In this week's episode of David and Art, host David Smith discusses how art can transcend simple expression to convey profound emotions and historical truths. Charlie Brown has it right. At one point in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” he and Peppermint Patty are sitting together under a tree talking. Suddenly she says “Explain love to me, Chuck.” After a thoughtful pause, he responds, “I can recommend a book or a painting or a song or a poem, but I can’t explain love.” Love is one of those things the key to whose understanding, and even clear articulation, lies outside our materialistic world. After all, that’s why there are love songs and love poems: workaday expression doesn’t cut it. Art can express all kinds of things that are complicated, not just love and happiness. And not only positive things, either. Some of the most complicated emotions inherent in a society that need expressing are not the warm and fuzzy kind. Back in 1946, Whittaker Chambers wrote about the relationship between the grief inherent in slavery and the single most distinctive art that grew out of it: the African American spiritual. “Grief,” he wrote, “like a tuning fork, gave the tone, and the Sorrow Songs were uttered.” Spirituals stand as powerful reminders, conveyed through powerful art, of a profound wrong. They have a distinctive two-fold claim on our attention: they’re works of art; and they are connections to history. This distinctive powerful role that art can play is closely related to the passionate controversies that sometime spring up. It may seem puzzling when artists are so quick to cry censorship when their works are criticized. The tendency, however, speaks to this powerful role. When the artist believes he or she is bringing to society’s attention something that needs redress, he’s bound to feel more defensive about his individual work. When, in the face of criticism, artists reach for the First Amendment, it’s a clear sign that they’re trying to defend something more than just the paint on the canvas or the ink on a page. To be an artist is often to be called upon to bear witness to something that you think is important, something that you think needs to be known. Because so much of contemporary art is distractingly divergent in form and content, it might be easier to relate to a “conscience” artist if there were one whose style reflected more traditional artistic forms. There is. One of the most popular artists of the twentieth century, in fact, provides a good example. His name is Norman Rockwell. Let’s take a closer look at his work next time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Jan 26 20254 mins