reading along

[gfrancie]

So I am still reading this AS Byatt book. (I pick it up. I put it down. I read three books at once so it takes awhile) There is a serious theme of how far does one put up with someone's art/talent when there is a part of them that is deeply unpleasant or awful. It is that age old question or quest of separating the artist's personal life from their work.
There is a character in the book that I think is partly inspired by this rather notorious artist/designer named Eric Gill. A few years ago I was at my inlaws one Christmas and one evening before dinner the television was on and I found myself watching this program about this village in Sussex where Eric Gill had lived and created a sort of artist's colony/commune at one point (like way back in the early part of the 20th century) He was a really original artist. He created typefaces, he was a sculptor and he did prints and all manner of things. He was part of the whole Arts & Crafts movement which was very much about truth in material and had kind of a romanticized notion about nature, ancient ideas and it was also meshed with socialist ideas at times. In some ways these people were the original hippies.
As for Gill his work was provocative, soulful and bewildering. You can't help but look at his work and let it sit in your head awhile. But then there is his private life. To put it plainly he was one fucked up piece of shit. He sexually abused his children well into adulthood, engaged in incest with his sister, "experimented" on his dog and liked to expose himself to people. "oh look...there's my cock." What is more is he recorded what he did in great detail in private diaries.
His work and personality has been the subject of a number of articles. How one can reconcile the two. For some the truth about his life ruined the experience of the art -which I can understand. Sometimes the subtext can overwhelm the image.

Byatt has a real knack for showing the reader that people are complicated messy creatures.

Comments

[amamama.livejournal.com]

I once heard a psychologist say that noone turns into a molester who has not been molested him/herself. Makes you wonder what Gill's childhood was like. Somehow his sense of self and of appropriate behaviour had been seriously screwed up by his own parents/other grown-ups he trusted. I just hope his kids managed to break the cycle. But nevertheless he was an awesome artist, and his typefaces are classic.

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

It does make one wonder what happened to him to make him end up like that.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reminding me about Sussex - I tend to assocate him with Capel-y-ffin
Yes, it's truly dreadful, the things that have come out about him over the years - and hard not to let the knowledge interfere with appreciation of his genius. The difficulty is - does genius make people arrogant to think that they can do as they wish - or does genius sometimes come from a distorted view od the world and of relationships? I doubt whether there's an answer, and I'm glad that i admired his work before I knew about his life

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

On one hand from what I read he obviously had a lot of personal demons and was drawn to the some of the ideas of atonement through one's life (as he converted to Roman Catholicism) but as a friend of his said, "yeah a lot of good that did."
He seemed almost gleeful in his diaries about what he did. Like there really wasn't any remorse for his acts and how they influenced his work.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I suppose that the friend knew more thna I might - but I'm inclined to wonder whether he might have been worse if he hadn't had some idea of atonement

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

I wonder if he justified some of his actions under the heading of "oh hey I will fix this later."

[k425.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that about Gill. I shall look at Gill sans differently the rest of my life, I think.

[jillithian.livejournal.com]

Wow. How dense am I? Didn't even make the connection to the Gill Sans font.

[k425.livejournal.com]

File under "stuff I know purely because of my dad" - he did some typesetting.

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I feel a bit awful throwing off someone's experience with something like that. "Yeah that? Pedo did that."

[k425.livejournal.com]

Not your fault!

[needlediva.livejournal.com]

one of my favorite authors once wrote that an artist's personal life is none of our business-that what it takes to be an artist can be almost tortuous, and often arises out of the artist's personal pain. the artist's sins are between him and his God, and unless we are that person's confessor, nothing to do with us.

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

Yeah.
On a rational level I agree with much of that.
I think there is just my initial emotional reaction knowing that certain works he did, involved using his daughters as models in more... erotic works. Does that make sense?
It is conflicting stuff.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I think that i agree with this - but am not sure that i could, if i was one of his daughters

[epiphany.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I find it all fascinating and am reminded of Anais Nin.

I was a huge fan of her work when I was younger especially because she seemed to be the first person whose use of journals legitimized them as a type of "life as art" form. Several volumes of her journals were published, but it wasn't until everyone involved in them died that the real un-expunged versions came out.

Understanding that her father took nude photographs of her when she was a girl (which she carried around in her purse as a child) and that she had a consensual incestuous relationship with him as an adult certainly put the rest of her work in context, but part of the reason was that she was presenting the cleaned up versions of her journal as the shocking, bald truth when they were actually carefully edited for the public eye. Her real life was much more interesting and controversial, as I would guess everyones is if you peel back all the layers.

My feeling is that I would like the opportunity to view a person's life as a whole, but that doesn't invalidate any of the parts that are able to stand on their own. An artistic genius is who he because of the things that have brought him/her to that point, but they don't necessarily have to back story every work in order to appreciate it. Sure makes it more interesting for a journal reader and counselor like me though!

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

I think what sometimes conflicts me in regard to Gill is the fact that some of these erotic drawings/prints he did were actually of his daughters. (who were still in their minority) I pause because while I can admire/respect a lot of his other efforts (his sculpture, work as a typeface designer) the drawings of his daughters feels like... I am intruding. Here is the legacy of abuse and because it is high art it blurs a lot of lines.

I feel like with Nin, she was able to take what occurred and kind of take ownership of things where as Gill's prints are the abuser having control. Does that make sense?

I feel like you might find The Children's Book really interesting as a piece of fiction because of the complexities of everyone's lives (especially in regards to the sexual side of things) and really not much changes under the sun. hee.

[epiphany.livejournal.com]

People are messy, it's true.

And yeah, Nin does not equal Gill. It's looking through the opposite end of the lens there. And it's true, she took ownership of it, she seemed to have some level of pride in the exploring the forbidden nature of it as an adult, where as his kids had no say and who knows where they are with any of it now. I hope his success at least afforded them free therapy for life because I bet they could use it.