Making art in a time of rage
In Alex Ross’s nuanced exploration of the ideas artists and audience have about what art can and “should” do in response to times of crises, he presents a number of perspectives (his general neutrality, yet decisive and revealing language are all things you should keep in mind as you polish and revise your Inquiry-based essays). He offers the words of Leonard Bernstein, who in the wake of the JFK assassination said: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Do you agree that art, intellectual thought, and more generally, beauty, have power in an era ruled by confusion and corruption? I was also curious about the idea of great art made in such a time being claimed as something of an anthem for that time: “At heart they were mute, noncommittal, open to appropriation. The same may be said of any form of artistic expression that fails to make its political convictions explicit.” Miranda speaks to this more, but what do you make of this? How can purpose be twisted and misused, and how do you as a writer avoid this?
In Alex Ross’s nuanced exploration of the ideas artists and audience have about what art can and “should” do in response to times of crises, he presents a number of perspectives (his general neutrality, yet decisive and revealing language are all things you should keep in mind as you polish and revise your Inquiry-based essays). He offers the words of Leonard Bernstein, who in the wake of the JFK assassination said: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Do you agree that art, intellectual thought, and more generally, beauty, have power in an era ruled by confusion and corruption? I was also curious about the idea of great art made in such a time being claimed as something of an anthem for that time: “At heart they were mute, noncommittal, open to appropriation. The same may be said of any form of artistic expression that fails to make its political convictions explicit.” Miranda speaks to this more, but what do you make of this? How can purpose be twisted and misused, and how do you as a writer avoid this?