# Should artwork be judged by the artist's person? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 9, 2015, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196 "2015-04-09T10:55:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/21 "2015-04-09T17:16:32Z")
> [@MorphinePoet](#): > > Excuse me here, but it’s not ‘a’ woman. It’s one thousand of them. When you have been involved with one thousand women and you’re only 40-something years old, this involves having to lie, to delete SMS messages, to answer the phone privately, to make false excuses, and to protect all of this with layers and layers of lies. If you believe that sleeping with one thousand women can be done smoothly, without questions and on schedule, then you’ll have to excuse me. > > I’m not discussing the ‘reason’ a woman would sleep with him, but rather the logistics involved in getting this done, and I have therefore filled in the gaps with common sense. Well, the most likely lie is that the number 1000 is exaggerated (and/or the man’s age is understated), but the mathematics of nailing 1000 women over a 20 year period works out to about one a week, which might be doable, if a tad unlikely. Anyway, it’s a matter of personal opinion if this is significant to the observer. It wouldn’t be to me. I’ll save my ire for different targets, like Jane Fonda. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/22 "2015-04-09T17:41:15Z")
> [@MorphinePoet](#): > > My girlfriend knew a well-known writer whom she thought is an amazing person and loved his writing, but she also mentioned that he slept with around one thousand women in his life so far. My personal opinion on this is that: A person who sleeps with one thousand women will have to summon a lot of lying and deception in order to get this done. Therefore, I do not respect that writer, and therefore I don’t like his writing. Am I an idiot? Is the writer in question an author of non-fiction works only or does he write novels and other works of fiction? Because if so, it’s clearly not his lying that bothers you; lying is what he does for a living and it’s perfectly acceptable when he’s do it to entertain you. And mark me down for separating a person’s artistic ability from being judged by their personal character. Tom Cruise is a complete nutter but he’s a good actor. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/23 "2015-04-09T18:21:48Z")
> [@MorphinePoet](#): > > A person who sleeps with one thousand women will have to summon a lot of lying and deception in order to get this done. Therefore, I do not respect that writer, and therefore I don’t like his writing. Am I an idiot? Prior to meeting my partner of over 27 years, I had slept with (or at least had sex with) well over a thousand men. I assure you, there was never any lying or deception involved, nor anything non-consensual. How that influences your respect for me or my art, is up to you. So is the question of whether you’re an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/24 "2015-04-09T18:43:54Z")
> [@MorphinePoet](#): > > My girlfriend knew a well-known writer whom she thought is an amazing person and loved his writing, but she also mentioned that he slept with around one thousand women in his life so far. My personal opinion on this is that: A person who sleeps with one thousand women will have to summon a lot of lying and deception in order to get this done. Therefore, I do not respect that writer, and therefore I don’t like his writing. Am I an idiot? How does your girlfriend know how many women this poet has slept with? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/25 "2015-04-09T19:20:39Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But what about **Human Action’s** question in post #8? Would knowing _good_ things about an artist make bad art any better for you? If you hated pictures of velvet wide-eyed cats dressed as Elvis playing poker, but found out that the artist did something that _really_ impressed you, would you still feel the same way about those pictures? Possibly. If I read a novel that started off well, but lost coherence as it went on, I might dislike it, but if I found that it was written by someone who had Alzheimer’s as a way to document progression of his condition, I might take a more positive view of the work. Note in all the cases I’m describing the nature of the artist is directly related to understanding the nature of the work. If it was the Nazi who wrote the love poem to his adult paramour or the child molester who wrote the science fiction and meant it non-allegorically, then I couldn’t make the same statement. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/26 "2015-04-09T19:21:41Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Prior to meeting my partner of over 27 years, I had slept with (or at least had sex with) well over a thousand men. I am **so** not buying any of your art! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/27 "2015-04-09T21:34:00Z")
I take the view that when an artist is very aggressive and in-your-face about his bad behavior – like posting a blog saying that gays should be imprisoned – then I’m going to boycott his books, even if they happen to be damn good. If he, himself, tries to keep a low personal profile – maybe he believes such an evil thing, but doesn’t make a great production out of saying so publicly, and I happen to learn of it only incidentally – then I’m less likely to boycott him. Artists shouldn’t become celebrities, especially controversial celebrities, without accepting some loss of custom and support. Hitler’s paintings actually are fairly good. But if, in 1948, he was still alive – perhaps in prison – and selling them, I would not have bought one. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/28 "2015-04-10T00:22:35Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Hitler was a pretty good painter, IMHO. He was one of the worst despots in history…but a pretty good painter. Leni Riefenstahl made a pretty impressive movie featuring him. It wasn’t even a matter of her art being separate from some other opinion or personal foible behind the scenes. It’s a Nazi propaganda film. If you read the cast and stars IMDB it reads like a list of war criminals…because they did in fact become actual war criminals. It’s still an impressive film. Whether any one person can watch it for the art is a personal matter. It’s not a contest. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/29 "2015-04-10T04:03:20Z")
It ultimately seems like a version of\* ad hominem\*. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/30 "2015-04-10T04:11:56Z")
A little…but when someone goes so far out of his way to be unpleasant, there is a mental association of ideas that instills a contagious antipathy. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/31 "2015-04-10T05:54:26Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > It ultimately seems like a version of\* ad hominem\*. I disagree in general. “_Ender’s game_ is a bad book because OSC is a mormon” is ad hominem. “I don’t enjoy / won’t read _Ender’s game_ because OSC is a mormon” is a statement of fact. ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/32 "2015-04-10T07:35:30Z")
Hiya, **MorphinePoet**! Welcome to the SDMB. To me, there is no quicker path to the truth than reading the blow-by-blow description of what happens when push comes to shove. Last summer, the daughter of noted science fiction/fantasy author Marion Zimmer Bradley related her mother’s complicity in enabling the daughter’s molestation and rape by MZB’s first husband, Walter Breen. A thread was started in the Pit about this. [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=727242) is a link to the thread. The bottom line, if you don’t care to read through several hundred posts, is that a long-standing poster attempted to defend the notion of the separation of an artist from their work and was excorciated for it. Much, much more than a time or two. So, you perhaps ought to consider that anything you read about this separation of an artist from their craft here in your thread does not even begin to be scratching the surface of what is percolating underneath. It appears that a lot of people agree with you that you can’t (and shouldn’t) separate an artist’s personal stuff from their works. Quite vehemently agree. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/33 "2015-04-10T12:27:40Z")
> [@jimbuff314](#): > > The bottom line, if you don’t care to read through several hundred posts, is that a long-standing poster attempted to defend the notion of the separation of an artist from their work and was excorciated for it. You left the word “rightly” off before the “excoriated”, there. At least, by the time said “long-standing poster” (:rolleyes:) was making up the sliding scale of badness of rape between paedophiles and ephebophiles based on how early their pubes came in, as if that ever mattered. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/34 "2015-04-10T12:50:24Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > Leni Riefenstahl made a pretty impressive movie featuring him. It wasn’t even a matter of her art being separate from some other opinion or personal foible behind the scenes. It’s a Nazi propaganda film. It’s only a Nazi propaganda film because their team lost. Objectively her work and especially _Triumph of the Will_ is a classic of film and staging technique that would have won multiple Oscars if they had such a category. In the context of this post you should be very careful about conflating your interpretation of a person’s character and their work. In main because you will quite often get more variance in estimates of a persons character than in the technical or artistic merit of their work. Leni Riefenstahl was an excellent technician and also a brilliant artist. There is no doubt of that. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/35 "2015-04-10T13:12:25Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > It’s only a Nazi propaganda film because their team lost. No, it’s a Nazi propaganda film because it’s a propaganda film. Made for the Nazis. Them winning wouldn’t have changed that. Them winning wouldn’t have changed the morality of it and them, either. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/36 "2015-04-10T13:23:34Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > Leni Riefenstahl was an excellent technician and also a brilliant artist. There is no doubt of that. I can appreciate her artistry, or I _could_ if I could bring myself to watch any of her films, which I just can’t. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/37 "2015-04-10T13:32:30Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > I can appreciate her artistry, or I _could_ if I could bring myself to watch any of her films, which I just can’t. It’s OK, lots of other directors have watched her movies for you, so you’ll see the good bits sanitized all over the place. _Star Wars_, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/38 "2015-04-10T13:37:07Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, it’s a Nazi propaganda film because it’s a propaganda film. Made for the Nazis. Them winning wouldn’t have changed that. Show me any US or UK propaganda film that even begins match the technical and artistic quality. They were just as much propaganda but not nearly as good. To be frank the only British propaganda film I can remember offhand is [Hitbeth Walk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsrQsKieZQ) (Incidentally it contains Leni Riefenstahl film. Watch at your peril!) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/39 "2015-04-10T13:46:31Z")
We’ve had this discussion several times in the past in relation to Orson Scott Card and his stance on homosexuality. Presumably because we’re all nerds. Here’s [one example](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=671589). I find it hard to separate the work from the artist, but I don’t go out of my way to find out about the artists’ views. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196/40 "2015-04-10T13:49:33Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s OK, lots of other directors have watched her movies for you, so you’ll see the good bits sanitized all over the place. _Star Wars_, for instance. There’s some fairly good bits in [_Gladiator_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqG6YhP7BUU) as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-artwork-be-judged-by-the-artists-person/717196.md?page=3)