Art vs Personality

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

This morning I woke up with Wagner in my head (the classic choir from Tannhäuser) and was thinking on how I like that particular piece and at the same time how awful person Wagner was.

How can you reconcile that a racist @$$hole made some* wonderful music?

* I refer here a quote from Rossini who said in a letter: Monsieur Wagner has good moments, but awful quarters of an hour!

[Sibling DavidH]

Well, Zono, I spose there are a few good bits. 

[Swatopluk]

'Insufferable genius' is not a common term for nothing. Geniuses that are aware of their own superiority (in at least one thing) quite often let it get to their heads and treat non-geniuses as lower lifeforms. In Wagner's case fuel to his ego was added by his rejection in Paris. He then slashed out against those that either were successful despite lacking his own genius or refused to acknowledge that Mr.Wagner was the best thing since sliced bread (or was that invented later?).
His antisemitism has several roots
1.Meyerbeer (and Offenbach, both Jews) was/were successful while he was not
2.Meyerbeer got fed up with Wagner's constant begging and Wagner never forgave him that he said so
3.Art critics of the day were often Jewish and some very prominent ones did not like Wagner's art and said so in no unlcear terms.

[Swatopluk]

One might add that usually only egomaniacal madmen would try what Wagner did
The other kind of people who get that bombastic are usually a good deal shorter than the average guy.
Bruckner would be a typical case in music.
Napoleon btw was not actually short but loved big horses and had a similar hobby as Friedrich Wilhelm I., i.e. collecting very long soldiers for his personal guard. As a result he looks tiny in comparision with his surroundings on many paintings.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Bruckner seemed like fair* guy although he suffers from some of the same problems of Wagner's music at times. Beethoven was a dick far too frequently in his interpersonal life but at the same time he had a big heart and some high ideals. Stravinsky was way up in his high horse, etc. I guess if we look closely too many composers we'll find more jerks that we would like to admit but there are levels, and so far Wagner seems close to that top jerk spot.

I guess at certain level it bothers me to like the music of a jerk.

*ignoring his attraction to young girls

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Well, art regardless of who the creator of it is, it really a reaction to the culture-- a reflection of said culture within the artistic medium.

So what if Wagner was an ~sshole?  If his culture inspired his talent to create truly amazing music (and some of it is, I agree) then it doesn't matter if the man was worse then the southern effluvium coming from a north-bound mule.

Art, when it's really good, speaks for itself.

I often feel the same way about actors-- specifically "movie stars". Many of these people are beyond shallow, and completely self-absorbed, plastic simulacra of a real human.

But when they act, they often create truly great glimpses of what makes humans, human-- a really good story line, and some artistic direction coupled with some acting talent can, in spite of everyone involved being quite shallow, turn out some amazing work.

For anything that inspires a person, or touches something deep within-- is good art.

Something that continuously inspires over generations, and continues to touch people deeply, over and over, is great art.

Sometimes art is kind of like an emergent property-- it transcends it's creator in ways unanticipated and unimagined.

The merely adequate [art] soon grows tiresome, and is lost to time.   Were only forensic archeologists and ancient historians maintain an interest.




<edited for artistic readability.... >

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I draw the line at awful people who also happen to be great artists when a) they've got some horrifically objectionable views and financially support entities associated with that or b) their heirs have that sort of thing. For example, I really, really like Lady Gaga. If she supported, let's say, an anti-gay organization, then I wouldn't give her my money because that's giving my money to an anti-gay campaign and I'm not down with that.

But dead people or people whose stuff is in public domain, I'll listen to and enjoy, despite their objectionable-ness. Generally. There's sure to be some that I can't get away from that with.

[Bluenose]

I found myself very conflicted when I fsrst learnt about Wagner's racist views.  However, I believe that art can stand on its own merits and much of what Wagner wrote IMNSHO falls into that category.   Götterdämmerung for example is one of my favourite pieces of music.  The way Wagner uses brooding sounds and builds the tension leading up to the conclusion always makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck when I hear it.  Nevertheless Wagner was still an *sshole.

[Swatopluk]

I one way Wagner's influence as an artist (not as a racist, that's another topic) was fatal is that after him for quite some time musical development became stifled because so many composers simply imitated the Wagnerian style (interstingly the effect was stronger in France than anywhere else).
Only few made use of his inventions creatively. Rimsky-Korsakov is an interesting case there since he describes in detail what influence Wagner had on him but he only once did an actual imitation (The Legend of the invisible city of Kitesh and of the virgin Fewronija). No surprise there, Rimsky more or less wrote each of his operas in a different style.

[Sibling DavidH]

I draw the line at awful people who also happen to be great artists when a) they've got some horrifically objectionable views

I think you have to make allowances for a historical figure who had views which we now dislike but which were the norm in their day.  Spike Milligan is now often vilified for 'racism', but the jokes he cracked were unremarkable at the time; pretty much everyone talked that way and it didn't mean they were vicious racists.  Similarly, John Buchan was to some degree anti-semitic but only in a way that was more or less the norm in his day.

I don't know enough about Wagner to judge how extreme his views were in his time, but it's clear that he was part of a flourishing culture.

[Opsa]

Good points.

I guess we have to see the art as separate from the artist. I can like The Ring Cycle and still hate racism.

I remember a few years back listening to a man saying that he didn't let his kids see any John Belushi films because John Belushi was drug addict. It struck me how unforgiving that seemed. John Belushi was a comic genius because of his performances. His personal life was not the thing on display.

[Griffin NoName]

I think you have to make allowances for a historical figure who had views which we now dislike but which were the norm in their day.  Spike Milligan is now often vilified for 'racism', but the jokes he cracked were unremarkable at the time; pretty much everyone talked that way and it didn't mean they were vicious racists.  Similarly, John Buchan was to some degree anti-semitic but only in a way that was more or less the norm in his day.

I disagree with that. eg. slavery was never alright, even if it was the norm for the day.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I draw the line at awful people who also happen to be great artists when a) they've got some horrifically objectionable views

I think you have to make allowances for a historical figure who had views which we now dislike but which were the norm in their day.  Spike Milligan is now often vilified for 'racism', but the jokes he cracked were unremarkable at the time; pretty much everyone talked that way and it didn't mean they were vicious racists.  Similarly, John Buchan was to some degree anti-semitic but only in a way that was more or less the norm in his day.

But dead people or people whose stuff is in public domain, I'll listen to and enjoy, despite their objectionable-ness. Generally. There's sure to be some that I can't get away from that with.

[Swatopluk]

But even apart from his views Wagner was a notorious parasite with no loyalty (he even tried to slime himself in with the king of Prussia when the king of Bavaria ran temporarily out of money). He also dropped his first wife and ran away with the wife of a close friend later marrying her. Originally I was surprised that his conductor friend put up with that but when I later learned what an unpleasant character Cosima had* I began to suspect that it was a case of 'good riddance'.
----
At the time Wagner died he was thinking about an opera about the Buddha. I have no idea how that would have turned out.


*check out how she treated her dying father.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

How exactly does someone frame Buddha as an heroic figure? 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

How exactly does someone frame Buddha as an heroic figure? 

He was willing to allow his own person to be denigrated, in order to promote what he thought was the right way to be?   In short, he promoted what he thought was good and right above his own profit and well-being in what appears to have been a very unselfish way.

That alone ought to qualify as heroic--- for are we not all, at least in part, selfish beings down deep?  And to overcome that innate nature is heroic, at least a little bit, I would say.

[Swatopluk]

And not all of Wagner's operas are about 'heroic' stuff.
There is surprisingly little 'action' in most of them and it got less and less over time.
The step from Parzival to Eastern philosophy would not have been that large.
But I have no idea how a Wagnerian Buddha would have sounded
Surely not 'Om mani padme, om mani paadme, om mani paaadme, padme Huuum!!!!!'

[pieces o nine]

Well, here's a concept drawing for his longboat in that opera...