Everyone balks. Let's put that first. And a lot of people are badly affected. Hospitality, retail, schoolchildren and especially students: everything that is not necessary for survival balks. So does the arts. Not all art, of course, especially larger institutions are coming through the corona crisis reasonably well so far. Quiet and closed, but not bankrupt. We can't say the same of all those restaurants that can no longer open when they are allowed to.
Of course, once everyone is vaccinated and the anti-vax conspiracy thinkers are accommodated in a safe country of their own, things will rebound magnificently. On the ruins of what did not survive the lockdowns, a new economy will feast and drink and make love to itself, if only for a few weeks, lavishly until a new baby boom and other states come along, which we don't want to look forward to too much at the moment.
Whether there will still be some level of dancing, and whether the music will sound a bit, and whether the jokes will still be a bit sharp, is the question. Because with a year of stagnation - and now I am not exaggerating - a whole generation of artists is lost. They have gone to work elsewhere, quit, or worse, and they all have in common that they have lost their routine and suppleness.
This is worse than it seems. A practitioner of art who is not busy with it 24/7, be it dancing, or writing, or acting, is not an artist. Sure, there are jobs, a few days a week, jobs that take a few months, but making art is a way of life that you can only do with full dedication. Otherwise, you lose quality and your audience walks away. And that audience, whether they are Henk and Ingrid or members of subsidy committees, is what you need.
That is why it is bad that it is not about art at the prime minister's press conferences. The people who will soon have to help us get back on top as expertly as possible are on the ropes and no one makes them feel seen. That is bad, because not being seen is death in the pot for someone who has to live on being seen.
Whining toddlers
It may seem that the arts sector consists of an army of whining toddlers, as some in political The Hague and the press think, but that attention they are screaming for is exactly the attention we ordinary citizens are so keen to give them because they do things we cannot, dare or find dirty, like writing The Evenings.
So is the artists' disappointment at not being mentioned at the coronapers' conferences justified? Of course it is. Art is about the only way of life where silence and inaction are deadly. A bartender can tap another beer in no time, but a tap dancer loses his skill and his zest. Every month it lasts longer he gets older, more rigid, more disillusioned.
Let us cherish our artists, and above all treat them with the respect we all give them, when we are at home that record set up to comfort us, when we look at those lovely boarding pictures, when we are binging an old TV series. Because those people are so incredibly more important to our mental and physical recovery, and to our resilience, than all those strolls in the park put together.
Dear Mark Rutte: mention the arts in your next press conference. Just mention them. No more for now. You will be amply rewarded for it.
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