Figure A: Dr. W. Fried on SHE
Figure B: Dr. W Fried on SHE
FIGURE 1: EESHA (“SHE”) by KNOX MARTIN
FIGURE 2: DANAE(“SHE”) BY KNOX MARTIN
FIGURE 3: CAILIN 2 (“SHE”) BY KNOX MARTIN
FIGURE 4: WOMAN WITH RED SHOES (“SHE”) BY KNOX MARTIN
Dr. Bill says:
The paintings in this exhibit are a set of variations on the theme of Woman, the continuation of a tradition dating from ancient representations of the female through the work of Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, and deKooning.
Dr. Bill errs seriously in his opener. The first observation of the Alpha Seer in this world of phenomena is that when you are not saying something based on facts, you must tap into your imagination. Here, Knox does not produce a set of variations on the theme of Woman. There are no “variations,” neither is there a “theme of Woman.” To talk of the entirety of SHE as a set of variations is like mentioning the Atlantic Ocean alongside with the swimming pool in Paris Hilton’s backyard. First, you describe the Hilton swimming pool as, “Ah, so big!!!!!!!” then, you go on to claim that that swimming pool can be compared with the Atlantic Ocean!
That is basically the intellectual habit of the New York academia, their favorite trend.
There are no set of variations. To make a claim otherwise is to willfully belittle the greatness that is Knox Martin. Is a given work of Picasso a variation of the one preceding it? Or, by the same token, the one following it a variation of the aforementioned? If your answer is “No!”, or even, “Not necessarily!” Then where in the world are Knox’s SHE variations?
There is so much uniqueness to each individual work in the SHE exhibit that the Alpha Seer may even suggest that each one is a seed to a completely new way of painting for the future generations to come. Each is a unit of the painterly revolution in its own right, a revolution that was first started by the artistic genius that is Knox Martin dating from the time of his own maturation, or his ” AH HA!” moment in the understanding of painting.
Now Dr. Bill, without the clarity of mind, nor a true understanding in painting, is claiming that Danae is a variation of EESHA. He also characterizes the entire SHE as a set of variations. Just a set of variations? Is the Atlantic Ocean just a swimming pool in Paris Hilton’s backyard?
Can one make the ludicrous claim that Picasso had created nothing but a set of variations in his whole life? Or that Picasso had really done nothing in his life except producing variations of his drawings, repeating the same old, same old…?
That brings us to the erroneous view of Dr. Bill in his flawed understanding in the true poetry that is called the LINEAGE of artistic geniuses.
Dr. Bill is telling us that Paris Hilton’s swimming pool is big.
How big?
Why? it is like the Atlantic Ocean!
Now to say that SHE is nothing more than a theme of Woman is adding more insult to the injury that has been inflicted! SHE is never about a theme of Woman. It has never been intended as something about woman in the first place. Knox Martin has never been interested in the theme of Woman, though he had found woman most interesting from the days of his puberty, but so had the Alpha Seer, or for that matter, every real man in the world! That is the extent to which Knox is interested in woman!
SHE is a theme of ART. In SHE Knox may have adopted the figure of woman, but that is just an excuse. The theme that Knox is really interested in is the theme of ART!
That is not what Dr. Bill sees. His is the wrong view!
The Alpha Seer’s next observation upon the world of phenomena are focused on 1. in order to create an illusion as far removed from reality as possible, the practitioner of the Wah-Wah Land always uses convoluted language to cover up the tracks of his/her imposture, and 2. quotations from past notables are made to support a narrow and personal point of view. No matter what that view is, the result is never original, always invalid, irrelevant, and counter-productive. It may not even have a consistent bearing on the topic being discussed!
Dr. Bill maintains, in his second paragraph, that Knox’s SHE are no more than “a set of variations” on ” the theme of Woman”, and that the body of that woman has been both very provocative and engaging to him. How engaging? He quotes the words of Shakespeare on Cleopatra’s naked body to summon up “…the infinite variety” of Cleopatra in the nude. Then he also reports to us what kind of experience he had entertained upon viewing SHE,” and finally he imagines the viewers would be “seduced” by SHE the way he was. He has used the word “tease” as in “strip tease”, and “provoke” as in sexual provocation” to describe that narrative, completely turning an erotic moment into one of pornographic delight! That which provoked delight in him is nothing beyond a personal one, a narrow flight of fancy,or a piece of pornographic remembering from his past encounter with a naked woman,–( Perhaps a fetish on someone who had painted her naked body with metallic sheen?) Then he goes on to quote the “Attic sculpture” and the gilded “medieval and Renaissance frescoes”,– a ploy being used to give credence to his own sexual experience and a personal point of view.
So far Dr. Bill has reported on the coloration of SHE with some elaborations. Even though he has also mentioned the intention of the artist by his “following the logic of the composition”, as well as “the precision” in the relationship of each part to the whole, he has not been able to break through with answering the “why” and “what for” in that artistic intention.
That is a central noble question, but with so many words lost on the convoluted use of language, Dr. Bill has missed that opportunity!
In the second paragraph Dr. Bill has given us his own narrow interpretation of SHE deriving from a piece of pornographic memory in the past. It does not matter how well he might have quoted from Shakespeare or the gilded Medieval and Renaissance frescoes, he has not in actuality touched base with the readers on SHE! Instead he elaborates on his own memory of a naked woman and her provocative metallic sheen in that nakedness. He has failed to answer the intention of the artist Knox Martin. He has elaborated on what is in his mind, but he has not been able to answer the question of what is on the artist’s mind.
SHE is universal. SHE is erotic!
Yet Dr. Bill has not mentioned it.
He has not mentioned it because he did not see it.
Dr. Bill has failed to see the beauty which is so pervasive in SHE.
He has only elaborated on his own sexual experience with female nakedness!
And why has he not mentioned it, i.e. the fact that SHE is both universal and erotic?
He has not because he has failed to see it.
And why has he failed to see it?
He has failed to see it because he does not have the sensibilities of a seer.
Feelers for poetry in general, and the seeing of universal beauty in SHE specifically, is required of a genuine seer!
Snake pretending to be a branch on a tree in order to catch a snack, that is all that academics can do!
By the way, an erotic SHE is very different from one being pornographic!
Obviously, Dr. Bill is unable to tell the difference!
The pornographic deals with private parts of the respondent with a dirty mind, while Erotica evokes the human spirit in his soul!
Erotica is a religious experience, evoking a poetic responsiveness, not one that has something to do with lust!
FIGURE 5: PAINTING BY TITIAN, THE ARTIST OF ARTISTS
FIGURE 6: PAINTING BY VAN EYCK, GREATEST PAINTER OF ALL TIMES
FIGURE 7: PAINTING BY FRANZ HALS
FIGURE 8: PAINTING BY ADRIAEN BROUWER
Krishnamurti said,” I don’t know what love is, but I do know what it is not!” By the same token, the Alpha Seer can say the same thing about beauty in general, but universal beauty in art in particular. The attached paintings shows a very small portion of this LINEAGE in order to give the readers some idea about the universal beauty inherent in those paintings. The same universal beauty is pervasive in SHE. The Alpha Seer cannot put words to universal beauty, but there is the universal beauty in LINEAGE from which Knox Martin derives his own nevertheless. That beauty is called universal not because everyone in the world can understand it but because it contains the core of values fully shared by every artistic genius right from the beginning of art. Since it is not something that can be easily understood, not everyone in the world can fully grasp that poetic reality,– and since only a handful of people endowed with the gift of artistic genius can, it may serve as a crucial point of evidence to prove its absence in Dr. Bill’s calling. In other words, the Alpha Seer can tell you whatever claim that is made of an understanding in the beauty in SHE must first come from a thorough understanding of this LINEAGE from which Knox Marin derives his art. NOT a trace of that understanding can be found in Dr. Bill’s critique on SHE! But again, there is still not enough evidence to prove Dr. Bill’s imposture.
The Alpha Seer has often wondered why Dr. Bill is always looking at SHE under the lens of psycho-analysis. Driven by curiosity, the Alpha Seer checked on Dr. Bill’s professional background. A click on the Google search engine immediately shows the psychoanalyst that is Dr. Bill.
Dr. Bill had come into the SHE exhibit with the preconditioned mindset of a psychoanalyst, and he has written the critique on SHE accordingly.
Big mistake!
How so?
There are two major principles to consider:
1. Art has no relationship whatsoever with psychoanalysis, which harks back to an atheist called Sigmund Freud. In fact, psychoanalysis is the very antithesis of art. The atheist’s belief and observation is grounded in matter, but matter decays in time!
Art looks beyond matter and find beauty, and beauty is timeless and deathless!
2. A critique must meet the basic assumption that the critic understands what he/she is talking about. If that is not the case, then consider the scenario of a seeing-eye dog leading the blind, something I learned from my visit to Morristown, where my childhood friend Dr. San lives. If the blind person decides to lead the dog instead, then whichever corner he turns great danger abounds, and horrific accidents await him!
With these two principles in mind, we may now set out to prove Dr. Bill’s imposture in his critique on SHE. Remember: this is not the fallacy of just one person. The hapless Dr. Bill has been singled out by the Alpha Seer as an example to show how widespread imposture in the realm of art is, and really, imposture has brought about many unsightly trends such as Symbolism, Realism, Surrealism, Postmodernism and countless other “isms”,– endless monstrosities which have nothing to do with true poetry at all, and which can manage to exist only on the periphery of the LINEAGE.
Invest the blind with a semblance of authority, and they will pluck the eyes of all the seeing,… .Give a slave his way but for a day, and he will turn the world into a world of slaves.
THE BOOK OF MIRDAD
