(and so, for example, the artificial generation of images is stupid, for the painter does not try to make an image that looks good, but rather, through painting, attempts to be and create good).

An artist who knows this feels the inadequacy of all creative efforts which do not have loyalty to the vision of beauty. The sacred traditions take the need for beauty in art most seriously, and so it is a shame that Christianity has basically lost the right to call itself sacred, through ceaseless inward turning, self-preservation, and both curiosity and moralizing that were equally groundless. This would strand the whole western world from the vision of beauty, were it not for those secular artists who still try (or whatever it might be / the universal presence of God).

I want to be an artist who still tries, but so many of my greatest influences have been artists who did not try, or who hardly tried, or who tried very valiantly but in service of a vision of horror rather than beauty, or which is much more common, a vision of psychological complexity, which is the most boring thing there is! (so Shakespeare puts children to sleep, etc., etc.).

But there is no merit in squabbling, for as far as I can tell, the great vision of beauty contains no squabbles, it harbors no misgivings, no scruples, never a stray concern, and it suffers no qualms to breathe the air. There is nothing uneasy in the creative spirit, nothing sour, nothing half baked, never a grievance, gripe or second thought, nary a doubt, hard feeling, grudge or fear. Rather, the vision of beauty is a cloud of peace, a reassurance with no bottom, an aroma of playing with house money on the table of cosmic jokes—it belongs to the class of pebble-removers-from-shoes, flute players without urgency, hummingbirds, and massage therapists without hands or fees. The feeling of artistic beauty is the feeling called permission to exist, of peaceability with fear, anxiety after nothing, levity with no silliness, and basically, to be suave.

Not to say there isn’t violence, not to say there isn’t heartbreak or conflict in the paintings and the stories themselves, but such collywobbles are only a part of the dance, when articulated correctly.

So it says in Leopardi:

	“...The lady went her silent way alone 
and felt the wind that wafts its odors 
gently pass across her face. 

	There’s no point in asking if she was happy:
the sight gave her pleasure, yet the good 
her heart promised her was even greater. 

        How quickly you flew, lovely, serene hours! 
nothing else that is delightful lasts, 
down here, nothing ever lasts, but hope. 

	See the night cloud over, and the face
of the sky that was so beautiful turn dark,
and her pleasure turn to fright...” 

Translated by Johnathan Galassi 
(Canti, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2010, pg. 325)

So, Giacomo held the vision of beauty, somewhere behind his eyes / between his ribs, even in the midst of his suffering, even when calling to our attention a lovers’ rendezvous that never came to be.

Or at least, he once did.

(“Mother’s Day” by J.C Leyendecker)

Silently but staunchly opposed to the philosophy of the illustrators, are those in the fine arts who “draw”. From what I gather, these people are (approximately) more concerned with materials than subjects, with line than linework, with contour than shape, and with fine observations than stories. They would rather their retinas were making love to the colours of a pedal than learn, as a principle, the typical shape and patterns by which the same flower was ordained to grow.

(The student completing this exercise is not allowed to lift the charcoal from the page. And what a chore it is. The work of the fine artists is often more abstract.)

I have a bias against the fine artists. It’s not a perfect bias to have, because like all biases, it is limiting. The fine artist’s love of detail and her patience is beautiful, and we can learn from such persistence, such thoughtfulness, to cultivate inquiry, memory and understanding above immediate results.

However, in the tradition of humanist illustrators, we seem to have a more readily applicable method of communication (which is the essential goal of art?)—do we not? And we don’t have to consider their approach to be crude. The illustrators still employ exercises that require patience and observation. In some cases, they may be equally equipped to bring us closer to the workings of nature, and the texture and colour of the earth.

As for me, I am a silly person. So when I learned to draw, I wanted to be a cartoonist. The cartoonists take the humanist principles of the American and European painters and simplify them (as they simplify all things) so as to tell a silly story for silly people that silly men will take seriously if it makes them money or assuages their fears. This is a beautiful tradition in itself.

(Jack Kirby is the most famous cartoonist, whose foundation in the illustrator’s tradition is most obvious. He is like a sillier Leyendecker, as the connoisseur might say.)

Sadly, when I sought formal instruction in visual art, I was concerned about money, and not brave enough to find the painters of Europe, so I turned to local teachers who make drawings (not illustrations) in the fine arts. If I was serious about visual art, I would have made the sacrifices to learn my favourite tradition.

But every glass is half full, or it might as well be, and it turned out to be a good thing that I humoured the fine artists, and learned from them. They helped cultivate my patience and my knowledge of materials. Through their eyes, you can more clearly see the silliness of many comics, and the possible ugliness of angry primary colours. But this should not take away from our ability to understand the fine arts as being silly as well. After all, Erasmus was correct! and there is foolishness in every human affair.* As such, the rest of this essay will recount a peculiar anecdote that should dissuade the reader from respecting the fine arts. After all, it is not, and has never been a serious medium.

[There should be another picture here, for this is a good place in the essay to take a break].

On the first day (a fine day) of this fine university class (arts), we began with a discussion about the question “what is art?”.

First, we were asked to read a paragraph of Kant. We ‘read the paragraph of Kant’, and then there was a class discussion. Obviously, no one mentioned Kant. Instead, we spoke in vague terms, and so quickly came to a resounding consensus:

Art can be anything, or it is everything (doesn’t matter which).

I thought it was a very nice idea, for it implied a certain open heartedness which all good people must employ. I did think that the definition was not helpful for anyone who might want to distinguish art as a tangible concept (after all, we already have the word everything, so if that’s what art is then the word art need never be used), but such nitpicking is unbecoming of a good man, and so I left it by the wayside.

What is more, one student made a contribution in the spirit of our consensus that excited me greatly. They said something like, “could we not say that sports as well, constitute art? For, if everything is art, then sports must be, and we already use words like martial arts to label a certain number of them. Unless it is a great coincidence that, for example, we speak of the quality of an athlete’s performance—there must be some correlation between these two things, sports and art?”

I had not felt stronger approval for a single idea in months—but!—to my great shock and surprise, everyone else was opposed to this idea and they firmly denied that sports could ever be art. As quickly as it came to be, our belief in the dissolution of all boundaries around the definition in scrutiny vanished, and we became all of us dogmatists. I had no courage to raise my objections, so the conversation ended there, and it was established for the duration of the semester that the definition of art was this:

Art can be anything, or it is everything. But not sports.

This displeased me greatly, and my opinion of the conversation (and the class itself!) decreased in turn, especially when I learned that each session would now begin with the following prayerful incantation:

Woe betide the one who thinks on jocks.
Woe betide the athlete who dares bring to us their thoughts
And those whom sporting blesses,
Woe betide them. 
We’ll weave woeful incantations now,
For none besides them. 

As though it was the Catholic Church, I promptly left this class and stopped attending once a week. With the extra time, I produced the following manifesto. I hope the reader enjoys it, and adopts all its principles.

Sports is Art (or why Creatives need an Open Heart)

Every character has a goal. Every soccer pitch has two.

Athletes play sports. Actors play parts.

Art in general is seen as “playful”. The verb for doing sports is “play”.

Every team sport has “positions” for different players. Each narrative has “archetypes” for different characters.

Learning the craft of an art form is like learning a sport. You must learn how to pace yourself, in either case. You must learn the principles of each skill, and master them independently. Then, by getting in touch with the flow state, you can combine the disparate principles—in either case!

For example, in illustration, you must learn: shape and form, rhythm, composition, gesture, anatomy, colour, penmanship, visual storytelling, and so on.

Ice hockey players learn: positional play, edgework, endurance, speed and strength, puck control, shooting, passing, physical play, and so on.

Both artists and athletes will specialize in some of these principles, and the better they are at more of them, the more observable their excellence.

Sporting announcers are poets. Listen to the cadence of their voices, how it gains a melody in big moments, their profound influence on the emotion and tempo of the action. Notice also how they are often known by name and revered among the fans.

A sporting match has authors and characters—just like a play, a movie or a novel. The ONLY difference between sports and art, is that in the case of a sport: the author and the protagonist are the same person. If anything, this only makes it more visceral.

They both end in “rt”.

Are sporting events too simple for emancipation? Many stories certainly are. Look at the comic books. In any case, there is much to be said about the moral dilemmas of an athlete. What did they do in the face of adversity? How many of them have greatness and humility at the same time? Who lets the emotion of the struggle get the better of their performance? Who has perseverance? Who has sportsmanship? Is it not inspiring? Remember Pindar!**

*Erasmus wrote In Praise of Folly, in which he argues that silliness and foolishness is omnipresent in human life.

**Pindar’s poetry was about sports.***

***Or at least athletes.

Man:

   (o_o) 
       | 
       |
      /\
  _/    \_  




Man sitting:

   (o_o) 
       | 
   __|
_|




Man sitting (in a more masculine way):

   (o_o) 
       | 
   __|__
_|         |_

Man going like this: 

 
 \ (o_o) /
   \ / | \ /
       |
      /\
  _/    \_  




Man going like this: 

   \(x_x)/
    \/\|/\/
       |
      /\
  _/    \_  

 


Man going like this:

 5(OoO)
        | 5
        |
       /\
   _/    \_  




Man with his hands in his back pocket:

   (o_o) 
      /|\ 
      \|/
      /\
  _/    \_  




Man doing a dance with his hands in his back pocket:

   (o_o) 
      /|\ 
      \|/____|
      /
    _\     




Man going like that while doing a dance with one of his hands still in his back pocket:

   (5Oo) 
      /| 
      \|____|
      /
    _\    




Man resting at the end of the day:

(o_o)_________| 




Man resting at the end of the day, (in a more masculine way):

|__________(o_o)_________| 




Man and his wife: 

   (o_o) 
       | 
       |
      /\
  _/    \_    
 
   /o_o\ 
 /     |    \
       |
      /\
  _/    \_  




Man at the end of his life:
    ________
 /                   \
|  here lies    |
|     "man"     |
|                     |
|  u did the     |     
| best u could |

   /  :(  \ 
 /     |    \
       |
      /\
  _/    \_  

But this last point is unnerving for the analytic philosophers who — and it is not a joke — have omitted the chapters (plural) on friendship from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics in a popular anthology of Greek and Roman texts (not specified here as a courtesy). In their chicken-minded ignorance, they consider it untoward for a person at the same time to be rational and caring, logical and partial, or serious and affected by dilemmas like having been moved.

Contrary to the prevailing sentiment among scholars today, dishonesty like this is not required for advanced learning, and if one wishes to be educated in important topics like friendship, there is plenty of material to turn to.

I myself am only a novice in the highly technical and rigorous field called Studies in Friendship (which should have its own departments at the major universities), but I would like to become a master on the subject before I die, so I have assembled a reading list based on preliminary research, for the benefit and enjoyment of anyone interested and to pass the time:

ANCIENT FRIENDSHIP

• The Epic of Gilgamesh

  with special attention to the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and the suffering entailed in the separation from a friend

• The Mahabharata

  with special attention to the friendship between Duryodhana and Karna, and the tolerance of evil in the name of friendship. Also to the friendships between Arjuna and Krishna, and between Yudhishthira and his dog (Dharma in disguise)

• Confucius - Analects

  the second sentence of the Analects says this:

  “Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?”

  (trans. Legge / Giles).

• The Hebrew Bible

  for example, “The Book of Ruth” and the friendship between Ruth and Naomi

CLASSICAL FRIENDSHIP

• Psappho

  especially regarding friendships between women

• Aeschylus - Oresteia, (especially The Libation Bearers)

  consider the friendship between the siblings Orestes and Electra

• Sophocles - Antigone

  again, the friendship, or at least allegiance between siblings

• Plato - Lysis

• Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics - Books VIII and IX

  which should go without saying

• Epicurus

• Seneca - Letters from a Stoic

  especially “True and False Friendship”, “Philosophy and Friendship”, etc.

• Cicero - On Friendship

MEDIEVAL FRIENDSHIP

• Ibn al-Husayn al-Sulami - The Way of Sufi Chivalry

• Thomas Aquinas - “May one Associate with Unbelievers?”

  from the Summa Theologica, The Second Part of Part II (1271-1272), Page 61 in Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics (trans. Paul E. Sigmund, Norton, 1988)

• Rumi

  consider Rumi’s friendship with Shams al-Din Tabrizi. One good source is Chapter 4 of Lewis’ Rumi: Past and Present, East and West (One World Academic, 2000). Rumi also discusses friendship more generally, as Coleman Barks has him do in The Essential Rumi, “Chapter 7, “Sohbet” (Harper One, 1995)

• Hafez

  for example, “Two Giant Fat People” or Chapter 15 in The Gift: Poems by Hafiz (trans. Daniel Ladinsky, Penguin Compass, 1999)

• Nezami Gangavi - Layli and Majnun

  with special attention to the friendship between Zayd and Majnun

• Arthurian Literature

  regarding, for example, the friendship between Arthur and Lancelot, and perhaps the possible friendships between gallant men generally

MODERN FRIENDSHIP

• Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier

  consider the section on “Friends and Flatterers”, towards the end of the first book

• Desiderius Erasmus - In Praise of Folly

  reminds us of the foolishness by which we remain loyal to our friends

• Francis Bacon - Essays

  namely “Of Friendship”, “Of Negotiating”, and “Of Followers and Friends”

• Cervantes - Don Quixote

  with special attention to the friendship between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

• Michel de Montaigne- Essays

  principally “Of Friendship”

• Goethe - The West-Eastern Divan

  concerning the friendship between different nations. I do not know of an English translation, but Muhammad Iqbal’s reply to Goethe, Message from the East, demonstrates some mutual affection

• Johann Peter Eckermann - Conversations with Goethe

  concerning the friendship between mentor and pupil

• Alexandre Dumas - The Three Musketeers

  concerning the friendship between musketeers

• Ralph Waldo Emerson - Essays

  the essay “Friendship” is superior to his famous “Self-Reliance”. Consider the beauty of quotations like these:

  “...the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether.”

  “How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honour, and who honour us!”

  “Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection.”

• Soren Kierkegaard - Works of Love

  this book concerns love more generally, which may possibly be useful for friendship

• Friedrich Nietzsche

  Human all too Human - “Section Six: Man in Society”

  Thus Spake Zarathustra - “On the Friend”

• Khalil Gibran - The Prophet

  “On Friendship” in The Prophet

• Albert Einstein - Ideas and Opinions

  for example, “Society and Personality”

Of course, there are countless other wonderful works that discuss friendship. Certainly, comment your suggestions as well. I will edit this post and add to the list as time goes on. One day, I may make a YouTube video on the topic of friendship.

YouTube Channel

One notable place to draw from that is not greatly represented on this list is the tradition of letter writing. Many philosophers and poets wrote affectionate and / or thoughtful letters to their friends, from which a great deal could be learned. This will be another area for further investigation.

The library was built into a school, and it was the middle of a school day. I didn’t know this. I felt out of place. It did seem more like a school library than a public one. But after a minute of searching I found the audiobook. I checked it out.

The CDs were blank on both sides, saving a black skull and a number. This was pretty metal. The CDs were sharp in the sun. Disc One said, of the CD player, it would be so empty without me.

Instead of going home, I elected to drive still another town over. This way it would take longer to get home, and I could hear more of the poem. I was only mostly confident I knew the turn for the next town over.

There was a long preface about the Comedy having very elaborate and significant numerology. So the scholars said. How much of that did I really listen to? Eventually, I heard Dante say this:

Sub Julio I was born, though late the day,
      And under good Augustus lived at Rome
      When false and lying deities bore sway.
I was a poet: that just hero whom
      Anchises sired, I sang, who came from Troy
      After the burning of proud Ilium.

(Canto I, Lines 70-76, Trans. Melville Best Anderson)

I guess it was Virgil who said that. Or maybe the narrator. I did make the right turn in the end. The town after the next town over felt far away and close to home at the same time. Dante entered Hell with his guide.

I stopped to take a picture of a street that reminded me of the 80s or the 90s, or a movie. Then I drove deeper into the town, losing track of what Dante (or Virgil?) but probably the narrator was saying.

Or maybe it was Anderson.

I came upon a beautiful pond surrounded by a park. There was a campground nearby. I noted that it was way cheaper than a hotel. I may have gotten out to walk around the pond. I got turned around by an awkward parking lot. Dante greeted the poets and the philosophers in the first circle of hell. Listed last among them was Averroes.

I decided it was Dante speaking. Everyone else, Virgil, Anderson, the narrator, and even I—were there for Dante. I lost track of what he was saying again, and started making my way home. I had to turn back onto the highway.

Dante soon met Francesca da Ramini, in the second circle, for she slept with her husband’s brother (lust is the least punished sin, saving being born before God), and Dante fainted from pity when he heard how she was seduced by the words of a romance novel, read aloud by her in-law.

I stopped to take a picture of the mountains.

Dante fell in love before, that’s why he wrote the Comedy, so he is overwhelmed by pity for the “twain”, (so Anderson had him say). But which resolve our culture no longer deigns to taught, Dante condemned the lovers, regardless having pity for the sin or not.

This I struggled with, for freedom by forgiveness is the thing I’ve wanted most—a belief enforced by Nietzsche when I read (almost) all he wrote. Nietzsche mentions Dante once I think (perhaps), thinks little of him, just as Voltaire, (according to Arthur Livingston) dismissed him.

(“The Vogue of La Divina Comedia”... page VII).

The heavy words of the poem were like the heavy rays of the sun. Sharp like the CD. Dull like the clouds. Dante pushed at the car from the inside with his words, the sun pushed down from the outside, as with the wind.

When I got back to town, I thought about how my house seems close to things so far away, like mountain peaks and fancy poems that some still read (until this day). Dante wove a tapestry, like Persian rugs (they fascinate me) that math with love look out for God.

Meanwhile, the stories I know just have a three act structure.

I bought fries in town. I was hungry! Back in the house, I looked out the window and saw the same clouds that are above the plains. Plains flanked by mountains. Mountains touched with snow. Snow touched my eyes, even though it was hot. As Dante touched my ears, where Dante liveth not.

That must have been a year ago. I listened to every disk. And I don’t know what the poem is about.

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Cited, along with the poem itself:

“The Vogue of La Divina Comedia” from the introduction to The Divine Comedy. Trans. M.B. Anderson, Easton Press, 1978.