The value of art - a Nobel Prize lecture

Introduction. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was the most famous Russian dissident of the 20th century. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. In his acceptance lecture, he talk about how humans misuse art, the true purpose of artists, and much more👇

Solzhenitsyn writes that artists can "sense more keenly than others the harmony of the world, the beauty and ugliness of man’s role in it." Instead of forcing himself to create something out of nothing, an artist should "vividly communicate" his observations.

How we misuse art. Besides selling art for money, we "use it to please the powerful, divert it for amusement or else adapt it toward transient political needs." Instead of adapting art to our existing goals, we should investigate whether art can give us higher goals.

Solzhenitsyn has an enigmatic idea: "A true work of art carries its verification within itself." A genuine work of art doesn't need proof the way a scientific theorem or a philosophical axiom does. One can feel its validity in the bones "even centuries later."

Can beauty save the world? Relativism makes it hard to know what's true or what's good. The truth has split into competing perspectives. Out of the "old trinity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty," beauty alone retains some objectivity, & hence is the key to reawakening the trinity.

Art as a warning. Cultures "continually repeat each other’s mistakes with a time lag." An idea that is tried & rejected in one place emerges in another as the "latest word." Here, art can tide over "differences in language, custom, and social structures" and provide a warning.

Art as memory. Literature can also transmute experiences and lessons from one generation to the next. In this form, literature and art act as a nation's memory.

Link between lies and violence. Solzhenitsyn argued that violence can only be defended by lies, and lies can only hold their own with the threat of violence. By giving a voice to suppressed truths, art can break this vicious link.

If artists won’t describe and shape reality, shallower figures will be more than happy to step in and fill the void. By forsaking their responsibility, artists surrender the world to "profit-seekers, non-entities and even madmen."

Solzhenitsyn says art is a "strange object cast up by the sea," and humans are savages picking it up "in bewilderment." We use art for our "suitable lowly application, while not guessing its higher function." In the lecture, Solzhenitsyn hints at what this higher function may be.