Art and the Artist

Think you're going to catch a disease from him because you disagree about art, huh? I'd be more worried if he had a moustache -- most people don't know this, but moustaches are contagious. Geraldo Rivera's face was completely hairless until he roomed with a man with a moustache.

In all seriousness, I'm almost positive that either point of view could be right or wrong depending on the author. I can see myself agreeing or disagreeing with both "combatants". Your buddy said:

"I think it's practically impossible to separate the author from his work. He is his work."

And I think that does apply to some people, although I can't be sure because I don't have an intimate knowledge of any of my favourite authors. I can see someone really living inside their art, though, and don't consider that viewpoint unrealistic. I can't imagine it applying to every author/artist, but I understand and sort of agree. However, he also said:

"If we separate even the name Souseki from these stories, I very much doubt we would be reading them."

And that just strikes me as all kinds of wrong. I think that alot of artists put a little bit of themselves into their work, sometimes alot, but if a story is good, I'll read it no matter who wrote it. The Professor said:

". . . we would be reading these stories even if they were anonymous, because they're beautifully written and provocative. Of course an artist's experiences are reflected in his or her work, but any person's experiences are so diverse, how can we possibly know how one or another experience or book or painting or event influenced an artist's work? We can only know for sure what's on the page and how it effects us; the rest is speculation."

Once again, I sort of agree. It's true that we can only know for sure what's on the page and how it effects us, but I also think the speculation about where those ideas came from is important, not to mention interesting. Most of the time when I read, I'm just absorbing what's going on in the story . . . but once in a while I'll read something that makes me feel a connection with the author, and it helps pull me deeper into the story. Of course there isn't a real connection, but that feeling helps me enjoy the work that much more because I feel a touch of personality showing. On the other hand, writing with its own personality outside of the person who wrote it is also very interesting. The Professor also said:

"In fact writers will tell you that the person who writes their work is not the same person who sits down at the breakfast table every morning."

He may have meant "some writers" and just not written it that way, but if he meant "all writers" then I strongly disagree. You can't know what every writer thinks because A) you can't know every writer, and B) they all think differently about other things, so there are probably major differences in the relationship between them and their art, too.

So in summary, I'd say both people have valid opinions but the answer would depend entirely on the artist in question. I don't know anything about Natsume Soseki but I assume when you posted this you were thinking of the topic in general as opposed to just one guy. Here's hoping this doesn't turn into a flame war.

The friend/roommate does have a moustache (in fact, it's one of those elaborate, old-fashioned curly-ended ones), but I've been immunized to those, luckily.

I'm reminded now that some of my favorite artists, like Peter Chung and David Lynch, I know almost nothing about personally, and of course this takes nothing out of enjoying their work. On the other hand, they seem to have themes that show through over and over again, and in this way you come to build up a sense of their work. The question is, does this also mean that you get a sense of them?

Hmmm . . . I don't know. I'd have to say it's possible. The school I went to was pretty abusive so themes of corrupt authority figures repeat themselves alot in my work, but if you didn't know about my experiences in school in the first place I don't think reading their influence in my writing would tell you anything about me. You could just as easily come to the conclusion that I was a really big fan of 1984 and was trying to emulate that style.

I think that it's possible to read things into the recurring themes of writers and artists, but it's not possible to know for sure that your assumptions are correct without asking them. Art's pretty vague, and that can be both a good and a bad thing, both open-ended and confusing. If you're explicit enough in expressing your thoughts through your work so that everybody gets it, it looses all its subtlety. When I read/watch something that's just beating me over the head with its message like that, I feel like my intelligence is being insulted. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed and neither are most people but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give your audience the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, anything subtle enough to not come off as "preachy" or "insulting" is going to be vague and not everybody's going to get it. But that way it also leaves room for people to find their own interperatation and add a little bit of themselves to how they see your work. I'll take Option B -- even though it's really hard to find the right balance between preachy and obscure (it also varies from reader to reader), and even though I run the risk of being radically misinterperated in the craziest of ways, in the end going for the not-totally-spelled-out-for-you method works the best for me.

Woah, I went totally off-topic.

P.S. If this is going to turn into a flame war, I'm not worried about you starting it because you don't strike me as a troll. But there are other people around here who'd be more than happy to ruin your thread, so if someone insults you, just don't say anything.