The painting attached, French painter Edouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), was a major source of scandal in the 1800s. While the female nude was far from uncommon, its depiction was traditionally sublimed and idealized, represented in a mythological context. Manet’s piece, eerily reminiscent of Titien’s Venus of Urbino (1534), subverts this trope with its realistic, unglamorous depiction of a naked woman, who not only is a real woman, but a prostitute. Far from an object of desire existing to be gazed at, Olympia provokes the observer by staring back. Covering herself with her hand, Olympia regains power and agency over her own body – which one must pay to have access to, unlike traditional paintings in which women are docilely offered to the viewer. The scandal surrounding this painting should not go unnoticed, as it raises questions concerning the ethics of art, which I will further explore in this article.
To discuss this subject, we must first and foremost identify the purpose of art, and the function it holds in society.
American philosopher Nelson Goodman argues that art has an epistemological function, hence that it contributes to expanding knowledge. Goodman depicts knowledge as a creation rather than a discovery; by using artistic symbols, we impose labels onto things, and thus build a certain vision of the world. In that sense, art is a way to construct and modify our perception of reality – and I believe that it can notably shape our conception of morality.
Art allows us to question the world in its current state, and whether it is inevitable. It pushes the boundaries between the ethical and the unethical and puts those very boundaries into question. It asks: Who decided for this or that to be immoral? What would happen if I crossed the line of the morally acceptable? By exploring those questions, art dismantles our preconceptions concerning ethics. Morality is no longer something we are taught, but becomes a construction of our own that can be modified as we please.
Art exists in a realm that transcends morality; and to limit it to certain ethical constrictions shows a misunderstanding of its nature and purpose. For art to truly flourish, it should be allowed to reveal even the darkest aspects of humanity, beyond social and ethical conventions. Art thus plays a psychoanalytic role; it reveals what we have repressed because of social stigma, leading to a more exhaustive understanding of ourselves. It is a way for us to channel the energy that resides in our inappropriate desires and to use it in a creative manner – a process that Freud called sublimation.
In his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Czech author Milan Kundera argues that since life happens once, we can never know the outcomes of the choices we did not take. However, through fictional characters, the novelist can experiment with different possibilities and life paths – which I think can apply to all art. Rather than conforming to reality, art allows us to live beyond reality, and thus to safely explore the implications of immorality. For instance, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866) acts as a study of the psychological consequences of murder; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) describes the dangers of scientific endeavors and emotionless upbringing; and Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1857) shows how romanticism inevitably leads to dissatisfaction. These phantasmal scenarios grant us a deeper understanding of psychology and society, acting as both scientific and cautionary tales.
We should not be afraid of sensitive or triggering topics, as the most efficient way to overcome a trigger is open, honest, and non-judgmental discourse. Artists of the French realist movement have been notably criticized for representing the ugly, but the question remains: Why should we ban unglamorous and morally questionable subjects from art? What is so immoral about Gustave Courbet’s representation of female genitalia in his painting The Origin of The World (1866), or about Maupassant’s depiction of a corrupt and opportunistic journalist in his novel Bel-Ami (1885)? Do those things not exist? Should art be blind to the unpleasant, and solely concern itself with what is beautiful and praiseworthy? Wouldn’t we be lying to ourselves and to each other? Truly, what would be the purpose of art?
Art has much more to offer than entertainment, and we would overpass many qualitative works if we were to condone the censorship of certain subjects. Censorship can never be efficient, and every idea deserves to be expressed, no matter how abject or morally inappropriate it seems. To silence an artist for their ideas is cowardice, as it refuses to open the debate and to refute them through argumentation. We should not be afraid of words and ideas, because we have more control over them than they do over us.