The Sphinx and the Milky Way (2)
An Asynchronous Studio Book Club Reading of The Sphinx and the Milky Way: Selections from the Journals of Charles Burchfield, edited by Ben Estes.
One of the most touching pages in this book is not the words of Charles Burchfield himself, but the editor’s note on p. 132:
On December 29, 1951, Burcfield’s 10-year-old dog “Pal” needed to be put down. Folded separately into Volume 53 of the Journals, Burchfield’s eulogy to “Pal” runs to nineteen hand-written pages, from which this excerpt follows:
The excerpt follows. I think that this speaks most highly of Burchfield. For all his musings about the cosmos, he wasn’t above common life. When his dog died, it wrecked him. “Was there ever a Springer Spaniel with such a rich deep sepia brown and ivory white? Or as nicely distributed—!” No, sir, there was not, nor a Springer ever so magnificently regarded.
At the moment I’m experiencing some troubled feelings in the wake of completing a writing assignment yesterday that precluded my posting these remarks on schedule. Said assignment was a review of “Glory of the World” at the NSU Art Museum which obliged me to look deeper into the work of Michael Fried.1 In Art and Objecthood, Fried relates the importance of discovering Maurice Merlau-Ponty while working on an Anthony Caro catalog in London. He notes that a copy of The Phenomenology of Perception in the original French sat on his desk as he wrote it.
Seventeen (gasp) years ago I made what I now recognize as an early stab at phenomenology, Taste, Quality, and the Panjective World at Artblog.net. “So there is no outside world,” I ventured, “unless it’s all outside, and we’re outside with it. It’s not subjective and/or objective, it's panjective.” This prompted an interesting discussion between Walter Darby Bannard, using the handle “opie,” and John Link, as “catfish.” Both are long gone so there’s no harm in identifying them.
I was, in retrospect, stumbling around territory that Merlau-Ponty covered with infinitely more aplomb 62 years earlier. I have a background in illustration and painting and don’t blame myself for not knowing this. But why Darby and John, who knew Mike, didn’t recognize the bearing that Merlau-Ponty had on the associated discussion is confusing. Did they also not know of it? Did they, but disdained it for some reason? Right now I wish only that I could ask them. “It is my deep regret that I never put you into a picture,” Burchfield wrote of Pal. “It was always the next winter that I was going to do it—but now it is too late—”
It was in this melancholy cast of mind that I read the latter half of The Sphinx and the Milky Way. The sentiments are familiar—the mourning of departed youthful powers, the bewilderment at the impassable thresholds of heaven, the weight of money troubles, the terror of current events, the foolishness of the art market and “art” more broadly, the relief felt when the day is fine and for a few hours you walk in eternity. Page 136:
As I faced into [a strong southeast wind], and felt it tugging at my clothes, I felt renewed in spirit; years seemed to drop away and I felt the eternal youth of the spirit that never need leave us, in spite of bodily decay, if only we keep our minds & hearts pure and in tune with our Creator. It is not easy to achieve—Tonight I felt strong and free, and the whole secret of it seemed to be present in that persistent S.E. wind.
That cast of mind was phenomenological as well. Suppose, if you’ll be so generous, that I had it right in 2007 when I said that the subjective-objective split is an illusion. It’s all outside, and we’re outside with it. If so, then whatever revelations are to be had may only be gleaned through the receptiveness to the minute details of physical existence that Burchfield exemplifies throughout his diaries. On page 145 he muses about an oak leaf in the neighbor’s yard.
It has become a symbol to me—a friendly little creature that tells me to likewise stand firm and hold on, thru all the moments of despair and doubt—I think of it as a little friend—
Henry Miller: “Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.”
The answers are within, and within is without. Page 158:
How slowly the “secrets” of my art come to me… When I said this to Bertha, she said “Aren’t you thankful that at 71 years old, new secrets are still being revealed to you?” And I certainly am.
There were always more secrets to be had, bundled up as they were in the movement of the weather, the sight of the hepaticas, the gleam of beetles in the sun. One need only keep making. On page 117, having just turned down an opportunity to be paid to make art, but not utterly on his own terms, he wrote: “I am determined to continue with my painting until it is absolutely impossible to do so.” Thus he did—he walked bravely forward, and the earth rose to meet his steps.
Reader D.C. Alan wrote in with his remarks on the book, and I excerpt some of them below with his permission. Quotes are Burchfield’s.
P. 85: “On such a day man is inclined to mating and abandons himself joyously in the soft loveliness of woman— ” When one thinks of the depraved sexual behavior that has come to govern our society in the past sixty years, including much of its artistic output, what a quietly sublime holiness for a married artist to feel for his wife. (On June 19, 1935, he records a discussion with his wife about churches “in complete harmony” and credits her for bringing him into a Christian church—what a true soulmate, to share the entire gamut of life’s experiences.)
P. 95: Who could be more temperamentally suited to be a visual artist than someone who exalts in the shade of pink particular to the underside of a mushroom?
P. 101: “The ever recurrent idea that art should speak to the mass of the people, or be completely understood by it, is not only false, but dangerous to the artist who allows it to permeate his consciousness even to a small degree. It is to my shame that I realize with a start that I have listened to such talk. One must always be on his guard. All the great works of art from the beginning of time have been created by artists, for themselves in solitude (spiritual solitude if not physical). All other works, wherein the artist has worked for hire, or has yielded to a lesser vision than his own, show the flaws induced by such a weakness. Only a few have achieved supreme alon-ness and therefore greatness. Beethoven is one—Sibelius another.” Here is a fairly complete one-paragraph primer that could be assigned to students in any field of creative arts as the starting point for discussion and reflection.
P. 105: “...directed by the jealousies of minority groups in each country....” Charles Burchfield astutely perceived then the nature of what plagues us now in a civilization crumbling by those determined to destroy it.
P. 120: “. . . It is as difficult to take in all the glory of the dandelion, as it is to take in a mountain, or a thunderstorm.” Paraphrased from the late biologist Edward O. Wilson: “If people were not so impressed by size alone, they would find an ant as fascinating as a rhinoceros.” (I remember reading something along these lines on a sign at the Invertebrate Exhibit at the National Zoo.)
P. 124: “Pictures of the second atomic bomb tests at Bikini. The explosion both beautiful & awe-inspiring, but the overall impression is one of chilling terror.” J. Robert Oppenheimer being a subject of renewed interest since the movie last summer, it is plausible here to recall his quote from the Bhagavad Gita thirteen months before Burchfield upon witnessing the fruits of his research: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Our next book is Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper, a short tome which we’ll discuss in its entirety on Friday.
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The next entry of the Asynchronous Studio Book Club is Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by Josef Pieper. For more information see the ASBC calendar.
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Regarding p. 101, I have long thought that art should be available or accessible to all, but it is not for all, because all do not have enough of an aptitude for it. That is not a socioeconomic issue or a matter of upbringing but a matter of nature, since said aptitude is a natural quality. It can be brought out and developed, but it cannot be created out of nothing. If it is not there, it cannot be put there.
A friend once declared, as we floated around on inner tubes on a lake in Texas, "It's all subjective. There's no such thing as objective." I just listened. Later, while driving from 1970s Austin (all gone) to 1970s New Orleans (all gone), I thought, if it's all subjective, then, any type of perception, including objective, is a subhead under "Subjective." That's as far as I went with it, but it has stayed with me, and your mention of phenomenology brought it back to mind.