The Reduction of Art

Today I commented on a not-new and rather irascible thread, even though I meant not to do so--I don't really like web-contention or find it worthwhile. Both the article and the thread made me feel the urge to reach out a hand toward the long-dead artist.  It's not just that Bernini arouses controversy; it's a certain lack of courtesy and understanding and love for the works of the past that bothers me.

Why attempt to sink into a  work of art when we are so very different (and better, surely) now?  We're sex-friendly, so Bernini must have just been wanting to show the world a sexual image and plunk it down in the middle of Cardinal Cornaro's chosen burial site. As for Teresa of Avila, a mystical nun, and her precisely stated account of divine contact, what do we care whether it was a direct source for Bernini and accurately portrayed? What does that have to do with anything?

Anyway, I thought that "entering in" to a work of art is an important topic for people who love the arts and the achievements of our predecessors, so I am sharing my comment here. See below the picture for a link to the original article.

from "Sexuality and Love in Art"
The critic says that some of the shots he included were stills
 from Schama's Power of Art DVD--not sure whether this is one.

 http://sexualityinart.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/berninis-portrayal-of-the-ecstasy-of-saint-theresa/

The desire to depict the overwhelming nature of religious ecstasy and the ravishment of the soul led Bernini here. You can find parallels in written art--in John Donne, for example. The biblical concept of the body of the Church (that is, the company of all believers) as “bride of Christ” is here taken to its passionate, baroque extreme.

Judging by this thread, I would say that the secular eye and the religious eye are not seeing the same piece of art. Two world views, two versions.

The secular viewer is constrained to be reductive and perceive only sex. To use a proverb with a few sexual connotations of its own, “When you’re a hammer, all the world’s a nail.”

Meanwhile the religious viewer sees the sensuality of this bride of Christ, yes, but in the form of an utter abandon of the human body “slain in the spirit.”

Bernini was not a secular man but a Christian, and here he presents divine joy in a way utterly right for how St. Theresa described her mystic union with God. “The Ecstasy of St. Theresa” shines with his genius for bringing passionate life to stone and a thrilling ability to create dramatic architectural design as setting for his sculptural works.

A hallmark error of our era is to diminish the glories of the past in an effort to make them better “fit” our modern times and modern sensibilities. Not only is there a lack of sympathy for religious experience and transformation, but there is a determined and even self-righteous lack of imagination, which has already begun to close off the great works of past time from many secular viewers.

The House of Words (no. 17): Metanoia: Philip Lee Williams

Another kind of metanoia: Philip Lee Williams. 

Today we'll start an interview with Philip Lee William that, among other things, looks at why he has altered his mode of communicating with his readership and moved from relying on New York publishers to the university press.

Phil and I have been correspondents for more than a decade, although we only met in person a few years ago. Oddly, we are both winners of The Michael Shaara Award, but Phil has wheelbarrow loads of awards and books and is a Georgia institution all on his own... If you don't know his work, you may pop over to www.philipleewilliams.com and take a look at his novels, nonfiction, and poetry (as well as some of his musical compositions.) A blog for his sixteenth (or is it seventeeth?) book, The Divine Comics, is also there. 

In addition to being an award-winning writer, Phil holds solid title to being one of the kindest men on the planet. That quality is not always rewarded in this world, but for me it has been a great pleasure to be his friend. And so I want to say that Phil is the most positive sort of proof that it is possible to be both a good man and a good writer.

Marly: Phil, you have published many books, won awards, been honored--how and why have you changed the way you relate to your public and to the publishing industry?

Phil: It has been nearly 27 years now since my first novel, The Heart of a Distant Forest, was published by W.W. Norton. (It's still in print, btw, in a trade softcover edition from the University of Georgia Press!) From the spring of that year until the summer of 2010, I did many, many dozens of appearances, autographings, speeches to benefit causes and so forth, from New York City to Los Angeles and points in between. I loved meeting with readers and fans of my work, and for many years, I traveled extensively. I published books with major NY publishers such as Random House, St. Martin's, Grove Press, Norton and so forth, as well as university and smaller regional presses.

By last summer, however, I realized several things. First off, I felt a sea-change was necessary in my public life. Where in the past I had spoken everywhere to help push my books and meet my readers, I began to believe that the old model of just showing up in person and signing a few books was no longer the best way to meet the public. Instead, social media, blogs, websites, and so forth are much more effective. I have even done hour-long phone hookups with book clubs that are fun. I also realized that I had simply run out of my need to travel and sell. As a result, I made a decision to severely limit my public life. I announced that I would no longer tour or do routine speeches, lectures, or autographings. Frankly, I wanted my private life back.

Continued

The House of Words (no. 16): Small presses: Phoenicia Publishing

Halving cherries,

I prie the stones

from their black hearts,

blood pooling

beneath

my fingernails.

Interview with Beth Adams of Phoenicia Press, continued

Marly:  Beth, you live a highly creative life. You draw, take pictures, write poetry, keep a blog, sing in a choir—probably there’s more that I don’t see. All these things are satisfying. A small publishing house is quite a bit of work and expense. In what ways is it satisfying to join the world of publishing?

Beth:  It's funny – when we were moving to Montreal from Vermont, I found a tiny book I had made when I was maybe 7 or 8, with drawings and a hand-written text. I’ve always “published” things, in one form or another, whether it’s been my own stuff, or newsletters for organizations, or elaborate professional jobs for corporations and institutions. I started my career at a time when you literally had to construct the entire job by hand on a light table, with type galleys and x-acto knives and wax and rubylith masks. Computers revolutionized the whole process, starting in the early 1980s – thank God! -- but digital technology for print-on-demand publishing opens up possibilities for someone like me that are almost too fabulous to be true. I hope and expect that e-book publishing will eventually offer the same design quality, and control over formatting, as print, because that is where I think we are headed.

An entrance to Lincoln Inn's Fields, London, 2010
11" x 7" watercolor

And the internet is so great! It’s put me in contact with talented and creative people all over the world – such a far cry from the isolation and frustration of being a creative kid in a small central New York town in the 1950s and 60s, as you can probably imagine, Marly! I’m also fortunate to have been in a long love and work partnership with my husband, who’s both a very talented photographer and an expert on the computer side of things, as well as being my best and most trusted critic. All these relationships make it possible and exciting to put together book projects that I hope are distinctive and worthwhile.

I have a bit more time in my life now. Some of it needs to be devoted to my own work, but I’m not someone who is happy working alone on personal projects all the time. It’s very satisfying to me to help bring a wonderful manuscript into life as a book -- not just because I love books, but because I enjoy working closely with the authors, and it’s their passion and hard work and spirit that should be reflected in what we do together. In a small way, I hope I’m giving something back to literature and to art – both of which have given me so much.

Confession, on the publication of A. C. Grayling's "The Good Book"

"Illuvia dorado," courtesy of
Ignacio Leonardi of Ushuaia, Argentina
and sxc.hu.

A. C. Grayling, you eminent and rational man of the leonine mane, despite the weight of all your reason, I still will float in mystical gold.

I will go to the pouring fount. I will stand in burning gold rain. I will be ravished and obliterated and transformed. I will be hollowed out, and I will be filled. Because I am in love with the ravishing and the rain and the fire.

I will be a phoenix in that fire.

This I promise you.

***

Has anybody read the entirety of his The Good Book? I'm afraid that I found the re-writing of great texts a rather dubious and embarrassing enterprise, but I've only read snips.

***
 Slip down one post to find today's The House of Words post, part of the Beth Adams sequence.