Friday, May 6, 2011

How Do You Separate the Artist From Their Art?

Stringer, who is a frequent reader and commenter on this blog, sent in this fascinating question, and I decided to address it in a separate post. As a scholar of Hispanic literature, I have to analyze and teach works of art whose authors often hold beliefs that I find to be deeply repugnant. 

Take, for example, Francisco de Quevedo, a 17th century Baroque poet from Spain. The guy was a rabid anti-Semite and a profound woman-hater, and we all know how much I adore these particular qualities in people. From what I have been able to gather about him, Quevedo was an extremely nasty human being. At the same time, he wrote the kind of poetry that is so indescribably beautiful that no matter how many times I read it, I never cease to be amazed with it. His poem "Love Constant Beyond Death" (it's really not the same in the English translation, but here you have it anyway) touches me so deeply that I even avoid reading it. I'm not a touchy-feely-weepy kind of person, but I know that I will not be able to get my emotions under control if I start discussing it in class. You can write a doctoral dissertation on every single line of this poem and still never exhaust its meaning. It is so annoying that this nasty woman-hater and vile anti-Semite had to be the person who created my most favorite poetry in the entire world.

Then, we have Juan Goytisolo. He is not only my favorite novelist but also one of my main research interests. His novel Count Julian makes my heart stop every time I read it because it's so good. And yet, Goytisolo has written extremely nasty stuff about women in this very novel that I love so much. 

So how do I deal with this? How do I reconcile myself to the realization that some of my most favorite writers whose work I dedicate my life to studying and teaching are often jerks whose ideas I detest? How do I deal with the fact that whenever I meet writers whose work I love, I always discover that I don't enjoy spending even five minutes in their company? I thought long and hard about this and about the nature of artistic production. I know that people will criticize me for romanticizing the creative process, but I believe that artists (just artists, not literary critics, bloggers, journalists, or anybody else) get their creative gift from a place that has nothing to do with their personalities, their foibles, their vices, and their often extremely silly political beliefs. A creative genius (yes, you can laugh now, I don't mind) is something that gets bestowed on a person by nature or whatever it is you believe in for no particular reason whatsoever. 

I don't think that I'm "talented" or that any of the leading scholars in my field are "talented." (Just try calling me "talented" or "gifted" and you'll get me to become you enemy forever.) They are just extremely hard-working, dedicated, stubborn, and passionate individuals. Artists, however, are a different thing. You often see a person who is a nasty, lazy, condescending jerk who, for some unfathomable reason, has been given the gift of creating art. There is no reason for this. It just happens. (At some point, I will also blog about how scary it is to discover that a person you've known forever also has this terrifying creative gift that seems to come from nowhere.) Whenever I encounter works of art created by people I cannot possibly respect, I just look at their artwork as something that comes from a mysterious place and that, by pure chance, gets channeled through them.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for writing this!

I'll employ this line of thinking the next time I watch 'Chinatown' and let you know the results.

Stringer

Clarissa said...

Please do. Especially since I detest Polanski on every possible level.

I haven't seen the film, though. Do you think I should watch it? (Be careful with recommending it as I only watch maybe 2 new films a year at most.)

Anonymous said...

Yes, you should. Everything about the movie is perfect: the writing, the acting, soundtrack, the cinematography. I like it so much it hurts.

And while we're at it, you HAVE to watch The Wire. I know I've talked about it before but I won't stop until everyone I know has watched it.

Stringer

Clarissa said...

Turns out that The Wire is still not available for Internet viewing on Netflix. Now that the summer is here, I might change my subscription plan and request it on DVD. I've now heard from several people whose opinions I truly respect that I need to watch it.

As for the movie, that's tricky because I believe that most American movies (possibly all of them) have nothing whatsoever to do with art.

I feel a post germinating. :-)

Leah Jane said...

I feel, as a Jew and a student in the humanities I have to have the blinders up at a certain level at all times. If I didn't, I would get extremely depressed. This was a lesson learned slowly, and it culminated in a course I took on Chaucer, surprise surprise. Regardless of whether he was mocking the Prioress or not, it can damage your soul to read The Prioress' Tale without putting up certain barriers around your heart.
After that experience, I've constantly tried to find a balance between appreciating a work of art for its own merits, and realizing what part of the artist whom I may hate went into creating it. I'm still working on it. But I swore long ago that I wouldn't pay for or financially endorse art by a vile person who was still alive and would benefit from my patronage. Which is why I never see a Polanski film in theaters or buy his DVDs. Funny how he's many people's ultimate example of an artist who is also close to pure evil...

Clarissa said...

Polanski is, indeed, an uber-villain for me. Pedophilia is something I hate with an unmatched passion.

I don't care about movies, though. As somebody who has been raised on the unrivaled tradition of Russian film, I could live happily without seeing a single American movie in my life. So it's easy for me to reject Polanski.

Clarissa said...

Polanski is, indeed, an uber-villain for me. Pedophilia is something I hate with an unmatched passion.

I don't care about movies, though. As somebody who has been raised on the unrivaled tradition of Russian film, I could live happily without seeing a single American movie in my life. So it's easy for me to reject Polanski.