Position Of Artist Research Articles

Hawthorne and Dimmesdale: The Search for the Realm of Quiet

N ATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, if not more conscious, was certainly more articulate about the problem of the artist in society than most of his contemporaries. He most completely defined (through indirection, of course) the function of art and the relationship between artistic consciousness and social attitude. Many of his stories are directly about artists seeking a home in the world; many more stories deal with characters and situations referable to the problem of the artist in society. And in Custom House, Hawthorne depicts himself in a position somewhere between the world of imagination and the world of affairs, not really functioning properly in either while he remained in the governmental position. Like the artists in his stories, he is attempting to resolve the conflict between the necessity to be a part of the human brotherhood and his inability to participate on the level of common humanity. The perceptions of society, the patterns of belief, are too simple and too corruptible, and he finds it impossible to involve himself with a rocking chair, to be really concerned about remembering tasty meals eaten years ago. The dilemma is always with Hawthorne. The only possibility of good lies in human solidarity; and isolation is a betrayal of the human heart. The only possibility for constructive human action lies in society, within the community of mankind. To betray one's com-

The Divided Self in the Society Comedies of Oscar Wilde

IT IS USUALLY SAID that Oscar Wilde's society comedies have foolish plots and brilliant dialogue, and as. far as it goes this critical commonplace is true. Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband do in fact have foolish plots and brilliant dialogue. But the foolishness of these plots does not prevent them from expressing Wilde's personal and artistic positions, while the brilliance of this dialogue has often obscured both its value and its meaning. These are the things that I wish to demonstrate here.

Cultural and Literary Developments: Poland and Hungary

By 1950 standardization of cultural life in Soviet-dominated coun tries was nearly complete. This was more easily effected in literature than in painting or music—areas in which the artist's position was less clearly defined. Pressures for conformity caused artists and writers to resort to three main types of behavior. Some collaborated wholeheartedly, others became semi-collabora tors, and still others chose to collaborate not at all. It soon became obvious that the "new literature" was failing to fulfill the task laid down by the party of re-educating men and was instead stifling creative work. The demand for an essentially romantic picture of everyday reality demanded by "Socialist realism" had become anything but real, and to ease the dilemma writers took refuge in the past. The cultural and political thaw which followed Stalin's death was felt most keenly in Hungary and Poland. In the former the full-scale campaign waged by the Rákosi regime against "rightist deviationism" propelled the coun try into revolution. In the latter a greater sensitivity to popular demand on the part of the leaders has helped to avert such a bloody upheaval. In fact, the freedom of creation under Gomulka's regime is still unequalled in all of Eastern Europe.—Ed.

Hawthorne's "Prophetic Pictures"

IN THE PROPHETIC PICTURES,' Nathaniel Hawthorne treated for the first time the problem of the artist-a problem which returned to vex him in his later writings and which he was never able satisfactorily to solve. It concerns the dichotomy of the act of artistic creation, which Hawthorne seems to have felt is man's most spiritual achievement, and of that dark necessity, which, he feared, impels the artist by virtue of his very artistry towards the unpardonable sin, the violation of the human heart. essential paradox of this position cannot be resolved; it can, of course, be ignored, as it is by Hawthorne himself in The Artist of the Beautiful,2 but ignoring it does not make it less fundamental to his aesthetics. This paradox illustrates, moreover, that ambivalence of attitude towards the artist that any critic of Hawthorne's works must take into account. For this reason an examination of The Prophetic Pictures, one of his earliest and clearest statements of the paradox, should illuminate a consideration of Hawthorne's aesthetic theory and of his conception of the artist's position in the social order. Although Hawthorne scholars usually mention The Prophetic Pictures in their discussions of the writer's art, they have always, I believe, given it too summary a treatment to provide an adequate

The Education of the Artist

One of the most important problems concerning art today is the anomalous position of the impoverished artist in a society that is financially able to buy his wares. In an attempt to ameliorate this situation much has been done during the past few years to educate the public to art. There is, however, an even more important aspect of the art educational program, and that is the education of the artist. This phase of the problem has been one of the most neglected by educator and critic alike. Even the artist has not been truly cognizant of the inadequacies of his education and training. The present-day economic plight of the painter is recognized as a problem to be solved, but many of the remedial attempts to alleviate the situation have been working in reverse. Instead of producing year after year more and more painters who will go out into a society that is not particularly concerned about them, the schools should be doing something to adjust the painter to society, rather than society to the painter. The...