The Empathy Machine – Revs Revels

“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Wilde, in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey, establishes his style and ideals instantly with aphorisms meant to be singular and witty in their wisdom. Like Lord Henry, whether he believes them himself or not is of no consequence, that is up to the reader and their own preference. This quote in itself represents that idea, as does the reference to film critic Roger Ebert’s own thoughts on art used in the title of this post. “Art is an empathy machine,” or Ebert’s thesis of film, and art in general, being used to take on someone else’s experience and emotions, allowing one to become more empathetic outside of the viewing. As soon as any form of art is released to an audience, it is immediately out of the hands and perspective of the artist. The artist relinquishes all control over how it is viewed, as art is such a personal experience for the individual. Art mirrors the spectator, not the times in which it is viewed, or what the artist had intended. Art is an empathy machine– even in experiencing another’s emotions through art, that sensation remains a self-portrait to an extent.

In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1987 novel Bluebeard, the mystery of ‘what lies in the protagonist’s (an artist) potato barn’ is one surrounded by so much tension that the reveal had to be somewhat dramatic– a painting spanning the length of the barn. Vonnegut’s experience as a soldier influenced much of his writing, thus his representation of war and all its subsequent horrors reflected on canvas allows any audience to see their own fears in it. It is the allowance of interpretation, but the inescapable intent of feeling something outside one’s own lived experience that makes art so universal. Without knowledge of an artist’s intent and why a piece was created, there is left only one’s own experience and the feeling created by the work. Thus, without the knowledge of Vonnegut’s experience in the war or the war being referenced, it is the deep-seated fears of conflict and devastation that truly matter for emotional impact. I would even argue that by seeing this piece through the narrator’s eyes creates another level of connection. One’s own fears and the fears adopted through the empathy of this character allow for an even greater, even if unknowingly, connection. Thus, although life has no impact on the mirroring of art, empathy and individuality do.

Although Wilde goes on to criticize art as “quite useless,” it seems clear that the idea is not entirely serious to him, but rather more a reflection on the ever-changing standards of the times and societies in which art is manufactured. He criticizes in the book that this quote prefaces the society that persecuted him and seemingly obsessed over morality rather than art which, in Wilde’s eyes, has no place in moral judgment. In that sense, art can never be useless to a life that it has no reflection on, but rather an unchanging understanding of individual human conditions.