Great good things - Democratic Underground

nuxvomica

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sun Apr-19-09 12:33 PM
Original message

Great good things

My favorite painter is Henri Rousseau, the "naive" post-Impressionist who probably inspired Cubism and therefore much of modern art. He had a following in his time among other, more famous artists, including Picasso, who laughed at his lack of technical skill and ingenuousness while at the same time borrowing from his work. He painted odd, symbolic works like "La guerre" that eschewed the Impressionist fixation with light by including a large figure in pure black, and portraits that looked like they were done by a child. But mostly he painted wild, dreamlike images of jungles, populated by plants he saw in the local botanical gardens and exotic animals found in the city zoo. He was no Gauguin running off to Tahiti or Van Gogh passionately articulating his inner turmoil. He was just an ordinary bureaucrat with a quiet life who dreamed that people would accept him as an artist. An original Rousseau, now, if available on the market, would probably fetch tens of millions of dollars.

I have spent many hours just staring at Rousseau's paintings and have given up any hope that I could explain why they appeal to me so. Words fail me. The same is true when I hear a recording of Martin Luther King speaking or burst into laughter when Charlie Chaplin goes to sit in a chair and it crashes through the floor. I don't try to quantify King's powerful resonance or recalcuate Chaplin's impeccible timing. Sometimes human expression can be so true, so pure, so delightful to the eye or the ear or the heart that it lifts us up and may even reinvigorate our own dreams. But such great good things defy analysis and not everyone can deal with that, like the artists who ridiculed Rousseau but were probably as deeply affected by his work as I am.

That's not to say one's reluctance to embrace these feelings is entirely a bad thing. History is a parade of human folly showing how dangerous the madness of crowds can become. Intellectual analysis and logical discourse are a necessary brake on our emotions. We need to measure every force, explain every effect and understand every process to make sure we are on the right track. For example, when we protest we should have some clear idea about what we are protesting. But sometimes in art this need for analysis can just be a distraction. I like to talk about Rousseau's technique, the contrast between his imagery and his ordinary life, and his odd place in art history, but that's not why I love his work. His paintings are just great good things that make me feel human and remind me that being human is a great good thing too. I think Susan Boyle's performance is another great good thing. We needn't fear to accept such things. And we needn't fear so much those tigers, either, with "their voices soft as thunder." We just need to fear becoming one of them.

"Surprise!" by Henri Rousseau, 1891