Artistic Truth

I PLAN TO SIGNIFICANTLY UPDATE THIS POST IN THE NEAREST FUTURE . Aug 2022

Last Thursday I upset a visiting American professor (Mrs.(Prof) F.., Russian literature and honorable something somewhere important ). She was giving a lecture at ANU entitled “Lies and Truth in Soviet Literature during Khrushev and Brezhnev periods”. Since it was after 5 pm I went there – I like foreigners who know about Russians and Soviets more than they know/knew about themselves….

Of course, she was talking about “Gulag” literature mostly and about the extend such publications were permitted/forbidden at different times.The professor actually surprised me with her quite good knowledge and mostly correct & carefully balanced interpretations – I expected much worse . So during the question/discussion time I decided to encourage her good presentation by contributing to the topic and her lecture. I told her that her lecture could benefit from a definition of “lie” and “truth” in the context. For example, “lie” in the literature or any publication can be defined as something contrary to the real events.The Soviet officials actually not frequently lied directly – mostly by omission. But the “truth” in the same (literary or almost any other social) context is actually a balance between publicized shortcomings of the society and its “positive” atonements“. In this sense to say that there was more or less truth in the literature simply means that comparatively more or less negative information was or was not published. Just this – more or less “bad” things (compare to “good”) and no more than that. Nothing to do with the “truth” in the usual meaning; such “truth” can be numerically defined as a ratio of (critical content) to (total). Because during her lecture the professor used the word “truth” without definition – and we all know that “truth” is “good” – implicitly (and she actually said that) the more truth is better. Now, what would we call a nation which can read and write *only* negative things about itself? The answer :” suicidal”. That’s why no “western” nation ever wrote mostly (or almost any) bad things about themselves….. And, by the way, how can we describe the motives of a nation which puts enormous money and effort to encourage some other nation to commit the suicide? (* that last bit I did not actually say – the professor was visibly upset before that – them, Anglo-Saxon professors, don’t like us, Russians (by accent at least) to be too clever – not on public, that is *) and I thought that I’d rather cut it short – I was going to encourage her further forays into Russian literature after all.. *)

I remembered about this insignificant episode when I was thinking why it is so difficult (for me) to make a good portrait photos. The answer is simple – photography is an art, just as (Russian/Soviet) literature is (no comments about Socialistic realism!). Because of this, there cannot be “absolute” or even “objective” truth on the photo – it is always a balance between ugly or unpleasant and beautiful. Any real person’s face has both. Where the balance point will be depends on photographer’s intentions, some subjective feelings of what is “right” and of course, on the skills – which are further defined as an ability to use camera, light and model to put the balance the way he wants it. For an illustration just look at any paparazzi photos of celebrities in woman’s magazines…(or at some of mine:)). As a physicist and more or less experimentalist, I “run” the equipment (camera) and expect it to produce correct results. “Truth” in other words. I am making the same mistake as that American professor…