Quotery

"A guilty conscience needs to confess. 

A work of art is a confession."

-Albert Camus 

We're currently reading one of Camus's works in a French class, "L'hôte" or "The Guest." French classes seem to like Camus a lot, because we read "L'Étranger" in another class at BU last year. This is probably because he's well-known, and writes in French about his native Algeria. 

This quote appealed to me because it relates to a discussion in a poli sci class about the difference between one's "visible" words and actions, those done and said publicly, and one's  personal and private thoughts and motivations and whether the personal issues really had any place in political life. If a politician says he is going to increase the education budget (what a dream!) and he does it, who cares what his true personal motivations for doing so are? 

But this relates the visible with the invisible, the work of art with the soul of the person making it. One could not classify a painting as art if it had no measure of personal truth, personal confession in it. Without truth, there would be no art.

Sent from my iPhone