Fatigue and ruin

  Recently I’ve been boning up on my Canadiana with a short book on the history of Montreal and then a quick perusal of Landmarks of Canadian Art by a fella named Peter Mellen. 

  Mellen is a graduate of McGill here in Montreal, studied art history in Paris and London, and taught the history of Canadian art at Toronto and York Universities. 

  Picturing him teaching young and impressionable students at the University level a line that inevitably comes to mind when I occasionally pass through the McGill campus on my city walkabouts popped into my head: “Like lambs to the intellectual slaughter!” 

  Summing up the work of some modern artistic practitioner Mellen writes:   “His work breaks down preconceived notions of reality and creates an entirely new way of seeing.” 

  Hmmm, really?

  Or, writing of another: “The work creates a dynamic interplay between illusion and reality, and provides a new perception of a familiar experience.”

  Vaguely similar and equally baffling I’d say. 

  How about this one: “The work contains elements of the past and the present in a profound statement that evokes a sense of mystery and ritual.” 

  No, you’re not imagining it: these pronouncements might seem to make sense, but they are not saying anything. They could have been spat out of a ‘modern art’ AI generator. 

  Since I’ve been quoting from a book I’ll saddle you with one more. This one from the medical doctor and writer of the four volume History of Art, Elie Faure: “When art declines under the blows of criticism or under the weight of fatigue, science, assuming the upper hand, drags to its ruin the previously imagined social poem.” –Elie Faure, The Spirit Of The Forms

  I like that: when art declines “science… drags to its ruin the previously imagined social poem.”

  Here at the Omphalos Cafe we ask: who is there to sing and teach of a badly needed new social poem? 

  Perhaps one in which…

  Life is ALL there is.

Any thoughts on a new social poem? Let’s have some fun with it at omphaloscafe@gmail.com!