There is a trend for rejecting the art of people whose behaviour has fallen short of what is acceptable by today’s ethical standards.
For living artists or the recently dead, our reaction to disclosures about their sexual conduct is understandable. To be disgusted by paedophilia or sexual harassment is what you would expect of right-thinking citizens. But does that necessarily alter our regard for their artistic achievements?
Caravaggio was no saint, but the distance of time enables us to marvel at his paintings and ignore his escape from a murder he committed.
Do we reject the writing of Hemingway because he treated women badly or no longer read Günter Grass because of his membership of the Nazi party?
Michael Jackson was pretty messed up and there are allegations of paedophilia, but should we ban the huge body of music he created?
I think that the work stands separate from the artist and should be judged on its own merits. The evil acts perpetrated by artists does not infect the beauty of what they have created. For us to imbue their art with their failings as human beings is a sign of our own weakness. Art holds a mirror up to the world we live in and should not be treated as evidence of an artist’s crimes.
odespinner 