The importance of Art

One of the most powerful arguments for the importance of art was given by the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his Nobel prize acceptance speech. When I was a student I read his book Cancer Ward (several times). Somehow he manages to imbue this awful setting with the deepest expression of warmth and humanity. This is a humanity he acquired as a survivor of Stalin's Siberian death camps. In his speech he says that it is easy for us to empathise with the suffering of a neighbour, but much harder to do so with the suffering of so many more people much further away. Art Bridges this gap: it enables us to empathise person-to-person anywhere on the earth. Politicians and speech makers can throw us back and forth with powerful reasoning, and we lose our moral compass. Art cannot lie; it touches our hearts, it reaches our humanity, it dispels complacency, it is the friction that causes the spark of life.

When I talk about art I am not referring to the superficial, commercial, crass work of artists such as Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst. These artists only encourage the worst of our throwaway and exploitative culture. I am thinking more of artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Olafur Eliasson and Emily Kngwarreye who are deeply caring and thoughtful role models. And of course writers like Solzhenitsyn. You can read his full speech here and I strongly recommend it. I can still remember parts of it 39 years after I read it.