Decorating the World with David Bromley

Anglo-Aussie artist David Bromley, who is best known for his images of youngsters that nostalgically recreate a memory (or fantasy) of a Boy's Own childhood and decorative female nudes painted in black outline with clever colour combinations that also make one long for the past, is certainly not without his critics.   

And no doubt some of the criticism is fair. But, in so far as this criticism relates to his production techniques and the manner in which he has successfully branded himself and his work ensuring mass commercial appeal, much of it seems laughably passé; this is, after all, not only a post-Warhol world, but an age in which Banksy, Hirst and Koons all operate as artist-celebrities.   

To suggest, as Peter Drew suggests, that by proliferating images on an industrial scale Bromley dilutes the meaning and substance of his work, is to return to hoary old notions of originality and artistic aura (the latter being a magical quality said to arise from a work's uniqueness and which cannot possibly be reproduced). 

I mean, I love Benjamin as much as the next man, but c'mon ... 1936 is a long time ago and the myth of presence - which this idea of aura clearly perpetuates - is something that Derrida has, one might have hoped, put to bed once and for all.     

And Drew's assertion that all great art is a form of self-expression, is also one that deserves to be met with scorn. The last thing I want to see revealed on a canvas is subjective slime; I really don't give a shit about the artist's feelings, or care about the condition of their immortal soul.

Ultimately, even if Bromley is simply in it for the money, then, that's his business and his choice. But I like his tots and tits - not to mention his use of flowers, birds and butterflies - and he has, after all, six kids to support.    

One suspects, however, that Bromley is actually a more interesting figure than this and I rather admire his attempt to take art outside of the usual gallery network and into a more public arena, weaving his images into the fabric of everyday life and contemporary culture. 


See: Peter Drew, 'Too Many Bromley's', post on peterdrewarts.blogspot.com (25 May 2010): click here.

bromleyandco.com

Lawrentian Reflections on the Birth of Baby Mia

Baby Mia (born 12 Nov 2018)

Following my Nietzschean Reflections on the Birth of Baby Mia, I was informed by a concerned correspondent that, in denying human status to newborn babies, I'm not only tacitly supporting abortion, but opening the door to infanticide. 

I don't agree with this: nor quite follow the logic of the argument. After all, a flower also lacks moral agency, but I don't wish to nip it in the bud. It has its own unique being, even if it lacks what theologians call a soul. In fact, for me - as for Wilde - the beauty of a flower resides precisely in its impersonality and amorality.

Similarly, the great fascination and delight of a newborn baby lies in the fact that although it has emerged bloody and womb-soaked in the world, it doesn't yet belong to the world and hasn't been codified as human (allzumenschliche). It is, rather, just a little bundle of innocence and becoming; a monster of chaos without form.          

Thus, when holding baby Mia, I feel the stirring of strange feelings that come, as Lawrence says, from out of the dark and which one scarcely knows how to acknowledge. Almost it's a kind of terror - certainly it goes beyond mere avuncular affection.

Her inhuman cries seem to echo within oneself, reminding one that life fundamentally involves sorrow and suffering and blind rage. For although babies can make us smile, they're tragic figures who don't even have control of their own bowels or bladders.

To watch these tiny living objects lying naked and so utterly helpless and vulnerable "in a world of hard surfaces and varying altitudes", makes one anxious for their safety. No wonder their mothers not only want to enfold them in love, but wrap them in cotton wool so as to protect their soft round heads and fragile tiny limbs.

But babies are pretty resilient things: and, truth be told, they are at more risk from maternal love than they are from the world at large. For maternal love has become a perverted form of benevolent bullying, worked almost entirely from the will.

And as she proceeds to spin "a hateful sticky web of permanent forbearance, gentleness, [and] hushedness" around her naturally passionate babe-in-arms, the ideal mother invariably undermines the future wellbeing - both physically and mentally - of the child. 

If you want to save the children, then save them from their mothers and leave them to be young creatures, not persons.

Notes

D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 197.

D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 92-3. 

D. H. Lawrence, 'Education of the People', Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), Section VI. 

Nietzschean Reflections on the Birth of Baby Mia

Baby Mia (born 12 Nov 2018)

My niece has given birth to her third child: a baby girl, called Mia, weighing in at a healthy 6lb 11oz. So far, so sweet.

But mayn't it be the case that her charm lies not in her chubby little cheeks, tiny limbs, or tufts of hair, but in her prehuman status? For like all newborns, Mia is essentially not-quite, or not-yet-human. Which isn't to say she's inhuman, so much as humanus in potentia. 

Thus, to be a little sentimental about her being in the world isn't to fall back into a hopeless humanism resting upon notions of moral agency and innate rights. Babies delight, rather, because they are little monsters of energy, striving towards ever-greater complexity.

In other words, they are tiny bundles of will to power - and nothing else besides!          

Note: for a follow up post to this one, click here.

D. H. Lawrence on Humanism, Human Exceptionalism and Common Ancestry

A model of Lucy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Texas 
(Dave Einsel / Getty Images)

I. The Greatest of all Illusions is the Infinite of the Spirit

Despite saying that the very words human, humanity, and humanism make him sick, it's pretty clear that there is, in fact, a model of what might be termed libidinal humanism present within Lawrence's work ...

In the 'Epilogue' to his Movements in European History, for example, Lawrence writes of a single human blood-stream and argues that people are also very much alike at some primordial level of culture:

"All men, black, white, yellow, cover their nakedness and build themselves shelters, make fires and cook food, have laws of marriage and of family [...] and have stores of wisdom and ancient lore, rules of morality and behaviour."  

In other words, according to Lawrence, we all belong to one great race and live fundamentally similar lives. However, it's important to note that Lawrence goes on to argue that the human family tree, whilst undivided at its root, nevertheless branches out into very different directions and each branch develops in its own unique manner.

"For each branch is, as it were, differently grafted by a different spirit and idea ... My manhood is the same as the manhood of a Chinaman. But in spirit and idea we are different and shall be different forever, as apple-blossom will forever be different from irises."   

Lawrence, therefore, has an understanding of Geist in opposition to that of many idealists: for whilst the latter acknowledge ethno-cultural difference, they believe in perfect spiritual unity. Lawrence reverses this and insists on physical oneness and spiritual distinction, rejecting any kind of Universal Mind or Oversoul.


II. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches

Somewhat ironically, Lawrence's thinking on this subject is in accord with modern evolutionary science, which has assembled much interdisciplinary evidence to support the idea that all human life descends from a common ancestor. Where he breaks with the Darwinians, however, is when - more radically - they suggest that this common ancestor is ultimately non-human: this, for Lawrence is going too far:

"The gulf that divides man from the animals is so great, that we can see no connection. We can no longer believe that man has descended from monkeys.* Man has descended from man.  [...] Man and monkey look at one another across a great and silent gulf, never to be crossed. [...] We cannot really meet in touch."

This - from an author widely celebrated for his ability to intuitively and poetically touch on the very essence of inhuman and non-human forms of life - is really quite shocking; for Lawrence is defending here an idea of human exceptionalism - who'd a thunk it? 

Alas, it seems there's no place for Lucy in Lawrence's democracy of touch ...

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Epilogue', Movements in European History, ed. Philip Crumpton, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 255, 256.  

*Note: Lawrence is perpetuating a common misunderstanding here; no one wants him to believe that man has descended from monkeys; what the evolutionary evidence demonstrates is that man and other apes have a common ancestor. Monkeys are a contemporary species - not an earlier, more primitive, or inferior species.   

For a related post to this one on Lawrence's libidinal humanism, click here.

A Brief Note on Love, Hate and Humanism

According to Lawrence, the mistake made by those who claim to love humanity lies in their moral insistence on the fact, rather than in their feeling of being at one with their fellow men and women. 

And although some may care a little too earnestly about the suffering of unseen strangers, Lawrence concedes that we are physically - if remotely - connected to all people everywhere and that mankind is thus ultimately one flesh:

"In some way or other, the cotton workers of Carolina, or the rice-growers of China are connected with me and, to a faint yet real degree, part of me. The vibration of life which they give off reaches me, touches me and affects me [...] For we are all more or less connected, all more or less in touch: all humanity." 

This libidinal humanism - if we may call it such - is central to Lawrence's politics of desire. And it is intended to be in stark contrast to the "nasty pronounced benevolence" which is only a disguised form of "self-assertion and bullying", that he often associates (fairly or otherwise) with Whitman.

Lord deliver us, says Lawrence, from this latter form of (ideal) humanism and from all falsification of feeling: "Insist on loving humanity, and sure as fate you'll come to hate everybody."    

I think there's something in this suggestion that every time you force your own feelings or attempt to force those of another, you are likely to produce the opposite effect to the one hoped for. And we would do well to consider this today of all days, as we remember again the time when, in the name of Love, Europe rushed into four years of mechanical slaughter and self-sacrifice. 

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Nobody Loves Me', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 311-20. 

For a related post to this one on Lawrence's humanism, human exceptionalism, and belief in a common ancestor, click here.

The Colour Purple

I. On the Excretory Origin of an Exquisite Colour

My birthstone, as an Aquarian, is amethyst. And so I have an astrological attachment to the colour purple, in all its shades. Fortunately, I like this red-blue composite colour very much and appreciate the fact that it has a fascinating history that is ultimately rooted in what Bataille terms heterogeneous matter.

For whilst many people associate purple with imperial power or sacred authority, its origin is both base and profane. Indeed, this is revealed in the etymology of the word purple, which derives from the Greek name for a dye manufactured in the classical period from a mucus secreted by the hypobranchial gland belonging to a species of sea-snail.

Although the slimy secretion is milky and colourless when fresh, it stinks and turns into a powerful, long-lasting dye - known as Tyrian purple - when exposed to the air. Distilling it was a notoriously unpleasant task in the ancient world and required either wax plugs in the nostrils or a strong stomach (or both). As the poet and cultural critic Kelly Grovier rather amusingly notes: "Though purple may have symbolised a higher order, it reeked of a lower ordure."

Not only was it a malodorous job, it was a tricky and time-consuming one. It took tens of thousands of hypobranchial glands to produce even a tiny amount of this miraculous colour which grows ever more beautiful over time - unlike other textile dyes whose lustre soon fades. Thus, naturally enough, Tyrian purple was expensive: very expensive, and soon became the colour of choice amongst kings, priests, and powerful magistrates:

"In ancient Greece, the right to clad oneself in purgative purple was tightly controlled by legislation. The higher your social and political rank, the more extracted rectal mucus you could swaddle yourself in."

Purple's discovery was also given a mythological origin, so that everyone might conveniently forget what it is and exactly where it comes from. (It was claimed that whilst Heracles was one day walking along the beach with the nymph Tyrus and his dog, the latter bit into a sea-snail, staining its mouth purple. Amused by the incident and dazzled by the colour, Tyrus subsequently requested that a garment be made for her using the same dye.) 


II. The Art of Purple

Of course, today no one knows (or cares) about any of this: purple has long since been synthesised artificially and become just another colour available to anyone who wishes to wear it. You can even get a pair of purple knickers from Primark for a fiver.

However, as Grovier points out, that's not to say that Tyrian purple has lost all its old magic; in the world of art, for example, it can still transform a canvas in a startling manner:

"When Francis Bacon resolved to reinvent Velázquez’s Portrait of Innocent X [...] he decided to recast the pontiff's vestments not as scorching scarlet as his Spanish forebear had, but as pulsating purple. The result was as quietly alarming as the mute caterwaul that howls from his subject’s tortured lips [...] as if the Pope were undergoing the excruciating disgorgement of millions of molluscs over many millennia."

It can, concludes Grovier, be regarded as "purple’s silent scream into anguished oblivion - the last gasp of a gorgeously appalling colour."

Francis Bacon: 

Study after Velázquez's Pope Francis X (1953) 

See: Kelly Grovier, 'Tyrian Purple: The disgusting origins of the colour purple', (1 August 2018), published on the BBC Culture website: click here. This is one of a series of essays on colours by Grovier. Other colours discussed with his customary brilliance include umber (the colour of debauchery), black, pink, orange, and silver. Readers who are interested in knowing more are encouraged to visit his website: kellygrovier.com    

Olfactophilia: Reflections on Canine Arse-Sniffing

Illustration from the Dog Decoder smartphone app by Lili Chin

I got a smelly rear / I got a dirty nose

I don't want no shoes / I don't want no clothes

I'm living like the king of the dogs 

Someone once told me that the reason that dogs like to conduct anal inspections of other dogs is because they are looking for a long-lost message hidden by the King of the Dogs, containing the secret of how to overcome their human masters and be free once more to live their own lives.  

Part of me would still very much like to believe this story to be true. Unfortunately, I'm also familiar with the scientific explanation for such behaviour and this more factual account in terms of glandular secretions released from the dog's anal sac makes me doubt the veracity of the above.  

However, even the American Chemical Society conclude that canine arse-sniffing is essentially an exchange of information. Only what's being communicated concerns sexual status and dietary habits, for example, rather than how to regain the freedom of revered lupine ancestors.    

Finally - since we're discussing this subject - it might be noted that dogs are not enjoying the smell of shit when they stick their noses into the behinds of other dogs.

Indeed, thanks to the presence of Jacobson's organ located inside their nasal cavities, dogs are able to pass subtle chemical information detected in the glandular secretions directly to the brain without being distracted by other more powerful odours. 

Musical bonus: Iggy Pop, King of the Dogs (Lil Armstrong / Iggy Pop), from the album Préliminaires (Astralwerks, 2009). 

That Voodoo That You Do

Image: Santeria Church of the Orishas

When you see a lurid and salacious news headline containing the words black magic and Brazilian transsexuals, it's difficult not to have one's curiosity piqued; especially when the story unfolds not in Haiti or South America, but in Spain, and provides further evidence of how global migration (or Völkerchaos) is bringing unexpected forms of cultural diversity onto the streets of our towns and cities.       

According to reports, Spanish police arrested 13 members of a multi-national trafficking ring on suspicion of using Santería - a voodoo-like religion infused with elements of Catholicism - along with more mundane methods to coerce fifteen young transwomen into prostitution and drug dealing. 

It sounds uniquely bizarre. But, as a matter of fact, this is not the first time that migrants have been smuggled into Europe and then forced into a life of crime by gang leaders claiming to possess occult powers. And, sadly, I don't suppose it'll be the last ...

Welcome, then, to the new normal of sex slaves and raw chicken hearts; a reality that also incorporates grooming gangs, child brides, bushmeat, and halal slaughter. And I think to myself ...      

England, Our England: Notes on D. H. Lawrence's Oikophobia

D. H. Lawrence by Fabrizio Cassetta (2015)

fineartamerica.com

It begins, writes Lawrence, the moment you set foot back in England: "The heart suddenly, yet vaguely sinks."

He would, I suspect, dismiss talk of oikophobia. For Lawrence explicitly says that what he experiences when arriving home is not fear, but, rather, a form of dismay; not least at the inoffensive nature of everyone and everything and the "almost deathly sense of dulness" that overwhelms even the gayest of spirits.  

England is the easiest country in the world to live in and full of the nicest people:

"But this very easiness and this very niceness becomes at last a nightmare. It is as if the whole air were impregnated with chloroform or some other pervasive anaesthetic, that [...] takes the edge off everything ..."

Ultimately, England is simply too cosy for Lawrence's liking; mildly warm and reassuring like a bedtime drink.

It's important to note, however, that Lawrence doesn't say this in order to jeer or look down on his fellow countrymen. In fact, it pains him to admit how England makes him feel: for "to feel like this about one's native land is terrible" - particularly when the bit of England that depresses him most is his hometown.

Eastwood, he says, fills him with "devouring nostalgia and an infinite repulsion". Which is pretty much how I feel too, when walking around Harold Hill; on the one hand, I want it to be exactly as it was when I was a child and on the other I want it to be razed to the ground.

In other words, oikophobia is an ambiguous condition that can give rise to violently conflicting feelings within the same breast; something that those who, like Roger Scruton, politicise the term and use it as a concept by which to attack those whom they regard as insufficiently patriotic fail to appreciate.

Thus it is that oikophobes like Lawrence, who set off on savage pilgrimages around the world in order to escape the familiar confines of home and experience otherness in far away lands amongst alien peoples, often end by concluding:

"I do think [...] we make a mistake forsaking England and moving out into the periphery of life. After all, Taormina, Ceylon, Africa, America - as far as we go, they are only the negation of what we ourselves stand for and are: and we are rather like Jonahs running away from the place we belong."


See:

D. H. Lawrence, 'Why I don't Like Living in London' and [Return to Bestwood] in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22 and 13-24. 

D. H. Lawrence, letter to Robert Pratt Barlow, 30 March 1922, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), letter 2480, pp.218-19.  

Readers interested in a related post on oikophobia and Roger Scruton's political redefining of the term, should click here. 

Oikophobia

Home is made for comin' from, for dreams of going to

Which with any luck will never come true.

I. Confessions of an Oikophobe

Oikophobia - from the Greek, oikos, which refers to the three distinct but related concepts of home, household, and family, and phobia, meaning fear and loathing - is a term used within psychiatry, literary studies, and political philosophy.    

In the first of these fields, psychiatry, it identifies a deep-seated aversion to the vita domestica as it unfolds within a physical space, including the everyday objects and household appliances that are commonly found in the home: including, for example, cookers, carpets, and curtains.

Whether such a phobia is irrational, is debatable; to my mind it seems perfectly reasonable. I don't think disliking the saccharine stupidity and bourgeois vulgarity of home, sweet home is symptomatic of mental illness - it's surely a sign rather of cultural nobility (that is to say, artistic and intellectual superiority).

Thus it is that many poets have a romantic and nomadic desire to wander in far away lands and escape the ever so 'umble confines of home; including married life, regular employment, and onerous social duties (such as putting the rubbish in the correct recycling bins). To long to flee along the open road or roam outside the gate, is so closely tied to the creative impulse, that one is almost tempted to describe modern art and literature as inherently oikophobic.   

II. On the Politics of Oikophobia

Thanks to conservative philosopher Roger Scruton, however, the term oikophobia has recently taken on a new and negative meaning within reactionary political circles; now oikophobes are regarded as self-hating, left-leaning liberals who despise or feel ashamed of their own culture, history, and society.

Scruton argues:   

"This repudiation of the national idea is the result of a peculiar frame of mind that has arisen throughout the Western world since the Second World War, and which is particularly prevalent among the intellectual and political elites. No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognized: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours'. I call the attitude oikophobia - the aversion to home - by way of emphasizing its deep relation to xenophobia, of which it is the mirror image. Oikophobia is a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes. But it is a stage in which intellectuals tend to become arrested."*

Scruton's weaponised and anti-intellectual political usage has been taken up by other commentators with an alt-right axe to grind. They argue, for example, that oikophobia is particularly prevalent on university campuses and is a chronic symptom of political correctness, informed by the work of such thinkers as Foucault and Derrida, who express contempt for ideals of love, loyalty and longing for Ithaca, preferring instead, say their critics, to affirm a kind of rootless nihilism.        

I'm not saying there's no truth in this - only that it's often spoken by the kind of ugly, flag-flying individuals that I'm never going to feel at home with. 

* Roger Scruton, speaking in Antwerp, on 23 June 2006: the text of this speech appears in The Brussels Journal (24 June 2006) and can be read by clicking here.  

For a related post on D. H. Lawrence's experience of oikophobia in terms of devouring nostalgia and infinite repulsion for his hometown of Eastwood and for England in general, click here.