BBC predicts explosion of creativity and art

All over the world, city centres are deserted. In countless museums, paintings and sculptures stare out at empty galleries. In theatres, silent stages face rows of vacant seats.

No aspect of life has been untouched by the coronavirus – but for culture and the arts the impact has been total.

Audiences and visitors have disappeared, told to stay at home to prevent the disease’s spread.

What is Artemesia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes without someone to look at it? What is Kendrick Lamar’s live show without someone to watch it?

In response to this crisis for culture, the BBC has announced that it is launching a virtual festival – Culture in Quarantine – to connect art with “an audience that can’t be there in person”.

To many, this is welcome news. They hope it will support artists to make work – and enable audiences to enjoy it – during the tough times ahead.

There is cause for optimism: if history tells us anything, it’s that self-isolation can be a powerful driver of creativity.

In the 1340s, the Black Death was wreaking havoc across Europe. In Italy, a writer called Giovanni Boccaccio imagined a group of men and women self-isolating and telling stories to pass the time.

These stories, ranging from the heart-breaking to the extremely rude, form Boccaccio’s masterpiece, The Decameron, a book which changed the course of European literature.

The creative power of self-isolation hasn’t always been connected to epidemics either. Later in the 1300s, a woman called Julian became an anchorite in Norwich, England.

Living in complete isolation from other people, she had a series of spiritual visions, recording them in her astonishing, poetic Revelations of Divine Love – the earliest surviving book in English written by a woman.

And in the 1920s, the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was left bed-bound after an accident. Her mother made her a special easel which allowed her to pioneer her legendary style whilst recovering lying down.

So, could self-isolation in response to COVID-19 spark a huge burst of creativity?

Time to think

It seems likely. Humans have always responded to adversity by making things. As the critic Jonathan Jones points out, “much of Europe’s greatest art” comes from a time – between 1300 and 1700 – when plague and quarantine were a normal part of reality. Self-isolation will give people time to create new work; initiatives such as the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine will allow it to be shared.

On the other hand, now isn’t the time to talk about an artistic renaissance. Many people – including artists and performers – are freelance. The current lockdown has destroyed their livelihoods. They are worrying about how to buy food and pay rent – not about making their magnum opus. Our focus needs to be on supporting those worst hit by this crisis, and ensuring the government does so too.