21 June 2022
‘Twas beauty that killed the beast’ part 2
Come to think of it, motifs also run madly through the history of Music too. One can spot them as abundantly in Debussy as in Ravel, in Mahler as in Brahms, in BB King as in Keith Richards. Great, original artists of every kind are obsessive by nature and melodic motifs and harmonies appear to be recorded in loops through their DNA.
Nonetheless, as a painter, I see now that it's not me who has tamed the beast, but the beast which has tamed me, for it's the motif that dictates my choices and shows me how to proceed. As in a Greek tale, it's like a mythological creature that leads me safely through the twilight zone and into darkness, and having vanquished my task, it delivers me safely home each night.
Since I began this series I've struggled at various moments as I search for newer paths into how nature can guide me to solutions for this simple motif. It has also sometimes felt like I'm in possession of an ancient map, which if I followed it closely, I was told it would lead me to a great treasure.
With time, this map, although a little more tattered and frayed, is still my guide leading me to this quixotic treasure. Like maybe with other explorers, cultural and otherwise, I couldn't realise then it would be an endless adventure nor one without a big pay out at the end. I found out that this treasure would be doled out to me in small sums each afternoon.
And this is funny because I had always secretly imagined I'd finally succeed by reaching the 'golden ring’. I thought it would deliver me ‘the great truth’ and fill in all the gaps of my ignorance and sense of insignificance. I had dreamed of that sort of magic that would finally allow me to rest on my laurels in a quiet garden with a head stone marking all my successes and none of my failures. I’d have the perfect home, the perfect partner, the great car and I will have captured the secrets of beauty forever. Henceforth, paintings would run through me like a waterfall at Mount Olympus.
Ha, ha,,, it sounds like a Broadway show from the 1930’s and written for all those poor dreamers during the Depression. But like so many other painters, I’ve finally learned the hard truth that it’s only through the tenacious search for beauty that I could wrestle with any peace at all.
Like that famous line at the end of King Kong when the poor beast has fallen 60 stories to its death, a journalist remarks,
“Well, I guess the planes finally got him in the end!” to which the film producer who was standing nearby responds,
“Nah, it wasn’t the planes that got him, ‘twas Beauty that killed the beast”
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