“The worst misfortune?… to be original.”  ~Stendahl (1783-1842), French writer

 

Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait with Straw Hat (1887). Detroit Museum of Art.

 

 

Digging for the Truth…

With the news that Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet of Soil and Strife, died recently at age 74, I was reminded of the role we, as artists and writers, play in heightening awareness regarding the role of the arts as purposeful ‘work.’ Picasso once described himself to Matisse as a “manual laborer,” and Henri did not disagree! artes fine arts magazine 

Our purpose here at ARTES fine arts magazine, and in studios, workshops, theaters and studies around the world is to examine the world and its people in minutest detail, in search of the common threads that bind us—or in some cases, the chasms that divide. In a shrinking global environment, acts of kindness and cruelty can go viral in moments. As we stand on the brink of yet another Mid-East crisis, the reasons for escalating conflict between nations are being hotly debated. At moments, the reasons not to act in retaliation seem to outweigh the risks of doing so. The search for any reasonable middle ground often seems futile, particularly when the lives of innocents are so much at stake.

Arts and letters often emerge at moments like this as the last bastion of hope, as writers, painters, performers and poets strive to give voice to our concerns, and our common interests. This has not been a good week for those who search out the truth and express it through their craft. An Indian author whose memoir about her dramatic escape from the Taliban became a Bollywood movie was shot dead by militants in Afghanistan, police said Thursday. Her only crime: revealing the truth about life under a religiously-restrictive regime.

This week, too, Russian artist, Konstantin Altunin, who made international headlines this week after police seized his painting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in women’s underwear, is seeking asylum in France.

The 45-year-old fled Russia on Tuesday night after police raided an art gallery in the northwestern city of Saint Petersburg and confiscated various works, including Altunin’s painting depicting Putin in a pink nightie and Medvedev in a bra and underwear.

Altunin fears he would be arrested if he returned to Russia for ridiculing Putin’s recent pronouncements regarding the civil rights of gays. Gallery owner Alexander Donskoy said, as well as seizing paintings, the police also shut down his gallery, then detained him for several hours with no explanation for their actions.

The human spirit remains indelible though, in spite of disasters and oppression so relentlessly visited upon it by those who wish to crush and destroy. Because there was also news this week of a beautiful new library, designed by a London architect, which will appearing to literally rise from the ashes of destruction in Bagdad (mock-up, left). It will house thousands of priceless ancient documents not destroyed by civil conflict. In Holland, too, the discovery of a beautiful, large landscape painting by van Gogh, completed just two years before his untimely death, demonstrates that genius can break through the shackles of insanity, with its imaginary demons occasionally of our own making.

I offer this poem by Seamus Heaney as a tribute to his life, and to those who struggle with the pen, brush, chisel, camera, script, or just bare hands to dig for the truth in a complex, and sometimes frightening world.

DIGGING

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

 

Under my window, a clean

rasping sound

When the spade sinks into

gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

 

Till his straining rump among

the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

 

The coarse boot nestled on the lug,

the shaft

Against the inside knee was

levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

 

By God, the old man could handle

a spade.

Just like his old man.

 

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

 

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men

like them.

 

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

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Thanks for reading ARTES Magazine,

My Best,

Richard Friswell, Publisher & Managing Editor

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