Responsibility Of An Artist

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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An artist bears great responsibility not only to him or herself but to his or her audience. Artist work may be geared towards profit gains but they are not motivated by profit gains. They are an expression of artist’s view of the time and events that are taking place in the society. There is little debate on the role and responsibilities of an artist because they have great responsibilities. They have to pass on the information to the people but in a way that require a higher level of thinking and in a way that does not attract controversy. It has been said that artists are the only people who can help the world to understand the incomprehensible. They present their ideas in a way that is not only amusing but helps the audience to understand something they would not have understood when expressed normally. However, there is a great debate on the relationship between artists and politics. Politics occupy the center stage of life which means that people are likely to be attracted to political messages since that is what dictates their life. There is no limitation to which artists can go to expresses their political message. ...
... However, most people consider politics as a dirty game that is rarely genuine. This creates conflict with artistic work because art is not deception but rather it is expression of the truth. If artists engage in politics, then there is need to understand the extent to which they can go and whether their role is to act as politicians or if they have to act as link between politicians and people, helping people to understand politics or uncovering the deception and incomprehensibility of politics.
It is not a must that an artist articulates a political point of view. As was highlighted earlier politics takes the center stage of life. Politics dictates the social, cultural, and economic well being of the people meaning that the world cannot just do without politics. Politics can be considered as a practice that has been perpetuated since the era of human civilization. Artists draw their ideas and get inspiration from the daily life of the people. This implies that if politics are a part of life and artists are inspired by events of life, artists have the duty to express the political view of the nation in a way that people will understands. It is not a must that artists articulate a political point of view because there are other events those take places in life. Artistic work is drawn from life practices which may not necessary be political views. For example an artist may wish to express social events which are not political like celebrations, calamities and others which will not be expressed with a political taste. Artist must be inspired by events of life and these events must not necessary be political. Artist students need to understand that they are not limited on the extent to which they can express their ides. Instead, they should be inspired by what they feel the people want to see, hear, or read. They should be ready to help people understand the incomprehensible.
One of the most important characteristic of good art is that it s forces the audience to confront the ideas that might have been filtered out first. Confronting the ideas means that the ideas are subjected to rational, reasonable thought. Art has found a great connection to propaganda. Art is supposed to spread the trust rather than propaganda but there are instances when artists will find themselves slipping into propaganda. As has been repeated in the paper, art is inspired by events of life. It is quite okay when one is inspired by fictional accounts in one knows that it is fictional and one does not pretend it is true. In artistic and in real world, reality is never simple. It not white or black to be easily distinguishable or inspiration, but it is achieved by a simplified depiction of reality. In most cases, there is a line that is drawn when arts transform itself into propaganda and propaganda transforms itself into lies. In real world, truth is considered more important than men, even geniuses, more than arts, science, inspiration, hope, and fear. Truth is more important than any other thing that we create, no matter how wonderful the thing is. Truth matters, so does art and none of them matters more than the other. However, on relative grounds, truth should prevail over art. It is difficult to create art when one does not know what is true and what is not true. Merely knowing the trust without having art prevents use from appreciating truth and a life that has been lived with truth. Like it is difficult to privilege arts or truth, so is it difficult to de-link art and propaganda.
Arts and propaganda are not two strange bedfellows. They are closely related and arts will slip to propaganda without their knowledge. Unless an art is separated from politics, it will still be linked to propaganda because propaganda is a part of politics. Artistic cannot be propaganda since arts is all about expressing the truth but it is evident that from time to time artist will slip to propaganda and at such times, we cannot say that their work is no longer artistic.
Students therefore need to realize that art is all about telling the truth. It is about being inspired by events taking place in the society and it as not limitation. There is not limit to which an artist can engage in. Students should realize that they should not avoid politics because politics are a part of life. There is no limit to the extent of the issues they can address so long as they affect people. Student should also realize that so long as they are engaging in arts, it will be difficult for them to avoid falling into propaganda so long as they will be touching on political issues. Art is supposed to tell the truth while propaganda to do not tell the truth which means arts can also help to tell the truth by unraveling the lies bound in propaganda.

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