2011

Byronic Hero, Then and Now

Where is Byron when we need him? This is what George Gordon Lord Byron, sexual magnet and progenitor of the Byronic hero, looked like: // / Oh, the melancholy tilt of the head, the dark eyes shining with sensitivity, his pale skin so delicate, so caressable! And that mouth! Small wonder Byron was the toast of London’s social circuit in 1812, celebrated and sought after.  Woman, especially, thrilled to the handsome, capricious, lame-footed man who exploited female emotionalism with calculated aforethought:
Who does not write to please the women?
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The Responsibility of the Artist

A small gem of a book that artists should have on their shelves is Jacques Maritain’s The Responsibility of the Artist. Together with Jacques Barzun’s The Use and Abuse of Art, it is all anyone needs to think or talk about the artist’s ultimate purpose. Dover keeps Barzun in print. Sadly, it does not do the same for Maritain. But scout around for a used copy. (First published in 1960, there exists also a 1972 edition.buy cialis professional generic https://yourcialisrx.com/cialis_professional.html over the counter ) Neglect is owed, most likely, to Maritain’s dual ambition: the pursuit of scholarship and the pursuit of sanctity. Continue Reading
Being an Artist vs. Making Art

BEING AN ARTIST AND MAKING ART are not the same. One is self-conscious, the other is directed outward, as Jacques Maritain observed, to the good of the work—to the perfection of the work of one’s hand (if you are a visual artist) in its service to the eye and a cultivated sensibility. The first is largely a theatrical posture, the second is a commitment to something larger, more enduring than oneself. That something, it is hoped, graces its time in some incalculable way. Continue Reading
Not Failed, Just Unrealized

BEING AN ARTIST MEANS you never have to say, “I failed.” Think of the advantage that gives artists over the rest of the plodding classes. Artists never have to admit the lack of wit, talent, or stamina needed to conceive of work, realize it and see it through. All they have to do is rummage through their junk pile and declare everything in it “unrealized.” At least that is the drift of “A call for unrealized projects” broadcast by the Agency for Unrealized Projects (AUP), a conceptual scheme devised by artists Julieta Aranda, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Julia Peyton-Jones, and Anton Vidokle in collaboration with London’s Serpentine Gallery. Continue Reading
Art, Still Not Dead!

I CANNOT TELL A LIE, much as I would like to. This wonderful bit of Photoshopping was sent by a reader who calls himself Mr. Eyeballs. I wish I could say I found it myself. // // Who knew just how contemporary that Mona Lisa smile could be? A stylized expression in Leonardo’s day, it suddenly looks quite current removed from a Renaissance setting and inserted into a post-modern one. The bloody amputation might be a bit over the top, but the figure’s facial mien—part simper, part sneer—would do nicely in a Vogue photo shoot. Continue Reading