Norwid reminds me of another great ‘future provider’, Vincent Van Gogh. The Dutch painter, whose works are now worth billions, couldn’t sell any paintings in his lifetime and relied on the charity of his merchant brother, Theo. Much like Norwid, Van Gogh was extremely religious, but not in a bigoted fanatical way. He was more of a mystic, someone who sees, as William Blake once wrote, ‘eternity in a grain of sand’. He wanted to become a pastor, but was rejected by the clergy.
Just like Norwid, he was labelled ‘insane’, but what does that really mean? Van Gogh would sometimes slip into some extreme moods when painting, or heavily drinking… or cutting his ear off. But when it came to artists, madness was often mere labelling, a way of ensuring order. Or, like Michel Foucault or Theodore Adorno would say, a way in which society could exclude all its threatening and chaotic elements.
The true artist is like a dangerous wolf, and his message bites. Society prefers to deal with the artist later, when he can’t bite anymore and his nice fur can be safely hanged as a trophy on a museum wall.
What many ‘accursed’ artists have in common, is that their work couldn’t fit the business model of their times – and that’s the very reason it could become great in the first place. To create something new, you have to offend the preferences and habits of the audience. If it’s accessible – read, simple enough – and can be sold, then no problem. The Sex Pistols didn’t appeal to the post-hippie, art-rock loving audience of the late 1970s, but that old style was worn out anyway. So they broke the bank. But this was only possible because their message was as sophisticated as their guitar riffs.
In the case of people like Norwid, things get more difficult. His work, both its form and content, is demanding. It’s difficult enough to provide jobs for hundreds of future scholars. So it goes like a formula – the more difficult and ahead of its time the work of an artist is, the more valuable it gets later. We get bored by most old music, poetry and paintings, because they were meant to please the taste of their age. Yet, some of us still enjoy Mozart, whose music was famously judged by one idiot emperor with the verdict ‘Too many notes!’. The art that truly remains could often never fit the tastes of its era, but it ends up bringing a lot of material profit – and joy – to those who live later. For society, this art is an investment – for the artist who made it, it’s an individual tragedy.
The value that the artist can give to mankind is proportional to the amount of neglect he receives for his efforts from his contemporaries. The world of culture – or entertainment, if you prefer – is a ruthless one. People like me, the literature scholars, are like vultures. I just wrote article about Norwid. I did it over a few months. How accurate and insightful can my essay be? How much is it worth compared to his labour? And I get paid for my echoing, while he wasn’t.
Of course, one could say this is an exaggeration. Some great artists and undisputed geniuses didn’t starve, right? What about Pablo Picasso? What about John Coltrane and Miles Davis? Well, there are exceptions of course, but Coltrane and Davis really struggled in their later years, literally rejected by the public. The claim still stands.
The common judgement about the artist – at least in a pragmatic, materialistic and hard-working society – is that they shall be punished like the irresponsible Grasshopper from La Fontaine’s fable. They dared to pursue their passions, while the ants were busy doing serious boring jobs that they hated. That’s outrageous, so the grasshopper shall suffer for that. If they beg us for food and shelter, they are blatant parasites. Because they don’t produce, they don’t feed anyone.
But the truth, as we can see, can be different. Sometimes it’s society that feeds off the artist. Sample Norwid’s writing for a taste.
Written by Wojciech Zembaty, Aug 2021