Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Arts and Humanities, cilt.3, sa.1, ss.143-149, 2014 (Hakemli Dergi)
In art, the realistic phase of the handled event, in other words weather the story is experienced or not, is not
questioned. This way it is thought: “This is a work of art, that’s why it may be real as well as fictitious”. The
artist may have produced it in his world of imagination and universe of dreams by adding his experiences,
feelings, fears and expectations and shaped it. The artist does not have any obligation of to cling or to start
from reality. However, we cannot claim the same thing for the people who study on historical or social
events. For instance, a historian studies on an event that includes a value of reality in every sense and has
“been completed long time ago”. He will try to enlighten and reconstruct the event with words by
addressing information, document and statements he could find. In doing so, he is aware of the fact that the
document he works on is a real. He knows that he is not supposed to interfere and he should not distort it
with his own feelings and dreams. The method of a historian is different from the one used by an artist. In
this respect an artist includes his views, subjectivity and feelings to his work but a historian does his best to
exclude himself and avoid his feelings, ideas and expectations to interfere the event.
On the other hand, there is a person who is both artist and a historian: This is the biography writer. While
collecting his sources, documents and witnesses, he questions them just like a historian who sets off from
the value of reality and being experienced. Besides, he studies on “person” and takes a personal life as
subject, just like a novelist. In order to paint the portrait of his hero, he depends on his imagination like an
artist. From time to time, by adding his feelings inside the event, he arrives at emotional decisions about the
person. But as a matter of fact, he produces a work that contains historical knowledge value as well as
artistic quality pertaining an existence and experience. In this article, quality of this work will be dealt and
the problems that can arise in this respect will be focused on.