The Artist and the Abyss

Nietzsche said if you stare into the abyss too long, the abyss stares back into you. That statement is especially true for artists, and I believe that all great artists – painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, photographers and so forth - often stare into the abyss. The abyss is the human condition, the human soul, the human experience. Artists look into the deepest, darkest part of the human soul or human nature, and they reflect back what they see through their art. The best art works like a mirror, showing us what we truly are as human beings. When a work of art touches upon truth, it’s because the artist successfully stared into the abyss and captured a moment that is universal to humanity. Those seeing this artwork see something internal, as if the artwork is a mirror to the person’s mind and soul. The artwork gets inside that person, showing her or him a truth that perhaps wasn’t understood until she or he saw that work of art.

I am not talking about the flawed concept that humanity has something common, a shared “human nature,” because I think that idea has been thoroughly debunked. To me, the concept of  “human nature” is, at its root, the thing that makes us all animals. That is, I think the only thing that is universally true for all humans is the thing that makes us animals. We all need food, water and shelter to survive, but that’s something that can be said for every species on the planet, whether animal or plant. Each being needs certain conditions to be met in order to survive, so “human nature” doesn’t raise us above the other animals. Instead, it marks us as another living being, but not one that is special or superior to the others.

No, what marks human beings as unique among the natural world is our craving for truth and our attempts to demonstrate “truth” through art. The catch here is that “truth” is a fraught concept, one that is constructed culturally and may change over time. I don’t believe in universal truths, which is the idea that something is always true regardless of location or cultural mores. Instead, I believe that truth is a cultural concept, an idea that only exists within its cultural moment. Truth, to me, is as flexible and variable as “right” and “wrong.” All three concepts are cultural constructs. That is, someone in Omaha may think that it’s wrong to steal food from a grocery store. In another time and place, that act of theft would be condoned (or perhaps celebrated) if the culture surrounding the act had different social values. The idea that “human nature” means that certain things are always right and other things are always wrong is at the heart of every war over religion or politics. The mistaken belief that “we’re right and they’re wrong, so we must conquer and free them from their wrong ways of thinking” has brought more horror and tragedy to the world than we can possibly understand.

To me, an artistic truth is the closest we get to a shared “human nature” or “common human condition.” That is, artistic truths frighten us because great art can transcend its cultural moment and touch us across time. That’s because the artist has to grapple with the abyss. By staring into the abyss, she or he has faced down the deepest, darkest parts of the human psyche, and she or he has also stared in the bright, full sunlight of humankind’s most beautiful aspirations. These events occur every time the artist created new piece of art. If the artist is successful at staring into the abyss, she or he will create a great work that touches many people, a work that withstands the cultural shifts and reaches across the things that divide us from one another. But each attempt to look into the abyss risks the artist's soul, her or his creativity and perhaps even the artist’s very life. For if the artist grapples with the abyss and loses that battle, no art is created. In this instance, the artist may well go mad like Ernest Hemingway did.

Each time the artist approaches the abyss, she or he sends up a silent, secret prayer - “Please let me create something truly worthy this time. Let this experience bring forth a work of art that can withstand the tests of time and transcend my cultural moment. And, if I don't survive this interaction with the abyss, then please grant me enough time and sanity to finish this work of art. If the abyss should win, let this final work of art stand as a witness to my struggle with the abyss, a monument to the creative endeavor.”

American society often cuts its funding for artistic endeavors when economic times are tough, and our current moment in history is no exception. However, we fail to recognize the importance of artistic endeavor, particularly at moments of great social change. American society is facing economic and social pressures that will reshape our nation, changes that will shape and change what America stands for, for all time. Funding artistic endeavors is crucial to understanding exactly what we face and how it may shape us. Without artists gazing into the abyss for us, without their efforts to envision the best and worst possible outcomes of our present challenges, we won’t know which path to choose. Art shows us what we are and what we can be, both the good and the bad. Without artists gazing into what could be possible, we are walking along a dark path unguided.