Question

"Where there is no human connection, there is no compassion. Without compassion, then community, commitment, loving-kindness, human understanding, and peace all shrivel. Individuals become isolated, the isolated turn cruel, and the tragic hovers in the forms of domestic and civil violence. Art and literature are antidotes to that." ~ Susan Vreeland

What is your interpretation of the quote above? Do you agree or disagree with Vreeland? Explain Why? or Why not? Do you believe that art and literature are antidotes to the cruelty of life and the human condition? How?

Answer 1

According to author Susan Vreeland, art and literature represent a creative expression of the development of a higher moral conscience in the human race. Her quote pertains to a view of art and literature as not merely representational but also constitutive ellemst of humanity which render creation and continuity to conditions of love, compassion, justice and progress of society.

Without poets, without artists, The sublime idea men and women have of the universe would collapse. This is because art accentuates The order which we find in nature. And in the absence of poetic and artistic expressions, Everything else would break up in chaos and violence. Art and literature give a historical context to a social way of life and therefore in the absence of these systems of representation, individuals would lose a collective expression which gives them a sense of belonging. Hence Vreeland wrote that there would be no civilization, thought, nor humanity left in the lives of human beings.

There is much truth in Vreeland’s understanding of art and literature and I agree that the work of art also represents a state of final equilibrium and order the work of art an literature is geared towards building a comprehensive view of the human condition whether wrought with a silenced, unjust social malaise, unprecedented acts of violence or the pursuit of a transcendental perfect And just world, and it thus addresses both sides within the narrow and confined space and duration of an artistic medium or language, is as to dileneate the steps of progress.