Of Artistry

The recently unveiled Obama portraits have sparked some mild, entertaining controversy.  There is no need for me to offer an artistic review.  I haven’t the credentials (not compared to my credentials for talking literature and philosophy, anyway); as for my taste, that is clear enough to anyone who has spent time on this blog.

But I did find it interesting when some people began to take note of the fact that Mr. Obama’s portrait may have been “outsourced to China.”  A cursory search (come, come, mon frowning frères, this is not my day job) indicates that bits of the work may well have been done in China, since the artist who painted the portrait, Kehinde Wiley, has a studio there.  According to New York Magazine …

Producing work in China cuts costs, but not as much as it used to, Wiley says. These days in Beijing he employs anywhere from four to ten workers, depending on the urgency, plus a studio manager, the American artist Ain Cocke. The Beijing studio began as a lark: After visiting an artist friend there and liking what he saw, he and a couple of his New York staffers flew out, rented some space, and started painting, “sort of like a retreat,” he says. One thing led to another—“another” being a five-year relationship with a Chinese D.J.—and eventually the Beijing studio became the main production hub as well as his second home.  (Source)

There has been some tut-tutting over this revelation—The Obama portrait may not have been painted entirely by the artist?  Quelle scandal!—but it really isn’t scandalous.  (By comparison, Wiley’s portraits involving severed heads—also discussed in the article above, and by the left-leaning site Snopes—are perhaps worthy of discussion.)  As the magazine observes, “There’s nothing new about artists using assistants—everyone from Michelangelo to Jeff Koons has employed teams of helpers, with varying degrees of irony and pride …”  At the same time, “Wiley gets uncomfortable discussing the subject.”

Should he?  I don’t know.  In the wise words (which I have quoted before) of Pitti-Sing, “Bless you, it all depends!”

For hundreds, probably thousands of years artists have used assistants to create their work.  It was common during the Renaissance for a master painter to run a studio where his assistants, themselves in training to become master artists, would fill in the details of large works under his direction.  (Here’s a quick primer on the topic.)  In fact, the practice was so common that museums sometimes list works as coming “from the workshop of —.”  (I don’t know for sure, but I assume there is some fairly sophisticated art detective work involved in determining whether an artist had assistance, and how much he had—in other words, when a museum decides to list a painting with that caveat, it may be a guess, but it is a well-educated guess.)

The same sort of attitude can be seen in pre-modern literature.  Shakespeare was famously not embarrassed to “steal” his plots from elsewhere—everybody did it, and everybody knew about it.  Such “theft” could even be a selling point for a new work.  During the medieval era a common trope was to claim “an ancient book” as the source for one’s own ideas, since readers attributed more authority to older works.  (Does the phrase “stood the test of time” ring a bell?)  The earliest collection of King Arthur stories was produced by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who makes an “ancient book” source claim.  In his time, he was probably believed.  Today, though scholars think there may well have been a chieftain (more likely several) who inspired the Arthurian legends, it is generally admitted the Geoffrey made most of his stuff up.

A modern instance of this sort of thinking can be found in varying attitudes towards plagiarism.  For many non-Western students (middle Eastern, Indian, and Asian), the idea that you oughtn’t repeat another person’s words without attribution is strange.  For some Asian cultures, there is an assumption that if a thing is worth repeating it is also the sort of thing that everyone would recognize.  One does not put Confucius in quotes because to do so would be insulting to one’s readers.

It is the West that changed, largely through the adoption of the Romantic idea of the Artist as Solitary Genius.  For figures as enormous as Byron or Beethoven, collaborating with mere mortals would have been absurd (and, probably, given the personalities involved, painful for everyone concerned).  Somehow this notion spread throughout the arts and among the consumers of art, so that today the idea that a painter—like Wiley—might not create every brushstroke seems practically scandalous to those outside the field.

Back to the article on Wiley himself:

… Wiley gets uncomfortable discussing the subject [of his assistants]. “I’m sensitive to it,” he says. When I [the reporter] first arrived at his Beijing studio, the assistants had left, and he made me delete the iPhone snapshots I’d taken of the empty space. It’s not that he wants people to believe every brushstroke is his, he says. That they aren’t is public ­knowledge. It’s just a question of boundaries. “I don’t want you to know every aspect of where my hand starts and ends, or how many layers go underneath the skin, or how I got that glow to happen,” he says. “It’s the secret sauce! Get out of my kitchen!”

So, Wiley is embarrassed by his studio.  And I ask again: But should he be?

Here’s a question that would resolve that question—and I don’t know the answer; and I should emphasize that: I don’t know the answer.  Does Wiley’s work as a master artist actually overflow into the work that his assistants do?  Or, to put that another way: How much of the style we see in Wiley’s work is owing to him, and how much to chance?  Film directors are not ashamed to admit that their cameramen contribute, but that’s because they give the cameras well, direction.  How directed are Wiley’s assistants?

But that’s just what he doesn’t want to show.  “It’s the secret sauce! Get out of my kitchen!”  I very much doubt he actually has anything to be embarrassed about.  He just thinks he does.  It would probably be to his benefit if he embraced the reality and let people like his friendly interviewer into the kitchen.  But our Romantic ideas are in the way.

Of course, the other question, and the other possible difference between Wiley’s method and that of Michelangelo et al., is that there was a presumption that the assistants of Renaissance masters were learning the trade in order to become masters themselves.  Some of them did—del Sarto, Romano, Botticelli, Perugino …  Some even surpassed their teachers—Michelangelo himself was the student of the less famous Ghirlandaio.  One of my favorite examples of “group work” is a painting of “Tobias and the Angel” attributed to the workshop of Verrocchio; the painting is famous in part because some of the detail-work may have been done by a young Leonardo da Vinci.

That, of course, is what takes the sting out of the terms “master” and “assistant.”  If the relationship is not exploitive, but more that of teacher and apprentice, there is every reason to applaud the practice of studio work.  Hopefully, Wiley’s Beijing studio meets that description.  Will we be seeing portraits of Asian women à la Judith and Holofernes in ten or fifteen years?  Time will tell.

The Purity of the Turf

There’s an old P.G. Wodehouse story titled “The Purity of the Turf,” which features respectable British gentlemen fooling around by placing substantial bets on the (pseudo-)athletic events at a local “school treat.”  A good part of the hilarity arises from the gravity with which protagonist Bertie Wooster and antagonist Steggles treat the situation: with all the seriousness of habitual horse race gamblers.  At one point, outraged by Steggles’ dishonesty, Bertie (also the narrator) uses the racetrack expression which gives the story its name: “‘And they talk about the Purity of the Turf!’ I said. And I meant it to sting, by Jove!”

Of course, when Bertie’s valet Jeeves snatches victory by similarly “impure” means (falsely confessing to having bribed participants of the egg-and-spoon race, thereby ensuring their disqualification) all is right and just.  Steggles, after all, cheated first; and anyway, the raison d’être of a Jeeves and Wooster story is that when J&W win all is right with the world.

It is also a natural human reaction, no doubt traceable to some scientific mechanism like the survival of the fittest, to feel that My tribe must win, no matter what the cost.  Interestingly, few My Tribe Firsters are willing to say aloud “The Purity of the Turf be hanged!”  They’re far more likely to pretend it’s still pure—or, when they no longer can bear ignoring its impurities, to leave for (hopefully) greener and purer pastures.

Of course, when the turf defiled is merely the grounds for a schoolsgirls’ egg-and-spoon race,  My Tribe First does little harm.  Problems arise in weighter affairs, when not only the manner but the matter of the contest is grave.  Whether your tribe is a particular family, a workplace, a school, a political party, or a segment within the Church, the temptation to overlook the sins and failings of the tribe, personal and institutional, can be nearly overpowering.  Sometimes, if the sins involve paperclips, it is well to overlook them.  Sometimes, when the sins involve poor men’s pensions, it becomes morally compulsory to speak out.

Unfortunately, there’s a large space between paperclips and pensions, and discerning when it’s time to “betray” one’s tribe or even abandon it is not easy.  And because deciding to speak out against a group for which one has or had some sympathy requires so much personal torment, it is particularly hard for this kind of whistle-blower to take accusations from those who remain staunchly My Tribe First that they are “virtue signaling” or “were never really one of us” or “don’t care about the goals of the movement,” etc., etc.  Hence the bitterness of many internecine quarrels: for My Tribe Firsters, it is hard to perceive the good will of the Purgers involved in preserving the movement(s) from itself, while for the Purgers who have left, it is hard not to feel that the My Tribe Firsters are willfully blind to the impurities of their turf.

Two late examples of this phenomenon are (1) the ongoing ire in a few quarters against those in the pro-life movement who have allied themselves with Trump and (2) the recent debates regarding Christendom College’s handling of some harassment cases.  Watching both cases unfold, one of the sadder elements has been the inability of both some Purgers and some My Tribe Firsters to recognize that their former compatriots may, despite differing opinions in a grave case, retain some faint degree of moral fiber.  That is a great pity, especially as problems like these are hard to judge because institutions designed to do good but made up of human beings are intrinsically complex.  Prudence is key; but even wise men make prudential mistakes on occasion.  When does your Tribe turn too piratical?  When and how do you jump ship?  When is the turf hopelessly defiled?  When is it time for a purge?  And what sort of purge is desirable?  Obviously, sometimes it is right to be silent about the sins of one’s Tribe.  Equally obviously, sometimes it is right to expose them, as much for the good of the Tribe as for the good of those who have been injured.  And it’s hard to conceive of a hard-and-fast rule that would cover a variety of complex moral situations and tell you how to act rightly in each and every one of them.  In other words: again: prudence.

But when prudence fails to emolliate such cases, as it seems to have failed in the two cases mentioned above, there is always the greater virtue of charity.  No matter how imprudent one my consider one’s opposing My Tribe Firsters or Purgers to be, it is foolish and wrong to behave as if they are lost.

Let us say (for the sake of argument) that some prolife leaders sinned grievously in supporting Donald Trump.  Let us say (for the sake of argument) that some Christendom faculty sinned grievously in their handling of harassment cases.  While concern for the victims (those injured by Trump or prolife leaders or Christendom faculty or students) should be paramount, that does not, that cannot exclude a simultaneously concern for the very people who are committing the sin.

Christ threw the moneychangers out of the Temple.  He was righteously indignant concerning their predatory and impious behavior.  But I don’t recall Him saying anything about how they had committed unforgiveable sins.  Indeed, he took action but as usual his words were remarkably short and pithy—certainly nothing that would amount to a “rant”.  He was merely and straightforwardly descriptive: “You have made [this house] a den of thieves.”

Contrast that to some of the opprobrium spewed in internet debates over the previous two issues over the last few weeks.

Now.  So what?

Nothing really, except a personal resolution on my part about what actions to take the next time one of my Tribes sins.  When it comes to leaving the Tribe, accusing the Tribe, or what have you—when it is my turn to make that move, be it through a well-researched article in some respectable and remunerative venue, or a passive-aggressive blog post here, or merely through a single comment on Facebook—whenever the time comes to take a stand against the Tribe, there’s a simple check to perform first.   Do I really want the good for the villains in this case?  Do I really desire their eternal happiness?  Or am I so involved in the plight of the victims that I see the villains as hopelessly irredeemable?

I’m not suggesting that this check ought to change anyone’s mind about what to do.  I’m not saying that more people need to ignore tribal victims for the sake of Tribes, to preserve some spurious illusion of the Purity of the Turf.  Much better to actually work to make it pure, which sometimes involves opening a vein—yours, or the Tribe’s.

But it is important that the surgeon, the Purger, not enjoy opening the vein.

There is more than one way to idolize the Purity of the Turf.  The common way, certainly, is put on the green glasses and loudly announce its greenness to all and sundry.  That is one kind of idolatry, the idolatry of My Tribe Firsters.  The other kind is when a Purger becomes so bent on seeing that the Turf Stays Pure that he constantly seeks infractions in order to boycott the race.  That too can be idolatry, of another kind.

Seven Quick Takes, 1-19-2018

"Seven Quick Takes" is hosted at "This Ain't the Lyceum."

1.     If you are one of the three people who has been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed that recent posts include a “Source” link under the picture captions.  This is because, after a conversation with a family member who happens to be a lawyer, I began to question my hitherto somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards pictures, and towards classical (by which I mean “painted probably in Europe between 1000 and 1900 A.D.”) artwork in particular.  Apparently (contrary to Wikipedia’s blithe assurances) just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s legally showing up in your web searches.  Fortunately for me, the Met recently decided to declare much of its collection public domain.  To view, go here, scroll down for the options on the left, under “Show Only” make sure to select “Public Domain Artworks,” and proceed to enjoy legal use of images of everything from Greek pottery to Dutch masters to random bits of armor—just make sure that you source the images back to the Met.

2.     I have discovered the (a?) secret to not going over budget: Don’t buy anything until after you’ve run out.  No, seriously.  You don’t need plastic wrap.  Or cooking spray.  Or a new rug for the bottom of the stairs down which your toddler is threatening to tumble.  Cavemen didn’t have plastic wrap, and they survived just fine.  OK, but seriously, there probably are alternatives in your house to almost anything that you might happen to run out of.  And if you run out of it first, you might discover that some of these alternatives are actually cheaper than you thought, and work just as well … Even if you decide to go back to your precious canisters of Pam, however, the trick of not buying until you run out should enable you to make it to the end of the month without crossing the red line when you’ve already maxed out your “household goods” column.

3.     I am sure this does not apply to all children and all ages, but if you are a new mom of a non-walker, let me promise you: some things do get a easier when they learn how to walk.  Yes, they’ll get into everything.  Yes, they’ll want to climb your couches, chairs, bookshelves, piano, and any other platforms more than .5 square feet broad and three inches high (“platform” being defined loosely, of course, to include such objects as Christmas trees and bags of fruit).  Yes, they’ll whine for those just-out-of-reach items until you drill it into them that they can’t have everything they see (and drill it into yourself that sometimes substitution or removal of the desired object is prudent).  But don’t children whine for and destroy things before they walk too?  And once they can walk, they can play sooooo much more easily—and hence happily.  On the whole, a worthwhile tradeoff, n’est pas?

4.     In world news, Hawaii’s random false nuclear warning last week was not the first such incident.  (In fact, there are several stories of nuclear near-misses, as you’ll find if you google for more information about the 1960 Thule event.)

5.     Meanwhile, the other kind of nuclear power—the power plant kind—is losing in California, winning in Minnesota, and providing interesting environmental benefits, even if you ask sincerely concerned environmentalists.

6.     Alright, alright, since we walked down this road, we’ll go all the way: Yes Prime Minister - Bernard Woolley on defence capabilities.

7.     And for a lighter sort of button game, which might perhaps be useful at your January Christmas parties … Remember that line in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, “Button, button, who’s got the button?”

8.     Finally, a bonus take, in the form of a reminder that if cavemen don’t need buttons, neither do you.  Unless, of course, you’re still under budget for the month.

A Story for Catholic Gentlemen (and Ladies Too)

As the Harvey Weinstein story continues to ripple outwards, the articles about the souring of our culture, particularly the souring of male-female relations, have flooded my newsfeed.  (If you haven’t been following the story, don’t bother: All you need to know is that a man in Hollywood took advantage of a number of aspiring actresses in the most abhorrent way.)

One effect of this scandal has been the appearance of #metoo across social media.  A number of my friends and acquaintances (mostly women, but some men as well) have put up the hashtag, many admitting publicly for the first time that they have dealt with some form of harassment or worse.

As I scrolled Facebook the day the hashtag peaked, I wondered whether it applied to me.  Two cases quickly came to mind, later a third … a fourth … a fifth … But all of them were so minor: guys, or even boys saying rude things that I didn’t for a moment take seriously.  And it seemed to me that it would be presumptuous, unhelpful, and ultimately untrue to type #metoo for a merely sassy remark when so many people have suffered truly serious injuries.

Of course, some would insist that these days even snark and sass need to be called out.  And it is true that language can be abusive, a sort of gateway drug to violence in a culture desperate for healing.  But then again, “pretty and smart” hardly rises to the level of abuse, any more than (in Shakespeare’s in Much Ado About Nothing) Benedick’s sneering at “My Lady Disdain” is cause for Beatrice to demand a duel.  There is a difference between harmless dumb jokes or rapier-like wit—and harassment.

Read the rest at the Register.

Of Lives Worth Living

“Je suis Charlie Hebdo,” said the signs.  Terrorism is indeed a terrible thing, and understandably calls out sentiments of solidarity.  I would not call the Charlie Gard case an instance of terrorism, but it terrifies me and, as a mother, it terrifies me on a personal level.  If a court in England can decide when someone’s child no longer has a quality of life worth preserving, how long before a court in America can make that decision?  And what if, God forbid, it were my child whose case the court was examining?  So, to co-opt a phrase, Je suis la mère de Charlie Gard.

*                      *                      *

The other day, as some of us were discussing the matter, lines sprang to mind, lines familiar from childhood, imprinted in the static-y tones of an old cassette tape.

“If someone loves a flower, one single blossom among all the millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy, just to look at the stars—because he can say to himself, ‘Somewhere, my flower is there.’  But if a sheep eats the flower, then in one moment for him all the stars will be darkened.  And you think this is not important?!”

It was hard at first to articulate why the lines felt relevant to the case of Charlie Gard; but I think I have an inkling now.

The proponents of euthanasia talk about quality of life, and occasionally about dignity.  But they define these terms narrowly: generally, by observation of the purely physical.  They talk of pain and comfort.  I cannot recall an instance where they talked of love.  But it is love which, as Saint-Exupéry reminds us, makes us happy—not to talk with the beloved, not even to be with the beloved, but simply to know that they exist.  “If someone loves a flower … it is enough to make him happy … [to] say to himself, ‘Somewhere, my flower is there.’”

I suppose someone might retort, “Yes, that’s all very well; but if the flower is unhappy, or the flower does not even know of its gardener’s existence, why bother so much about the gardener’s feelings?  Isn’t he a bit selfish to ask that his flower keep blooming while he, planets and planets away, looks smugly at his millions of stars?”

If one is asking about the flower of Saint-Exupéry, then my rejoinder is that one ought to read The Little Prince.  But of course, one would really be asking about Charlie Gard, and Terri Schiavo, and all the rest of us who may some day be in their condition, or have a loved one who is.  And to that question, my answer would be this:

There is an economy of love that knows next to nothing of the physical world.  If someone loves a flower, this is good for the flower too—yes, even if the flower is for the time being through some circumstance neither pruned nor sheltered nor watered nor smelled.  The flower too is happy, in the old sense related to “hap”; the flower is fortunate.  And not fortunate because of the good things it received in the past or may receive in the future, but fortunate because it is loved, even if it is ignorant of that fact.

No one can deny that being loved is good, as being healthy or rich is a good.  Health, however, is useless to a hypochondriac and riches are useless to a man who does not know that they are buried in his field.  Health and riches are good for use; they are good when they are enjoyed; their value lies in their employment in various activities.  But love and being loved are not good for activities; they are activities.  One does not speak of “enjoying” loving or being loved (except callously); certainly we would judge that anyone who speaks of “using” love does not know what the word means.  Other things are given a value by the human beings who have them: by the market, or the taste of the individual, or the customs of the country.  But love works in the other way: love cannot be made greater because human beings value it highly, nor can it be made less because human beings undervalue it; rather, love gives us value.  We are what we are because we have been loved: by our spouses, our parents, our children, our friends, the strangers who change our bedpans—and by God.  Most of all, by God.

I suppose to anyone who does not already take a supernatural interest in things, this will sound irrational.  I am afraid that even to anyone who agrees with my ethical concerns, it may appear hopelessly soppy.  But I do think that this is one of the true reasons why it is wrong to take an innocent life: because there is an intangible value to each person’s existence, making it in some perhaps mysterious wise worthwhile to them, due to the love they receive, an everlasting love which nevertheless bears up their existence in this brief particular moment of space and time.

Political Animals

Part four in a series.  Read the first three parts here, here, and here, and the following two parts here and here.

This will be a briefer post, a mere aside in this series, but one important to grasping the extent of my case.  If the whole series were a long essay, this would be an especially long footnote, which I should fight tooth and nail with the editor about, so as not to have it placed at the end.  I would want it to disrupt the reader’s eye on the page.

I have been using literature to make my point, but the keen-eyed reader will have discerned that it is really a point about culture.  I talk of “Beauty and the Beast” and Passengers; but the phenomenon under inspection—the tendency to interpret actions in an ugly way—plays as large a part in our day-to-day life as it does in literature.

Political scandals are an easy example.  Cast your mind back, gentle reader (and strive with all your might to keep it gentle, since I will be asking you to look coolly on things that rightly provoke ire) over the past few months.  Think about two infamous recordings whose speakers bore the rather absurd Christian names “Donald” and “Milo,” recordings of speeches which the speakers have not exactly disowned.  Think (if you wish for something more innocent to fix in your mind’s ear) of a man named Mike who won’t eat dinner tête-à-tête without his wife.

I know what you’re thinking: Is Milo even a Christian name?

Research (by which I mean the internet) informs me that it possibly

derives from German or Slavic roots meaning gracious, mild, peaceful,

merciful, tender, etc.  Alternatively (or perhaps simultaneously) it

appears to be associated with crushing until soft, i.e., tenderizing.

There may be a link to the Latin miles (foot soldier) as well.  Make of

all that what you will.  As for Donald …

In all three cases, there was outrage; in two of them at least, the outrage was understandable.  In all of them, the outrage was complex.  But I would suggest that all three episodes of media and social media phrenzy have one thing in common, one thing that they share with Pratt’s character in Passengers.  In all three (or four) cases, someone was accused of making light of another’s autonomy: more precisely, of making light of their right to freely bestow or withhold consent to (for lack of a better adjective) romantic overtures.

Now it would be unfair and inconsistent with my last post to say that disrespect for autonomy is the last great sin in modern eyes.  But, to use the language of that post: the last great pathology that moderns recognize—the only great modern pathology—is disrespect for autonomy.

There is truth in this liberal recognition of individualism: respect for the Other is right and just.  Christianity mandates respect for the Other and (what is larger) Love of the Other, an activity which includes under its umbrella a great many seemingly contradictory things, some of them seemingly inimical to respect: fear for, fear of, passion, teasing, competition, flirtation, persuasion, tutelage, learning, discipline, obedience,  … the list goes on.  Some of these are appropriate to marriage, some to the parent-child relationship, some to friendship—the three great human loves.  But most of these things have been denied across the board by modernity, castigated as uncivilized and even inhuman and certainly inhumane.  Discipline and obedience no longer have place in parent-child love, competition no place in friendship, and flirtation no place in romance; for all of these things potentially threaten the autonomy of the Other.  And so the Other, because he or she must be respected, ends by being merely respected, and stays emphatically Other.  An overtures which would bring about a closer understanding between Self and Other are threats to the autonomy of the receiver.  And in those rare cases where two people decide to risk such threats—whether they be glamorous young things hurtling through space in an imaginary fictional future, or a very real middle-aged and slightly hum-drum couple taking a whack at second-chance luck—well, for any couple that ends up turning from Self and Other into One, modernity is always left suspecting that whatever change of mind occurred can’t have been legitimate.  Something fishy has happened; there was some slight of hand that escaped the audience’s eye.  Two can’t become one unless one of the two is consumed.

This, of course, is the logic of Uncle Screwtape or, to put it more bluntly, the logic of Hell.

It is only fair to add (in defense of suspicious modernity) that the haplessly-borrowed logic is logical.  True symbiotes are rare in the natural order, almost rare enough for human instances (involving so much more sensitivity and complexity than plants and animals) to be called miraculous.  Perhaps this was part of the reason why the ancients, although they did not join modernity in denying the existence of Love, did call Love a madness, and sometimes a god.  If one wished to make a Chestertonian trifecta of it, one might almost say that for the ancients, the great tragedy was to have loved, whereas for the Christian the great tragedy is not to have loved, or not to have loved enough.  I suspect the modern no longer sees matters on the individual level as great tragedies at all.  If they did—if they do?—they would certainly not ascribe to the Christian position.