what say you blakeans?
Typical Times article on Blake. So much equivocation that nothing really gets said, other than what was pretty much the conventional view twenty years ago. MK seems to like Blake, up to a point, but feels it necessary to hedge, because, after all, Blake is not a great artist in the way he would be if he were going to be one in the way the Times thinks he should be. I'm not clear if he's under or over appreciated? Oh, I see, the people who like him are just the wrong sort of audience, which reflects badly on the artist. Sorry about that, but I think it's the fringe audience that has expanded our appreciation. Personally, understanding something about Hermeticism has made Blake much more intelligible to me, but that's a field the art establishment has yet to fathom. The best work has been done by amateurs, or maybe I mean professionals: not scholars, but people actually involved in Hermetic practice. One of the most useful is Adam McLean, whose Alchemical Mandala is a fine introduction to the "emblems", which typically combine text and images into mystic manifolds for instructive meditation. This tradition has not always been congruent with passing notions of what "Art" should be. Paul Laffoley is a contemporary artist falling squarely in this tradition, and, as with Blake, the art world has never been quite sure what to do with him. All that really needs to be done is to look and contemplate: well-constructed emblems have an inherent capacity to engage an understanding beyond verbalization. That's tough on art critics; they need something concrete to point to; which is why MK can say that Blake is important in the development of the illustrated book, but he doesn't explain that Blake's innovations were part of a multimedia campaign of confluence which is central to the whole history of human culture. Some alchemical works involved music, as well as text and image, presaging such hybrid forms as opera and the psychedelic light-show concerts of the '60s, not to mention the promises of virtual reality and other high tech wonders currently said to be on the verge… Of course, Blake also thought we were verging on a new world, and perhaps Laffoley's time machine will finally take us there, but I suspect that's where we've always been: on the verge. Artists give us a glimpse over the edge, but once we make the crossing, art will be what we live, more than what we dream. The broadest possible view of this trend should be the context for understanding the glut of multimedia art that has developed in recent decades. For me, the most significant artist in this sense was Robert Smithson, whose work does not appear obviously Hermetic in the way that Blake and Laffoley do. Nevertheless, he practiced prophecy, bearing an apocalyptic message about entropy, and he must be approached from multiple angles: object, text and film are woven together in his best work. Caught up in the contradictions of the art world, his work has had a huge, yet unfocused, influence on succeeding generations. Meanwhile, people like Blake and Laffoley have been pigeonholed, or ignored, or have influenced the "wrong" audience. Hermeticism has, however, provided them a refuge from the "tortured artist" syndrome, and that is very much a spiritual accomplishment. Neither artist has been fully embraced by his contemporaries, yet they have spared us the dysfunctional displays so familiar from our great success stories. That's a real alchemy, and to achieve it, all you have to do is look.
Did you know Blake taught his wife
to read & write? Illiteracy & truth
spend as much time together as James & Nora Joyce. Meaning must
be an alchemical process. It looks like it happens all the time but does it?
Alot of the time what passes for meaning, for a strike, is actually a gutterball. Metaphors are artful
glosses over stuff that just seems too complicated to spell out. Blake was very wary of metaphor & tweaked his poems for truth not beauty. Maybe that's why the Times can't quite stomach him wholly.William Harmon is my favorite living poet.
His homepage links to a handwriting sample of Laura Riding Jackson explaining Blake.
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- dave 3-30-2001 5:01 pm
Typical Times article on Blake. So much equivocation that nothing really gets said, other than what was pretty much the conventional view twenty years ago. MK seems to like Blake, up to a point, but feels it necessary to hedge, because, after all, Blake is not a great artist in the way he would be if he were going to be one in the way the Times thinks he should be. I'm not clear if he's under or over appreciated? Oh, I see, the people who like him are just the wrong sort of audience, which reflects badly on the artist. Sorry about that, but I think it's the fringe audience that has expanded our appreciation. Personally, understanding something about Hermeticism has made Blake much more intelligible to me, but that's a field the art establishment has yet to fathom. The best work has been done by amateurs, or maybe I mean professionals: not scholars, but people actually involved in Hermetic practice. One of the most useful is Adam McLean, whose Alchemical Mandala is a fine introduction to the "emblems", which typically combine text and images into mystic manifolds for instructive meditation. This tradition has not always been congruent with passing notions of what "Art" should be. Paul Laffoley is a contemporary artist falling squarely in this tradition, and, as with Blake, the art world has never been quite sure what to do with him. All that really needs to be done is to look and contemplate: well-constructed emblems have an inherent capacity to engage an understanding beyond verbalization. That's tough on art critics; they need something concrete to point to; which is why MK can say that Blake is important in the development of the illustrated book, but he doesn't explain that Blake's innovations were part of a multimedia campaign of confluence which is central to the whole history of human culture. Some alchemical works involved music, as well as text and image, presaging such hybrid forms as opera and the psychedelic light-show concerts of the '60s, not to mention the promises of virtual reality and other high tech wonders currently said to be on the verge… Of course, Blake also thought we were verging on a new world, and perhaps Laffoley's time machine will finally take us there, but I suspect that's where we've always been: on the verge. Artists give us a glimpse over the edge, but once we make the crossing, art will be what we live, more than what we dream. The broadest possible view of this trend should be the context for understanding the glut of multimedia art that has developed in recent decades. For me, the most significant artist in this sense was Robert Smithson, whose work does not appear obviously Hermetic in the way that Blake and Laffoley do. Nevertheless, he practiced prophecy, bearing an apocalyptic message about entropy, and he must be approached from multiple angles: object, text and film are woven together in his best work. Caught up in the contradictions of the art world, his work has had a huge, yet unfocused, influence on succeeding generations. Meanwhile, people like Blake and Laffoley have been pigeonholed, or ignored, or have influenced the "wrong" audience. Hermeticism has, however, provided them a refuge from the "tortured artist" syndrome, and that is very much a spiritual accomplishment. Neither artist has been fully embraced by his contemporaries, yet they have spared us the dysfunctional displays so familiar from our great success stories. That's a real alchemy, and to achieve it, all you have to do is look.
- alex 4-12-2001 5:08 pm [add a comment]
Did you know Blake taught his wife to read & write? Illiteracy & truth spend as much time together as James & Nora Joyce. Meaning must be an alchemical process. It looks like it happens all the time but does it? Alot of the time what passes for meaning, for a strike, is actually a gutterball. Metaphors are artful glosses over stuff that just seems too complicated to spell out. Blake was very wary of metaphor & tweaked his poems for truth not beauty. Maybe that's why the Times can't quite stomach him wholly.William Harmon is my favorite living poet. His homepage links to a handwriting sample of Laura Riding Jackson explaining Blake.
- frank 4-13-2001 12:45 am [add a comment]