A few days ago, I stumbled upon an article on this very site that discussed a dilemma that I thought I’d already solved. The article in question was Tiffany Murnaghan’s phenomenal piece ‘Can We Separate the Art from the Artist?’ where she ultimately concluded that separation is not possible. I would highly recommend you to check out this piece as she presents extremely convincing justifications which ended up persuading me to some extent.

While going into this article, I was already biased against her conclusion, but after thoroughly reading it, my extremist perspective shattered and I couldn’t help but take on a more nuanced viewpoint. However, in the end, I couldn’t agree with her opinion. 

Defining the art

One of the reasons is that I couldn’t agree with her verdict about the purpose of art. According to her, art is a form of self-expression. While that is certainly a purpose of art, I believe that isn’t the only purpose. The purpose of art varies significantly across different mediums.

For example, in the case of actors, they are not subject to this definition. For them, art cannot be a form of self-expression because acting, in its essence, means to dissociate yourself and to embody an entirely different person with different emotions, views and morals than your own. 

Similarly, documentary filmmaking and writing are art forms that are devoid of self-expression to a certain extent. These art forms deal with factual information, therefore, if they are confined to only relaying objective information and do not include their own subjective takes then this artistic venture is also not a mode of self-expression. The reason is that they take influence from outside sources.

However, some factual documentation can be subject to bias which might fall under the self-expression of ideas and thoughts. Bertrand Russel was accused of biased documentation of history in his book “The History of Western Philosophy”. He defended himself by saying: "I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without bias cannot write interesting history — if, indeed, such a man exists."

This is an example of when subjectivity creeps into otherwise factual artistic modes, therefore artistic ventures based on facts might or might not indulge in self-expression.  Hence, this particular matter is more nuanced than someone might have thought.

Why separate?

After concluding that not every art’s purpose is self-expression, one burning question still remains unanswered; a question which is the very foundation of the dilemma. Why do we wish to separate the art from the artist? This separation usually happens under two conditions. First, the artwork must have intrinsic artistic value. Second, and most importantly, the artist must have done something morally reprehensible.

The complete answer is that we wish to separate art from the artists who have committed heinous crimes. Therefore, we arrive at another pivotal question when these conditions are met; Is the art an extension of the artist’s unjustifiable deeds? 

Some people tend to believe that just because someone despicable has created a form of art then that automatically makes the art despicable as well. As I understand, they believe that their art is a direct reflection of the tendencies that make them despicable. However, I couldn’t disagree more. 

For example, Roman Polanski, the director of an Oscar-winning film, the pianist, is a convicted sex offender. However, The Pianist in no way represents his sick tendencies and characteristics. Therefore, we can separate this art from the artist because the artist has not incorporated the despicable part of himself into the art, instead, he has incorporated another part of himself; the part which survived the holocaust. Yes, he was a holocaust survivor and that movie is based on the holocaust, hence the movie is a direct reflection of that aspect of Polanski’s life.

To conclude

This is a deeply nuanced dilemma so a blanket verdict for every art form seems unjust. Therefore, sometimes we can separate the artist and sometimes we cannot. However, not every art piece is a reflection of an artist’s bad deeds. Some pieces of art might come from a place that is completely separate from their bad deeds. Humans are not completely evil nor are they completely good. Even the most vile humans have a bit of goodness within them and if they express that goodness within their art then I believe we don’t need to separate the art from the artist.