the naked truth

Remember this? I posted it on a recent blog entry here.

The quote is by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, the eighteenth century German poet-philosopher. Here’s a rough translation of what it says:

“You can not please all with your actions and your art.
Do it right for the few. To please many is bad.”

And here’s the painting it is extracted from. It’s Gustav Klimt’s Nuda Veritas, or the “Naked Truth”.

I seem to remember first encountering Nuda Veritas at the Vienna Secession exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art when I was in art school. Like most Klimt paintings, a four color reproduction can’t really capture its physical beauty — the three dimensionality of the frame, with its hammered metal, the shimmering golds, and the translucent, shimmering coloration of the main figure, with that matter-of-fact serpent twisting around her feet. The painting felt both sacred and profane to me. On one hand, there was something so pure and vulnerable in her glowing intensity. Yet she bears a slightly dangerous edge, in that manner that fin de siecle women bear.

I even pasted a postcard of it on my journal, that’s how much I loved this painting.

And what of its text? At the time, it spoke to my condition (as a Quaker would say). I mean, what better advice for a young artist to have than to be reminded that not everyone is going to like your work. Yet we shouldn’t let that get in the way of doing our best, to try to meet our highest aspirations — “do it right for the few,” in Schiller’s words. It’s part of life: even when we try our hardest, we can’t please everyone. Nor should we want to — though it’s hard to let go of wanting to do so. The desire to be loved and approved is built into our very bones, I think, as is the desire to do good. And for artists it’s especially so. No one wants to feel that they’re working in a bubble, where no one “gets” your work.

Even then, though, I had a hard time with the last sentence of this edict. Is it bad to please many? And why would not pleasing people be a sign of artistic integrity, of quality?

Yeah, there’s crappy artists who have great success — think Thomas Kinkaid (no offense to any fans of the Painter of Light tm). But there are also artists who manage to both please people and make wonderful art. I think of Tim Burton, who combines the best of commercial success with his unique brand of gothic quirk (though some of his films are clearly more successful than others). Or Audrey Niffennigger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, a stunningly original and affecting piece of writing. Even Gustav Klimt — it’s ironic that he produced a painting bearing this quote, yet was one of the most financially successful artists of his era.

I suspect that these examples started out seeking to please themselves, to express their own unique aesthetics. But the power of their art spoke to the masses — to their conditions, if you will. I don’t think their ability to please many lessens the value of their art, or makes them any less successful as artists. It may lead to overexposure. But that’s a different issue.

Yet so often people — Schiller included — equate popular success with losing integrity. And that, even in a painting as stunning as this, invites artists to believe that suffering is something to strive for, that pain is good.

I don’t think it is. And that’s my naked truth.

Technorati Tags: gustav klimt, nuda veritas, schiller, artistic success, artistic integrity

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