It’s clear that there are economic reasons to abolish the concept of the personal art practice. But there are also strong moral reasons.

Consider this: there’s nothing wrong, in life, with doing things for yourself. For your own enjoyment, or for your own mental health, etc. – but you don’t deserve to get paid for doing those things.

If you want other people to pay you, you need to do things that are good for others, and good for the world. Things that other people need and want.

That’s a moral principle, and it’s at the heart of capitalism. It’s also the key to a meaningful, fulfilling career – seeing the positive effect that your actions have on the world.

When we begin with the concept of self-expression – with the personal tastes, feelings, identity or politics of the artist – we are not just doing something economically backwards, we are doing something morally backwards as well.

We should instead be asking: what positive effect can art have on the world? For wider society, and for people who are not artists.

As advertisers and politicians know, making an image of something allows you to control other people’s perceptions of that thing.

Symbols can become loaded with such a weight of meaning that ordinarily calm and peaceful human beings will riot over burnt flags or desecrated books.

Stories and music have the ability to arouse powerful emotions. They can draw an audience in, and hold them, spellbound. And by leading an audience along a journey, you can change the way they think, feel, and view the world.

In other cultures, these powers are literally regarded as magic.

Music, performance, storytelling and image-making all have their origins in shamanic traditions. They are tools used by the shaman to heal others,¹ to maintain social cohesion,² and to maintain equilibrium with the natural world, which is viewed as sacred.³

Artists often describe their art-making as a “need.” One recent report into the livelihoods of artists in the UK stated that “being an artist/practitioner is for many a compulsion that is intrinsically woven into [their] self identity.”⁴

This need to create art often manifests in childhood, and many artists prioritise it above their own material comfort. Many make statements such as “I spend more on my [art] studio than I do on where I live.”⁵

40,000 years ago, human beings were painting images of cattle in the caves of both Europe and Indonesia.⁶ The need to make art has been with us for at least that long – and, in all likelihood, for much longer.

That need has clearly evolved, and evolved because it conferred some kind of survival advantage on our ancestors.

Might it be the case that there is some important social function that those who feel that urge are supposed to perform? Something that we have evolved to perform, and which is key to the functioning of a healthy, balanced society?

Might it be the case that, by taking young, talented, creative minds, and teaching them that the purpose of art is self-expression – teaching them to turn inwards something that is supposed to point outwards – we are not just destroying their life chances, but also denying society something vital and sacred? Something that it desperately needs?

References

1. Eliade, Mircea (1974). Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton/Bollingen. ↩︎
2. Watson-Jones, Rachel E. & Legare, Cristine H. (2018). The Social Functions of Shamanism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , e88. ↩︎
3. Harvey, Graham (2003). Shamanism: A Reader. Routledge. ↩︎
4. CAMEo Research Institute (2019). It Takes a Region to Raise an Artist. CVAN EM. https://cvaneastmidlands.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CEEF-Report-V10-FINAL.pdf (retrieved 22^nd September 2024). ↩︎
5. Acme (2022). Understanding the Value of Artists’ Studios. https://acme.org.uk/assets/originals/Understanding-the-Value-of-Artists-Studios-UCL-parternship-report.pdf (retrieved 22^nd September 2024). ↩︎
6. Aubert, M. et al. (2018). Palaeolithic Cave Art in Borneo. Nature, Volume 564, Issue 7735, p.254-257. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0679-9 (retrieved 22^nd September 2024). ↩︎