V 

scending the stairs to my cell one day, I was startled to find myself stumbling and I fair fainted ere I got through the door. I knew precisely what had gone awry and could correct it quickly with a peanut butter sandwich. I watched my hand shake as it spread the condiment but was delighted to find myself less interested in the phenomenon than I was at that instant interested in the way that the row of my curled fingers lined up beneath the utensil. It appeared to be a forty-five degree angle but now was not the ideal time to measure it for my mind was still spinning dizzily. I got the bread into me, put on the kettle to make myself some noodles and dropped myself onto the end of the bed to take a turn at feeling sorry for myself.
 
It was not in any way comforting to be a cliché anymore than it was the plan to be a cliché. Art is a consuming passion though and, for me, I couldn't hope to maintain that passion while maintaining a full time job. That's a cliché. Why did I think that one needed to have passion to make art? What prevents someone from painting their masterpiece on weekends only? Now certainly the artist wants to work hard and keep focus but so does the bricklayer. One doesn't hear about the starving bricklayer cliché.
 
No, it comes down to selfishness and egocentricity. The artist gets an over inflated sense of the value of his occupation and commits himself to it with excessiveness. So there I sit shaking with hunger, waiting for the kettle to boil, because I felt that art was more important than my health and welfare. More to the point perhaps, by making myself suffer in this manner I was paying respect to Art and Beauty. I was making my sacrifice at the altar. It was a sacrifice unbidden and it was a sacrifice that nobody would think less of me for not making. Surely I didn't impress anyone with my stoicism and I wasn't allowing myself to consciously think better of myself for doing it. I wasn't starving for my art. I was starving for Art. That gets back to the arrogance argument.
 
Who is Art that she deserves such reverence? I will not bow to a God or a church. Why would I bow down to Art?
 
All of these thoughts raced through my strung-out mind as I rose and answered the kettle's call. I was surely possessed by self-doubt and not an insignificant amount of self-loathing. This was foolish. This was a waste of any talents that I might have and surely it was accomplishing little if anything. What I should be placing on the altar of Art is art not physical suffering. Maybe it was all deceit. Maybe it was laziness and irresponsibility. Maybe I was putting myself through this because it was easier than getting a real job. There are no starving bricklayer clichés because bricklayers are making a living and earning their keep.
 
My Beatrice never starved herself for her Cello. I can be certain of that because she is too wise, hard working, balanced, and reasonable to ever have done such a thing. Her sister Phaedra likewise never starved herself for her Opera. Had they done so I’d surely have thought less of them. Their light would have diminished and to this day their lights shine through bright and glorious. How bright was my flame in those dark days?
 
I was painting and it was good. I was no longer bound by the faux intellectualism of art school and I could no more tell myself that something was being done in order to be evaluated by a professor. Now there was no low bar. Now there was only myself and Michelangelo to judge my work. This freedom was elevating my paintings even while it oppressed my optimism. The downside to the success that I was having was that it justified my unhappy situation. I should not say 'unhappy' for though I was living in impoverished squalor I think I was happy and perhaps even content. Saint Paul was content to live in his cave in the desert and he didn't have Cup o' Noodles to indulge himself with. I even had plumbing. Maslow's hierarchy really ought to include porcelain.
 
The painting that I was grappling with at this time was a small, colourful Pieta or Deposition. Given the gravity of the scene, I chose to compose it with rigid geometry that pushed down due to heaviness on top but at the bottom I wanted the figure of Christ to be buoyant. This Cross is cut off at the top and forms a black 'T', which is very weighty. Descending from that, in a pyramid, are Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemas who are effecting great grief as they gaze down at the body of Christ. Sweeping off to the right, the eye then comes to Mary of Cleophus and Mary Magdalene and then finally to the Beloved Disciple who gently holds the feet of Jesus. With all of these figures looking toward Christ's head, we sweep from the Beloved Disciple across the gently curving pure white figure of The Lord until we focus in on the visage of the Virgin Mary cradling her son's head while gazing heavenward. The sweep ends there as the viewer lingers on the two preciously painted faces but then goes the only way that it can go, it drifts slowly and smoothly back up to the top of the frame and into the blackness of the cross. The effect is that while the composition is based on a pyramid at foundation level it has a circular and therefore fluid movement overtop of that. This was about movement over solidity.
 
All through this, the movements of the view echo the mood that the artist is endeavouring to describe. The colours are all bright with generous use of cangiante creating a single cool tone that freezes the whole piece into formality and the picturesque. The Cangiante technique, which is modeling with colour so that a shadow of sky blue is coloured bright orange instead of the intuitive dark blue, leaves the viewer with a sense of unreal beauty. I felt this was appropriate for the Pieta, which is not about reality. The colours prevent the viewer from imagining that they are seeing a depiction of a real event. It is a Mannerist piece after all. The length of Christ's body, which would have him being ten feet tall or more relatively, of course, drives the Mannerist mannerisms home.
 
Beatrice figures into this painting in the role of Mary Magdalene but it is certainly not the whore Mary. No, this is the Mary Magdalene that was simply a friend to Jesus when everyone else was a follower. Mary represents someone who is well grounded and noble, without Divine Grace. She is good not because of Christ's teachings or hearing God's voice but because she is a naturally good person. Interestingly, to me, her face is not painted as beautifully as the Madonna's but it is infinitely more intense.
 
 

 
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