Censorship choking artistic expression

The leader of April 8 no doubt “provokes thought and stimulates discussion” although I am less certain that art is intended to do likewise. The controversy over the censorship laws compels us to think on the nature of art in its various forms and its relevance to state censorship.

In countries like the UK, where the matter of state censorship vs literature and freedom of expression has come for judgment before the highest tribunal of the land, it was decreed that what was not acceptable in law was publication of material “that tended to deprave and corrupt”. And that art in literature should be given the widest freedom of expression.

Art in literature has no obvious intention. It is not in its role to teach us or to lay down moral models of human behaviour. It only holds a mirror up to nature and moulds its matter into forms that are immediately enjoyable and capable of sublimation.

Madame Bovary was an adulteress but her story as told by Gustave Flaubert is an entertaining artistic experience.

So is it in painting. Lucien Freud’s portraits of nude, obese, mature women are striking and of high artistic value.

They could be considered obscene but in truth they are honest representations of what is real, transfigured by the skill of the artist into a view of the pathos of life.

The kind of censorship that is being promoted by our state legal luminaries is one that chokes artistic expression and tends to deprive us of the opportunities for our continuing intellectual growth and appreciation of art.