http://www.aish.com/ci/a/Von_Triers_Can ... versy.html

Read. Discuss.

I think that art is not separate from the artist in terms of its creation, but after it is created, it becomes more separate from the artist. Let me explain. I think that an artist's moral beliefs are very important and can easily come through his work by what he chooses to portray and how he portrays it. But once the work is done, his moral beliefs only really affect the art as much as they come out through it. Take Mark Twain for an example. Although he always had the feelings against Christianity, it doesn't come out much in Tom Sawyer. Get to later novels such as Huckleberry Finn or A Connecticut in King Arthur's Court though, and it becomes a lot more evident and more close and unseparate from the author. So I think there's a certain mysterious objectivity to art that doesn't depend on the beliefs of the artist. But often times, the beliefs of the artists will tend to come out in some form or another in his work.

Stepping back to the article that you linked to, I think that Trier's personal beliefs only should affect the movie if his personal beliefs came out in the movie. Otherwise, if the beliefs don't come out, I don't think that the merit of the piece of art is dependent on the beliefs of the artist.

Richard Wagner the composer was very antisemitic, yet his music and art is absolutely beautiful, awe-inspiring, and powerful. So yes, art is separate from the artist.

I believe that there are such things as objective standards, so art can be judged separately from the artist who created it. (It can even be judged according to different, orthogonal standards: Lewis once called a story by another author "brilliant but depraved," I think, for example.) But it is not entirely separate; either it flows from the artist's worldview, or it's inconsistent with the artist's worldview.

Related to this is the question of what a piece means, which is particularly relevant for us as writers. I think that there are three sets of meaning associated with any given work: what the author or artist intended to convey, what any given reader or viewer gets from the piece, and what's actually there---the first two being, ideally, approximations of the third.

One issue connected to the original question is that the meaning that we see in a work of art can be affected by what we know of the artist---in this case, a sort of "guilt by association." The other issue is that art prizes aren't awarded to the art, they're awarded to the artist, for the particular piece of art.

I think it depends. For example:

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These lovely paintings were all done by Hitler.

This weird and beautiful work of architecture is known as Tatlin's tower. It is also known as 'Monument to the Third International'. (Third International: Noun. An international organization (1919–43), founded in Moscow, uniting Communist groups of various countries and advocating the attainment of their ends by violent revolution.)

I wonder if a work of narrative has greater potential for being affected by the creator's philosophy than, say, music or imagery. They certainly do have the potential for it, but I wonder if narrative has a greater potential.

Makes sense.

Except I think there's a bit of uncertainty about whether the third set exists. Not physically, but... metaphysically, I guess. Or at least uncertainty about whether it is accessible or relevant to a discussion of art.

As far as the thread's question: I wouldn't say that art can ever be separate from the artist, but I do believe that art can be unaffected by certain false or depraved parts of the artist – certain beliefs, feelings, so on. As long as the art is far enough removed from the bad parts of the person, I don't think it would necessarily be bad art. Every person has some good part in him (God made us all pretty awesome, and nobody has ever been so good at depraving themselves that they depraved every single part of themselves). Art related to that good part can easily be good even if the person is very bad generally.

I mean, it's not really a difference even, between those depraved people (who arguably make bad art) and those good people (who arguably make good art).. I'm depraved too, and so is everyone ever. People might say I'm not as depraved as some people who've lived, but then that's a continuum, not a categorization.

So I'd say that 'bad' people can make 'good' art, or else nobody can. Not because person and art are separate, though.