Can we separate the artist from the art?

[stlukesguild]

quote: intergrity- In this particular case, I cannot separate the writer from his writing. Just as if Karl Rove or Dick Cheney wrote the most well-written fiction book loosely based on all the great things they've done for middle east, or if Michael Vick was the most eloquent writer on the planet, I would read none of their books because they are major jerks/idiots who lack the slightest amount of empathy or compassion and possess an acute disrespect for their fellow living creatures. These type of folks have nothing of value to impart to me at this time of my life. It's not about whether an author's life (in this case Hemingway's) was exciting or boring, it's about the moral character of the individual himself/herself. It permeates and shines through in a writer's works... if the person appears to have a bloodthirsty streak for needlessly hurting fellow creatures, then that person more than likely has nothing meaningful to impart to me. It indicates a severe lack of depth in their perception of life.

Integrity brings into play an intriguing question. Can we separate the artist from the art? Can a real a@#hole produce great art? Do we find it impossible to divorce who the artist was from what the artist did? I'm interested in hearing other's thoughts on this topic before I post my own.

[JBI]

Depends who; I enjoy Pound, despite his streak of fascism/Nazism. Mashima's prose is still excellent, despite his peculiar politics.

It would depend who; Hitler, of course could not be read as an artist of aesthetic merit (though I hear Mien Kampf isn't very good anyway). But hey, Shakespeare tells us that style is everything. How many people cheer for Macbeth, and hoped he would win on the first read? I'm sure some of us. How many can't help but sympathize?

In truth, every anti-hero can be made likable by the way he is presented, so if we take Filippo Lippi for instance, and present him as some sort of vow-breaking lustful pervert, who broke his vows to the church in order to marry a nun - causing her to break her vows as well - then we can look down on him, and his art.

Fortunately, history took the art's side, and we remember that as a romance, rather than a heresy, and a triumph of love, rather than a disrespect for god.

Perception is everything, as, you probably know, is the definition of aesthetics. IF we see an artist as repellent, than we will see his art as repellent, if we simply ignore it (Beethoven, Byron, Picasso) then we simply just enjoy the art. It depends what sort of streak the artist has against them.

[Etienne]

One word: Entirely.

[John Goodman]

I've always been able to. Unfortunately, most can't. As much as I don't want to bring film as an example on a book forum, it happens much more in that field. Someone like Tom Cruise who is an incredible actor will likely only be remembered as a scientologist psycho because of his off-camera antics. Robert Downey Jr. is a great actor who got in trouble with cocaine and prostitutes but people tend to only remember what he was arrested for, not the great roles he had prior to that.

[integrity]

LOL! Oh dear, what I have I started?! :lol:

Note that I never said that an a-hole can't write well. Certainly they can. It's just that on a personal/subjective level I feel that I more than likely will not take away anything meaningful from what the person has to say. It's a personal choice. I won't waste my time reading books (no matter how well-worded) that lack depth or insight into those things in which I am currently interested.

Look, I am a vegan and believe in non-violence. That might explain a lot about my revulsion to Hemingway's hunting, bullfighting, and war hawking. Most people (I would imagine) choose to read literature that they relate to and from the particular angle at which they see the world. In one of his books (Desert Solitaire), Edward Abbey writes about how he beaned a small mammal with a rock just to see if he could. I wasn't thrilled with that. But that doesn't take away from the fact that he wrote incredibly well, and on top of that (unlike Hemingway) he made a difference in the world around him; his ideas had a real impact on the conservation of nature. Jack London was a boxer and a boxing fan, but that didn't take away from the fact that Call of the Wild was an incredible story. He also sailed with a ship that hunted seals (though he later rightly called it "slaughter" and "one species destroying another for the sake of fashion").

I'm not trying to downplay what I wrote in my post; I'm simply trying to put it into context. It's about choice. Life is short. Really short. I can only read so much in one lifetime. I'm becoming a bit more choosy, and don't often randomly pick up a novel and read it spontaneously, like I used to when I was younger. I'm not just interested in great writing; I want to hopefully read literature that imparts some substance, knowledge, or meaning about life (Siddhartha is a good example). As I said in my post on the other thread, I had already read Hemingway's books when I was young and disliked them very much; I found his writing to be superficial, boring, and devoid of prosaic beauty. I was debating whether to read his novels again now, in hope that I would find some meaning in them that I did not when I was younger. But reading about his exploits into hunting and such, tipped the scales against his favor. His seemingly bloodthirsty nature might account for the fact that I did not enjoy his writing the first time around. An author's outlook on life is often reflected in his writing. I'm not interested in reading works by someone who cares not a jot for his fellow creatures. Not worth my time.

[stlukesguild]

I bring the question up because it is certainly true that many cannot separate the artist from the art. In a way, it relates to the notion of the "cult of personality". In most medieval art... and most ancient art... and a good deal of the art from non-Western cultures the artist is often anonymous. The art is what matters. Of course the shift took place with the Renaissance... especially in the visual arts... where individuals of great ability and innovation began to be recognized... and their products desired over that of others. On the negative side this leads to the valuation of mediocre... or even poor works of art and literature by acknowledged "masters" over very good... even great works of art by unknown or less-well-known artists. A painting by a minor artist as well-known as Andy Warhol... a work probably not even produced by his own efforts... often attains prices at auction in the 10s of millions or dollars... while an absolutely masterful example of a Persian miniature, a Japanese woodblock print, or marvelous Pre-Columbian ceramic piece might only expect to achieve a price that even I could afford. What is often valued is the artist's star status... celebrity... cult of personality... over the actual work.

When the artist has a great life story... such as that of Van Gogh... the value of the work rises ever higher. But what of the artist whose reputation is besmirched? Michael Jackson's career will never be the same... regardless of what he does as a performer. So what of a figure such as Caravaggio?

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/caravaggio_deathsmaller.jpg
-The Death of the Virgin

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/depositionpicc2.jpg
-The Deposition

Historically, Caravaggio is an absolute giant. He can be virtually credited with having given birth to the Baroque era... ending the tired, ossified distortions of Mannerism and bringing naturalism and realism back to art with a vengeance. His paintings are magnificent. Bold. Incredibly dramatic. Explosive. At times violent. Often, as in the above examples, quite moving. And yet this artist began his career pandering erotic images of young boys to high-ranking pedophile clergy. He had a police record that included repeated fights, brawls, and public drunkenness... ending in the murder of an opponent during a duel resulting from an argument over a tennis match. How does one look at the art then... in light of such knowledge?

Of course... in this instance what the artist expresses is still unquestionably beautiful... in spite of who the artist was. But what of those instances in which what the artist says or conveys goes completely against what we believe? There are many Christian faithful, for example, who would not be able to appreciate the writings of Islam (the Qur'an, etc...) or Buddhism. But what of ourselves? I think especially of two examples of film. D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation... which in many ways developed or solidified much of the visual language of film... is also quite racist in what it conveys. Leni Riefenstahl created two incredible films, The Triumph of the Will and Olympia, that included innovations in the use of telephoto lenses, distortions of perspective, moving cameras, aerial photography, cinematography and the integration of music in film. The first film, however, was a propaganda film for Nazi Germany with Adolf Hitler credited as producer, while the second included footage and documentation of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. So what does one make of these?

[Etienne]

What does one do of the writing of Julius Caesar? A man whose karma is very far from being clean.

I see denigrating a work based on the artist quite on the same level (let's say methodologically speaking) as denigrating a child based on his parents, it just doesn't make sense to me.

[mortalterror]

Look, I am a vegan and believe in non-violence. That might explain a lot about my revulsion to Hemingway's hunting, bullfighting, and war hawking.

Basically, what I drew from those remarks and your previous polemic against Rove and Cheney was "I'm a liberal who doesn't like conservatives." It must be some life loving animals and trees when you can't stand the other people you share this planet with. About 30% of this country is conservatives, so good luck with that attitude. I'm sure it won't cause you any difficulties. As for me, I like hamburgers, and shotguns, and bloodsports, and I don't feel the least bit bad about any one of them.


So what of a figure such as Caravaggio?

Of course... in this instance what the artist expresses is still unquestionably beautiful... in spite of who the artist was. But what of those instances in which what the artist says or conveys goes completely against what we believe? There are many Christian faithful, for example, who would not be able to appreciate the writings of Islam (the Qur'an, etc...) or Buddhism. But what of ourselves? I think especially of two examples of film. D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation... which in many ways developed or solidified much of the visual language of film... is also quite racist in what it conveys. Leni Riefenstahl created two incredible films, The Triumph of the Will and Olympia, that included innovations in the use of telephoto lenses, distortions of perspective, moving cameras, aerial photography, cinematography and the integration of music in film. The first film, however, was a propaganda film for Nazi Germany with Adolf Hitler credited as producer, while the second included footage and documentation of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. So what does one make of these?

I think I've mentioned before that Caravaggio is my favorite painter. It doesn't matter to me at all that he was a murderer. As far as Leni Reifenstahl goes, Triumph of the Will had some very interesting scenes but mostly I was just bored by it. Political conventions don't tend to interest me. However, the shot of Hitler arriving in his plane like a god coming down through the clouds is so excellent it's in most film textbooks alongside of Sergei Eisenstein's stairway massacre sequence from his communist propaganda film Battleship Potemkin. Reifenstahl also impressed me with her Olympia, particularly the shots of divers leaping from their boards, up into the air and never hitting the water. Arms out, shot against the sky, they look like birds flying. It's breathtaking.

[Jozanny]

I have to draw the line at Birth of a Nation, whatever its merits. 19th century America was a horrible place for Africian Americans, and to think it has taken well over a hundred years after the Civil War to even begin to crack the apartheid barriers in the States is appalling.

But the issue you frame isn't necessarily an easy one. I find on LitNet that there is too much concern about an author's *place*, and it drives me rather crazy that members obsess over this without much room for context.

You formed this thread due to a rancorous debate about Hemingway. integrity's objections are sound, but are we taking the context of his era into account? There are all kinds of tastes, and Hemingway certainly isn't the best flavor to hit my tongue, but I can take myself out of taking his measure, and look at the impact of the man in his era with a balanced cost benefit analysis. Can we do that? Acknowledge context as well as strengths and detractions? Geez.

[mortalterror]

I found the diving sequence from Riefenstahl's Olympia on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwmYFz01MxA
If you have a greater knowledge of her work beyond the hearsay, you'll see that her subject was never really National Socialism but the human form, particularly her fascination with the male form, often portrayed in the semi-nude. Even in Triumph of the Will, an overtly political film, there are some rather lengthy scenes of young men exercising and playing at sports.

[Michigan J Frog]

The artist is always in the art. Does an artist's experience influence his writings? of course. But personally, I don't care how big of an a hole an artist was during his life if I like his writings, if he created art. If I thought Hemingway's writings were art and if I enjoyed it a lot, I wouldn't care what kind of a person he was during his life.
A lot of writers in the past did things that would be considered immoral, are you going to ignore their writings altogether? Or are you the judge of just how immoral their actions and what kind of behavior were acceptable?

[Gibran]

Absolutely. An artist is just what he creates, not who he lives for. Satre and Dostoevsky
are more to me than ones like Maxim Gorky. But the fact is always that bad life makers wrote bad works too, that's something disappointing.

[book_jones]

There also seems to be a somewhat opposite problem related to this idea. That is when people read too much into a person based on their writings. People often take fiction to reflect a writer's personality and beliefs with 100 percent accuracy. There are so many legends about Poe which are mostly based on the types of stories and poems he wrote. I believe that this is related to what you're talking about.

[Qaphqa]

If the question is whether or not you can enjoy a work by an artist whose own life or personality you find repellent, then I'd say you certainly can.

If the question is, however, whether or not you can analyze a work independently of its creator (or, in the case of anonymous works, the creator's location and time period) I'd have to say no.

Say for example there's a book concerning the failings of a man who happens to be Jewish. If you know that the author is anti-Semitic, it would be very easy to dismiss the book as Nazi propaganda/a disgusting carricature of a Jewish person. However, if you know the author is Jewish, then you may search for autobiographical elements, or possible signs of Jewish self-loathing within the book.

[integrity]

Basically, what I drew from those remarks and your previous polemic against Rove and Cheney was "I'm a liberal who doesn't like conservatives." It must be some life loving animals and trees when you can't stand the other people you share this planet with. About 30% of this country is conservatives, so good luck with that attitude. I'm sure it won't cause you any difficulties. As for me, I like hamburgers, and shotguns, and bloodsports, and I don't feel the least bit bad about any one of them.



Mentioning some of the particulars of my lifestyle was not to offer you ammunition to personally insult me and make erroneous generalizations about my character, of which you know nothing. It was to illustrate the context in which my comments were made. If your conscience is deep in denial, tend to it on your own time.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Another very interesting question.

I think that there are many different degrees of thought upon this topic with no real “right” or “wrong” answer. It was Proust who said something along the lines that we read in order to see our own thoughts better articulated by better writers. In this sense then we attach personality to the art we are engaging with and like to identify we someone else in another time perhaps.

Though ultimately it is the art that is the only thing of importance and not the personality of the artist. Just as Barthes argues about the importance of the reader over the author in things like “The Death of the Author” individual interpretation is god and nothing else is of any real value. Of course this does not mean that we are not interested in the artist or in the period that it was produced, we generally are, but the art itself must take centre stage, always.

[stlukesguild]

What is intriguing about about Jozy drawing the line at Birth of a Nation... or many others who cannot appreciate Leni Riefenstahl's achievements... in spite of the fact that there most certainly are elements that go well beyond propaganda in the service of the Nazis... is the fact that that it seems as if the nearness of these issues make for the troubling nature of the work. Aggrandizing portraits of Napoleon raise no such problems... in spite of what Napoleon unleashed upon many in Europe. Neither do we find Michelangelo's Last Judgment disturbing in spite of the fact that at a certain level it was a grand work of propaganda in service of the Counter-Reformation and all that entailed. I raise these questions in part because I frequently come across posts questioning us as to what literary character we admire... what writer we admire... but I have long felt that one could admire the art while disliking the artist and much that he/she has to say. But then I'm just a formalist and an aesthete... too much Pater, Wilde, Baudelaire, and Proust.:rolleyes:

[stlukesguild]

...are you the judge of just how immoral their actions and what kind of behavior were acceptable?

This is a key question as well. Do we damn a work of art because the values expressed go against what we believe personally... or even what is currently acceptable in our culture? Can we not then expect the same? Indeed... might we not even suggest that while certain values of an older culture appear unacceptable to us, many of our values would have appeared just as unacceptable to them?

[stlukesguild]

It was Proust who said something along the lines that we read in order to see our own thoughts better articulated by better writers.

Or Pope: "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

But then, as I noted in my posting on "why do you read?" I don't really read simply to reinforce my own experiences, beliefs, prejudices, etc...

[integrity]

Would you enjoy reading an incredibly well-written fictional story about the molestation of an innocent child that was written by a person with a known history of pedophilia? Say it was written in a "pro-pedophilia" way. (And I'm not talking about Lolita; I'm talking about a person who really has sexually molested children over and over.)

Would you praise it? Would you damn it? Or would you simply not read it?

Well, ****, I know what my answer would be.

[JBI]

Depends how well written it was. Seriously, you don't need to agree with a writer to enjoy their works. Like I mentioned before, Lewis Carrol, a pedophile who wrote about pedophilia.

[Jozanny]

Another very interesting question.

I think that there are many different degrees of thought upon this topic with no real “right” or “wrong” answer. It was Proust who said something along the lines that we read in order to see our own thoughts better articulated by better writers. In this sense then we attach personality to the art we are engaging with and like to identify we someone else in another time perhaps.

I'd add a caveat, that perhaps between a creative artist's rung on the canon, and a consumer's personal taste, there is some room for independent assessment? The tug of war between integrity and mortalterror over Hemingway seems to have their respective personal values attached to how they read his work.

Is it at all possible that Hemingway achieved things as an author which have intrinsic merit, even if A sees animal killings as unethical and B relishes Hemingway's tough-guy conceit?

Again, this isn't an exact science, but I believe it is possible to temper personal taste when providing critical valuations, not that I am well read on scholarship Hemingway has generated, but his work as a journalist led to important stylistic elements being added to American fiction, and for these things he has his place as an American writer who advanced the craft of fiction. One only needs to look at Dubus for a more modern, possibly more sympathetic, variation on Hemingway's coloring of American masculinity.

As to Birth of the Nation, I have read critics who echo luke about its value to 20th century film-making, but I associate the product too closely with American genocide, and that hump, like Nazi propagada films, is a difficult one to clear for the sake of aesthetic value. Not that the issue will resolve itself anytime soon.

Carivaggio is so far removed that it is difficult in terms of art appreciation not to appreciate the power of his art due to the fact that he killed someone--but his guilt haunted him, as evident in the beheaded painting. I'll let luke find it since I've lost patience with less than five minutes on Google.:)

[stlukesguild]

Carivaggio is so far removed that it is difficult in terms of art appreciation not to appreciate the power of his art due to the fact that he killed someone--but his guilt haunted him, as evident in the beheaded painting. I'll let luke find it since I've lost patience with less than five minutes on Google.

I doubt... from what I've read of Caravaggio... that he had many moments of a guilty conscience tormenting him... chased by Aeschylean furies. He actually painted many violent scenes... including several beheadings. His Judith and Holofernes is dated well before his murderous duel... and he engages in several other duels and brawls that involved serious injuries to himself... and others.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/Judithsmall.gif

[Michigan J Frog]

Would you enjoy reading an incredibly well-written fictional story about the molestation of an innocent child that was written by a person with a known history of pedophilia? Say it was written in a "pro-pedophilia" way. (And I'm not talking about Lolita; I'm talking about a person who really has sexually molested children over and over.)

Would you praise it? Would you damn it? Or would you simply not read it?

Well, ****, I know what my answer would be.If it's so well written that I consider it art, I would love to read it.

To me, really, an artist should never be condemned, for any reason.

[MorpheusSandman]

In short: Yes

In a bit longer: Absolutely

I think the notion about disliking art because of a dislike of the artist is a gross misjudgment by those that hold the notion. Perhaps the primary reason is that art has often been about revealing parts of our nature we'd rather like to forget. Many artists who would be labeled jerks or any number of negative adjectives are often, as much as we hate to admit it, just more honest versions of most people. Artists are rather infamous for living somewhat outside traditional societal, cultural, and moral constraints, and that's often WHY they produce such great art - because they see things others don't. Or at least they have an ability to dismantle the very artifices we build up, or to express parts of their humanity that others like to ignore. I think to dismiss art made by artists who are immoral by whatever semi-arbitrary standards for morality we've created and accepted is synonymous with rejecting a large portion of what it means to be human. And as many philosophers have pointed out, humanity may not be some divine creation and, in fact, we're probably much more beast-like than we'd like to admit.


I have to draw the line at Birth of a Nation, whatever its merits.Roger Ebert wrote the best review on the film I've seen yet: HERE (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030330/REVIEWS08/303300301/1023)

Best quotes:


He achieved what no other known man has achieved. To watch his work is like being witness to the beginning of melody, or the first conscious use of the lever or the wheel; the emergence, coordination and first eloquence of language; the birth of an art: and to realize that this is all the work of one man.

These words by James Agee about D. W. Griffith are almost by definition the highest praise any film director has ever received from a great film critic. On the other hand, the equally distinguished critic Andrew Sarris wrote about Griffith's masterpiece: "Classic or not, 'Birth of a Nation' has long been one of the embarrassments of film scholarship. It can't be ignored...and yet it was regarded as outrageously racist even at a time when racism was hardly a household word."

...

Certainly "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) presents a challenge for modern audiences. Unaccustomed to silent films and uninterested in film history, they find it quaint and not to their taste. Those evolved enough to understand what they are looking at find the early and wartime scenes brilliant, but cringe during the postwar and Reconstruction scenes, which are racist in the ham-handed way of an old minstrel...

To understand "The Birth of a Nation" we must first understand the difference between what we bring to the film, and what the film brings to us. All serious moviegoers must sooner or later arrive at a point where they see a film for what it is, and not simply for what they feel about it. "The Birth of a Nation" is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl’s “The Triumph of the Will,” it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil.


Would you enjoy reading an incredibly well-written fictional story about the molestation of an innocent child that was written by a person with a known history of pedophilia? Say it was written in a "pro-pedophilia" way. (And I'm not talking about Lolita; I'm talking about a person who really has sexually molested children over and over.) Would you praise it? Would you damn it? Or would you simply not read it?First, I imagine I'd read it - if for no other reason in that, if it was REALLY well written it would give me insight into a mind-set completely alien to me. As for praising/damning, I do believe I could praise the form, the language, the art, while damning the actual content.

Let me put it this way: If art isn't the one place people can be free from societal and cultural standards and morals, then were CAN people be completely free to express themselves about the outside and inside worlds they experience?

[Jozanny]

I wasn't going to add anything here, but Sandman's post just reminded me about what goes around comes around, in relation to the recent controversy over Stiller and Tropic Thunder.

One, I am not a huge fan of Stiller even before this movie, but still, I have read black voices talking back to movie critics about Downey's portrayal in black face really adding nothing to the conversation.

I don't know, but would be sympathetic to a minority voice who couldn't accept Ebert's apologia for a work of art, however pleasing, promoting evil when that evil involves promoting one ethnic group as less than human--again, these issues aren't easy, because I'd be just as uneasy about destroying Nation, or getting rid of Stiller.

I don't like Stiller, but he apparently has his base, and knows enough people to put his brand on the map.

[Kafka's Crow]

I think after some decades or centuries the passage of time makes a writer's biographical details forgotten or even irrelevant. What do we know about Homer's life? As Salman Rushdie said in a Guardian interview in 2003, "Only my book will live, everybody else will die."

Hemingway's reputation is in a downward spiral along with many other major modernists'. This is one of the things that developed in the last two decades. I read The Sun also Rises a couple of months ago. I found it vile. I once loved Hemingway. I think I am growing out of those short sentences and all that counterpointing and repetitions of 'and' and all that lost generation stuff and... and.... Time is doing its work very efficiently. Only time proves the worth of an artist. Unfortunately they all die, leaving behind only their works which float or sink according to the dictates of time. What do you think of Battaile when you read The Story of the Eye, or Lautreamont when your read Les chants de Maldoror? The former has the most unabashed description of adolescents engaged in perverse sexuality I have ever come across whereas the latter has everything in it: murder, blasphemy, pedophilia, bestiality, and much more. Do the works condemn their creators? At the end of all that is said and done, only works survive and they have their own strengths, merits and survival mechanism which is dependent on neither the marketing setup, nor the critical consensus, nor even the academic approval and recommendation. Today we assert that Hemingway's life-style was undesirable. It fitted the 'he-man' ideals of his time which is not relevant now but the works live on. Even if their author is labeled (rightly or wrongly) blood-thirsty or a show-off or even an a£%* hole, still it is the works 'who' are still soldiering on with a force of their own. The real test lies in the fact that how long this force keeps them alive. They might die for us but even then we can't be sure as John Donne's poetry has shown us, artistic creations can go into a hibernation that might last many generations and then wake up with a new vigor to please many generations to come only to go slumbering again. The struggle between art and time is something that we can not predict anything about. We can not look in the future. Time proves everything. Nobody can ever unearth the true story of a work of art. What do we know what really happened in an artist's life, his very private sorrows, his inexplicable joys, his jealousies, his loves and his private demons. They all shape a work of art as much (if not more) as the known biographical details and histories. I think a writer's biographical details are irrelevant. A cult of personality was created around Ernest Hemingway by the marketing forces of his time. They used it to sell books, movies, safari trips and fishing expeditions as well as finer things like certain exquisite drinks or this for me to drool on:
http://www.montblanc.com/37.php
Time, on th e other hand, has no mercy for such fickle schemes. They will be forgotten by the non-specialists sooner or later. What will survive is the merits of his works 'who' will rise and fall and rise and fall again according to their place in history at a given moment. This will go on till the last copy of his last remaining book is moth-eaten and rendered unreadable and art passes on to archeology what was once its own pride and joy. That takes hundreds, even thousands of years. Art is a dedicated parent who fights to save its child till the very end. Artistic creation is like procreation, our only hope against mortality. Reputations and histories only go so far. Art lives on.

[MorpheusSandman]

again, these issues aren't easy, because I'd be just as uneasy about destroying Nation, or getting rid of Stiller.For me it's fairly easy (in cases like Nation) for separating positives from negatives in the art. I don't see why one can't praise the form - the language, so to speak - and damn what it promotes. I mean Griffith did spend much of his life apologizing for the work, and Intolerance was practically his reaction to the negativity (and actually a better film all around IMO).

[tractatus]

Can a real a@#hole produce great art?

Well, my observations say, if one is male and artist, % 90 he is an @#@#le too. The proportion "% 90" is out of my optimism.


We expect decent/good conduct personality from a religion man, who sells moral. But art is not offering any moral. The output is dirty most of the time, they are works of art not hymns, so what make us to expect an angel personality from the artist.

If we really judging Hemingway here only because of hunting, no, not sufficient. He may count on the 'angel' side.

[hhc]

Everybody loved Gunter Grass' books, didn't they? Until one day he decided to tell us he had been an SS member. A Nazi. A nasty, fascist a##hole.

Yes, a writer does put much of himself in his works, and if he's a terrible human being, some of the rotten part of his personality is going to come out -although this doesn't necessarily always happen. Sometimes there is much more violence in the book of a fanatic peace-lover, than in the autobiography of the most blood-thirsty dictator; more sex in the book of a nun than in the book of a prostitute; and so on.
A writer's biography only tells us what he did, not what he thought.
Sometimes, even things that seem hideous to us now were quite usual and even approved of some years ago. For example, Hemingway's hunting habits.

I believe that
a) it's upon us to show some maturity and read a piece of litterature, just for the sake of art, completely detached from our liking or not liking the writer's way of living,
b) many of the world's great writers were perverts, gamblers, convicts, fascists, snobbish aristocrats, women haters, violent and cynical drunkards, etc. If you wanna read some good litterature, you don't have much of a choice. You will have to read the writings of some very sinful people.

[clumsy angelle]

No. Art is part of an artist...

[Annamariah]

Of course we can, or at least I can.

When I read a book, listen to music, watch a movie or look at a painting, I concentrate on the piece of art in question, not the person who made it. It doesn't matter if the artist was an idiot or had opinions I don't agree with, it doesn't influence my decision on whether I like that particular piece of art or not.

Of course sometimes, especially when we talk about books, the writer's views, ideas, and opinions are reflected in their work. In that case these ideas are a part of a book, and thus they'll be taken in consideration when I decide whether it is a good book or not.

On the other hand, we must remember, that a person may include things in their work that they don't really believe in. A very nice person can write something that includes themes I'm not comfortable with, and a total idiot can write something that fits into my world.

I think we should judge books, songs, movies and paintings as pieces of art and artists as humans, two separate things. (On a second thought, I don't think we really need to judge anything, just form our own opinions, remember that we don't know everything about everything and leave it at that.)