Andrew Stiller wrote:
>>
>> I am not sure that giving creative minds a free ride so that they may
>> create is such a great thing -- it removes them from having to
>> interact with the world in any meaningful way and (in my opinion) may
>> rob them of the very stimulus which provides great art.
>>
>
> That's a wonderful idea. Let's have doctors, lawyers, teachers,
> plumbers, carpenters do their work without pay too. The quality and
> volume of their work are bound to improve as a result.
>
> But let's assume that we've stumbled into some realm where common sense
> doesn't apply and that people in the arts really do function better
> under adverse economic circumstances. If that were true, then the work
> of those few situated in comfortable circumstances (such as Palestrina,
> w. his rich wife) would be perceptibly inferior to that created by the
> distressed majority. But it isn't. Furthermore, you would expect the
> quality of the work of an individual artist to vary inversely with that
> individual's leisure to create, but that too (as the cases of Schütz and
> Partch vividly illustrate) is demonstrably not the case.
>
> Artists, and especially great ones, are compelled to create by inner
> demons regardless of their economic circumstances. Using that as an
> excuse to avoid paying for the value they add to society as a whole is
> neither just nor an efficient use of human resources.
>
> Frankly, your argument reminds me of nothing so much as the advice
> mothers used to give their daughters: "Why should he buy the cow when he
> can get the milk for free?"
>
> To which the answer is:"because it's right."
>
>
Did I ever say that artists shouldn't get paid for their work? If I
did, then I apologize, because I never meant to say that at all. Could
you quote me where I said that, please, because I can't find that in any
of my posts? When I said a "free ride" I was implying being given a
grant to create, rather than a right to be paid for their art. If I
gave the impression that artists should create for free, I am sorry.
What I was merely trying to say (apparently ineptly) was the very thing
you are saying -- artists create becaue of their inner needs. Those
inner needs may or may not be separate from their economic
circumstances. Since we can't separate the two, we can never be sure if
they are cause/effect or if they are merely coincidental.
Your mentioning composers who composed beautiful music while being
comfortably situated in no way refutes my statements -- I never said
that artists need to be impoverished to create great art.
What I was trying to say was that great art came out of their situations
in life -- and living on government grants in a democratic society
simply should not be anybody's situation in life, in my opinion. The
artists of the world who have been well-off financially have been so for
a wide variety of reasons -- they married into money, they inherited
money, they were successful in some other field, they had good business
sense where their art was concerned, they found rich patrons to support
them (that many such rich patrons were also the rulers of their
countries/provinces is NOT in my opinion comparable in any way to a
democratically elected government setting up a committee to act on
behalf of the population).
That many fine artists have gone unknown and unrewarded in their own
times also does not mean that all artists should go unknown and
unrewarded while living, and if I implied that, then I apologize.
I was merely trying to state that great art will be created, no matter
what the government does. And the less a government intrudes into
anybody's private life the better.
Saying that if a person creates great art while also working 60 hours or
more a week as a doctor means that if they given a government grant so
they don't have to work those 60 hours, they will create a lot more
wonderful art is not necessarily a true statement.
My point is that perhaps that great art was created only BECAUSE he was
working all those hours as a doctor.
But since we aren't living in a sci-fi world where we can produce
parallel universes and then compare the results of different lives for
the same creative people, it is merely conjecture on both our parts.
But I apologize again if I ever said (or implied) that artists should
not be paid for their art.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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