Lewis Hyde ("The Gift") describes the dynamics of art as resembling gift economies, where a potentially life-changing gift (art, music, an apprenticeship) can inspire gratitude. Then we might labor in gratitude to resemble certain (most needed or loved?) aspects of the gift or the giver. If we truly feel the gift's potential to change us, we are not released from "the labor of gratitude" until we have been changed and perhaps passed on the gift. What religions describe as the transformative process of regret and contrition resembles aspects of the gift economy and labor of gratitude that Hyde describes. If we recognize that we have harmed another (or neglected artists?), we might labor with that regret until we have repented of the harm and the habits that led us to it. When remarkable artists are discovered only (or mostly) posthumously, perhaps our collective regret and shame recalls the rich man who neglected the beggar at his gate, only to glimpse the beggar in the afterlife, embraced at the bosom of Abraham, while others burn in fires? Repentance in such a context may require being open to new arts and developing artists, and firm in a resolve that there should be no starving artists (or starving, at all)? #art #artists #gifts #talents #gratitude #regret #change #transformation
Collage, a small tribute to Amedeo Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne (the last photomontage is mine, taken from vintage pictures). They didn't live long enough to become famous and wealthy like some of their luckier colleagues, but art critics and market, even cinema, have been extremely generous, albeit posthumously and with one of them :-( I feel we have a debt and perhaps a remorse toward artists as Hébuterne, Modigliani, Van Gogh... I don't know exactly what kind of it and what possible reparation, here and now, but reliably we have something like that.
Hamlet's Bible ~ Independent Scholar, Poet, Teacher
2moIn his book, Hyde tells the story of James Joyce, going to visit expat Ezra Pound in Italy. From another web source: "In 1920 Ezra Pound stayed in Sirmione [Italy] at the Hotel Eden. He was enthusiastic about Sirmione and in a letter he invited James Joyce to join him: 'Here I am at home.'" Hyde notes that during Joyce's visit, Pound noticed that Joyce had holes in his shoes. Pound read and liked the sample of Joyce's writing he had brought with him. We often are told of Pound's antisemitism during WWII, but less often are told that Pound believed money should have expiration dates on it, so that the rich cannot hoard, and so that if money moved around more, then artists might not go hungry. As was Pound's custom with other writers, he was generous with Joyce in more ways than merely inviting him to be a guest. After Joyce later returned home, he found a package wrapped up in paper and string: Pound had obtained and sent Joyce a better pair of shoes, with no holes. Moved by Joyce's writing, Pound was firm in the conviction that James Joyce should not be walking around Dublin, or Zürich, or elsewhere, with holes in his shoes.