While what follows may not address directly the questions posed here, at least it may provide a bit of nourishing novelty. Oscar Wilde was a very clever writer of novels, poetry, plays, essays, letters, etc. He was not, in my opinion, a very clever painter. One of his more popular works was a picture of Dorian Gray which I believe turned out rather worse than originally conceived. But, nonetheless, that work did include a preface which is worth perusing. It goes like this...
"The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless."
So much for a look on the Wilde side, here's something else to consider:
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."
.... Samuel Johnson
Joanne, we human beings all seem to have the need to reduce everything to some single principle or law. Hence, such questions as do (all) artists do this that or something else.
My rule, whenever I am tempted to answer a question like this is to remember that each person is different. So some writers write only for money. Some write to persuade (They usually fail). Some have a desire to describe what they think things are like. Sometimes a personal philosophy is evident in the writing, sometimes it is very subtle. Some writers crave wide recognition while others are satisfied with a very small audience. The whole spectrum is so varied as to defy categorization.
Good question and a lot of interesting answers.
I think the question of whether writers are artists comes down to a question about their intentions. Most writers are writing to make money, to tell a story, to express themselves, to satisfy their egos. Relatively few have an artistic conscience and try to operate on the highest level of writing, that is, the artistic level. If you look at the bestseller list you will see what I mean. In any given week there might be ONE novel written with artistic goals in mind on the list--if you are lucky. Most often there are zero. But if a writer has artistic intentions, even if his/her work fails to be great art, I think we have to call him/her an artist. Such people are rare in this commercial society, but they do exist. I am one. I write novels and plays not to make money, but to make art.
If writers aren't artists, pray tell, what are they?
