Opening page…
Can you separate the art from the artist?
The work that changed your life was made by someone who did terrible things. Nothing in it has changed, except what you know.
Your answer
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A little context
You find out on an ordinary afternoon. The singer you have loved since you were fifteen, or the novelist whose book carried you through a bad year, did something terrible. The songs sound the same as they did yesterday. Somehow they aren't.
Read alongside it5
ReadingNo ethical sympathiesNo artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
ReadingThe death of the authorTo give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text… The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.
To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text… The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.
ReadingThe man who suffers and the mind which createsThe more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.
The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.
ReadingThe style is the man himselfLe style est l'homme même. — The style is the man himself.
Le style est l'homme même. — The style is the man himself.
ReadingA real deformityWhere vicious manners are described, without being marked with the proper characters of blame, this must be allowed to disfigure the poem, and to be a real deformity.
Where vicious manners are described, without being marked with the proper characters of blame, this must be allowed to disfigure the poem, and to be a real deformity.
Nearby questions
- Does knowing change it?A piece of writing moves you to tears. Then you learn a machine wrote every word. Does that change it?
- What would you still love if no one could ever see you loving it?Private pleasure, public approval, and the preferences that survive without an audience.
- Can something ugly be great art?Goya's black paintings, a scream in a symphony, a novel built to bore you. Some of the most admired work is hard to enjoy.
- The aura on your screenYou know the Sistine Chapel from images. If you went, what exactly would you be going for?
- The blade and the canvasIf you were angry enough at what it stood for, could you ever be right to put a blade through a painting?
