Art Criticism - The State University of New York
Art Criticism - The State University of New York
Art Criticism - The State University of New York
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pain in the eyes <strong>of</strong> the cripple gives humility to the arrogant striders, and it is<br />
. only some flawed beauty in the painting that will allow us to open its thorny<br />
hide as it hangs half-hceded on the wall, divested <strong>of</strong> any theatricality it may<br />
once have had for the overeager parvenus at the vernissage <strong>of</strong> historicity.<br />
Willow buds, fuses that set <strong>of</strong>f Spring's slow explosion, nourish annual<br />
daydreams. We happy few who know that beauty is its own reward are<br />
quickly put out into our desired pastures by our pragmatic cognoscenti.<br />
<strong>Art</strong>ists whose love for another person is unrequited are perhaps luckier<br />
in their fruitful frustration than the lovee, who, has only the sterile satisfaction<br />
<strong>of</strong> satiated vanity.<br />
In the sweetness <strong>of</strong> the years before our revolution, hamadryads<br />
(who in the words <strong>of</strong> Dawn Powell "appealed to men <strong>of</strong> all sexes") attended<br />
possessively the abstract expressionist revelers who, if they insulted their<br />
companions while drunk were sure to apologize later if the perpetual party<br />
seemed endangered by bad feelings. Bare life was rarely to be faced, too many<br />
commitments were made, everything fell due at once. Why urinate in the gas<br />
tank except from despair at some unnamable injustice to which the artists gave<br />
silent assent? Since their demise the more pragmatic jokers <strong>of</strong> our art world, like<br />
the President's men caught breaking and entering, don't have much "style."<br />
To a pragmatist, a coward is someone with too much imagination.<br />
Desensitized, the former have shut down most <strong>of</strong> their valves and windows<br />
and barge ahead grimly, knowing intuitively that Earth was created for them,<br />
mute guzzlers <strong>of</strong> Nature's stew, more meat than vegetables.<br />
By absorbing so sedulously the biographies <strong>of</strong> our culture heroes,<br />
we extend our own years not only with vicarious identifications but by snarling<br />
in an unproductive way our life lines into detours <strong>of</strong> meaningless intrigue,<br />
from which we emerge with the kind <strong>of</strong> depression we get after watching too<br />
much television. But how else is one inspired to continue in the heartbreaking<br />
career <strong>of</strong> artist? No wonder we want to inhabit that over-rewarded and underpopulated<br />
pantheon. Yet the only artist worth remembering is the one who<br />
. doesn't give a damn about this arbitrary elite. Great artists' lives were not held<br />
together only by their art.<br />
Does painting take a perverted pleasure in its adjutant role, second<br />
fiddle to the more public arts? Are poets vindicated by our common breakdown<br />
in which their oppressors are brought low? Could either take command<br />
<strong>of</strong> the machi:tery <strong>of</strong> a society where anyone who "behaves nice" is taken for a<br />
crook and boors are called "diamonds in the rough"? Or pass tests where the<br />
correct answers are the quickly changing cliches <strong>of</strong> current fashion? I want to<br />
believe that some people will always be around who do not admire the public<br />
men who traffic in human weakness, and whose only success will be to influence<br />
toward decency by their unworldly dedication those who advise legislators<br />
and judges.<br />
22<br />
<strong>Art</strong> <strong>Criticism</strong>