary celebrity, which in its own right, negates anything we might know about his private life. If you have seen someone’s face on a magazine at the grocery checkout, you can be fairly confident that the article within is designed to sell magazines, not reveal “the unvarnished truth” about the celebrities on the cover. On the question did Marie Antoinette really say “Let them eat cake!” we would be well advised to remember that when it comes to history, it is the winners who write the histories. Picasso was, at the time of his death both the most famous and the wealthiest artist in France, who, most sources agree, made his heirs and their representatives frantic by leaving no will, leaving the who, what and why of his copious estate - sources vary but all cluster around 20,000 to 30,000 paintings, sculptures, etchings, etc., - drifting in the wind.
The point is that any attempt to link an artist’s work to their beliefs, attitudes and values is most likely doomed to failure simply because of the difficulty of trying to cobble together an accurate depiction of those beliefs, attitudes and values from secondary or questionable sources. I don’t mean to say that the “truth” about artists lives may not lie somewhere in what journalists, critics and historians have written about them. I am saying that winnowing those kernels of truth from the chaff of the articles, videos, exposes, etc., that accompanies those kernels is an almost impossible task. And furthermore I am saying that it really doesn’t matter, because even if we could draw a straight line relationship between a work of art and an artist’s beliefs - as is temptingly possible between Picasso and Guernica, that one painting which Picasso refused to “analyze” - we still cannot hope to define a singular psyche of the creator of perhaps thousands of works.
Artists, perhaps more than the rest of us more normal, less-talented folks, seem to shift “certainty” throughout their lives. It is something we all do. What was "true" for us at 6, is probably called into doubt at 16, 26, 36, and on until 60 and beyond. But because of their status as “public figures,” artists are often called upon to explain and defend those shifts. Ideally the explanation should be made in person, or if deceased this questionable task is handed off to their heirs, critics, biographers or historians. Artists are not alone in this seeming need we have for them to explain their "waffling" on their work and world view. Republicans who began life as Democrats or vice versa, fire and brimstone TV preachers who “stray,” athletes who use “performance enhancing drugs,” famous quarterbacks who conflate “immunization” and “vaccination.” These celebrities are all often called upon to explain themselves. To "tell it like it is." Furthermore I sincerely believe they would be unable to provide such an explanation even if they wanted to. It takes the likes of Boswell and McCullough thousands of pages to even attempt such reconstructions, and even their painstaking efforts are questioned by other would be "experts."
A friend of mine once reminded me that “we have all been in rooms where we should not die.” Meaning we have all done and said things, “true” at the moment, yet perhaps better left unsaid and undone, and certainly unexplained in the broader picture of a life. But our foibles rarely hang on museum walls. We are rarely called upon to knit them all into a rational whole. But we do ask just that of artists. We want them to be able to trace their inner lives as a progression of “truths” as reflected in their art. We want the "reality" of an artist to be all wrapped up neatly with a bow on top. That would, I suppose, be nice, but I doubt that such a package could actually be created. Artists seem to be more intense versions of us, you know, normal folks. More swayed by passion, belief, joy and sadness. No doubt that intensity is reflected in their work, but our desire to fully understand the relationship between an artist's art and the person who created the art is most likely doomed to failure. No doubt there are, in an artist's oeuvre, works the artist would like to assert represent their "real" self, their best self. the self they aspire to be. But it is more than likely that other works sprang from their "rooms in which we should not die." Our attempting to discern which is which is no doubt an entertaining yet flawed pastime.
Let us conclude this little ramble down the road of art with a thought experiment. You attend a raffle at a professional meeting of an organization of which you are a member. To your delight you win “first prize” that allows you to choose one of two painting. Yet, the choice is not as simple as it might seem. The paintings are quite similar. Two landscapes, they are the same size, same palette, done in the style of the romanticism of the Hudson River School which has always been one of your favorites. Neither artist will profit from their artwork being chosen. However before making your choice you are informed that one painting was painted by an inmate from a supermax prison, a psychopathic serial killer. The other by a church choir director who gives free music lessons to underprivileged youth after school.
Would knowing which artist painted which painting influence your choice? There is really no right answer. If the psycho versus the minister is a "dealbreaker" issue for you, then you are simply privileging what you know of the artist over the quality of the specific artwork, which is certainly an option and one which easily leads to something like the simple assertion that we can hate John Denver’s music because we hate the man. To me that seems rather unfair to the music. And by extension, may deny ourselves a number of wonderful artistic experiences for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the quality of the various artworks themselves. Remember the second tenet of Distilled Harmony is Enable Beauty, not only enable beauty produced by nice people - like Mr. Rogers.
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