Letter: Beastly artists do not need improving lessons from philistine critics

Sir: I am disappointed in you. You trot out ('A different picture when artists behave badly', 20 August) the tiresome and tired old myth that Wagner was preoccupied with Teutonic subjects: Rienzi is set in 14th-century Rome, The Flying Dutchman and the Ring cycle are drawn from Nordic legends, Tristan is a Celtic figure and Parsifal uses the Grail quest. The master's inspiration was broadly based. Hitler's love of his music does not make Wagner a proto-Nazi.

On the wider and more serious issue of the relationship between an artist's life and his work, I cannot accept that it is 'glib' to dismiss wicked or offensive conduct in considering the work, if that conduct does not inform the work.

Caravaggio's paintings do not glorify violence or incite to murder, and there is not the least breath of anti-Semitism (or any other of Wagner's numerous appalling characteristics) in his whole oeuvre. The man and his music can be and should be considered quite separately.

To judge a work by the character or conduct of its creator is a gross betrayal of the artist and of the discipline of criticism. Such 'politically correct' judgements are the last resort of the feeble-minded and risk becoming a form of censorship worthy only of philistines.

Yours faithfully,

SIMON WILLIAMS

Twickenham,

London

20 August

(Photograph omitted)