This is awesome. I'm in the middle of a bunch of research on abduction/seduction/rape law in late 18ce England, and your comment that Gauguin had a legal right to be a predator immediately made me think of the disparity between opportunity for legal recourse based on class (and by extension, race). Even in the 17th and 18th centuries, England was not okay with men poaching young women for wives--but, only if the women were set to inherit or were part of a propertied family. Sadly it was a woman's status as a financial asset to their families that ensured her right to sue her abductor (and actually, she couldn't even sue, it had to be her father).
Highly recommend "Eighteenth Century Abduction Law and Clarissa" by Joan I. Schwarz. She has some excellent caselaw study in there.
Fucking brilliant--and not just because it's such a generative critique, but because it offers an inspiring example of the value of engaged, contextual, communal reading.
Can you tell me the year I can stop judging people in the past by current standards? That would help a lot to figure out what I’m supposed to not like.
Oh I did. You told me what I should do which is to place art within the political contexts of the age. So if I’m looking at Goya, or listening to Giillaume Machaut, or the countless nameless artists , or Homer, or any ancient Chinese art from ages ago, what is the date by which by your standards of what I should consider, when does that responsibility fall away from me?
Read it again in good faith and still think your argument is bunk. You insist I should “do both”. But why? To the question of “can you separate the art from the artist” my answer is “of course you can you idiot, the artist barely matters at all”. One knows nothing about the vast majority of artists throughout history. It is circumstantial and dependent on whether or not there is documentary evidence that I could know. I experience the art first, do I have a responsibility to always consider the artist? You rake Prideaux over the coals but if she were to just say “fuck it, Gauguin was a great painter, and I can take, as an audience member what I want from it” then she doesn’t have to bend over backwards to justify to the Art=Politics crowd. Which you pussy foot around. What comes first when I’m standing in front of a Gaugin “What an awful thing he did” or “What a great painting”? You see? You agree from the get go that consideration of the artist should occur. I say I don’t need to do that at all. I’d watch the Cosby Show again, it was a great show. Roman Polanski made great films. I don’t need to sit there and reflect on their crimes when experiencing their work.
Prideaux clearly *can't* separate the art from the artist, so she has to concoct a false historical narrative that allows her to enjoy Gauguin's art without worrying too much about his actions. I think that's bad, because it elides the truth about the historical moment that Gauguin lived in, which is actually very complex and interesting and worth exploring in depth.
My argument is that you don't have to separate the art from the artist; you can enjoy Gauguin's work and acknowledge its importance in the canon while still recognizing that he did things that were selfish, depraved, or immoral.
You're saying you shouldn't have to consider Gauguin's life when appreciating his art. Well, you don't have to. That's what I say at the end of the piece. Nobody can make you do it, you can just look at the pictures. That's fine. I think it's worth considering his life, though, because to me it raises some interesting questions about our own conduct and present culture that I think are worth reflecting on; It led me to that Larson paper that I otherwise never would have read and from which I learned a lot about late 19th century activism. I would've missed out on that if I simply focused on the works themselves.
I would watch The Cosby Show. It's a great show. I wouldn't feel the need to say that Bill Cosby was "a man of his time" to make myself feel better about it the way Prideaux does with Gauguin. But I think it's also interesting to reflect on how Cosby's success and fame enabled his crimes. That doesn't mean you have to wring your hands every second while watching the show. It's just food for thought.
I wouldn't tell anyone that "you can't separate the art from the artist" because I think, sadly, when push comes to shove, people are inclined to decide that what the artist did wasn't so bad so they can go on enjoying the art. So I think it's important to create a space where people can keep what they like without leading them to dismiss the very real harm the artist may have been responsible for.
Oh I won’t let you off the hook that easy. And before I proceed, thank you for this delightful conversation, and I will of course let you have the last word should you desire. My position is that the great works exist outside of their socio-political contexts and therefore looking at them through that lens is irrelevant. The great works endure because they speak to the universe, not us proles who get the privilege of observation. By whatever divine spark exists, Beethoven composed the 9th, the Grosse Fuge, the Hammerklavier, and others for the sense of the divine. He’s just able to capture a higher percentage of it than say Anton Bruckner. Any artist that starts from a political position is suspect in my view. It’s why modern art is bad, it’s beating me over the head with a current message instead of trying to be divine. Why does it? Because critics and academics have been trying to read messages into the greats and artists take the message that that is important, so the market provides. It’s postmodernism all the way. If there is no Truth, then there is no Beauty.
I agree that art should, first and foremost, try to be art rather than front-loading a political agenda (which often results in art that is weak or didactic). But the socio-political context isn't irrelevant to me. I think it can add an interesting layer to how we engage with art. It's interesting that you call out Beethoven's 9th—it's beautiful, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it, but you can't tell me that "all men shall become brothers" isn't rooted in the socio-political context of its time. It's an anthem of Enlightenment ideals! That we can hear it as apolitical now is a testament to the victory of those ideals, but it was actually a provocative statement at the time!
"The takeaway isn’t that Gauguin wasn’t a predator, it’s that, perversely, he had a legal right to be one."
this needs to be heard.
This is awesome. I'm in the middle of a bunch of research on abduction/seduction/rape law in late 18ce England, and your comment that Gauguin had a legal right to be a predator immediately made me think of the disparity between opportunity for legal recourse based on class (and by extension, race). Even in the 17th and 18th centuries, England was not okay with men poaching young women for wives--but, only if the women were set to inherit or were part of a propertied family. Sadly it was a woman's status as a financial asset to their families that ensured her right to sue her abductor (and actually, she couldn't even sue, it had to be her father).
Highly recommend "Eighteenth Century Abduction Law and Clarissa" by Joan I. Schwarz. She has some excellent caselaw study in there.
Fucking brilliant--and not just because it's such a generative critique, but because it offers an inspiring example of the value of engaged, contextual, communal reading.
Really great post. I wonder if you’ve heard of the book “Paul” by Daisy Lafarge? It’s sort of an updated wrestling with exactly this issue Gaugin.
Can you tell me the year I can stop judging people in the past by current standards? That would help a lot to figure out what I’m supposed to not like.
Didn’t finish the post huh
Oh I did. You told me what I should do which is to place art within the political contexts of the age. So if I’m looking at Goya, or listening to Giillaume Machaut, or the countless nameless artists , or Homer, or any ancient Chinese art from ages ago, what is the date by which by your standards of what I should consider, when does that responsibility fall away from me?
It appears that you’ve misread the post and I would encourage you to read it again with more care.
Read it again in good faith and still think your argument is bunk. You insist I should “do both”. But why? To the question of “can you separate the art from the artist” my answer is “of course you can you idiot, the artist barely matters at all”. One knows nothing about the vast majority of artists throughout history. It is circumstantial and dependent on whether or not there is documentary evidence that I could know. I experience the art first, do I have a responsibility to always consider the artist? You rake Prideaux over the coals but if she were to just say “fuck it, Gauguin was a great painter, and I can take, as an audience member what I want from it” then she doesn’t have to bend over backwards to justify to the Art=Politics crowd. Which you pussy foot around. What comes first when I’m standing in front of a Gaugin “What an awful thing he did” or “What a great painting”? You see? You agree from the get go that consideration of the artist should occur. I say I don’t need to do that at all. I’d watch the Cosby Show again, it was a great show. Roman Polanski made great films. I don’t need to sit there and reflect on their crimes when experiencing their work.
I actually don't think we disagree that much.
Prideaux clearly *can't* separate the art from the artist, so she has to concoct a false historical narrative that allows her to enjoy Gauguin's art without worrying too much about his actions. I think that's bad, because it elides the truth about the historical moment that Gauguin lived in, which is actually very complex and interesting and worth exploring in depth.
My argument is that you don't have to separate the art from the artist; you can enjoy Gauguin's work and acknowledge its importance in the canon while still recognizing that he did things that were selfish, depraved, or immoral.
You're saying you shouldn't have to consider Gauguin's life when appreciating his art. Well, you don't have to. That's what I say at the end of the piece. Nobody can make you do it, you can just look at the pictures. That's fine. I think it's worth considering his life, though, because to me it raises some interesting questions about our own conduct and present culture that I think are worth reflecting on; It led me to that Larson paper that I otherwise never would have read and from which I learned a lot about late 19th century activism. I would've missed out on that if I simply focused on the works themselves.
I would watch The Cosby Show. It's a great show. I wouldn't feel the need to say that Bill Cosby was "a man of his time" to make myself feel better about it the way Prideaux does with Gauguin. But I think it's also interesting to reflect on how Cosby's success and fame enabled his crimes. That doesn't mean you have to wring your hands every second while watching the show. It's just food for thought.
I wouldn't tell anyone that "you can't separate the art from the artist" because I think, sadly, when push comes to shove, people are inclined to decide that what the artist did wasn't so bad so they can go on enjoying the art. So I think it's important to create a space where people can keep what they like without leading them to dismiss the very real harm the artist may have been responsible for.
Oh I won’t let you off the hook that easy. And before I proceed, thank you for this delightful conversation, and I will of course let you have the last word should you desire. My position is that the great works exist outside of their socio-political contexts and therefore looking at them through that lens is irrelevant. The great works endure because they speak to the universe, not us proles who get the privilege of observation. By whatever divine spark exists, Beethoven composed the 9th, the Grosse Fuge, the Hammerklavier, and others for the sense of the divine. He’s just able to capture a higher percentage of it than say Anton Bruckner. Any artist that starts from a political position is suspect in my view. It’s why modern art is bad, it’s beating me over the head with a current message instead of trying to be divine. Why does it? Because critics and academics have been trying to read messages into the greats and artists take the message that that is important, so the market provides. It’s postmodernism all the way. If there is no Truth, then there is no Beauty.
I agree that art should, first and foremost, try to be art rather than front-loading a political agenda (which often results in art that is weak or didactic). But the socio-political context isn't irrelevant to me. I think it can add an interesting layer to how we engage with art. It's interesting that you call out Beethoven's 9th—it's beautiful, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it, but you can't tell me that "all men shall become brothers" isn't rooted in the socio-political context of its time. It's an anthem of Enlightenment ideals! That we can hear it as apolitical now is a testament to the victory of those ideals, but it was actually a provocative statement at the time!