But what does it mean?

The idolatry of explanation

An older former student of mine (who started college at the age of 25), with whom Meg and I became close friends, once asked if she could bring to my studio a man she was seeing (presumably to share one of her passions with him—art). He was a good man but a shy one—at least at first meeting. When they arrived at my studio he stood in the doorway longer than normal. Hesitant. Obviously self-conscious. My first thought was, “Oh no. She’s built me up to him and he’s being overly respectful.” I said “Nice to meet you Sam, come on in!”

“Thanks.” He moved over the threshold tentatively.

“Janet, what have you told Sam? That I am a fierce and strange painter?”

And so I tried to break the ice. Sam got bold enough in a few minutes to gesture toward a new piece I was working on and asked if I would, perhaps, explain it to him. (It was one from of a suite of paintings I called Building in Ruins—imaginary, urban, fragmented architectural forms and figures.) I said to Sam that I’d be happy to do that, to explain the piece, but only if he would first simply describe it to me.

“You mean just say what I see?”

“Yes.”

I had no idea if this man were articulate, thoughtful, reflective, or otherwise inclined to describe a work of art well. But he was interested in Janet, so he must have a sensitive spirit. What followed was one of the most brilliant interpretations of my work I’ve ever heard. And was I surprised? Not really. I am convinced (and have been for a long time) that simply looking carefully is all that is really needed with a work of art. It’s not that knowing history and theory and circumstance of its production is irrelevant. But a good painting contains all that is needed for its proper reception by a beholder. After Sam finished describing the piece I asked him if he still needed an explanation. He said he guessed not. He was satisfied with his own description and analysis based purely on looking carefully and taking the time to respond honestly to the piece.

I cannot count the number of times in my life as a painter that people have expressed something like confusion or perplexity looking at my work. That is, until they actually look. And the idea that a painting contains some secret code, some arcane mapping that must be acquired before its meaning can be had—well, this seems to me a cruel joke. The notion of a cognoscenti, an in-crowd that has special access to art is to my way of thinking a greedy lie—and when it is codified in a social class it is idolatry.

Here’s what I mean: we listen to music all the time without asking what it means. We know what it means—it means to communicate something uniquely embedded in the tonalities, the harmonies and dissonances, the melodic movement across the time of the performance, etc. etc. etc. All of the meaning is contained in the space between us—the air vibrating with sound—and the piece to which we are listening. If I sit in the audience and listen sympathetically to a Beethoven string quartet, I am physically drawn into the beat, the movement, the “story” of the progression of the tonalities and the melodies.

When we listen to music we never demand an explanation. We may not like the piece. We may be disturbed by it or offended by it, but we don’t need an explanation. We may be swept off our feet by it and transported to a nameless realm of longing and revelation—but we still do not require an explanation. And so I, as a painter, I want to ask the same for my art: just look, surrender, let it take you somewhere. If you find it repellent—that’s fine by me. It’s an honest response. But take the time needed to actually look—to let down your guard enough to treat it the way you respond to a Mahler symphony or an Arvo Pärt sonata (or a Thelonious Monk piano piece… a Coltrane solo). I am not comparing myself as an artist to these great ones—I’m simply saying the viewer has to trust her instincts enough to actually look. And if she is to receive what is there, she must take some time to investigate.

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Sam was satisfied with his “interpretation” of the painting and so was I. He asked if he got it right and you can guess what I said in reply:

“Of course you did. You took the time to look.”

But this whole question I’m exploring here—whether or not art needs explanation—is actually the threshold of a much more significant problem that points beyond art and music and poetry—and borders on cosmic concerns. Does the universe need explanation—or are the skies and seas, the canyons and meadows, the intricacies of subatomic particles or the vast expanse of interstellar space there for us to enjoy, to enter into, to look upon and listen to as we listen to Bach and Mozart?

I am not saying that science is beside the point—not at all. What I am saying is that our lives are lived before a tableau of infinite richness that demands of us a relationship more than an explanation—love and receptivity more than exploitation. And this goes not only for persons but also for the unimaginably complex tapestry of nature with its millions of flora and fauna.

We need to know our world and everything in it as Being, not as our object. We live before a procession, a parade of glories—beauties and complexities that demand of us our all. We can always turn away. We can try to use and harness all this by turning it into our object to manipulate and control… or we can submit to it the way that Sam submitted to my painting and rendered a beautiful and moving account of it simply by looking and saying what he saw.

More another time… to be continued.

(Oh—and by the way “Sam” and “Janet” were married in our home not too long after that studio visit—and have been happily married now for twenty + years…)