The Artist as Outlaw Day
The challenge to establishment values, manners, economic structures, religious beliefs, social hierarchies and judicial power has been the province of artists since civilization began.
Painters, poets, writers, musicians, and playwrights have all taken it upon themselves to tell inconvenient truths to their audiences and students, even sometimes their own patrons. Some have paid for their truth-telling, and some have profited from it.
Some, like the Renaissance painter Caravaggio pictured above, have simply used their status as artists, protected by powerful patrons, to unleash their unruly tempers on other people. Caravaggio famously killed a man, fled Rome when his patrons could not cover it up, and took up residence in Napoli among other places. Two of his most famous paintings, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome he painted in Malta while trying to enlist the aid of powerful friends to shield him from the charge of murder. Those paintings can still be found in the Co-Cathedral of St. John in the city of Valetta, the capital of Malta.
The list of outlaw artists is probably endless. From Charles Dickens who challenged 19th century British cruelty and unfairness to the poor, to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who challenged the institution of slavery in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, prompting Lincoln to say when he met her, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!” From the blacklisted Hollywood Writers of the 1950s to Lenny Bruce, in our own times, to the mysterious Banksy, we have much to thank these artists for. Heck there’s even a whole subgenre of country music called Outlaw Country, created by musicians such as Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson who added a harder edge and some rock elements to the more traditional sounds from Nashville.
Sometimes these artists are hailed as popular heroes despite their various breeches of law and/or customs. And sometimes they are reviled by the majority while being lauded by fellow artists and others who challenge society’s rules.
Often they are called traitors. Harriet Beecher Stowe was certainly attacked by many, as were those accused of Communist sympathies by the House Un-American Activities Committee headed by Senator McCarthy.