Artists as Political Leaders

A painting by Winston Churchill. Not a painter: a writer.

The great Glenn Reynolds, of Instapundit, has recently suggested it may be a bad idea to put artists into positions of political power. He notes that Hitler (painting, architecture), Mao (poetry),

Saddam Hussein (novels) and Stalin (poetry) were all failed artists. He might have added Mussolini, who used to write short stories. Or Henry VIII, who reputedly dabbled in musical composition.

That may be so. But on the other hand, one can think of artists who have done rather well in the same position: Churchill (Nobel Prize for Literature), Disraeli (popular novelist), Vaclav Havel (playwright), Ronald Reagan (actor), Paderewski (pianist), Vajpayee (poet) and perhaps Frederick the Great of Prussia (besides wanting to be a musician when young, wrote the popular tract “Anti-Machiavel”). These, by contrast, surely did significantly well at statecraft.

Can we make a distinction between the first group and the second, as artists? I think we can. The first is a group of failed artists. The second is a group of artists with genuine accomplishments.

A painting by Adolph Hitler. Not a painter: a politician.

Bad guys, narcissists, egotists, are commonly going to want to be recognized as artists. Because, after all, they want to be the centre of attention in everything. They are generally not going to be able to pull it off. Indeed, I suspect that the gifts of the spirit needed to be a good artist are incompatible with true egotism. They may use their political power to try to change the perception of their art.

But in the latter group, we generally find people who made a name for themselves as artists before they came to power. More generally, I believe I have found, in my years of hobnobbing around the periphery of the art world, that there are two very distinct and different populations found there: the poseurs, and the real artists. These two are opposite types.

Others have noted the same.