ON STYLE

                                                             and other misconceptions about artists' personal delivery of the monolithic "foliorgy" fetish

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Disclaimer -- do not criticize that this is near to being composed as one paragraph as though I do not know that paragraphs are a part of writing in English.  If I wanted to, I could be more literal in my having devised this with strict accordance to Greek manuscripts and left every space between every word out, as well as any punctuation.  My, MY -- how might that have offended thee?  

 

 

√ON STYLE and other misconceptions about artists' personal delivery of the monolithic "foliorgy" fetish 

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Since I have coined a new word (FOLIORGY) to synthesize the nature of what this essay directs my criticism toward, I wish to preface my remarks with a brief explanation of the term. To begin with, the notion that an artist's personal style either exists, or is his own is proposterous. Plato's simulacrum sheds light on this commonly avoided de-visibility, by which I mean to say that the facsimile that all art is, is both made unseen by intentionally failing to point it out, and that it can be divided out into the sum of many instances of making copies of copies to examine that the artist is not its origin - the act itself predates him, which is as borrowed as his style is from culture. Hence, it can be, should be leveraged against any and all remarks of originality as pertaining to one's "personal style". This so-called "personal style", is most often accepted as a "real" presence threaded as a singularity of "characteristic form" in an artist's folio, and is the "One Flesh-ness" of his body of work , which is said to be the marital matter linking all works within the folio of the artist, to the artist. This one flesh-ness in the many then, is a folio orgy, the etymology of orgy states -- (c. 1500, from Latin orgia), and directly from Greek orgia (plural) "secret rites" in the worship of certain Greek and Roman gods. The many works in the artist's series, for instance, are treated as a concrete whole, and are thus exempted from critics purview, so as to be doubly exempted from presenting any trace of an origin beyond the sculptor, painter, etc., which grants the artist this same exemption of being heralded as he truly is -- a copiest -- only to be loved, cherrished, celebrated or invited into the artworld's esoteric, would-be monolithic, super moni(a)stic set of codes the uninitiated masses are unable to follow. The foliorgy is then adopted as one offspring of one parent, the artist himself, entering into a forgotten sphere of a truthfully pluralistic inner sanctum of fetishistic oblivion. Call this aesthetic ecstacy, should you need a way of referencing the oblivion; we might call this a loss of one's sense of identity when viewing art. The foliorgy extended is a purely psychic apparatus, or, appendage extruding from society's many moments of influence upon the author, artist, muse-ician, etc., which cycles back through all future folios, just as a grandfather's termperament is found to be present in subsequent creations/manifestations of his own offspring in tandem and in tow. A grandchild's temper, or his predilections for that matter, is no more an original character trait of the child than a characteristic of an artist's folio is his own, but is rather the trickling down of the past's fatal persistence to make its presence real. A father will seek to live, though unconsciously, vicariously through his offspring, just as an artist will be branded as the source of his own work's characteristics - vicariously, he lives on via his seminal work, its likeness attributed to his inspired touch as blue eyes are to a parent, impregnating the many with the assistance of the many before him -- the foliorgy as a revered set (a one flesh-ness), which eventually outshines its origin, by being exumed from the tomb of its exempted source - culture. There is no talk of this source, this illuminated backstory, which predates all artists, upon which his offspring were predicated -- ab ovo, Mother Culture herself, with the artist then, as one pardoned for Creative Onanism as his seminal work needed no matter, no source, no Other to include in its coming into being. It was conceived in secret, through secret rites, this, his own one flesh-ness, and is for no other reason than this taken into the Temple of modernity, the MUSE-um, to a-muse the uninitiated for having merely arrived -- somewhat ex nihilo, one might gather -- but from an orgy none dare speak of -- society itself. Culture created art, and the proverbial "personal style" attributed to this or that artist, is impositional at best, but denied any instance of "the laying on of hands", and in the end, still missionary in nature. Coming out on top, the artist is only as good as his critic says he is, and we should take their word, too. For who does not, at the very least, discuss their predilections, tastes and preferences as they pertain to the production of offspring? whether professionally, or as a hobby? recreationally, or pro-creationally...? Personal Style: Brand or No Brand? 

 

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Genius and The Epistemological End, or Death of History’s Tutelary God-Artist-Author

 

By Brandon Heath Tart

 

 

"Don’t start from the good old things, but the bad new ones!” ___  Walter Benjamin – 1938 on a Brechtian Maxim.

 

To eyes over which cataracts are mushrooming, a burgeoning fascination with what upon the surface murkily appears to those "who would know", there grows the fungal notion of a supreme significance pertaining to an artist's "personal style". These eyes have been kicked, evidently, as the mushrooming cloudiness over "pupils" of trusting naïveté to follow this wonder-landscape trend is both widespread, and spreading still; queen of hearts spores which manufacture both consent, and ‘believing impossible things’ has become as pop and exclusive as truffles. We must at once wipe our eyes with spit and mud. As though seeing is believing, cause has arrived on the art scene through the notion of a personal style, which must beg of those paying close attention to consider that visual art is becoming all the more purposeful for the blind, if not those blinded by phenomena – the delicatessen that is "haute art". Whether by advertisement, or by fine art’s array of self-re[v]ferential acts and its so called “world”, both have a hand in insuring that 2+2=5, marking the dawning of the epistemological end to creativity. The institutionally hegemonic malignancy of personal style being the sign/symptom of artistic genius has swarmed like two of ten plagues on art and artists, swallowing many of them whole as when a viper's jaw unhinges around its tasteless meals. Like a biblical omen sent to fetter free spirited artists, the demand placed upon creators to weave a singularity of style has, in no simple or certain terms, made its way onto the art- world-stage as a suspended note from some hymning harp of the past: who can say when it will end in spite of only one certainty – that the demand has indeed begun. The source of this requisite for artistic worth and merit envelopes a disembodied "spirit" of surreptitiousness, concealing its meanings on beauty and value as if its seers are sages come and gone – sfumato. It is as though a yardstick for sizing up creative worth was discovered in a clandestine laboratory and publicly implemented as dogma, to wit, the measuring tool asserts what is appreciable in and of itself, unwilling to share space with alternative metrics. Western in its own right, Thee Metric is tantamount to an American Standard Unit paradigm for setting market value, trends, control and seals of approval on art and artists: it is no less than a branding tool – the artists’ art in tow. Though now more than ever the definers of value are without question all the more lively (this canonizing cabal of conquerors over creativity) and threatening to artists’ who would otherwise create at the whim of their individual tutelary gods. There now surfaces from the smoke of aesthetic sagacity, a silken shroud called "personal style". This individualization of all precedent creative will is an idealistically driven modern(ist) phenomenon, to which, as of late, I have with little regret committed considerable amounts of time in repose reflecting upon, though previously not; taking style to be preeminent, as a thing in itself (a peculiar ding an sich, a noumenon, which stands in stark contrast with the very notion of something being a phenomenon to begin with). C: “But how can this be so, for is not style visible to our eyes?” A: Ah, yes – to trust the eyes – for all that is stylish belongs to the first of all great dupes, when before one’s eyes he takes exterior to be the end and beginning, forgetting always styles of thought. Long before the arrival of this taking up of arms on my behalf to consider an individual's creative style, I've been inspired to make art of many forms, which, in themselves, arrived by demands intrinsic to the subject that initiated a cause, not the most of which is plainly physical in effect: nude females, still life renderings, or other drawn out, object-vagaries that arrive like inclement weather – painting cats and dogs – publicly if not timelessly in demand: derivative drivel. It should appear as a clear sky that a personal style is little more than a call for dooming flash floods of homogeneity to deem as an array of flashes of genius. There is epistemic value in diversity! What artists now face is a peculiar summoning of the Wormwood of death for art, as opposed to a truly ingenious Wormhole to accelerate creativity, societal advancement, liberation from institutional constructs (Althusser’s RSAs), supposed axiomatically aesthetic constants, though we needn’t summon what has already struck, leaving a crater for the blind to lead the blind into. An Einstein-Rosen Bridge of forgetting what we learned in “art school” may accelerate creative force, provide a lasting creative inertia, fearlessly opening up to time and space without demands for inert individualizations of visual forms. A singularity of style only promises a certain shrinking back; a singularity indeed, which not only draws light into its dense oneness, but also reduces the a-spatiotemporal force that propels the artist – “genius”. A singularity: style as the collapsing star once radiating a lasting light. Dead where the artist stands, his art burned out relative to the light it seems to emit, he now shrinks inward from its true source, its inspirational origin lost to the trend of owning the presence of his art and its relative gravity. Modern Artist: self-re(v)ferential, the center of the galaxy, if not the universe, decrying the randomization of individual forms – decrying creative liberty! The task of reduction to one’s creative freedom to fit a peculiar model is a fair description of this phenomenon, best understood as a patented secret that is irrefutable. Understood, that is, as a justified disdain for the unbridled designer, unending wishes to delimit his creative fervor, a glowing red brand-demand for the artist who, for instance, uses only line, the same 3 or 5 colors, a single motif for a decade stretched to fit – pretentiously obsessed with something mundane – making the artist visible, branded, placing him side-by-side with the definers’ yardstick: you must be at least this tall to... All of this is in an effort to become one's very own Logo(s), with little consideration on the artist's part as to who brought forth that brand, as it is not the mark of the artist, but those who can, and will elevate him or her to the height of their own Logo(s). It is not the assertion of artists that they must create their own niche, their own earthly palm branch entry as they “emerge” (emergence implies personal will to enter, when in fact the emergence of artists is determined), or devise their own pax for the patrons, but the assertion of those who welcome them in for their obedience to a "type". The modern artist is not free – (s)he takes h(er)is creative "queue's" from the archetype's brand of approbation to become once and for all ––– signified! Personalization of something preeminent should draw out significant questions and concerns from artists. Philosophical, psychological, theological, ontological, cosmological, biological - do each of these not have their own relative terminologies from which imagery must follow in a style presented by the language that these subjects know? Art has a voice that precedes the image, and style is no different. Style must be a branch from some tree, even necessary to locate, perhaps even cut down and burn – but for whom – why and to what great purpose must it be felled and found out? Is it for light, for warmth or for naught?The Grand Inquisition_ [Art :: Self-expression] Have you been programmed?So let us ask – Why is an artist's personal style important, is it important, when is it important and how - what's more, why is a singular woven design motif a considerable remnant of one's creative worth so as to be granted glibly the waxing and waning title ––– "genius"? Style, when viewed through my global aesthetics linguistic code, has been and is still to be regarded as something prior, pre-existing on its own terms and can be determined by none as being "one's own". Standing alone, style's very existence is independent, which I have and continue to understand it as such, on a number of different grounds and for a number of reasons. I now stand at an impasse regarding style, in that as an artist (a "modern" artist) the coming into being of the demand upon creative types to order their very own style is a crippling criticism toward any that may not have a singular identifiable thread woven into their canon of visual art works. Relative to the senses of the viewers of any one artist's volume of prints, paintings, drawings or sculptures (let us remain with objects that fall under the modernist terminology, fine art) exists the phenomenological moment of either identifying an artist's works to separate that soul's objects from all other artists of his kind, or the final fig leaf that stands between that soul's being granted the institutional degree of "genius", though their exists no identifiable tree (its genus) from which such an apple falls in the Eden of the so called “art world”. I will call style a phenomenon herein for two reasons. 1 – the singularity of style that elicits a response in viewing that is the equivalent of “that work was completed by…” is open to the senses of any sentient soul to examine and criticize, knowing that to no one creator, can there be attributed a style that was not provocateured: i.e. – all art is derivative only, and can be explained by locating the source of its coming into being.2 – Unoriginality is all that exists in art, and there is no original visual work: i.e. All visual art is predicated on a pre-existing theme, object, subject, notion, feeling, which was caused by a previous source. No art is x-nihilo, as are all things original.Since no two painters, sculptors etc. ever have the good or bad intention of being "unoriginal", as by the current mode of visual art criticism, creators are expected, almost inexplicably, to eat its fruit so as to harness some characteristic of THE NOUMENON. Finally, they apply that in-spired genius in their each and every "manifestation" deemed in-vention, and wear the fig-leaf of its tree of knowledge :: style of thought. I will refer to and demonstrate that the notion of a requisite personal style is a critical problem that does not logically flow from or partner with its phenomenological shape, line, form, texture, value, color, ideation, presence, existence etc.Terms and Definitions:Aether Theory: in physics, the proposition of the presence of a medium, aether, a space filling substance or field, thought to be necessary as a transmission medium for the propagation of electromagnetic or gravitational forces.a priori: relating to what can be known by an understanding of how certain things work, think, exist rather than by observation.a posteriori: relating to what can be known by observation rather than through an understanding of how certain things work, αἰθήρ: aether also spelled ether, from the Greek word (αἰθήρ), meaning "upper air" or "pure, fresh air Ding an Sich: The thing in itself, or a thing in and of itself - i.e.: God.Epistemology: Study of the origin, nature, and limits of human knowledge. Genius: Etymologically -- late Middle English: from Latin, ‘attendant spirit present from one's birth, innate ability or inclination,’ from the root of gignere ‘beget.’ The original sense ‘tutelary spirit attendant on a person that gives rise to a characteristic disposition’ (late 16th century), which led to a sense -- ‘a person's natural ability,’ and finally ‘exceptional natural ability (mid 17th century).Luminiferous aether: light bearing aether, a substance believed in the 19th century to be a medium for the propagation of light. πάθος: Pathos -- from Greek: Suffering, passionPhenomenon: anything that appears to - or is an object of - the senses.Phenomenological: study of the structures of experience and consciousness. Noumenon: an object that is known - if at all - without the use of the senses -- i.e.: God, spirits, or something that is regarded as true independent of evidence such as in metaphysical philosophy, or theology.  οἶστρος: anything that drives mad. 1. the smart of pain, agony 2. any vehement desire, mad desire, insane passion 3. madness, frenzy... Bypassing all the literature that might, and most likely does exist on the topic of style, I intend to use my senses and formal education in hermeneutics, theology, fine art and art criticism to forego discussing others' writing on the subject at hand. Naturally, I feel fairly positive that I may inadvertently reference authors as a reflex while discussing the topic of "Style", and will attempt to shed light on such occurrences. I won't cite Barthes, Foucault, Derrida or other tongue kissing philosophers of great intellectual ferment, but I will thank them for being both gifted with their pens, minds and tongues, to wit, kissing Logos instead of those for whom scents are detected thereby – and putting on "heirs". Let us begin by coining a word: noumenological. Since the word phenomenological exists, defined as the study of the structures of experience and consciousness, then what is effectively noumenological falls naturally under theology and knowledge that arrives a priori. It seems fundamentally necessary therefore, to revert to earlier definitions of “genius” to account for today's mode of identifying (deifying) "personal style", and what this notion is predicated upon. Today, genius is without question treated as though it is a scientific (a posteriori) reality – owned by modernist ascents – as analogously, selective breeding might best explain its being revealed through/in an artist or any mortal. By this assertion, it is, too, detached from the probability of it belonging to someone who believes in deity, a spirit world – an Other side to reality: the great beyond, as it were. The modern genius would thereby denounce one for another by its precepts. The etymology of the word "genius" does not attribute to mankind's biological reality the title of one's so being – artist, musician, mathematician, writer or any other would-be genius – nor could one subscribe to that style of thought. This is still only ideology at its finest, highest, most assertive state – dogmatic drivel. Today, genius is relegated to being explained by way of excising deity (or its command over the members of its winged legions to in-spirein-ventors in this or that manner) from the equations of accounting for such minds' unimpeded delivery on demand. The limitation, and perhaps the only limitation to this assertion is that there remains a camp upon the earth for whom deity is the explanation of all things – genius, greatness and human beings ability to invent, build, revise, etc – whose members are in fact so cognitively adroit: their contributions not merely comparable, but greater reaching in cognitive acreage, hectares of helpfulness and parsecs of lasting merit – and as for feminists, even – especially lunar. As for the alternative camp, which can and can only be described as the atheist population (if not merely those disinterested in the source, or determining the source of their wit, talent, gift...), genius must have its roots in that which can be explained through the human senses being amplified, which is to say, that genius can only be explained under a microscope. Genetics, cellular biology, virology – all else falls under faith – have their origins under the senses amplified; genius is unfortunately neither contractible, nor contagious, though without question treated as the product of genes, less social necessity. Designer or not, we're moving toward style, since, after all, necessity is the Mother of in-vention. Whether by God or not, nature will by necessity birth another Einstein, though the next will agree with the former that falling in-sync and lock-step with trends is a symptom of stupidity – and unstylish. Since artistic greatness is and has been historically defined as genius in effect, personal style both in tandem and in tow, we must determine whether it is, or is not a merit that can/should be individualized, or remotely evidences genius. Provided that art which is celebrated as being worthy of historical recognition such as the works of High Renaissance painters/sculptors/printmakers, we must come, through the modernist regard of the phenomenological aspects of individual style, to sever any personal beliefs the Masters had from their greatness, or to attribute it to anything mystical. Ergo, Michelangelo's Pieta must by no means be attributed to the artist's muse, his siren or guardian spirit. In spite of his, and others' evident reversion to the Classicism of Greece and Rome (who the Christian Deity must have abhorred for its idols), Buonarroti's genius is historically upheld. It was not his style, though his touch may well be upon his own instruments marks made in stone, his craft was at best an appropriation – his brushstrokes de-merited by Michelangelo himself – nearly swearing to Pope Julius II, as though it were an oath he made to God that he was not a painter, but a sculptor. We must note that the brushstrokes of two or more Impressionists, for instance, do not filter them out as having styles of their own. It cannot be expected by reasonable souls that two or more 'wills-to-paint' will exact the same motions within the same genre - a genre which must belong to some one. So, too, is the case with Carrara. ART: Product of an Old Aether Æffect?Noumenologically, art is best described as an emulation of the natural world, its forms, its order or perceived chaos. Noumenologically... [straying from a phenomenological habit of referring to artists’ actions that emulate what is visible, perceptible - (all that man can be conscious of by way of the senses)] ...art as a practice is the product of οἶστρος, or ones πάθος. It is unclear what invisible force exists in/beyond the mind, or the universe that drives, wills, compels a mortal to act outside of normative occupational actions. Perhaps Michelangelo is arguably more genius than genius for working in a profession that was historically far more auspicious than the same driven, willed or compelled state today. Italy is still a symbol of a historically thriving art market, if not a symbol of what was and still is understood as genius. It is of noumenon, which is to say, beyond phenomenology's modes of explication as to why one assumes the transitive fugue state of his oracle's siren song to participate in acts that un-naturally defy the status quo. Today’s artists’ art is not a staple of personal finance. With Lutz Niethammer, one may agree that we live in a post-historical state where “The role of the prophet also ceases to apply, and the role of the intellectual is either shifted to the interpreters balustrade or reduced to earning a living.” The artist and his dayjob(s), and thus the end of either burning midnight oil, or having his head anointed with it. The post-industrial artist, now living in the technological infrastructure of postmodern relativism, has lost his or her import and is castigated for being somewhat anti-participatory. It should come as no surprise to they who should know why – the artists themselves – as no other can account for the pleasure and sense of purpose derived from spending innumerable hours in the studio. Greatness is either achieved in this way, or is a symptom of precisely what makes the artist great. Relegated to their studios, they are indeed physically “split-off”, and therefore, subject to being treated quite often as particularly schizoid. They needn’t await their “emergence” onto the fine art scene, but relocate to where their role is exploitable, thus financed and ultimately branded. Here begins the socialization process of taking the artist out of his or her actual niche, and the inaugural process of making a phenomenon of them, post-noumenon acts. Nietzsche [playing on the Roman poet Juvenal's disdain for the idiocy that marked the dullards of the Roman Mob as absurd due being easily subdued and won over by the "bread and circuses" [panem et circenes] provision that was the Roman Colosseum] wrote his German thoughts on artists saying:"This is an artist as I would have an artist to be, he is modest in his needs. He really only wants two things, his bread and his art - Panem et Circen." Translation: Bread and MagicNietzsche’s inversion on Juvenal's words reveals that the magic of life to the artist is not mundane, that his muse subdues him, his art entertains – not the deeds and desires of the unwashed masses. Alone with his art, he is en fugue, still in creative rapture, lost in his process and liberated in the ecstasy of some οἶστρος. Today's “sport” is history’s bloodbaths, where bread was tossed to the hoi polloi, the rabble, the dullards that artists Nietzsche praised as not - driven by something else that phenomenology does not/can not describe. It is a noumenon that leads the muse to the fugue state to create. Whether God or "aether" (αἰθήρ) -- natural forces that make lunacy of a mind that perhaps Montaigne can shed moonlight on:"Obession is the wellspring of both genius and madness". For who can say that history has not revealed the artist himself to be stylized by some οἶστρος; the artist and his bread and his πάθος: some light bearing apparition and its luminiferous a-etheriality? Art is impossible to explicate other than by means of inventing noumenological styles of reference.Personal Style: An Intangible, Ineffable Invention and an Unseemly Mon(a)istic Meta-Phenomena A modernist approach would and must denounce that style is, or could be God-ordained (in as much as modernism posits that science is paradigm of all true knowledge), and must denounce art that emulates unknowable, immeasurable nature(s) (though mankind is nature in one of its many garments), as a singular style is required by modern critics before the glibly used term "genius" is applied. The universe, phenomenologically speaking, is riddled with many forms, colors, textures, line formations, striations, atoms (the universe is stippled - God as Seurat..."Sunday Afternoon?"). Of all the many forms that the universe takes with or without god, atheistically man may choose to emulate the Big Bang's randomness as a style (which is an approach), or the probable Deity who, noumenologically, did what it did, does what it does, will do what it will do. In either universe, Big Banged or Designed, style was present before man, and will continue to remain a ding an sich in as much as man himself cannot alter or criticize the perpetual order or disorder of the universal aesthetic that lies herein. It is an aesthetic of many styles (approaches to creation) that belong to both events – Created or Banged into being. The modern artist must, according to the modern art critic, choose his line, dot, shade or tint, or in-vent his own before his style is labeled/defined by the critic with – "biologically superior in so far as, microscopically speaking, his style can be quantified and categorized in a modern light as being light both in and of, and unto itself -- genius!" Making tangible the intangible, the single string (warp or weft) is the garnishing shroud of creative merit that is a modern garment to cover the naked artist in the Eden of the art world's call for style. Standing naked before all, however, an artist creates according to his own muse to have his new clothes' narrative sown by culturally imperialistic empiricism, and dyed with invisible ink provided by the phenomenological, to soon forget the bread of life and magic from the superior genus. The tree of variety that is the universe, open to harvest in-spiration from as one WILL! It should be fairly noted that genius can not know itself as such. Female, or male – artist – is the conduit lost to such a notion. Aware, and perhaps only aware that he or she is under a spell to perform for no personal reason other than to respond to what feels like a tre haute calling. An honest artist could not call himself genius, though he or she may well know it to be so, which is to say, as long as they are within proximity of those who make up the art-world: it is smaller than the universe, after all. Within it, someone may very well be a genius relative to its inherent population. One must be invited into it, as artists cannot storm into its gallery's with equal work, no, but work of "their own". Those who make the art world require that a style be honed so that, phenomenologically, they are comfortable with what stands before them – the man and his art – since noumenologically, his or her canonical variety would truthfully mirror what they each and everyone stand in the midst of: a big bang of creative difference made by one mind, or an in-vented and in-spired variety that arrived by Deity's commanding spirits to lead the artist as it will. Both types of artists are too vast to be branded "genius", as their portfolios must, too, be visible under a microscope, which is to say, it is narrow enough in its stylistic reaches to be viewed by the art-world's makers' small eyes and smaller minds. This is not an ad hominem statement, rather, a description of what, and only what could lead to such a constraint on creative liberty, to which the word genius is applied. The rationale being that if Deity isall-knowing, evidenced by its vast creative spirit-ness, then an artist should in his own studio be seeking that degree of unlimited creative flexing. Conversely, if one's muse is merely the grandeur of the diversity of the universe from which awe and inspiration stem, the result should be the same as the former – unbridled creative inertia. Style as a concept, or construct (one may take his pick) has been transmogrified by the culture of the art world's engineers of exclusivity. Elements of control exist as to who is allowed to participate in its "save some for the rest of the artists" approach to granting pig medals of artist honor. The phenomenon is worthy of addressing in a deep cultural light since being an artist has, too, evolved into a cultural phenomenon, only today, those who receive such medals incidentally become socially "noumenistic" – to coin another word. It is so with every earned celebrity.Bit and Bridle Æsthetic -- if one cannot speak freely, he can't create freely "aether". The history of art is riddled with language "in queue", amongst other elements, wherefore is practitioners are granted the title of "genius" as a medal: a medal to and for its most valorous of metal wielding and smelting blacksmith-knights for building a particularly recognizable and lucky horseshoe of aesthetic consequence. It is the claim made by the scholarly that a work of art is clearly this artist's or that artists, to which the award is given for assuming an epistemological end to what it means to be creative at all. Exhausted by force: the limitation to artists’ knowledge of materials and forming it is met with the 'bit and bridle' of their handlers, and they are "shoed" in or out by their own brand, or no brand --- by no means branded with the mark of approval unless the artists' horseshoes fits their expressed limitations to artists' ethereal creative council by making it mundane. The unspoken/unwritten and surreptitious rule:"Be ye not an Ᾱᾱ, Ᾰᾰ, ye artist, rather be ye Ω as we say that ye art Ω, when we say that ye art Ω and put an end to your explorations! Shod your feet with your Ωὦn style, our Ωὦned creator, and consider yourself lucky to have found an end to knowledge. For thine art, Ωur Ᾰrt, as ye have been branded with Ωur mark, has been branded with the only knowledge that allows you to enter Ωur Æden --- it fell to earth, therefore keep ye Ωur limits until the day of..."May there be no exceptions to the rule, for all metrics hidden yet founded by authorities must be upheld as sovereign, and sovereign born. The modern art-world is the messiah of the artist, able to rapture that soul through its Law and Prophets fulfilled by its very own begotten archetype, sending its spirit in return for belief and obedience thereto, giving gifts to men. The refusal to "stifle" one's creative freedom is thereafter met with the critic's whipping tongue. Genius is therefore appreciable when the shoe fits its designer and no one else, although the shoe, luckily enough, fits the tastes of they who wield the glowing red brand. The mark it makes is as narrow as the brand it endorses, thus signifying who owns the artist! The narrowing lens through which license is allotted to create smacks of control, but not self control, as that pertains to artistic liberty and freedom: the bit, the bridle, control and nothing more. Those brought into the fold are the elect. It is invariably terrifying to consider that variety in one’s creative practices must be mitigated by the creator, but must be bore deeply in mind that it is demanded by the art world. In another world, the Catholic Church purports that "Whatever God can do, He will do", but how can one examine that statement through the lens of modern criticism? If the universe is, and it is all that it is, then it is what it is. It was the God of the same Holy Book of Catholicism who spoke the same notion, translated in a variety of ways:"I am what I am; I will be what I will be and I am that I am". That the universe is not static, it is most likely the case that it will be what it will be: God or no God. If man as emulative "creator", or "big bang maker" is to format his actions within what will be, then whatever can be accomplished should only fall within the confines of what is ethical. Otherwise, love, thou artist, and make what thy will! – St. Augustine on art."Thoroughbred" by Design and Other Lame Artists Or, made lame. To what degree is it ethical to regulate what a creative will can accomplish, when style, attributed to either the Big Bang, or God (male or female), is ever present, ubiquitous in and of itself, in-spiring enough for any who look upon all with wonder to in-vent in unlimited modes? Language has its own rules, its structure predicated upon the logic of syntax, we must not become grammatically staunch when granting license to visualizations. Later, if we must, we can describe them, even take joy in creating another “ism” for a world in short supply and high demand of them. Otherwise, the failure or unwillingness to grant full reprieve to artists who refuse to take to the bit and bridle is a certain means for creative knowledge to arrive at convexity through quenching unmitigated acts of creative discovery. This modern cultural practice is one of inflating the value of a singular type. Creative freedom is epistemological currency, like the inflated dollar, will undergo an inevitable collapse for its homogenized, universality of singular value. If one is/was ever avant garde, then that artist was ahead of his or her time. It leads one to ponder what control any institution (unless it is unconsciously hegemonic) has the right to control creativity relative to its dark vantage-point, so as to lasso celestial diversity, spur heterogeneity or "garnish" pastures of multifariousness? Therein, the truly stylish would even graze upon the garnish, say yea or neigh in a corner of the creative universe they are disseminating in and dare put the shoe on the wrong foot. The alternative to taking the dare is an art form of uniformity and conformity that fits their owners' tastes at the bottom of a boot. It has no control, ultimately, but in order to fit the bill (since true creative genius can't foot the bill in a slimming market where what is in style is always intended for a microscopic coming into being - the emerging artist) artist's must be content with becoming glue. You who have a "personal" style... metaphorically you're dead enough to be allowed into upper rooms and allowed to stick around; how fortuitous is it that your style is stuck to their feet, but by God or design, don't dare look into their mouths. Your horseshoe (oh so lucky) is yours, but because they own you, wear you, decorate with you, purchased you and "your style".Style belongs to none, but is a cultural phenomenon now attached to the practice of art making that is deemed "second to none", only after an artist reduces his creative purview till it is epistemologically slim. All things broad and far-reaching tend to have little luck of being seen, as critics and culture approvers often cannot see the forest for the trees for having need of a recognizable detail to call something genius when in truth, odds are that it's slim to none.He whom the Son has made free, is free indeed, or so th3y say... At the races, we come to place our bets on who's been winning – a jockey's world – and just who’s doing the riding, whipping…winning?Rarely do people place their money on the horse that doesn't take to the bit, the bridle or the whip. We must rightly call these artists wild horses, and the only ones with any style at all. They graze where they want, run when they want, "un-stifle" to create according to their kind/type (and God said it was good) and enter their οἶστρος when aether nature calls them to their estrous cycle, or to put an βΩΩT in the face of criticism as if it matters – that's style enough. By that rationale, they're not concerned with whether you place your bets on them or not; something that makes their creative type a "free spirit", which never goes out of style...something that with Nietzsche we must with a hammer strike down modernity’s idols, and in their twilight, rightly brand these free spirits – Genius!

 

INTERLUDE

 

To the critic

 

Of all of the English nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs... more plainly: by all their parts of speech; for what great purpose under the sun is there the occasion that the Wordsworths and "wordsmiths" amongst us find the challenge of finding a topic impressed upon them like the tab button of their first sentences in each of their paragraphs --- a challenge indented unto their blocked elocution? As much as it may seem strange to place such a word as "elocution" at the end of that lengthy harp, it is a matter of fact that one writes the way that they speak, and if not... that soul may need to reconsider their initiating a "verse" to begin with. To begin with, I do often have trouble saying precisely what is on my mind; my words stumble over and off of my lips as though I had only begun to speak yesterday. Like a neophyte, I do not dance at times when, indeed, I could only wish that the very words I pronounce and procure from the propriety of my fatty-flesh, lexical database (brain), would provide both myself and my playgoers with a tempo to which we may all either waltz, or tango to. Yet, the writer is blocked, eloquence is stymied, the tongue's council clipped, and a garrulous team of "wit-excisors" pontificate whilst its many words evade my own capture, taking with them my verbiage as they crown me dumb: curtail circumlocution of my gregarious bent and get to their grand glossectomy's terminus! The days do often arrive when the lights grow dim, as does the intellect, passion is persuaded and an invisible foe fetters my already whiplashed tongue's failure to recoil in retort to my own inquiry (What shall I write, what shall I say and to whom?): reticence of reason is set adrift upon an abysmal abyss' abhorrent absence of pure proclamation, as the recourse that is reason absconds.So - what shall we all write about, if not the moments in our lives, when, as "writers," we cannot get our point across -- which is to say: we cannot get the point of our pens to flow across a page so as to execute a thorough thought. INK SHOULD GLIDE, and anyone of you out there who loves to scribe anything, even if its just the mundane trial of taking notes, knows what it is to have a BLOCK wedged between the left and the "WRITE" hemispheres of your chatty brains. But, as I have said elsewhere in my time of writing for either recreation, or to persuade a soul back to life, the discursive approbations of our "Lit-wit" can be dammed-up like a wall of water awaiting its chance to shove the turbines of energy generation forward, and finally, if not merely for once in our lives of "penning enigmatic," say something with merit!!!!DISCURSIVE: 1. passing aimlessly from subject to subject without direction. 2. proceeding by reasoning or argument rather than by intuition.[Approbation of one's literary office is often seemingly discursive. Critics are many, though while I needn't a critic as much as a critical eye, or a critical theory of writing, which, in itself, may be truly discursive in nature, approval of any work of writing may appear discursive, since approval may not be established on reason. Perhaps the approval was intuitive, an a fortiori argument not supplied - the work just "felt" good, as though it had been penned on lambskin. Though to write only for the approval of a critic is to avoid being self-critical, or, to disapprove of one's sitting for any amount of time to scribe. I'd dare no injustice self-ward by throwing my pen into a lake of ink for the fish to dish out the deep sayings of the abyss and the abysmal - why approve of their writing when the scales are tipped in their favor? All things written with water cannot be lost when water is poured upon it. Even if ink atop the page, if it is water, then it is truth in Holy Writ: I dare instead to take the Word and His Word, as He is the Word, and tattoo myself with literary liberty - come up from the water having been bathed in the spirit of truth in writing to tell the critic I need not his aimless, subjective approval unless he did in fact -- FEEL ME as I wrote to me, for me and for all in the name of approbations that will come from no other reason, than the LOGOS - The reason, Word which became flesh and divided the fish amongst the multitudes -- IT IS WRITTEN! Though some do not approve, He Tattooed Himself onto the Pages of time, and the critics crucified Him. He must have approved that the things written were necessary so that some could be pulled from the depths by the nets of the fishers of men, when they approved of the Word of faith so as to be written into the Lamb's Book of Life. Who's approval do I need, lest it come by way of intuition, when I feel the Word, words, and His Reason for being?]I find that word to be very fascinating! Now, on occasion, I would love to just write aimlessly without direction. But guess what - IF THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO DO, THEN I DO. Who is to stop me? Now, should I take it upon myself to tell people about "writer's block," while I am in the midst of a bout of it myself, I may just leap headlong into something that to their ears, is very discursive! But if I am having trouble to begin with, I may simply need to sit with a pen and paper and begin to write something that is altogether, free-associative, to resolve the painstaking battle with the blockages of what should otherwise - come without trial and tribulation! Though, if I should sit with a soul that is battling the blockage him or herself, then I do indeed need to become all the more discursive to engage with their sense of reason, so as to perform my own miraculous extraction (like the aforementioned glossectomy) and cut out their lack of intuition. In fact, I would argue against the latter of the two meanings of discursive, by saying that, now, I sense that I am writing completely intuitively. However, logic holds sway, and I can say definitively that there is a point to my aim herein.Writing is not an action that should be deemed painstaking, although, it is certain that the majority lies with the camp that cares not about writing what is to eventually be read by an audience. While it is, too, quite certain that those who have read much, or, at least read a good portion of the right books (and there are those books) will eventually find themselves in a precarious predicament of "having something to say/write." That does, however, imply that when they do read, they read those same books with at least a modicum of understanding, as it stands to reason that the souls who have sought council in the vast libraries of prose, do not always get the point of the codex in hand, its words, the meaning of their syntax, the reason for intrinsic literary devices, or the tone, mood, "colo(u)r" of the text: the book is relegated to the depository after the first paragraph is scanned, his reading relinquished; the reader cannot requite his felt dim-wittedness from the choice of words that the author imparted in his discursive diatribe, and the audience acquiesces the author. Well, the author left the reader little choice but to do so, the reader agrees with the text because he cannot, himself, adequately defy it with his own argument, which is, too, contingent upon an understanding of words that could be used to do so. The reader was not blocked by a sense that the author's point was not clear, as it was clear to the author that he was not to be found in an act of approbation, rather, to be found at all! Found, which is to say, "found out." Just who is this author? Found, again, by a reader who has been until then, surfing blogs, magazines about decor, music, pop-culture and perhaps has only "read" playboy -- and caught red-handed doing so. Later, however, the audience returns to that book as being a book with merit, as all other "points-in-print" were penned perhaps (if not most certainly) to be agreed with for having met the audience right where it is: subject to the words of those who write because they are the block to begin with! Need we really read tips on all things "minuscule?" Such is the "case" with many voices approbated.The subject of the book is always the audience, and this was put forth by French Literary Critic, Roland Barthes in his essay titled: The Death of the Author [or, that is my unapproved interpretation of Barthes]. This, however, does not mean that I should, as the writer, die to the "choice lexis" that could follow along in aesthetically pleasing strings of syllables: it indicates that the audience as the subject (itself subject to the narrative's subject-matter) should not be blocked by the writer from discovering the inherent beauty of the language written in by the author's failing to embark upon his message, by failing to include literary instances that inspired him to write to begin with!"The cat ran up the tree," for instance. Versus: "The feminine feline raced with its claws ejected, as it rushed toward a breech of gravity's call, never minding the insuperable force and its insurmountable tow upon its feral frame: amidst its liberating return to the wild, it knew somehow, that it must ascend its domesticated past by scaling the mighty oak before it; for life upon the ground had become its only tragedy, its only fetter -- a cage made of culture that said --- "you are but a pet.""But why would a writer block his or herself from having the power over the written word to become the audience's muse, its siren, so as to pull the reader away from the ropes that bind it to a main mast of little or no speakable beauty -- at least none worth commenting on. But the block itself is all I really wanted to cover in this recourse to you, my audience: my subject. For if you want to learn something about writing, why resort to those who make that which you are blocked off from who seem to make the "promised land" of words that flow like milk and honey, too far away from your retrieval? Take a vile of ink and turn it over it on purpose, only to write about what you see, even if but a fair description of your reflection in the black pool. Take a glass of milk and spill it, and write about why it made you cry tears for your mother. Find a block of wood that is 8"x8"x8," and split it from corner to corner, then pen your sentiments about its completely new dimensions! For if ever there was such a thing as "writer's block," it came by virtue of failing to see the words that exist in the world around you, me and everyone. But because of the fact that there is a critic around ever corner, we tend to stay on the literary corner of Fifth and Main: too scared to defy even the critics' understanding of our words that speak this alone:"In spite of the box that you wish me to stay in, I seek to liberate my hand, which itself, knows nothing of what I am about to say. I do just that so that I can pen away at the idea that, if I were to take the chisel out if my hand that I use to address the block you've given me, I would still have the palm of my hand to place these words upon the cheek of he who criticizes the writer, and thinks it to be anything other than a slap in the face."This is just another way, perhaps, of "writing-off" the instance that many writers have come to know all too well. Or, perhaps it is a way of cleverly saying that many of our critics should have their "blocks knocked off." As for the author dying: I write this to an audience of writers to say that, as you live, there will never be a discursive approbation that demonstrates that you do not have the frightening condition -- "writers block." So do yourselves a favor, that whether by rambling or reason, you approve of it yourselves.But to Roland, if not to Montaigne -- “Que sais-je?”ATE, BY 8, Buy-eight! - Block removed.