The self-censoring artist

An excerpt from my book “Free Speech and Why It Matters”.

Amid the rabble of tourists that typically undulate in and around Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, you would be forgiven for heedlessly stepping over the round marble plaque that marks the spot where the Dominican Friar Girolamo Savonarola was hanged and incinerated in 1498. His fate had a certain talionic quality, for only a year before, in this same square, his followers had orchestrated their famous ‘bonfire of the vanities’. In a frenzy of religious fervour, they had torched thousands of objects associated with sin and moral degeneracy: cosmetics, dresses, mirrors, perfumes, books and even musical instruments. The city had been spellbound by Savonarola’s fanaticism, and were purging themselves before the apocalypse that their new spiritual leader insisted was imminent. It is said that Sandro Botticelli cast a number of his own paintings on to the pyre, and it is difficult to conceive a more evocative image of artistic self-censorship. If the story is true, we may have lost significant works of art because their creator had allowed a doom-mongering monk to throttle his muse.

Artists of today may not be throwing their work on to bonfires in order to appease the wrath of God, but they are still under pressure from ideologues to self-censor. Writers and comedians in particular have grown cautious about producing potentially sensitive material, and to be seen to align with the views of the creative industries’ many gatekeepers. Critics, too, now regularly assess artistic works on the basis of how closely the artist reflects their own ideological perspective. It goes without saying that total objectivity is neither possible nor desirable when it comes to professional criticism, but it would appear that a significant proportion now see their role as censuring art that they perceive to be ‘problematic’.

Moral responsibility is the albatross around the artist’s neck. Those who are preoccupied with how their work might be misinterpreted, or how it might influence the behaviour of its audience, are wont to stumble into the trap of didacticism. Definitions of ‘art’ are rarely satisfactory, but I’ll settle for Émile Zola’s description of art as ‘life seen through a temperament’. That is not to suggest that great art cannot be political or pedagogic, but it invariably suffers when the artist is compelled in this direction against his or her will. It is likewise detrimental to our enjoyment of art if we are obliged to react from a position of rectitude. It is perfectly legitimate to appreciate a work of art while detesting its underlying moral intention.

When we think of censorship our minds run to the draconianism of the Star Chamber, the Bishops’ Ban of 1599, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Catholic Inquisition, or the burning of books in Nazi Germany. But self-censorship can be just as damaging to the artistic health of a nation. The explosion of social media has provided a forum in which non-conformist viewpoints can be lambasted in the most public way, with artistic representation being continually scrutinised through the lens of identity politics. Under such circumstances, self-censorship is the probable outcome. Artists are intrinsically deviant; they revel in artifice and fantasy, twisting the landscape to their own whims. Conformity is their oubliette.

We can all agree that the censorship of artists by tyrannous regimes is an abomination, and yet there is something even more dispiriting about an artist who surrenders his or her freedom of expression voluntarily. In its most extreme form, self-censorship occurs because of the prospect of violent repercussions. For most artists, however, the threat they face is that of limited career prospects in a risk-averse climate. Work that is genuinely contro­versial invariably faces a barrage of voluble criticism online. Of course, there is nothing new in this – every age has its puritans – only now those in powerful positions in the creative industries tend to appease the tantrums of those who scream the loudest.

Once artists begin tailoring their work in accordance with how they sense it will be received, their craft is bound to deteriorate. The novelist Forrest Reid observed that the writer could choose one of two incompatible aims: ‘He may look upon his work as an art to be practised with sincerity, and in faithfulness to an ideal; or he may regard it as a commercial experiment.’ For those whose goal is to make money and acquire fame, adherence to what Mill described as the ‘despotism of custom’ is nothing to fear. For the true artist, such obsequiousness is a kind of death.

The practical demands of human existence can be something of a distraction from the artist’s vocation. This is why some of the most prolific have come from independently wealthy backgrounds. In his essay ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’, Oscar Wilde argued that individuality can only flourish in times of leisure. The Ancient Greeks were able to develop great philosophy, art and literature because, disgracefully, they had slaves to take care of all the menial tasks that occupy most people’s lives. Poets and writers enjoyed a Renaissance in Britain in the sixteenth century because of aristocratic patronage. With arts funding today largely reserved for those who can prove that their work entails some practical benefit to society, artists face growing pressure to ensure that they are commercially viable.

Of course, it is not in the nature of artists to admit that they are curtailing their own manner of expression in the face of external influences, which means that the problem is likely to be more widespread than we imagine. The best artists are non-conformists, and the worst artists like to be seen as the best artists. We should do all we can to cultivate a world in which creative risks are worth taking, and in which eccentricity and missteps will not be punished in the kangaroo courts of social media.

An artist who kowtows to ideological expectations can barely be said to be an artist at all. Like R. S. Thomas’s toiling farmer, he is merely ‘contributing grimly to the accepted pattern, the embryo music dead in his throat’.

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This is an excerpt from Free Speech and Why It Matters. You can buy the book here. It’s also available as an audiobook.

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