Can We Ever Really Separate The Art From The Artist?

Every few months, a beloved artist gets caught up in a huge scandal, or people revisit a song, book, film or painting they once loved and realise the person behind it is far more complicated than the work itself.

Suddenly, the same debate comes back around again: Can you separate the art from the artist?

It sounds simple, but it is often a very complex task. Because art is not just another product but hold a much deeper meaning,

It is the song you grew up with, the book that made you love reading, the film you watched before you knew anything about the person behind it, or the painting you were told was genius before anyone mentioned the people those artists harmed along the way.

The problem is that some of the world’s most famous artists were not just “complicated”. Some of them were just genuinely awful people.

Elvis Presley

 

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Still treated as one of the biggest icons of in music history. The voice, the hair, the jumpsuits, the whole King of Rock and Roll image.

But that glossy version becomes much harder to sit with when you look at his relationship with Priscilla Presley. She was only 14 when they first met, while Elvis was 24, which is already extremely uncomfortable before you even get into the power imbalance of it all.

Years later, Priscilla described the relationship in a way that says a lot: “You honestly didn’t have your own life. You lived his life.”

And this is where the myth starts to crack. So, while Elvis is kindly remembered as this electric performer, the actual image is much darker, involving allegations of grooming and control over young women pulled in by his star-power.

His marriage to Priscilla was also marked by repeated infidelity further adding to the fact that the more you learn about the man away from the stage, the harder it becomes to ignore the gap between the cultural icon people remember and the reality of his personal life.

John Lennon

 

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John Lennon is another difficult one because his public image became so tied to peace.

‘Imagine’ is still treated like a global anthem for kindness and harmony. But Lennon himself admitted that his private life did not always match the message.

In one interview, he said: “I was a hitter.” He also said: “I fought men and I hit women.” It is hard to hear that and then go back to the soft-focus version of Lennon as this peaceful, enlightened artist. That doesn’t mean that the music disappears, but it does make the image feel unclean.

Woody Allen

 

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This is a different kind of weird one.

For decades, Allen was treated as one of cinema’s great writer-directors, with films like Annie Hall and Manhattan still held up as classics. But the sexual abuse allegation made by Dylan Farrow, which Allen has repeatedly denied, changed the way many people viewed his work.

Farrow once opened an essay by asking: “What’s your favourite Woody Allen movie?”

An awkward question the immediately put the audience in a weird position. Instead of actually thinking about the movies you are thinking about what it means to love the work when the person behind it carries that kind of allegation.

Then there is his relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, his former long-term partner. He later married Soon despite the incredibly unusual family history and the 35 year age gap. Which is bad enough on its own, even before you get into the allegations made against him.

Roald Dahl

 

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One of the stranger ones to sit with, especially when you consider his work is so wrapped up in childhood.

From Matilda to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, these are the kind of stories many grew up with. Always a school library stable and were many peoples first experience with learning to love reading.

That is what makes his antisemitic comments so jarring. His books are full of imagination, strange little outsiders and horrible adults getting what they deserve, but the man behind them held views that were genuinely ugly. His family and estate later apologised for the “lasting and understandable hurt” caused by his comments, which tells you how serious that part of his legacy still is.

So with Dahl, it is not just about whether the books are good. Of course they are. It is about what happens when something that feels so innocent is tied to a worldview that was much darker than the stories ever seemed.

Pablo Picasso

 

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Then there is Pablo Picasso, whose name is basically used as a shortcut for genius.

Even if you know nothing about art, you know Picasso. He is one of those artists people are taught to admire before they are old enough to question anything about him. But the more you read about his personal life, especially his treatment of women, the harder it becomes to keep the genius separate from the damage around it.

Picasso reportedly said: “For me, there are only two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats.” Which is already a horrifying sentence before you even get into the way the women in his life were treated.

And that is what makes the whole “muse” idea feel a lot less romantic. We talk about muses like they are these glamorous figures inspiring great art, but a lot of the time they were real women being controlled, hurt, discarded and then turned into paintings people still stand around admiring.

It makes you look at the work differently. Were these women inspiring the art, or were they being swallowed by it?

And this is not just a problem with dead artists or old-school icons either. The same debate keeps coming back with modern artists too.

Whether it is Ye’s music being discussed alongside his antisemitic comments, or the recent case around d4vd making fans question what they do with songs they once had on repeat, the names change but the discomfort stays the same.

Maybe we do not have to throw every piece of art away. But we probably do have to stop acting like the person behind it does not matter.

Words by Andrew Connolly