May 28, 2012

Notes From A Small Town Part II

Since today is a holiday, and I am still sitting in my parents’ kitchen drinking coffee, I have the chance to write another blog post. And because this weekend has been one marked by various thoughts and reflections, I hope the reader will forgive me for doing a post similar to that of yesterday, i.e. a few short ideas for your consideration. Though they will be tied together at the end, if you will bear with me.

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If you are no longer living under your parents’ roof, you will no doubt recall that there came that heady occasion, that right of capitalist passage, when you got to make your own decisions about things large and small in your own place.  Take your food and household product selection for example.  When you are in charge of taking care of yourself and no one else is expected to help, then you get to decide what brand of laundry detergent, or coffee, etc. you want to have in your own place.

And yet when you go home, it is curious how the same, familiar brands, which you grew up with and may not choose for yourself now, are the ones that seem comforting. Of course your mother uses Brand A detergent to wash the clothes, and Brand B detergent to wash the dishes, even though you buy whatever is on sale.  Naturally your father reaches for Brand Y coffee and prefers Brand Z butter, because he always has – why change now?  Not having these things in the pantry, under the sink, and so on, would create a sense that you had somehow wandered into the wrong house.

Is there a lesson, here, rather than just an observation? Perhaps we could say, choose what you like for your own place, but if you don’t really have a strong preference, then go with what Dad and Mom preferred.  We could also observe, Dad and Mom have established a routine with these things, because they realize that the freedom of having so many things to choose from is really more of a distraction, after awhile, from more important things we have to do.

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The desire to create some order from chaos struck me as I was watching an episode of Father Robert Barron’s “Catholicism” series last night on television with Mom – or rather, with Mom asleep next to me, as she was tired and a gentle-voiced priest from Chicago talking about Jesus and Thomas Aquinas was probably going to send her off to sleep, regardless of how interesting the talk was. I still have not seen all of the episodes of Father Barron’s series, just portions here and there, as I always seem to come in at the wrong time or miss it when it has been on.  It was good to sit down and get through one, complete episode for a change, particularly because it is such a beautifully shot and composed series overall, and Father Barron has such a clear, unfussy way of presenting things.

Several things he said during the episode I watched were ideas I wanted to be able to reflect on and read more about later; this is not an infrequent occurrence for me.  I may watch a television show like Father Barron’s, listen to a podcast, or hear a sermon at mass where there has been a particularly good piece of insight, perhaps once a week or more. And I then think to myself that I should write that insight down, so I can refer to it later.

If I am lucky I quickly type something into my phone or my computer, or jot something down on a notepad or a scrap of paper.  Yet I never seem to be good at systematically following up with these things, and transcribing them into some cohesive whole for future use.  Is it better to try to internalize the lesson learned at the time it is communicated, and then move on and get about your business?

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The preceding two ramblings are the sort of thoughts you (or at least I) tend to have when on vacation.  This is particularly the case when one is on holiday in a small, country town like this one, where there is very little to do, and frankly no real reason to do much of anything for the several days that one is visiting.  Like Thanksgiving, Easter, and other holidays, if you come from a small town and go home to visit for a few days, you will probably spend much of it loafing about, eating too much, falling asleep unexpectedly in a chair, and so on.

As pleasant as that may sound to continue indefinitely, being on a permanent holiday is not what we are meant to do with our lives. Going back to something Father Barron said in the aforementioned episode, if your primary goal in life is to accumulate pleasure and avoid pain, then you are not really living.  And Dad and Mom get about the business of life, rather than spending a great deal of time debating the minutiae of laundry detergent like some self-obsessed hipster taking his or her cues from whatever Madison Avenue wants him to believe.

All of us have things which we need to do, for ourselves and for others, which may be difficult at times, but definitely cannot be accomplished through a life of inaction brought about by indolence or by fear.  Whether we do nothing because we are lazy and want nothing but pleasure no matter how fleeting, or do nothing because we are afraid of our own mortality and bury our talents in the ground, either way the end result will be the same: disappointment.  We cannot live lives in a permanent vacation mode, revolving solely around avoiding reality.

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, and at mass we were reminded of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. Looking at this list, I know which gifts I need to pray for especially, as I am going through some changes in my own life. And perhaps you, gentle reader, recognize some that you need for yourself, in your life.  Do you need to make more of an effort to understand your children or your co-workers? Are you making a bare minimal effort to pray? Are you willfully embracing ignorance in some aspect of your life rather than educating yourself?

This evening as I and many other Americans hit the road to go back to our regular lives at the conclusion of the Memorial Day weekend, we will probably be doing so with some sense of regret that the relaxation and time with family or friends cannot continue indefinitely. Americans will not have another three-day weekend like this again until Labor Day, at the end of summer. So now that summer is unofficially here, perhaps setting ourselves a goal to be able to return to those family and friends by summer’s end and say, “Look how things have improved since Memorial Day!” is not such a bad plan, is it?  Now there will be something to get the village talking.


“Village Green” by Thomas Rowlandson (c. 1800)
Private Collection

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May 27, 2012

Notes From A Small Town

Rather than write one, cohesive blog post this Sunday morning, I thought it might be a good idea just to share a few ideas, which you might find interesting or helpful. For my American readers we still have this Sunday and all day tomorrow left in this holiday weekend.   Remember that the reason we have this holiday is to recall those who have given their lives in service to this country, to preserve our freedoms and way of life – and who in many cases gave their lives to help people spread all over the globe.  We are truly blessed to have benefited from their sacrifice, and the sacrifices their families made for all of us.

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My birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but as this is a holiday weekend in the United States it was the first time most of us could all get home to my parents’ to celebrate it together. Among the many thoughtful, useful, and fun gifts I received, one of my brothers got me a rather thick, heavy, scholarly book about the development of the film industry in all its aspects – everything from technical methods employed in lighting to concepts in editing such as continuity. Of course by scholarly, I mean it is a volume with lots of text and footnotes, in a smallish font so as to squeeze in as much information as possible, and there is not a huge amount of accompanying pictures or illustrations.

The giver expressed some concern that he was not entirely sure if it might prove too specialist a read, but as I explained this is exactly the sort of thing I like.  It is easy to lose yourself in this sort of book, even if it takes longer to make your way through than would a more accessible text. Not only do you learn a great deal, but it is absorbing and requiring of your concentration, so that you need to pay attention to it if you are going to get through it.  Thus, it provides the proverbial “hours of entertainment”.

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As my parents recently had high-speed WiFi installed at the house, this was the first weekend I have been home to visit where I did not have to reduce my computer time to when the one in my Dad’s office was free.  At first I mourned the idea that I would now be able to keep up with all of my normal internet activities here in the small town where I grew up, but instead it has actually turned out to be great in several, unexpected ways.  I have been able to write blog posts uninterrupted, for example, and do some other, work-related writing that I need to do.   I also managed to appear on SQPN’s “Catholic Weekend” show from here, using my youngest brother’s bedroom on the top floor as the recording studio least likely to have any interruptions.

And while I am not a baseball fan, I managed to spend last evening with my family all watching baseball on television while I sat on the couch with them and did my usual writing, research, and so on, and yet still being able to interact with them.  I was able to be a part of what was going on, without having to put work aside, or not appear on the show, or go to another room because I could be on the computer at last if everyone else was watching baseball.  Perhaps the lesson to take away from this is that technology is wonderful, but you have to make an effort sometimes to figure out how it might bring you together, rather than isolate you.

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Although I live in Washington, and I only manage to come home to visit every 6-8 weeks, give or take, over the past couple of years I have befriended one of the local parish priests here.  I usually check to see what mass he is going to be saying while I am in town and attend that one if I can.  He has been marvelous for confession in the past, we email back and forth periodically, and he strikes me as a very gentle, thoughtful pastor of his flock.  This weekend I wanted to go to confession and also have some time for spiritual direction if he was willing to just listen to me talk about some ideas and issues I am wrestling with, and he agreed to block off additional time for me before the scheduled Saturday afternoon confessions were to begin.

So yesterday afternoon we got to sit and talk for about an hour on where I have been, and where I am going.  A number of interesting commonalities came to light which I had not been aware of, such as the fact that he is a fellow alumnus of Notre Dame.  He was also a lawyer and practiced law for a few years before entering seminary.

For those of you who know the wonderful feeling you get from making a good confession, and particularly when you are able to do so after a really solid discussion with a good-hearted priest, there really is nothing else like it.  Yet what came out of this as well was that Father had the chance to tell me of examples in his own life as a parish priest that have parallels in how I live as a lay professional.  He explained how he looks at these situations and tries to handle them.

It was great hearing Father’s perspective, and how he could relate it to my own experiences, because he clearly had listened to what I had told him.  He talked about what fit for me, based on who I am and where I am now, as the individual sitting in the chair across from him.  And we spoke an equal amount of the time, going back and forth and taking turns to speak, rather than it all being lop-sided, and that was terrific as well.

So if you are Catholic, and it has been awhile since you have been to confession, or even if you go reasonably regularly, consider making an appointment to spend some time face to face talking about things in a way that is unhurried. Find a priest whose personality fits with yours, and let him know you just want to talk for an hour or half an hour, and see how it goes.  It may do you a world of good.

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May 26, 2012

Waking Up At Home

This morning I woke up in the house I grew up in, to the sound of my parents having a discussion in the kitchen about whether they wanted toast or waffles for breakfast.  My sister and one of my brothers and I managed to come home for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, which is usually considered the unofficial start of summer here in the United States.  There are parades and ceremonies to honor America’s war dead, and most people at some point will be cooking outdoors or attending picnics and other such events.  Here at Chez Père for example, steaks wrapped in rosemary will be made on the barbecue this evening.

So as I lay there not quite awake but not quite asleep either, I thought about the fact that I was truly blessed to be able to have this experience – a kind of momentary return to childhood.  I have friends much younger than I am who have not been able to wake up in this way for years, because one or both of their parents have died, or the family home has been sold. Of course once I got up and got going, the reality of not being a child anymore came flooding back – the aches and pains of approaching middle age, the concerns of adulthood in checking the phone for messages, and so on.

No matter how old we get, most of us will always have that feeling of wanting to go home, where things are always safe and familiar.  I know people whose lifestyles at present are far more comfortable now than the circumstances they grew up in, who still enjoy going back home to see the people they love, but also to just relax and be themselves. Others have not had upbringings that evoke such feelings of comfort and familiarity. For those people, the idea of waking up in the house they grew up in would be more akin to waking up in a nightmare.

Perhaps because happy memories of a drowsy, holiday weekend back home are even rarer for these people, the thought of being able to wake up rested and content in a loving environment are the more cherished because they were infrequent. While Thomas Wolfe’s classic Depression-era novel “You Can’t Go Home Again” would suggest trying to return home to childhood dreams is a failure, the truth is that most of us love the chance to go home again. Even if it is only to a brief moment of childhood, or even if we are still living in the same town where we grew up, and our parents are just across the street.

No one, no matter how sophisticated, intellectual, and accomplished they may become, is immune from feeling as though they would like to have a return to some of the simpler aspects of being a child again. If you are one of these people, try to imagine not worrying about anything more in life than being stung by a bee when playing outside, or whether you will be having peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Then tell me whether that is not preferable to worrying about finances, career, politics, health, romance, or other matters.

In Christianity we are aware of the importance of trying to keep some aspect of childhood in our lives no matter how old we get. In fact, Christ explicitly tells His Disciples that unless they become like children, they will not enter the Kingdom of God.  Yet regardless of whether or not you are a Christian, Jesus’ command – not a suggestion – to His followers is actually rather sound.

What are the qualities that we see in children that He is talking about, here? Perhaps we could list things like creativity, a sense of imagination and wonder, affection and tenderness toward others, a sense of fun, obedience and respect for one’s elders, asking for help when we need it and can’t manage by ourselves, etc.  True, a more jaundiced eye might look at children and see all sorts of bad things they often do, but then those are the people who see no value in jumping on your parents’ big bed in the morning .


“Four Poster” by Andrew Wyeth (1946)
Greeneville Museum of Art, Greeneville, South Carolina

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May 20, 2012

Leaving the Lair

As I was leaving church this morning, the Little Sisters of the Poor were at the front door of the building collecting donations. Their wonderful organization, which provides food, clothing, shelter, and medical care to the elderly poor who might not otherwise have anywhere to go, has been operating a home in the Nation’s Capital since a few years after the Civil War. I was privileged to volunteer for them briefly at one period in time, and I always try to support their work as best I can, and to encourage others to do so as well.

Reaching into my wallet I realized that I did not have a lot with me, and as I dropped what I did have into the basket held by the smiling nun, I said, “I’m so sorry sister, I don’t have anything more with me.” She immediately responded by saying, “Oh God bless you, we’re so grateful! Don’t apologize – say a ‘Hail Mary’ for us instead. It’s much better than any apology.”

We are often unaware of how much our day-to-day existence hangs by a thread, until something is taken away from us, whether temporarily or permanently; this is something the Little Sisters know all too well.  Most of the time we sail through live blissfully unaware of this fact.  Yet if you suddenly lose a loved one, or your job, or are involved in an accident that damages you or your property, for example, things go into a tailspin both practically and emotionally.

At this point everything can become bleak, and our outlook on life, ourselves, and others begins to be affected.  We feel isolated and vulnerable, like a battle-scarred animal that retreats into its lair alone to lick its wounds.  It snaps its jaws defensively and in fear, at anything that darkens its path, or whimpers softly, because it is no longer capable of helping itself.

Fortunately however, we are something more than animals, even if we are not quite angels.  We find ways to cope, to reason, and to carry on, rather than simply shutting ourselves off from the world.  And we can find this by following some of the counsel contained in a piece I came across this week that is attributed to Pope Clement XI (1649-1721).

Giovanni Francesco Albani (the future Clement XI) was born in the old Ducal town of Urbino, which is a place of particular significance for this writer.  It is the hometown of Raphael, my favorite Renaissance artist, and for many years the residence of Count Baldassare Castiglione, the patron of this blog.  It was in fact in Urbino that Castiglione rose to prominence, and befriended many of the characters who appear in his “Book of the Courtier”.

Clement XI had an interesting papacy, historically speaking, but quite possibly the best thing to come out of it is a prayer that is attributed to him, and which commonly appears in the Sacramentary, the liturgical book used by the priest at mass. I was so affected by coming across this recently, that I have shared it with a number of people, and also made it one of my “Picks of the Week” on yesterday’s episode of the “Catholic Weekend” show on SQPN. Even if you yourself are not a Catholic, gentle reader, I believe there is much wisdom to be gained from the perspective it gives on the flow of human life, both in how we deal with small and immediate issues, to how we deal with large and infinite ones. The full text is as follows:

A UNIVERSAL PRAYER

Lord, I believe in you: increase my faith.
I trust in you: strengthen my trust.
I love you: let me love you more and more.
I am sorry for my sins: deepen my sorrow.

I worship you as my first beginning,
I long for you as my last end,
I praise you as my constant helper,
And call on you as my loving protector.

Guide me by your wisdom,
Correct me with your justice,
Comfort me with your mercy,
Protect me with your power.

I offer you, Lord, my thoughts: to be fixed on you;
My words: to have you for their theme;
My actions: to reflect my love for you;
My sufferings: to be endured for your greater glory.

I want to do what you ask of me:
In the way you ask,
For as long as you ask,
Because you ask it.

Lord, enlighten my understanding,
Strengthen my will,
Purify my heart,
and make me holy.

Help me to repent of my past sins
And to resist temptation in the future.
Help me to rise above my human weaknesses
And to grow stronger as a Christian.

Let me love you, my Lord and my God,
And see myself as I really am:
A pilgrim in this world,
A Christian called to respect and love
All whose lives I touch,
Those under my authority,
My friends and my enemies.

Help me to conquer anger with gentleness,
Greed by generosity,
Apathy by fervor.
Help me to forget myself
And reach out toward others.

Make me prudent in planning,
Courageous in taking risks.
Make me patient in suffering, unassuming in prosperity.

Keep me, Lord, attentive at prayer,
Temperate in food and drink,
Diligent in my work,
Firm in my good intentions.

Let my conscience be clear,
My conduct without fault,
My speech blameless,
My life well-ordered.
Put me on guard against my human weaknesses.
Let me cherish your love for me,
Keep your law,
And come at last to your salvation.

Teach me to realize that this world is passing,
That my true future is the happiness of heaven,
That life on earth is short,
And the life to come eternal.

Help me to prepare for death
With a proper fear of judgment,
But a greater trust in your goodness.
Lead me safely through death
To the endless joy of heaven.

Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

In thinking about my conversation with the Little Sister I chatted with briefly today, it was clear that her work had taught her that no matter how difficult things were, or might be, that she had people to serve who were counting on her, and that she would try to do the best she could for them in any circumstances she happened to find her in. She was, in effect, embodying that bravery which Clement IX speaks of in his prayer.

Perhaps a reflection for all of us this Sunday, whether everything is going fine, or we feel like we are at the end of our rope, or we are somewhere in between, is whether we are being brave in facing the challenges that life is giving us. One of the ways that we can try to bring that bravery to the forefront of our thinking is by recognizing that there are other people who need us, who are in need of what we can bring to them – our presence, our prayers, our material support, etc. More than we need to loll about feeling sorry for ourselves, like the aforementioned wounded animal, we need to remember that we are not animals, but creatures with an eternal destiny.

If you are reading this on your day of rest, why not take a few moments away from trying to relax, and pick up the phone and call a friend or relative you have not spoken to in a long time, to see how they are doing? Or visit your neighbor for a few minutes, the one you know is lonely ever since their spouse died? Or drop an email to a friend you haven’t communicated with in months, just to inquire after them and let them know you still remember them fondly? Not all of us are called on to the kind of self-sacrificial work the Little Sisters of the Poor do, and yet we can all put aside our self-pity when things are not going great, and manage to find someone we are in a position to help, no mater how much we ourselves might be hurting.


“St Jerome Aiding the Lion” by Hans Memling (c. 1485-1490)
Private Collection

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May 19, 2012

Taking A Write Turn

As you have probably noticed, gentle reader, this week I have not posted as often as I normally do.  There are a number of other things requiring my attention at the moment, which are going to limit the amount of free time I have for writing the type of blog posts which you have come to expect from this site.  I do not earn a living from my blogging, but rather engage in it as an outlet for some of my creative energy; as a way of encouraging a deeper appreciation for and curiosity about our culture; and adding what I hope is a reasoned, intelligent voice, from my perspective as a young-ish American practicing Catholic in the 21st century, to the ongoing debate about what direction our society is taking.

Rather than simply suspend blogging altogether, or change to writing much shorter weekday posts than is usually my wont, The Courtier is going to take a somewhat different approach.  For the time being, I will be posting on the weekends, rather than during the work week.  This will allow me to attend to affairs that need attending to, while at the same time still providing the content which you (hopefully) enjoy.

Since my blog posts are often rather involved reading, being feature-length rather than short news reports, many of you have commented that you only have time to catch up with what I have been writing on the weekends or when you get some free time.  So for those of you in that category, the change will probably be somewhat welcome.  While I know my regular weekday readers will be a bit disappointed not to have the chance to read me every morning, I can offer little solace other than to say that one must attend prudently to the business of life, in order to have time to pursue culture in one’s leisure.  And remember that there is a searchable archive of blog posts on this site going back nearly five years, which you can always turn to if you are looking for something to read.

Hopefully you will stick with me during this intermediate period, however long it may last, since it is a joy for me to have this opportunity to write and share some of my thoughts with you, as it is for me to hear from you about what you like, or disagree with, and so on.  Consider me an addition or alternative to some of the reading that you might pick up on a lazy weekend afternoon, like leafing through a commentary magazine on Saturday evening, or spreading out a big, Sunday morning paper.  And as always, thank you for your loyal readership and support.


“Chez Tortoni (Man Writing in a Cafe)” by Eduard Manet (1870)
Whereabouts Unknown: Stolen in 1990 from
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

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May 14, 2012

Fat, Flabby, and Fearful

One of humanity’s unifying experiences is that anticipatory feeling we often call a sense of impending doom.  This type of mental speculation about what might happen often has various physical manifestations: insomnia, feeling sick to one’s stomach, etc.  As distinguished from the fight-or-flight reaction we have when we see a car suddenly swerve out of its lane and into ours, or spot a vicious dog running towards us at full speed, this type of anxiety is arguably much worse, for the simple reason that it lasts much longer.

In fact it is so common an experience that it is often examined in a literary context.  Think for example of Edgar Allen Poe’s classic short story, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, about a man trapped in a torture chamber, or the magnificent novel “The White Guard” by Mikhail Bulgakov, about the fall of Kiev to the red army.  Sometimes the protagonist in these stories is saved, as is the courtier Dionysus in the ancient Greek legend of the Sword of Damocles,  but sometimes they are doomed, as in Tennyson’s epic poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

I raise this observation because increasingly, we live in a culture where we have come to expect the worst – and oftentimes we are not disappointed.  Science for example presents us with new monstrosities on a regular basis, such as engaging in Dr. Frankenstein-like experiments with unborn children.  Entertainment providers celebrate and encourage behavior on the part of psuedo-celebrities that our grandparents would have considered obscene, or worse.  Members of our religious institutions fail to act in accordance with the teachings which they are morally bound to uphold, while our government leaders make calumnious statements or enact outrageous policies seeking to actively prosecute those who disagree with their views.

As difficult as it may be to accept, one reason that these things happen is that we are failing to look in the mirror: we need to ask ourselves not why these things happen, but rather why we personally are allowing these things to happen, and what exactly we are doing about it.  Tolerance of other opinions is all very well, but the insidious influence of relativism in persuading many people of good will that there are no absolute truths, or that there are no blacks and whites in life, only shades of gray, had led to the embrace of a kind of endemic passivity.  Rather than inconvenience ourselves, we tend to take the easy way out by simply rolling our eyes or shrugging our shoulders.  We may shake our heads and say, “What is the world coming to?”, but we do not actually DO anything to stop said world from circling the drain.

This passivity stems from fear: a fear of rejection, or of reprisal, real or imagined, that to us seems a more immediate threat than that of the longer-term sense of doom we perceive.  If I speak out against something which I know to be wrong, I may be attacked for doing so right here and now.  If I do nothing however, even though I know the wrong will simply continue to compound itself and make things worse, perhaps things will remain tolerable for quite a while yet and I can kick the can down the road.  Strange and paradoxical as it may seem, because I am afraid to say “No”, by not saying anything at all I am in fact saying “Yes.”

This fear of saying, “No,” is why we are seeing financial problems in developed countries such as Greece, Spain, or even the United States, which have created gigantic economic entitlement messes as a result of engaging in immediate, bread-and-circus politics, rather than acting with long-term prudence.  It is why countries like China and Russia, who for generations encouraged or actively forced their citizens to have as few children as possible, are now beginning to experience demographic problems which will negatively impact every aspect of their societies.  It is why when you go to the cinema, turn on the television, pick up a magazine, or visit a museum, more often than not a reasonable man is appalled, rather than entertained or enlightened, by what he sees, in a celebration of the tawdry, the transitory and the immediate, rather than of the lasting, the eternal and the universal.

I am by no means suggesting, gentle reader, that you must go move into a tent city built out of anti-capitalist protest placards and reeking of the unwashed.  Yet at the same time, there is something about this type of behavior, however anti-social in its nature and flawed in its reasoning, which ought to make us feel uncomfortable about ourselves, and our relatively fat and flabby, overly passive attitude toward the downward spiral of our civilization.  At least Nero fiddled while Rome burned: the best those of us in our 20′s and 30′s seem to be able to do is to type 140 characters posting a link to something someone else has done, as we shove another unhealthy snack down our throats while watching the latest mindless, amoral garbage on television or online.

Not all of us are equipped with the bravery of a Rosa Parks or the brains of a William F. Buckley, but all of us can and ought to be doing more.  How you go about doing so will depend on you taking the initiative in your own life to say, “No.”  Perhaps you live in an area where you cannot regularly attend events like lectures, protests, and so on, but if you are reading this blog post then you are hardly cut off from active participation in your own society.  When was the last time you wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper or magazine that published a deeply offensive article or editorial?  When have you called your cable provider or television station to complain about an immoral or unfair report or program?  These are just two easy examples that any of us could engage in, wherever we live, but more often than not we leave this to others.

Engaging in a dignified way, and not rising to the bait of the screaming, hair-pulling tactics employed by those who would rather descend into anarchy, is an indication that you are an adult, and that you are taking responsibility for the world you are about to inherit.  It is time that we stop blaming older generations for the (admitted) mess that they made of things, and start asserting ourselves as adults, rather than continue to behave as whining, overgrown children.  Each of us has to make that decision for himself, facing our individual fears of what might happen to us in the present, and realizing that they are as nothing compared to the fears we should collectively have for the future, if we sit back and do nothing.

Detail from “The Sword of Damocles” by Richard Westall (1812)
Ackland Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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May 10, 2012

New Art Discovery Shows Why Practice Makes Perfect

As regular readers of these pages know, just about any time there is a press report regarding the discovery of a previously unknown work by a master painter, I get somewhat more excited about the news than perhaps the average person would. I hope the reader will indulge my interest in a story from the Spanish press about the recent identification of a painting by one of that country’s most important artists, for it is a lovely work in and of itself. The story affords us the chance to explain a bit about what the academic tradition means in art, and why on the whole it produced far better painting than, on the whole, we see today in much of contemporary art.

Although today he is probably less well-known than he ought to be, the Valencian painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923) was the most popular artist in Spain at the turn of the previous century, and was celebrated across Europe and the United States as well.  A painter of great skill in capturing light, movement, and the elegance of the human form, his work hangs in many public and private collections, including at the White House here in Washington.  Stylistically and thematically, his work is comparable in some respects to American painters John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) and Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), among others, and like them he received many commissions for society portraits and paintings with historical themes.  Arguably Sorolla’s greatest facility, and the work of his which is the most highly sought-after by collectors, was found in his portrayal of beach scenes. Using the glowing light of the Mediterranean, he captured elegant ladies in billowing dresses and veiled hats promenading or resting languidly at the seaside, or groups of naked, suntanned children laughing and frolicking about in the surf.

Before he developed his signature style, Sorolla was educated in much the same fashion as all other aspiring painters of his day. The academic tradition insisted that an artist learn how to draw and to paint by looking at art history and tradition, as well as observing nature and what he saw around him. Sorolla dutifully studied and copied the works of the Old Masters, traveled to see the work of other artists, and completed countless drawings and studies, so that he could become a better artist.

The “Study of Christ”, which was identified this week by experts at the University of Lleida in Catalonia as being from the hand of Sorolla, is an example of the type of training Sorolla engaged in to understand how to paint. The existence of an early work by him depicting Jesus was known to the compiler of the artist’s “catalogue raisonné”, which in art history means a comprehensive listing of works known or believed to be by a particular artist. It was also known that Sorolla had inscribed it, along with the date and his signature, “To Mrs. Clotilde García”, but its whereabouts were unknown until now.

Before this investigation took place, the painting had been identified for many years as the work of an unknown 19th century Spanish academic painter. It was put up for auction in 2006, when it entered a private collection in Madrid. The new owner subsequently had the piece examined by experts, and after a thorough cleaning the signature, date, and inscription to his patroness appeared in the lower right-hand corner. This in combination with the use of modern investigative methods such as x-rays, infrared light, and microscopic analysis, allowed the researchers to determine that this was indeed the lost work of the Valencian master.

Because interest in Sorolla has long focused on his large-scale society and seaside pictures, his work as an art student is not as well-known or documented. At the time he painted this “Study of Christ”, Sorolla was only 20 years old and was living in Madrid.  Two years later, he would travel to Rome for the first time, on a four-year academic scholarship to study painting at the Spanish Academy there, which was followed by a lengthy stay in Paris. Thus, this work represents the young artist absorbing all he can from his native environment, before going out into the wider world to see what his contemporaries were doing.

While in the end this is not a painting that screams “Sorolla” when you look at it, its real importance lies in documenting Sorolla’s training. He did not simply sit down one day and decide to splatter some paint across a surface and call himself an artist. Rather, he studied his craft and practiced it, taking the time to educate himself so that his work could improve as he did more of it.

Today it seems that we too often indulge those who are little more than untalented publicity hounds when it comes to contemporary art, which is an area of human creativity that has increasingly lent itself to such behavior in ways we would not tolerate elsewhere. For example, imagine you went to a supposed three-star restaurant where the alleged master chef held no training or standards other than what he “felt” like cooking.  And then, said master chef throws various, random ingredients together at will, cooks them (or not) for a few seconds, and puts the concoction on a plate before you, expecting not only that you will eat it, but that you will be positively enraptured by it, and honor his supposed genius in breaking conventions. You might get lucky, of course, and find something unusual but tasty, but on the whole it is far more likely that you would simply get food poisoning.

This is not to say that all contemporary painting is bad, of course: merely because something is non-representational or unusual does not make it a bad piece of art. You can still be a great artist and not work in a realistic or traditional style. However the idea that one must have the humility to learn from the masters before one attempts to hold oneself out as a professional artist has been lost. The celebration of mediocrity as achievement is perhaps the inevitable result of a society where all is relative, and there is no good or bad, simply opinion.

Looking at this newly identified work of a then-twenty-year-old painter, we can see that Sorolla took the time to become a craftsman, and worked hard at his craft, in order to become good at what he produced. The rediscovery of this piece represents what we used to believe was the way in which great artists were made. An accomplished athlete, musician, writer, or painter is not someone who is great solely because of any natural talent they may have, but rather someone who takes that talent and achieves something with it, by following the mantra of practice, practice, practice.


“Study of Christ” by Joaquín Sorolla (1883)
Private Collection, Madrid

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