Failed Writer's Journey: Do Artists Have An Obligation To "Confront the Darkness"?
Cole Haddon (who you should be reading if you have an interest in how art is made) asked the question in this title to both a group of professional artists and in his chat. The actual phrasing of the question was this:
In a world that feels increasingly unstable, where so many struggle to hold on to hope, do you think artists have any responsibility to confront this darkness head-on in their work? And if the answer is no, what responsibility, if any, does the artist have in your mind?
I am not, obviously, a professional artist (you read the header on the door when you came in, right?), but I do aspire to at least being published, so the question intrigued me, as did the variety of answers. In my own view, I think the question is both important and a bit misdirected.
We live in a society. That means we have an obligation to the other members of that society to do what we, personally, can do to make that society as fair, equitable, and functional as possible. The artist as a member of the society shares those obligations as well. So, the answer is easy then, right? Artists do have a responsibility to “confront the darkness” of their society in their art? Yes and no.
There is the decisiveness we all crave.
The artist as a person has that obligation and their art is certainly ones means of fulfilling that obligation. I certainly lean that way in my own work. I half-seriously describe most of my stories as sarcastic little tales about killing monsters and fighting capitalism. Even the throwaway script I wrote that is more Knight’s Tales but with female German clockmakers than serious “art” has a message about how hard it is to survive the bad times. (Or it would if it was any good …) I obviously believe that art can be a powerful means of fulfilling your obligations to society.
But it is not the only means. Artists could run for office or volunteer at their library or donate to good causes or any number of other civic activities that make their society better. And forcing art into one shape, if the artists doesn’t organically feel the need to create that kind of art, generally produces terrible art. If an artist doesn’t feel called at this time to create something that speaks to the darkness in society and try anyway, the art they create is not going to speak to anything, really. Plus, there is value in escapism. People need, sometimes, the space to forget about the world for a bit in order to catch their breath. There is worth in providing that to people.
Artists, like everyone else in a society, have the obligation to their fellows to make their society the best it can be. Producing art that addresses the problems of that society is one means of fulfilling that obligation. But the obligation encompasses the entirety of the person, not just their life as an artist. The obligation does not have to find expression in a person’s art, as long as it finds expression in the person’s life.
Weekly Word Count
A few hundred that I threw away. I was trying out some opening scenes to get a feel for how a piece could flow and didn’t like any of them. Still mostly dealing with the fallout from my health scare (this has been the Week of Doctors) and plotting. Hopefully next week will be smoother.
Enjoy the weekend!
I am reminded of the phrase by Marshal McLuhan: “the medium is the message.”
All art are forms of “mediums” and therefore either consciously or subliminally convey messages whether intended or not. Art (whatever that is) is a reflection of life which itself is a loosely woven fabric of light, dark, and all shades in between. Dark times would naturally reflect dark art hopefully contrasted by lighter fare to balance the equation. Life is nuanced, not dichotomous- light vs. dark.
Jung spoke of how the subconscious mind communicates in symbols and archetypes. Effective, lasting art operates in this realm. I suppose if there is a gradation of art is whether it is focused to the more liminal regions of expression or a deep dive into the sensual subconscious. Art in its various forms is simply a variety of mediums conveying messages to various destinations within the collective consciousness.
It is capturing and bringing the forces of archetypes into conscious form - a ‘heresy’ which is probably why it is so difficult and painful. I remember the metaphor of an Inuit hunter upon slaying a seal would offer a prayer to the seal’s spirit for the sacrifice of its body to the welfare of the hunter and his tribe. True art has this soulful sacred aspect to it - neither good nor bad but simply necessary.