Invisible Creature

The Arts Are in Crisis. Here’s How Biden Can Help.

The pandemic has decimated the livelihoods of those who work in the arts. How can the new administration intervene and make sure it doesn’t happen again? A critic offers an ambitious plan.


Jason Farago

Published Jan. 13, 2021
Updated Jan. 15, 2021

What is art’s function? What does art do for a person, a country?

Scholars, economists, revolutionaries keep debating, but one very good answer has held now for 2,500 years. The function of art, Aristotle told us, is catharsis. You go to the theater, you listen to a symphony, you look at a painting, you watch a ballet. You laugh, you cry. You feel pity, fear. You see in others’ lives a reflection of your own. And the catharsis comes: a cleansing, a clarity, a feeling of relief and understanding that you carry with you out of the theater or the concert hall. Art, music, drama — here is a point worth recalling in a pandemic — are instruments of psychic and social health.