Loose Living (5 page)

I
HAVE
an ongoing aesthetic interest, as well as a vested interest, in the painting of words.

Indeed, in art museums in many countries I have sometimes become involved in pushing and shoving matches, argy bargy, with other visitors to the museum because I insist on reading the pieces of newspaper which are sometimes used in collage work.

Because collage work often employs newspaper scraps which are placed in the painting at an angle or upside down, the reading of the newspapers does involve me in gymnastics which have more than once attracted the worried attention of the gentle museum guards.

I always carry a large Sherlock Holmes-style magnifying glass to art exhibitions on the advice of the late Dorothy Dundas.

I read these newspaper components because I happen to believe that the artists ‘choose' these newsprint pieces.

These newspapers do not blow in the window. I am inclined to assume that the artists use that day's newspaper because it was likely to be at hand (after checking that everyone in the family is finished with it, of course).

I also assume that they read those newspapers over croissants and hot chocolate or whatever, that very morning of the making of the collage, and that their reading of the newspaper that morning, and their reaction to the news, together with the quarrels they may have had with whomever they slept the night, the success of the sleep and whatever else happened during the course of night, and the quality of the chocolate and the croissants, all this shaped what happened that day in the artwork.

I also look for jam stains.

It is the Bad Breakfast Theory of creativity. Most importantly, given that they used those newspapers directly in their work, I believe that the news affected them in their choice of the bits they cut up for the collage.

To superficially illustrate my point: Braque did a joke painting on the death of Max Ernst which involved news paper material in collage. If you examine the newspaper material closely you find, upside down, and virtually obscured, the newspaper headline, in French, ‘What sort of Bird was Max Ernst?'

Superimposed on the collage work was a painting of an imaginary bird. There was no clue to this in the title of the work or in the catalogue.

I emphasise that this particular newsprint headline was very difficult to detect in the collage, but that I, being that sort of person, ‘discovered' it by using my large magnifying glass to carefully read all the newspaper clipping in that collage despite the back-up of seventy-eight impatient viewers behind me.

I came across this particular painting in a small museum in provincial Switzerland and I pointed it out gleefully to the guards and other visitors (mainly Swiss military personnel on arts manoeuvres) but I was not particularly thanked for my pains.

However, I rush to say that it is my belief, after many hours of reading the pieces of newspaper used in collages, that artists rarely intended the news stories to literally inform the painting. This Braque was an exception.

The big shift among the artists today is that they want to ‘say' things to us. Usually to teach us a lesson or to raise what they see as our anaemic consciousness about some issue they have taken up at breakfast that morning.

Just in case, for example, we have never in our lives considered the case for or against consumerism, let alone entertaining the possibility that many of us intelligently enjoy consumerism.

I guess these artists have never been Big Spenders.

My hunch is that the use of words in visual art, as we understand it, began early this century with Braque and Picasso and that they did all that could be done with it by about 1920.

I am excluding the use in medieval paintings of Latin religious inscriptions such as ‘Honk if you love Jesus'.

Hence my sending of a footman to Beaulieu with an appeal to the Duc and his friends for a truckload of Picassos and Braques so that I could confirm my hypothesis.

To be accurate, the paintings did not arrive on the back of a truck. They were individually wrapped in straw and each carried by two strong peasants across the fields surrounding the
château
to my spacious studio with its delightful skylight taking the south light, where I could study them in greater detail.

As I pored over the paintings with my magnifying glass I was watched by my Lacanian analyst and the peasants. The peasants hung back respectfully at a distance, hats in hand, trousers tied at the knee, shuffling from leather-booted foot to foot, whispering and gesturing among themselves as they observed the evolving of my hypothesis, watching as I took special interest in some section of a painting, nudging each other when I smiled, when I grimaced.

Often strongly whispered arguments broke out among them. I found it diverting to eavesdrop on their naive opinions and comments, all of which made delightful anecdotal material that night at dinner in the banquet hall.

My Lacanian analyst, on the other hand, hovered near me like a moth. She is concerned that words have deranged me as a person, or in her words, that ‘I am losing my grip' (a very physical expression to describe a derangement of the mind—although perhaps with masturbatory associations).

The peasants take a lively interest in artworks. The respect of the French generally for the arts, especially for writers, is heartening in every respect. The daily
gifts of produce, game and firewood often bring tears to my eyes.

They feel amply rewarded by being allowed to stand at the window of my studio while I write, despite the icy conditions outside.

I will, of course, hold a grand outdoor
fête
for the peas ants and give them a version of my hypothesis at a later date. Their reactions to my hypothesis should be amusing and provide some further charming anecdotes for the
château
crowd.

I became particularly preoccupied with what I call the ‘Jouer' collages of Braque and Picasso.

Jouer
means ‘to play', and there is a game with this meaning in the ‘
Jouer
' paintings, which in turn plays with the word
journal
, meaning newspaper.

These are paintings from the period when the two artists worked closely together, ‘playing games', as it were, with each other in their work. The newspaper collages were in fact being used as ‘playing' cards.

The joke with the word
journal
, or parts thereof, went on from 1912 to 1920, being a reference to their use of newsprint, newspaper layout, ‘print culture', as a visual element.

I suppose it could be likened to the use of television formats and news footage in contemporary video artworks.

During the time of the joke, Picasso and Braque, but Picasso especially, painted parts of the word
journal
into their collages but never the whole word, always obscuring or obliterating the word.

So in Picasso's work we have
Jou
(1912), J– –rn– – (1913),
Jour
(1914),
J– – –nal
(1914),
J–ur– – –
(1914), – – –
rna/
(1914),
Journ
(1915) and so on.

Picasso also broke the word in two other works by inter posing imagery to produce
Jour/nal
and
Journ/al.

They never used the whole word until 1920 when Braque finally did. I think he did it to ‘close' the joke.

Come to think of it, and Pardon Me for My Presumption, Pablo and Georges, the joke was a trifle overextended.

Playing with ‘things' in his artworks gave Braque the nickname Bric-a-Braque (not my joke).

In the Picasso collage which is known for the use of the name of the French drink
Suze
(1916), you will see, on closer inspection, that it also uses the word
jour
twice.

When viewing the
Suze
painting, I always think of the extraordinary Australian collage artist Suzie Carleton, of the Bellevue Hotel in Paddington, Sydney, who is known for using the dinner party as personality and table collage.

As an aside I point out that the use of readable newsprint in collage runs the risk of unintended resonance later in history.

This is well illustrated in the
Suze
collage because way down the bottom, again almost obscured, is the 1916 headline
LES SERBES S'AVANCENT
.

Titles traditionally have been a legitimate use of words by painters. They put the title outside the frame but the title is always connected instantly and visually
with the painting and jumps to the other side of the frame into the painting.

I watch visitors to art museums and they look at the painting, then at the title, and then back at the painting and they move their mouth or head as if to say, ‘Ah, I get it. “Blue Rider”, a rider painted blue, on the horse. I get it.'

I believe that many viewers attach the title too firmly to the images—overwrite the painting, as it were. The viewers do word paintings in their heads.

Titles should be chosen with cataloguing in mind. Painters really need a numbering system similar to the ISBN system for books.

This problem is made much, much worse when the painter puts the words inside the painting. Much, much worse when the painter wants to somehow communicate existential or political import by a couple of words.

I
N
E
UROPE
, at the beginning of the
cèpe
season, people drive out to the countryside and comb the forests for these large clumpy mushrooms and then every restaurant and home has
cèpe
dishes for a week.

All the other mushrooms are also sprouting and I again received a message from the Duc, who is patron of the Société Mycologique, asking me to judge the Salon du Champignon at Baume-les-Dames.

As a judge I was blindfolded and invited to sample a hundred or more different mushrooms found in the surrounding fields and forests.

I had to separate them into edible, suspect,
toxique
and
mortel
and then, at the same time, rank the edible mush rooms on a scale of one to five.

At the Salon du Champignon, as at a wine tasting, the organisers provide a receptacle for spitting after each tasting, or in the case of bad mistakes with mushrooms, vomiting, the coughing of blood, convulsion and physical seizure.

I ranked the
Amanita vaginata
highly but gave the
Trompette de la morte
a low score.

I did make one or two mistakes in identifying the
toxique
and
mortel
and I must say I came away from the Salon feeling rather dizzy and unsteady on my feet
and have been suffering the occasional spasm which throws me across the room.

My doctor says I must expect my head to give involuntary jerks for some time. The paralysis in the right hand will pass.

I told the gathering at the Salon that I think this will be the last year that I accept nomination as a judge. It is time for me to stand aside for younger people. Fashions change and, as an Old Hippie, I feel I no longer represent the tastes of the gastronomic world when it comes to mushrooms.

I am from the good old days of hallucinogens, the Gold Tops and the other magic mushrooms, from a time of dancing in the woods at Nimbin in fairy circles wearing Pan costumes (it is from these days that I have a residual immunity from many things which would kill a younger person, including the broken heart).

As usual, the good folk of Baume-les-Dames prevailed upon me to stay on as a judge for one more year.

The Salon du Champignon is always desperately short of judges.

H
AVING FAILED
to begin my new book and having lost the respect of all those who supported me and had faith in me, I have been asked to leave the
château.

Only one or two of my personal servants came to see me off. The Duc, who had returned from Beaulieu just the day before, remained discreetly indoors, his heart broken by my cheap deceit.

The butler's brother pursed his lips and said, ‘Told you so.'

What possessions I have, I tied in a kerchief and fixed to the end of a staff which I carried over my shoulder.

Although deeply wounded by my deceit, my personal servants waved to me for some time as I walked down the path from the
château
, the very same path up which I had so proudly been carried by the priest and his dog cart in those happier times.

After two days and two nights of walking I reached Paris and there, in the sewers, I wandered lost in an alcoholic daze for many weeks before being taken in by a kind Woman of the Streets who recognised me from my more prosperous days and was appalled by my sorry state and by how low I'd fallen.

When she had nursed me back to good health by spoon-feeding me with honest French onion soup,
I was forced to take up a position as a teacher in creative writing at Ecole des Beaux Arts Perdus in the city of Rouen.

The school is situated in the bad part of town, near the Quartier Maroc, and the school is considered the worst in Europe and is always on the edge of losing accreditation.

Appropriately, I have been hired to teach Minor Characters, the most unpopular course. My Lacanian analyst says that teaching minor characters will help me confront my narcissism.

She said it will force me to pay attention to the people of the world who aren't high flyers.

Maybe it will teach me humility but I fear that
lust-ich
and
autoerotisch
will always be with me.

My Lacanian analyst has also pointedly raised her fees above that which I can afford.

Anyhow, no more heroes and central characters for me. I teach the point of view of those characters in novels who come on for a page or so. I have given seven lectures on Tolstoy's
Anna Karenina
in which I discuss the Italian wet nurse and the English governess, Miss Edwards (pages 445, 446, 447, 648, 649, 669, Penguin edition).

At the Ecole des Beaux Arts Perdus I cut a sorry figure. I am a shuffling shadow of my former ebullient self of the
château
days when I was a hunting and card-playing dandy, a friend of the Duc, a patron and counsellor to the local peasants, and a Prince Among Men.

I am an object of ridicule. I am not listened to at staff meetings, or worse, I am egged on to give an opinion at which the others screech with laughter.

People talk over me in conversation, a thing that I once arrogantly did to others. I find that at tables there is always one chair missing—mine.

I find that at morning coffee one mug is missing—mine.

I cannot find the chalkboard duster. Often no room has been allocated for my class and we meet under a tree, shivering from the cold. Three hopeless students and their pitiful teacher.

I was told by my students that the waitress in the student café urinates on my food. However, I believe that they tell me this to excite me. It is so long since any woman has shown any interest in my depressed, shambling body.

I have little respect among the student body. I am forever the butt of exploding handshakes and lapel flowers which squirt.

One student has befriended me. An orphaned, crippled lad of no talent. He hangs on my every word but sooner or later I will have to tell him that he is to be dismissed from the school. That his work fails to live on the page. That he is mired in self-pity. That like his poor shrivelled body, his work too is shrivelled, crippled and without grace. I am not sure how to put this to him but I suspect that brutal frankness is the only way.

The other staff envy me my early success when I was a
bon vivant
and an international celebrity. They enjoy
reminding me of those happier times when I drove fast cars, rode Arabian stallions and danced on tables in full armour.

It appeals to them to contrast that with my present condition.

The staff are the most abject failures from the debris of European letters. Among them are two writers who have been fined for using epigraphs at the front of their novels, taken from books which they hadn't read. One had the audacity to quote from the Bible without having read it. The other used a quote from
Paradise Lost
taken from a dictionary of quotations which happened to have got the quotation wrong.

I gave evidence against them at the European Court of Artistic Disgrace, which won me no friends at the school. But too many fiction writers are implying greater learning than they in fact have.

Some become skilful at throwing the shadow of scholarship without having the prerequisite scholarly qualifications. I have dedicated myself to uncovering these rogues.

For my efforts, I am seen as a sneak. People leave the staff lounge when I enter. Conversations are hastily concluded.

I have also campaigned to have painters who use quotations in their paintings from works they have not studied dragged before the European Court of Artistic Disgrace.

The most abject of all of those at the school are the disgraced Marxist writers and former Marxist academics
who have been thrown out of universities in Europe and Eastern Europe.

If you want to know what happened to the Marxist scholars of the world, they came to teach creative writing at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Perdus of Rouen.

Not one voluntarily resigned from their posts for being catastrophically wrong.

I believe we are to receive another wave from the UK where they are being weeded out in their hundreds.

Another colleague, a reviewer, has been put on trial for implying a confident background knowledge of the subject of the book under review when, in fact, all her knowledge came from the single book she was reviewing.

I gave evidence against her. I established the case after insinuating myself as a friend and confidant and then using a series of trick questions together with a study of her personal library, and of her library borrowings over fifteen years.

Another case in which I am gathering evidence is against a novelist whose so-called imaginary characters in his latest book are simply thinly disguised facets of the author's self.

I am also laying traps for those novelists who have tried to jump on the post-modern bandwagon by writing novels about writing novels while, in their hearts, being secret modernists. They will receive heavy sentences.

At the school the staff are opinionated beyond belief. We all have affectations—men wear capes, carry canes
with silver tops, wear strange hats and sport elaborately waxed moustaches. One prays each morning before a statue of Edgar Allan Poe, and so on.

Women staff wear jodhpurs and carry riding crops or wear men's tuxedos.

We are all hypersensitive, we name-drop endlessly, we talk of contracts, of advances, of film deals, all of which never eventuate.

We exaggerate our sales figures. We talk of our titles as if they were published recently when in fact they were published thirty years ago.

We treat support staff abominably.

We abuse publishers' editors for having introduced errors and for having emasculated what would have otherwise been gutsy masterpieces.

We all court the admiration and approval of the callow student body. We praise their rotten poems and give inordinate time and intellectually dressed-up analysis to their stupid short stories.

We are forever disparaging other writers, we search their work for plagiarisms, we gossip about poor sales and ‘burnout'.

We denigrate commercialism in the successful writers and lack of sales among the literary writers. We resent all interviews and public attention given to other writers.

We talk of ‘closed circles' and elites. We rush to attack others for elitism, for the one thing we are not, is an elite. Of that, the staff at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Perdus will never be accused.

I have never been among such poseurs, yet it is strangely comforting.

Because the pay is so bad (no one in their right mind would ever work at the school), I live in a miserable attic room in the Quartier Maroc and cook on a smelly oil stove, washing out my linen and hosiery in dishes from which I and the cat also eat.

I hang out my clothing to dry above my miserable single bed and I barely have the morale to care about the drips which fall onto my face as I try to sleep, drunk on cheap Algerian wine.

I burn my old manuscripts in the stove to heat the room.

I raise ortolan in cages in my room. The cleaner complains. But the small birds cheer me. They bring to my life that small pleasure sufficient to sustain my heavy heart; their chirping helps me push from my mind any contemplation of taking the Easy Way Out.

I will enter them in the Aviculture Foire if they survive the winter uneaten, and live on the prizemoney.

Thus is the tale of a person who tried to be a Man of Letters in Europe, who boasted of his Very Sophisticated French Friends, who once opened champagne bottles with a sword, and who ate grand lunches and dinners while a cruel recession reduced the fortunes of his friends.