Pure Poetry 9/29/09

A great work of art, like a job well done, needs no critique.

DB - The Vagabond
****************
Welcome to wonder land.
_____________________
There are some great works of art and literature that still baffle me. The Bach B minor Mass, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Wagner's Tristan and Parsifal, certain works by Mahler and Stravinsky, paintings by Raphael, DaVinci, Matisse, Van Gogh and Picasso, some novels of Dostoyevsky. Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear are among them.

Perhaps "baffle" is the wrong word. I am in awe of them because there are mysteries there that haven't become clear to me yet. And so I sit in wonderment whenever I confront one of them.

Generally I don't like or admire critics, although there are some excellent ones. But I don't envy what the critic has to do when called upon to assess a great work of art. How can you describe in words something as monolithic as Beethoven's Ninth, or DaVinci's Last Supper? It would be like trying to describe a mountain. Each time you climb it the experience is different.

That's what makes for the mysteries. Every time I go back to King Lear, for example, I go "Wait a minute. What's this?" There is something there I didn't see before. I read it, of course, but I didn't SEE it.

I believe it is so important to keep the art that we love and admire always in the active part of our lives. Let the critics try to describe it in their scholarly tomes, if they must. The works speak for themselves and will keep on revealing their mysteries if we only watch and listen.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
*********************
May you have a vigorous Autumn.
___________________________