[As in my home and native land we mark the exequies of Alex Colville, one of its deserved luminaries, I publish these reflection (which have too long set upon my desk) as lauds for the artists whose works merit the acclamation of “Axios!” yet remain hidden under the rubble and rubbish of this mostly mad world. Charles Victor 22 July 2013]
Once upon a time I purchased two paintings from an artist, Robert Manders, a young man of much talent whose work deserves to be celebrated. Unfortunately, he was a Montaigne in an age of circus clowns with honking horns and everybody—infantile in taste—was and is more interested in the circus than in true art and artistry.
I do not deny that a line of paint or a squish of colour can challenge our ordinary perceptions, that looking upon a solitary band or cosmic swirl can provide us a focal point for reflection or even contemplation. I do deny to such, however, the title of art. A solitary branch against the sky can provide the same vista.
Unfortunately the world of visual arts has been trod over by a claque of clacking idiots who feel—because God knows they do not think—that every streak, blotch, lump upon a canvass or some other platform is art, provided of course, there be somewhere some clown honking a horn loudly enough to command the attention of these lobotomized loosened monkeys running the free-for–all called the world of art.
Do not misread me. The late abstracts of a Lawren Harris are so far above anything a Rothko could ever aspire to that the two men can hardly be considered to inhabit the same species. But the title of artist is now dubbed upon whomever has the loudest trumpet, the most “buzz”, not the deepest insight, the richest vision and the consummate ability to translate that into a language that rises above the ages.
Perhaps, there it is: “above the ages”. We do not want to rise up, we want to wallow. All the jabber about meditation, focusing, about yoga and finding a centre is buncombe, simply more self-aggrandizement in a world of, in a culture of, self-absorption and self-promotion.
Religion dies. Truth is become relative, its value totally defined by what works, what is practical, what I can get away with. Fad trumps. Culture, the epiphenomena of that which we worship, of our societal cult, of that which we value most, is now whatsoever the latest harlot to seize the mass media stage fancies it to be.
Yeats had it that the best lacked all conviction and that the worst ran fervidly rampant. No. The best have conviction and reason in equal part; that is exactly what makes them the best. They cannot be heard, they cannot be seen, because the media circus wants only to wallow in a sensationalism of now, a reality show of ever widening proportions that tramples out in every soul it possibly can the room, the space, the time, the depth, the capacity to rise up, to live, to grow, to mature, to pause, and truly think and be. If Western culture vanishes from the face of the earth, it is because we have allowed it; we have gorged our souls and our minds on refuse and trash, and so withered into the tomb of our own making.
If some distant civilization open my tomb—that rumbled collection of things with which I am wont to define my space and place upon this life–I am pleased it contains at least two works of true artistry. Thank you, Mr. Manders.