This is an excerpt of the article “What Art Does for Us, And Why We Should Support It”, read the full piece at the New York Times
Recently, art critic Jason Farago made suggestions regarding what the Biden administration can do to provide relief for the arts, a sector that has been hit especially hard during the pandemic. He argues that the country is in urgent need of Aristotelian catharsis — of art, music, drama and the emotions they summon, saying “You go to the theater, you listen to a symphony, you look at a painting, you watch a ballet. You laugh, you cry. You feel pity, fear. You see in others’ lives a reflection of your own. And the catharsis comes: a cleansing, a clarity, a feeling of relief and understanding that you carry with you out of the theater or the concert hall. Art, music, drama — here is a point worth recalling in a pandemic — are instruments of psychic and social health.”
Farago advises Biden to create a new Works Progress Administration-style program treating artists as essential workers, and to make it easier for artists to receive unemployment benefits, among other recommendations.
We’re all waiting for things to open up so we can resume what we think of as normal life. Considering what that will take is daunting, but it makes the promise of going to a play, hearing live music or standing awed before a painting that much more exciting to anticipate.
When was the last time you had a strong emotional response to a play or film? The last time a book or painting freed you from “the feeling that there’s only one way to live, or only one way to go about your day,” as the writer Ben Lerner put it?
This is an excerpt of the article “What Art Does for Us, And Why We Should Support It”, read the full piece at the New York Times