Art and the Artist- Kayla Beebout

“In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.” –Raymond Chandler

              Art, ultimately, is a human expression.  As such, it carries all of the burdens and memories that we do.  The fact that out of our pain and the ugliness in our lives we can create something beautiful and awe-inspiring is redemptive.  In that moment when someone is appreciating a work of art, they are not thinking about everything bad the artist did; and if they are thinking about any obstacles the artist faced or pain they experienced, it is only so that they can appreciate the artwork in an even deeper way.  What would art be without that quality of redemption?  It gives us hope that beauty can be found even in the darkest of places.

               The poem “Singapore” by Mary Oliver shows exactly that.  The speaker of the poem saw a woman working in a Singapore airport and found it disgusting and “dull enough” (l. 18), but at the same time she finds beauty in this woman.  She says “I don’t doubt for a moment that she loves her life” (l. 22), a statement which shows us the other side of this woman.  Normally, if we saw a woman doing that work in an airport, we would not assume that she loves her life, but rather that it is dreary, dull, and difficult.  However, Oliver chooses to highlight the beauty in this woman’s life and demeanor, and goes on to say that “If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it? /Of course, it isn’t” (ll. 26-27).  Thus, she points out the redeeming qualities of life.  The mere fact that we want it and try to keep it, she says, is proof that it can’t be all bad. 

The story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin shows this redemption in an even clearer way.  Sonny, a recovering heroin addict, has only ever found release in his music.  It was a way to keep him away from drugs, and when that didn’t work, it was a way for him to recover and learn how to deal with life.  Baldwin’s speaker says, “Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did” (¶ 236).  This brings the redemption not just to Sonny, but to everyone else in the room.  He is trying to free everyone from the pain in their lives, trying to save them from what he went through.  If he succeeds, then he will be free, as well.  If he doesn’t, he won’t.  However, the effort in and of itself is redemptive, because it is an effort to save someone other than himself.  And since this effort is made through music, the message Baldwin is trying to get across is the redemptive power of art. 

In the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, this power is taken to a more spiritual level.  The narrator is originally very prejudiced against Robert, a blind man, and treats him with little to no respect.  However, he is able to connect to Robert through a cathedral, a place to worship God.  When asked about religion, he said, “I guess I don’t believe in it.  In anything.  Sometimes it’s hard” (¶ 103).  When he starts to draw the cathedral, though, he begins to understand Robert’s perception of the world, and is redeemed from his previous ignorance by understanding.

Writing can certainly be called art, and its words, images, and themes are filled with the qualities of redemption.