EDITORIAL

 
Having passed through the crossroads mentioned in the last editorial (written 18 months ago), we seemed to have passed through others where the directions did indeed alter. I am now working mainly in landscape design in Chiusi and David is once again residing in his beloved Rome, after having earned a tenure at the Notre Dame University. The other day we met for the first time in quite a while to reflect on the changes that have taken place in our lives and considered also what to do with this web site. Given that it's essentially a hobby site, we are often hit with self-doubt but as usual we couldn't bear to see it go off-line. We decided to leave it in the present format for the time being but we would like our visitors to give us some feedback, so if you have any comments to make that might help us design a more efficient and more prolific site, please do not hesitate.

The last editorial also posed the question: "What does it mean to be human?", without really providing any hints to what I suppose is in any case an impossibly obtuse question. Let me linger on the grand theme once again.

The Nobel laureate, John Steinbeck, when asked why he wrote apparently said; "To remind human beings about their humanity." I like this answer very much because it cuts through the morass made by modern art criticism and turns the attention back to the artistic task of engaging an audience. The next two questions then to him and to all artists would be: Well, that's great but how do you do it?

I recently saw Elia Kazan's film adaptation of Steinbeck's 'East of Eden' starring James Dean and I was blown away by the story's biblical inferences and the emotional scope of the melodrama. Principles and beliefs interweave with personal character in what is a grand study of human morals and behaviour. Despite dealing with some big questions, I found the film effortless and entertaining to watch and this meant that the critical aspects of its literary and philosophical intent were not so much hidden nor overly emphasised but had been somehow integrated into the dramatic performance and filmmaking craft in such a way that it rendered human character true in all its aspects.

People often forget that in the old days before consumerism mutated real emotions into caricatures, the city itself was conceived of as a place that expressed, out in the open, the full range of societal dealings. People by nature yearn to live outside of their minds mingling in the collective milieu of role-playing and so the desired city is a realm of intimacy and mutual cogniscence rather more than an infrastructure of economic facilitations. Yes, we want to be reminded of our humanity by our cities! But Mr Architect, how do you do it? Well, this particular architect would answer, "Treat the city as a storehouse of collective memory for the mingling of heartfelt truths." Vague as though it may sound, this instruction is the only way I can articulate a reaction against the cultural malaise of de-urbanisation. On one hand the city has become a theme park, on the other a fertile field for value speculation.

In our time the widespread phenomena of mental depression turns human history into an unchartered territory. One lives but feels isolated, doesn't want to die, but can't go on. One finds no satisfaction but feels compelled to live through the droll routine. Existence is problematic in the modern age. The simplest things are the hardest to get right. Modern art celebrates this fact without proffering any resolutions. Instead it rebels at some unseen, unjust controller of fate. Modern artists are angry. Angry for being born and feel that they are the spokespeople for a lost generation but who appointed them? And because they use the language of political posturing instead of artistic technique, their works do not remind anyone about humanity. There is no objective representation of the deeper yearning. The people keep on feeling lousy and the hungry get hungrier. They don't seem to realise that no one will take art seriously when it's faked.

Art isn't made just for fun. It's not a province of asthetes nor is it to do with what the wealthy can afford. There is, in being human, the touch of the divine order. Whether satiated or hungry, we are only here by the agency of a mystery. It is art that recognises this simple relationship in our state of being. Beauty recognises the link between nature and artifice; that is, between the world that exists a priori and the things that Man makes and places in that world. In support of this case, it would be too easy to pull out a piece by Giorgione or Fra Angelico or indeed Canova but I'd like to use a piece from the Impressionist period (which some regard as the beginning of modernism - just because it chose secular themes). It's Monet's 'Women in the Garden'.

Do these women possess the garden or does the garden possess them? It is a meeting at a moment in time where human intelligence (symbolised by the beautiful dresses, the parasol, the hair-do, etc.) lingers either in the bliss of ignorance or in worldly awareness in a realm that unites all beings as a single act of divine creation. Monet's is a work that we can read in the spirit of universal understanding.

Given that the symbolism in Monet's work is (seemingly by choice cryptic), one is somewhat challenged to see the deeper meaning, however in defense of the scope of HAR, not as a justification of our inclinations but because it is a marvel, may I present the work that explains the artist's poetic suggestions much more explicitly. Primavera by Botticelli -

We've let six seasons pass between updates and so we apologise but may I say that the dance to the music of time goes round and round. Please keep visiting.

Taeho Paik, Co-editor
 

 
 
"Humanism is a stream into which flow all the waters of the past, mingling the most diverse forms and ideas, fusing Christian allegory with the ancient symbols of the barbarian religions."
Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 121