The prescribed topic invoked the following question. Is the truth of human experience better captured by art’s emotion or history’s evidence? Artists work on these by means of expressive representation; historians work on these by means of evidence and interpretation. In this case, when you feel another person's suffering, it is a different achievement from explaining why this suffering happened. The feeling or the explanation, when discussed in isolation, does not provide a full understanding of an individual’s life. However, when combined, there is a holistic picture that offers a better appreciation of the individual’s situation. In this context, appreciation is defined as an understanding of the significance of people's lives that is supported by reasoned thought, and the human experience is defined as feelings, relationships, choices, and the circumstances that influence them. This essay will show how the arts’ attention to emotion, perception, and imagination provides valid but limited grounds for understanding people’s lives, and how historians’ reliance on surviving sources or evidence restricts whose experiences become known. Thus, this essay argues that both of these areas are valuable resources, but inherent limitations of artistic subjectivity and historical evidentiary gaps necessitate a multidisciplinary approach to achieve a holistic understanding of the human experience.
In the arts, we do not always learn more about the human experience from the artist, for a strong emotional reaction can make us feel confident in our lack of understanding. Also, the artist chooses whose experience or perspective to portray, and how to portray it, and the audience interprets that selection based on their imagination. Holocaust education demonstrates this phenomenon. In a study of six classes in four English schools, students frequently began with embryonic thoughts, influenced by their prior knowledge and awareness of stories such as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Kirland, 2023). They tended to focus on Hitler and the concentration camps, shying away from wider engagement and other sites of persecution. The study does not suggest that these gaps were caused by fiction only. However, it questions the notion that seeing a moving story is sufficient to value the experiences behind it. The viewer can be very sympathetic to a specific character and know little about what is happening to other people outside the story (Kirland, 2023). The central knowledge issue is feeling that we know or understand someone without having any evidence that our understanding is good enough. In addition, people can feel various emotions in connection with the same piece of artwork and emotional response is not a robust indicator of appreciation (Burnett, 2024). Additionally, when knowers look at artistic knowledge, including the Holocaust theme or the concept, imagination also arises, creating different interpretations. The historian’s investigation can be used to provide a baseline of historical evidence about significant causes, actors or experiences in this gap (Burnett, 2024). In this case, the evidence, when combined with subjective viewpoints, creates a more holistic understanding of complex human experiences such as the Holocaust. Thus, we do not get a better appreciation of the human experience of the artist in isolation, but from a combination with history to create consistent knowledge claims that do not undermine the complexity of human experiences.
However, we may gain a better appreciation of the human experience from the artist, especially because they are not restricted by the limits of logic. The artist is able to go deep into a particular subject and allow the audience to interact with it from different perspectives. Art such as literature, has been used as a database for human experiences such as war and civilizations for thousands of years. Primarily, artists use elements such as emotion, perception, language and imagination to create a personal significance of events that are in some context difficult to understand. For example, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night uses swirling brushstrokes and intense color to externalize inner turmoil, conveying the visceral weight of mental anguish in a way that clinical historical records of 19th-century asylums cannot capture (Pawar, 2024). While historical records might document the diagnosis and confinement of patients, Van Gogh’s expressive distortion allows the viewer to viscerally inhabit the subjective reality of psychological distress, transforming abstract clinical facts into an immediate, empathetic understanding of human suffering (Pawar, 2024). For instance, the sky in Van Gogh’s paintings is a metaphor for his mental illness, and his pain can be felt in a way that clinical records of the 19th century cannot describe (Pawar, 2024). Artists transform these abstract emotional states into palpable sensory experiences, and therefore we learn to appreciate them better. History tends to reduce such deep personal suffering to mere statistical data or institutional facts. However, the subjective nature of art can also support prejudice through coded symbolism, and a multi-disciplinary approach is needed that combines artistic understanding with evidence-based responsibility. Therefore, the best option for understanding human experiences is combining both artistic and historical knowledge.
In history, the historian does not necessarily lead us to a better understanding of human experiences, as surviving sources narrow whose lives can be understood and on which terms. As a historian, one cannot go back in time and witness what actually happened or question each participant about what an experience meant to them. They must read traces made and kept for particular purposes. This is exemplified by McMahon (2023) in the colonial record of the Aba Women’s War of 1929. The investigation that she spoke about in her article took away the political demands of the women and justified the atrocities of the soldiers. An account constructed uncritically from that record might then account for the event from colonial authorities' point of view, and misrepresent women who opposed them. The issue is not only the evidence but also the perspective. In this case, a source might be authentic but not provide a fair account of it. Documentation does not make all experiences equally knowable if the powerful decide what gets recorded. Historical interpretation can then compensate for an imbalance by giving the most accessible account the status of most important account. McMahon (2023) also considers how Onyeka Igwe’s films look back at this history, foregrounding experiences not captured in the official language through archival images and bodily languages. Artistic interpretation cannot fill in all the missing facts, but it can help to test the premises to ensure the surviving records are complete and represent all points of view. That is why the recognition of uncertainty is a component of valuing people and not a weakness to hide. We therefore do not learn more about the human experience from the historian alone because they depend on interpretation and limited evidence that may not account for all perspectives. Thus, the best option is when the historian and the artist work to view human experience from different angles.
On the other hand, historians offer a better appreciation of the human experience by explaining actions objectively. We have to understand the complexity of human experiences such as wars, because historians consistently find evidence to give us correct accounts. As a result, we are able to go back in time and experience historical events from the participants’ points of view. For example, as a result of historical research, including carbon dating, we are able to understand how empires such as the Roman Empire were built (Tuck, 2024) Using the evidence, historians have been able to recreate the socio-economic and political lives of individuals who lived during these civilizations (Tuck, 2024). For example, the excavation of Pompeii lets scholars study the graffiti found on the walls, the household inventories, and the skeletons to learn not just about the political story of Vesuvius' eruption, but the exact lives of the ordinary people of the city (Tuck, 2024). This evidentiary rigor helps to appreciate the human experience because it is based on what's real, not romanticized notions about how people lived, worked, and died. This historical basis, however, is devoid of emotional immediacy, and it is this type of immediacy that is more effectively achieved through a hybrid of historical consultation and artistic storytelling, as is the case with artists like filmmakers who offer both the historical context and the emotional stakes of the situation. History is an important resource, but it is also important when used in conjunction with artistic knowledge, because they make a mirror that reflects human experiences accurately.
In conclusion, by merging the artist and the historian, understanding circumstances and understanding what they mean to people, we deepen our comprehension of human experience. The arts can make emotion and moral conflict meaningful, but there may be a lack of complete representation in the minds of the audience. Historical choices can be explained with evidence and context, but it may be that the sources of history may also contain the perspectives of dominant groups that may not be obvious. The two limitations do not make the respective knowledge area untrustworthy in all instances. Rather, each sets out a rationale for trying one means by the inquiry of the other. Combined, they are useful if they result in critical discussion, not just an illustration of a historical story. The implication of this is that when we decide to choose to understand human experience from either the artist or a historian, we are likely to subscribe to only one perspective that might limit our understanding. Therefore, considering the complexity of human experience, knowledge production is best done in a framework where different areas of knowledge contribute in developing shared meaning. When we combine their knowledge claims, we are able to gain a holistic understanding of different things in the world, including human experiences.
