Strickland s great art has justified his destructive and despicable life Nowadays we cannot expect everyone to be nice to others to consider him a worthy human being. Everyone has his own way of serving humanity. The way Strickland did this was through his art. Unfortunately his great art was not utterly recognised until after his death and therefore his life was sometimes considered inhuman and destructive. By leaving mankind with pieces of art that they can take delight in and cherish for hundreds of years, instead of satisfying one family of three for 50-60 years Strickland s life was most certainly justified. Leaving his wife and children for his wish to create art was regarded to be very mean and egoistic.
People were talking of how the children would suffer, and Mrs Strickland was also suffering (though mostly because she was afraid of what people would think of the whole incident). But looking at the incident from another aspect, Strickland was simply not capable of painting while living in a family. He wished to be on his own, and didn t want anyone to care about what he was doing. He needed to be alone, separated from material riches and the people around him.
He couldn t live with responsibilities. It wasn t only after Strickland s death, that his art was recognised, but there were few who noticed it during his life, and who found delight in his work. They tried to support him, even though it was hard, due to Strickland s indifference and the way he rejected people. He didn t only leave his own family, but also ruined another.
The Strove family was constantly supporting him, and while they were nursing him back to life, he stole Blanche from Dirk, and totally corrupted her. It was not because he loved her, but because he needed a woman to satisfy some of his needs. It is clear that it is very useful for humanity to have such great artists as Strickland, but if everyone wer to act like him, there wouldn t be a humanity, who could enjoy their genius. But the author of the novel states that one can t generalise on the situation of Strickland, which is unquestionably true. Such a life cannot always be justified, but in Strickland s case it definitely was, thanks to the great art he produced.