This page will include writings that discuss various topics related to artistic expression, Monians, and other things of interest.
Table of Contents Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom - A Review - Jun. 2024 Tolstoy's War and Peace - A Review - Jun. 2024 Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia – A Review - Mar. 2024 Henry Darger and the Artist Inside - Nov. 2023 Condensation in the Arts - Oct. 2023 Monians Four Years On - Oct. 2023 The Total Work of Art - Oct. 2023 Yukio Mishima, Heroic Artist - Sept. 2023 Blasting Through Neocities - Sept. 2023
June 19 2024
“Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars” – Proverbs 9:1, KJV I began reading Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” in the summer of 2021, and finished it about December of 2023. I had wanted to read it after seeing the film “Lawrence of Arabia” several times. Needless to say, the book is much different from the movie. The title, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, refers to the Psalms, though the quotation is not featured in my edition. This unabridged work runs to 680 pages. I have seen abridged versions which are possibly half of that. After reading through the whole thing I can see why some may have thought it necessary to cut down its length. There have been several editions of this book, published in 1922, 1926, and 1940 in full, as well as the abridgment, which is titled “Revolt in the Desert.” It is subtitled, “A Triumph”. It is a strange subtitle, considering that all that Lawrence fought for, Arabian freedom, was to be signed away at the Versailles Conference of 1919. The movie “Lawrence of Arabia” is definitely a romanticized version of Lawrence, of Arabia, of the Bedouins, and of the First World War. It is a visual spectacular, yet it misses out on the nuances found in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. Lawrence was born the illegitimate son of a wealthy gentleman named Thomas Chapman in 1888. He died after he crashed his motorcycle in 1935 at the age of 46. Lawrence was a man who was uncertain of his identity, and this uncertainty was increased by his involvement with the Arab Revolt. The main gist of this story is that Lawrence is sent to Arabia to lead Bedouins on camels in guerrilla warfare against the supply lines of the Ottoman Turks. All of this was taking place during WWI, from 1914 to 1918. The bulk of the action in the book takes place from 1916 to 1918. Stories of the First World War usually focus upon the Western Front, and trench warfare between the Germans, British, and Americans, in France. But there was also a large part of WWI which was fought in the Balkans, as well as the Middle East. The Germans had agreed to help the Ottomans build their railway lines throughout their empire. This meant that the Germans and Turks would be operating in Arabia. During WWI the Ottoman Empire controlled Palestine, but the British were able to defeat them and take it over, which set the stage for the Balfour Declaration. Lawrence was part of the British Army in Egypt when he was chosen to go to Arabia to disrupt the Ottoman supply lines. The theory was that by disrupting the Ottomans in the East, they would be less able to help supply the Germans, therefore weakening those fighting on the Western Front. He was chosen in part because he had written a history thesis on the castles of the crusaders while at Oxford University in 1910. In the years prior to WWI Lawrence traveled all around the Middle East taking photographs and making plans of fortifications. Therefore, he was in a good position to know the details of Arabian geography. Of all the WWI memoirs I have read, this one is one of the longest. It also seems that Lawrence wrote it as a confession. It seems that he felt guilty about leading the Arabs to fight for their freedom, only to have them be essentially brought under British control. On the first page of Chapter I he says, “As time went by our need to fight for the ideal increased to an unquestioning possession, riding with spur and rein over our doubts. Willy-nilly it became a faith. We had sold ourselves into its slavery, manacled ourselves together in its chain-gang, bowed ourselves to serve its holiness with all our good and ill content… we had surrendered, not body alone, but soul to the overmastering greed of victory. By our own act we were drained of morality, of volition, of responsibility, like dead leaves in the wind.” And from page 24, “It was evident from the beginning that if we won the war these promises would be dead paper, and had I been an honest adviser of the Arabs I would have advised them to go home and not risk their lives fighting for such stuff…”. Lawrence did not refuse to fight with the Arabs, even though he strongly doubted that the fighting would not be of much gain to them. I am liable to think that Lawrence honestly thought he could help the Arabs. The reason is that after he left Arabia he did not seek to live upon his newly created celebrity status. He instead returned to Oxford where he spent his time writing the “Seven Pillars”. “Seven Pillars” as Lawrence says, is a narrative of his daily life while fighting in Arabia. He did not intend to provide “lessons for the world” or “disclosures to shock peoples” (22). It is true that while there are moments of brilliance, the tale often unrolls slowly, with long stretches where not very much happens. While re-reading through this vast work telling of many battles and forced marches, I have to ask, what does it all mean? Lawrence comes closest to this when he recounts his attempts to convince the various Bedouin trips to join his movement. “In our preaching there was nothing merely nervous. We did our best to exclude the senses, that our support might be slow, durable, unsentimental. We wanted no rice-converts. Persistently we did refuse to let our abundant and famous gold bring over those not spiritually convinced. The money was a confirmation; mortar, not building stone. To have bought men would have put our movement on the base of interest; whereas our followers must be ready to go all the way without other mixture in their motives than human frailty. Even I, the stranger, the godless fraud inspiring an alien nationality, felt a delivery from the hatred and eternal questioning of self in my imitation of their bondage to the idea; and this despite the lack of instinct in my own performance.” (564-565) “The ignorant, the superficial, the deceived were the happy among us. By our swindle they were glorified. We paid for them our self-respect, and they gained the deepest feeling of their lives...They were our dupes, wholeheartedly fighting the enemy…” (566) I might raise the question of religion, being that the Arabs and the Ottoman Turks shared the same belief in Islam. So why were the Arab Bedouins convinced to fight the Ottoman Turks? In Chapter V Lawrence hints that the Arabs considered it “absurd” that the Turks were allied with the Germans, who were a non-Islamic nation. It would seem that the Arabs allied with the English because they felt they would get better treatment than from the Turks. The movie presents a skewed version of this tale. For one, there are never any Germans shown. In the book Germans are scattered throughout, often as advisors to the Turkish Army. The movie also tries to portray the British as being unwilling to provide modern technology to the Arabs. But in the book, from at least parts eight to ten, it is described how big a roll the Rolls Royce armored cars played in the fighting. The British also had aircraft which helped them during that same period. As another example, in the movie the story ends with the British taking Damascus. Lawrence wanders into a large compound where many men are wounded and dying. A British officer shouts at him for laughing at these men. This part of the story is changed for the movie. In the book there is no British officer shouting at Lawrence for laughing from exhaustion. In the book’s telling of it, these were Turkish barracks, where many Turkish soldiers are dead and decaying. Lawrence describes the decaying bodies in detail, how they varied in color from yellow to black, and how some of the bodies had burst open from their rot. But he does not simply laugh, and leave it to some others to take care of, as in the movie. Instead he organizes the burial of the dead and the treatment of the wounded, so much as was possible due to lack of supplies. Lawrence does not shy away from describing the horrific results of war, such as the details of death. That is why the movie had to clean up his story and turn him into a Hero, beyond all proportion. He had his heroic qualities, but he also makes it clear that there were many evil aspects to this war. These evil aspects are what had to be omitted from the filmed version of his book. After leaving the army, and Oxford, Lawrence tried to join the British air force under the name of John Hume Ross. His identity was discovered, but he was determined to live an anonymous life. While writing the “Seven Pillars” he became friends with the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. This friendship led him change his name to T. E. Shaw. As T. E. Shaw Lawrence was finally able to serve in the air force without the baggage of his past identity. He ended up writing a diary of his service which was published as “The Mint”. “The Mint” is only about 200 pages, and quite a bit shorter than “Seven Pillars”. After reading “Seven Pillars” I believe that “The Mint” may be the more interesting book. From Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars” sprung the myth which turned him into a romantic celebrity. Yet I believe it is in his later life that we can see a clearer view of his character. So when I get around to reading “The Mint” I will be able to review both books against each other. I think reading T. E. Lawrence is worthwhile because he was a firsthand participant in the British campaign in WWI. This British involvement in the Middle East has had far reaching implications. Some of them include the founding of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Balfour Declaration. There are oblique references to Reginald Wingate, relative of Orde Wingate, who trained the Special Night Squads, and Lord Rothchild, who was pledged Palestine in the Balfour Declaration. These things have come to take on increasing importance in the light of the violence against civilians in Gaza today. Getting the gist of “Seven Pillars” might be done by reading its shorter version, “The Revolt in the Desert”. Jeremy Wilson’s authorized biography of Lawrence is over 1200 pages, perhaps because he wanted to prove he could write a longer book than “Seven Pillars”. Liddell Hart probably wrote one of the best books on Lawrence. The “Seven Pillars” provides the raw material, but to understand what it all means, I think it is necessary to read more of what Lawrence wrote, and some of the biographies of him. “Seven Pillars” is a long book, but it is ultimately one of increasing historical significance.June 7 to June 18, 2024
Warning - Spoilers Ahead Leo Tolstoy was born in Russia in 1828 and died in 1910. He was born to nobility, but gave it up to form his own movement. His view of religion was unorthodox and yet he was very devout. War and Peace is one of Tolstoy's best known novels. It was first published in 1869. In the Garnett translation it runs to 1146 pages. It is the story of Napoleon's attempt to defeat Russia in the early 19th century. The Napoleonic wars are the backdrop to this novel, but I think that the characters are what drive the story. There are many characters, but the most important are Natasha Rostov, Nikolay Rostov, Pierre Bezuhov, Princess Marya, Prince Andrey, and General Kutuzov. Tolstoy uses the characters to develop themes which transcend their 19th century setting. When the story begins, each of these characters are more or less existing separately from each other. Over the course of the tale, their lives become increasingly intertwined. The Rostovs are a wealthy family, and they enjoy many material comforts. Over time they lose much of their wealth due to the weakness of Count Rostov. The impulsiveness characteristic to the Rostovs leads to their youngest son's death in a battle. Yet Natasha and Nikolay are able to eventually overcome the ordeals which they put themselves into. Pierre is one of the most interesting characters. At the beginning he is a poor philosophy student searching for his identity, and by the end he is wealthy and has learned a lot about life. I have read that Tolstoy based the character of Pierre on his own spiritual journey. One of the strangest aspects of War and Peace is Pierre's marriage and relationship with Ellen. He meets Ellen at a party where he is enchanted by her. He ends up marrying her, but it turns out she only married him for his status and money. Pierre comes to really hate being around her. He even fights a duel with Dolohov over Ellen, which only leads Pierre to become disillusioned and join the Freemasons. Pierre believes that the Freemasons know how to live, but he grows distant from them after being challenged by Prince Andrey as to what the point is of trying to improve the world. Pierre starts out as being an admirer of Napoleon, but eventually he becomes a prisoner of the French troops, which causes him to change his opinion. After a while, Ellen decides to try to marry other men while she is still married to Pierre. But by that time, Pierre had already stopped caring about Ellen. Even so, while Ellen is trying hard to get permission from the Jesuits to marry again, she dies suddenly from an illness. Her death puts an end to her schemes, as well as frees Pierre. Pierre ends up on the battlefield, where he meets Prince Andrey for the last time. They are opposites of each other and challenge each other with their differing views. Prince Andrey is fatally wounded, which puts an end to his engagement to Natasha. Pierre marries Natasha, and yet he serves as a father figure to Prince Andrey's son. Princess Marya and Prince Andrey are siblings and children of Count Bolkonsky. The Count is a bitter old man who treats Princess Marya badly, while being much nicer to Prince Andrey. The Count enters into a state of inertia, where he cannot move forward with his life, and he also will not allow his children to move forward with their lives. Count Bolkonsky, or the old prince as he is referred to, does not want Princess Marya to marry and leave him. He also does not want his son Prince Andrey to marry Natasha Rostov. Prince Andrey is able to overcome his father’s objections, though he is able to serve in the military and thus live apart from him. Princess Marya is unable to act contrary to her father’s wishes, and she lives with him to the end of his life. Princess Marya is perhaps the only character in War and Peace that has strong spiritual convictions from the outset. She is reconciled with her father only after he suffers a near fatal stroke and dies shortly after. She is similarly brought closer to her brother Prince Andrey after he has a spiritual awakening after being mortally wounded in a battle. But Prince Andrey dies not very long after his awakening. Natasha Rostov has a strong conscience, which leads her to convince her family to use their wagons to transport the wounded Russian troops out of Moscow, instead of using the wagons to haul their worldly goods. Yet Natasha was also beguiled by Dolohov to run away with him, in spite of being engaged to Prince Andrey. She has a strong heart, but a weak mind. At the outset, Nikolay Rostov promises to marry Sonya, a girl that the Rostovs have brought to live with them. Yet over the course of the novel, it is revealed that Sonya is apparently lacking in character. She serves the Rostovs dutifully and yet in the end she receives no rewards. Nikolay even goes back on his promise to marry Sonya in order to marry Princess Marya. Perhaps with Sonya, Tolstoy is saying that those without spiritual development will be destined to be servants. Sonya, along with Boris Drubetskoy and Denisov, do not get much development compared to the characters listed above. Sonya is neutral throughout, Boris is of bad character throughout, and Denisov is of good character throughout. Perhaps these characters also exist to represent possible outcomes for the main characters. Sonya is a reflection of Natasha, while Boris and Denisov represent differing paths that Nikolay Rostov might take. Nikolay Rostov starts off by hanging around Denisov, and Denisov’s brave heart has a great influence on Nikolay. But later he drifts away from Denisov and rises in the military ranks. He does not use unscrupulous means to advancement, as Boris does, but achieves his promotions honorably. Even so, Nikolay uses his military service as a means to avoid dealing with the problems that his family faces. For example, Pierre has to save Natasha from Dolohov, because Nikolay is away with the army. Prince Andrey’s character is predominated by his mind. By coming into contact with Natasha he becomes more in tune with his heart. He is then able to understand his sister’s spiritual convictions, but he dies soon after. Pierre ends up marrying Natasha, which results in a balancing of their characters by each other. This is similarly the effect of Nikolay marrying Princess Marya. The intermarrying of these main characters marks the drawing together of many separate threads. The story ends by showing these now married characters at peace, yet there is the suggestion that there will be future adventures for their descendants. General Kutuzov is one of the characters which Tolstoy drew from history. Kutuzov is one of the only elderly main characters. He is partly blind and overweight and considered to be an old man. And yet he is also considered to be one of the best Russian generals around. In spite of his abilities as a soldier, he is quite often seen as helpless and blamed for everything that goes wrong. On page 1021 Tolstoy notes that Napoleon is considered “grand” by historians, while they consider Kutuzov to be “a crafty, dissolute, weak, intriguing, old man.” But Kutuzov is the man who oversees Napoleon being driven out of Russia. Kutuzov is characterized as being very devout. He gets down on his knees to pray in front of icons, even though he has difficulty with movement. Kutuzov is honored by the Czar, and yet the Czar’s courtiers consistently talk badly about him while praising Napoleon. All those associated with the Czar’s court come off as being very superficial. Kutuzov serves in the field, as Napoleon does, but Kutuzov is called upon to preserve his native country. Napoleon is by contrast an adventurer out to make a name for himself. Kutuzov is given honors by the Czar, but he is not particularly desirous of them. On page 936 Kutuzov is described as a “decrepit old man”, which is because at that point the other generals were deciding to not listen to him. In many cases the other generals oppose Kutuzov, but in spite of their opposition, he is able to achieve a final victory in the end. At intervals throughout War and Peace, Tolstoy addresses the reader directly. He talks about the meaning of history, and of its various interpretations. On page 1125 he says, “What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the combined will of the masses vested in one person. On what conditions are the wills of the masses vested in one person? On condition of that person’s expressing the will of all men. That is, power is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which is beyond our comprehension.” War and Peace is a novel of historical fiction, it is not a historical study by a historian. For the last thirty six pages Tolstoy speaks directly about the challenges of expressing what we perceive by our senses. The final section of War and Peace is about Metaphysics, so it is the most difficult section of the book. Since Tolstoy chose to end the book with Metaphysics, he must have thought it was very important for understanding his work. He talks about Chance and Genius, while contrasting them with Freedom and Necessity. Tolstoy points out that while many historians say Napoleon is a genius, he was really simply very good at having large groups of people murdered. Genius is similar to an expression of freedom, while chance is an expression of necessity. Tolstoy says that whether we judge someone’s actions as being free or necessary depends on how much we know about that person. I think Tolstoy got to the root of the matter when he said, “Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity, we cannot accept power as a cause of events.” (1126) “Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not depending on time, can relate to a whole series of events that have to take place during several years or centuries; and only the Deity, acting by His will alone, not affected by any cause, can determine the direction of the movement of humanity. Man acts in time, and himself takes part in the event.” (1127) Tolstoy contrasts the view of God being the prime mover of history with the new view that Man is the primary force behind history. Yet Tolstoy points out that since history is told by Man, he is biased, and so it is not possible for any human being to write an impartial history of humanity. Tolstoy mentions the scientific concepts of evolution and Newtonian physics. These concepts serve to reinforce the view that Man is ruled by necessity, but also by chance. The new physics overthrew the cosmology of the ancients, as Tolstoy says, and this science affects the telling of history. Tolstoy was not a scientist but a spiritual novelist. I believe the clearest explanation of history is that it is driven by God. Tolstoy must have believed that God was the driver of human history. All of his spiritual characters in War and Peace are able to eventually find peace. After 1146 pages, the last part being very densely written, we are at an end to War and Peace. It was published when Tolstoy was 41 and he lived another 41 years before dying in 1910. Tolstoy’s ideas and life developed further and he wrote many more spiritual related works. One of the most interesting which I read is called “What is to Be Done”. In that book Tolstoy describes how he himself went to find out about the poor people of Russia, and tried to figure out how to help them. I wanted to read War and Peace after having read Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and some of Tolstoy’s short stories, such as Alyosha the Pot. I was very struck by his short stories, many of which have also been translated by Constance Garnett. Reading War and Peace was not hard, in fact, I was often pulled in to the story, even when at first I did not think it could be as interesting as it was. As far as translations go this is a very easy one to get into reading. I think that Denisov is one of my favorite characters, and he should have been featured more prominently. Platon Karataev is also very interesting and a good character, and it was too bad he had to be killed off and not featured very much. There have been many movies made of War and Peace, though I think it would be impossible to capture this novel in a movie. There are many characters, many huge settings, but most importantly, there are the philosophical sections, which would require someone to act out the part of Tolstoy himself. Performing this novel might be possible as an auditory opera. In all I found War and Peace to be a fascinating novel and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read a large novel that will pull you in to its story. I think through the reading of it I have become even more interested in Tolstoy and I will read more of his works. Although it takes place in the early 19th century in Russia, its descriptiveness is lively and makes that era seem current. It is through reading such transcendental works that we may look beyond the narrow confines of our own place and time.Mar.22 2024
Bruce Chatwin was a British adventurer, writer, and explorer. He was born in the 1940’s and died in the 1980’s. In his short life he explored many continents, including Asia and South America, and wrote books about his travels.
Chatwin’s book, “In Patagonia” (1977), can be considered his most famous work. It is the story of his journey through the Patagonian region of South America. According to the map included in the book, Patagonia consists of Argentina and Chile. The southern most tip of Patagonia, Tierra Del Fuego, is one of the most southern areas in the world. This is a short book at only 186 pages. The shorter books tend to be more interesting, and that is true of In Patagonia. Chatwin begins his story with a tale from his childhood. His grandmother told him of his ancestor Charley Milward, and how he brought a piece of skin from a Brontosaurus back to England from Patagonia. This is the tale which inspired Chatwin to visit Patagonia. The second chapter begins Chatwin’s narrative of his travels through South America. He is suddenly in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. How did he get there? He doesn’t explain, he is simply there. Then he begins to relate unusual anecdotes, which make up much of this book. For example, he meets a woman who knew Che Guevara. He then states that the Argentina of the 1970’s is just like Tsarist Russia, which he learns from his own experience, and the story his friend told him of a White Russian’s perceptions of Argentina. I think Chatwin’s purpose for visiting Patagonia must have been to recapture the mystery he felt about it in his childhood. He meets many people, and he never stays with anyone for long. He also considers the history of Patagonia, and weaves in tales of the 16th century ship captain John Davis into his tale. John Davis took a very dangerous voyage to Patagonia, which ended up influencing Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. Of similar interest, on page 140 there is the quote, “Go to sleep Ugly, you little Fool, you won’t feel the drowning.” This is a statement that a bully said to Charley Milward when he was young and serving on a ship during a bad storm. But he did not drown, and ended up having many more adventures. This quote became the basis for part of a song called “The Island” by the Decemberists. They ended up changing the quote to make a sort of tragic story, which is very interesting considering its origins. There is also a large ongoing story about the legendary outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In the 1960’s a film was made about them, where they were shown to have been shot and killed in South America. Chatwin speaks at length about the different names they used, and how one of them was said to have lived into old age. Chatwin also spends time relating Charles Darwin’s connections with Patagonia. When Darwin visited South America he ended up meeting one of the native inhabitants of Tierra Del Fuego, who they named Jemmy Button. Button sees his tribes enemies from the deck of the Beagle, and calls them “monkeys”. “For the mere sight of the Fuegians helped trigger off the theory that Man had evolved from an ape-like species and that some men had evolved further than others.” (122) It would seem that Darwin’s theory of evolution derives from Darwin’s view that the native South Americans were backward savages. It is then not surprising that in the 1860’s, some of the Fuegians attacked and killed some English people while at their church service. Chatwin suggests that Jemmy Button was the brains behind that incident. “In Patagonia” consists of 94 short chapters, each one averaging about 2 pages. Each chapter is like a poem. They are condensed passages describing places and people. Even though they are brief, the descriptions are vivid, and on the whole give the impression that Patagonia is an unusual and dream-like place. By the end of the book, Chatwin has learned that his ancestor’s dinosaur skin was actually the skin from an ancient giant sloth. This reality does not change Chatwin’s essential romantic vision of Patagonia. He is able to retrieve a piece of this sloth skin, which was part of his purpose for his quest. I have the sense here that the journey was more important than the destination. People appear suddenly, and depart just as suddenly, and we won’t ever know what became of them. The desire to be constantly on the move is necessary for a good travel writer, and Chatwin certainly liked to be always going somewhere. “In Patagonia” can be considered to be a poetic work of travel writing. It is not surprising that Patagonia has inspired poems from such poets as Coleridge, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Poe. Patagonia may still hold its dream-like fascination for many people. Is Patagonia the same today as when Chatwin visited it in the 1970’s? I am sure that many things have changed. But perhaps its essential poetic elements remain the same. The book ends with Chatwin getting on board a boat that will take him back to England. On the boat he is traveling with a Chilean man who loves to recite poetry, such as that of Lorca. Many people tell Chatwin that this man is crazy, but Chatwin does not pass any judgment on him. Chatwin holds himself as the impartial observer, seeing everything, taking it all in, and laying it out for you to draw your own conclusions. Even so, I sense that he has a poetic aspect to his character, which is essential for being a good traveler. “In Patagonia” will appeal to anyone who likes poetry, history, travel narratives, and short books. Its brevity is an invitation to read it over again.Nov.15,2023
Some years ago I was reading a list of the longest books ever written. One story stood out in particular, that of Henry Darger’s “Realms of the Unreal”. This led me to discover the PBS documentary which presents an attempt to get inside of Henry Darger’s mind.
He was born in Chicago in 1892 and died there in 1973. Darger spent his life working as a janitor in Catholic hospitals. He had no family and few friends, and he seemed to not have much going on. But when he had to go into the hospital before he died, his landlord found his artworks in his room. Darger was apparently horrified, but as he said, it was too late to do anything about it by then.
For some reason art critics have called Henry Darger’s work “outsider art”. This term seems to be used to apply to any artist that doesn’t seek acceptance from other people. Or it applies to artists that don’t have formal training, and whose artworks may appear childish and unsophisticated.
Irwin Chusid’s book, “Songs in the Key of Z”, is an attempt to gather all the known musicians who produced unusual music. Naturally the quality of the music varies, but there are some genuinely interesting personalities covered in Chusid’s book. Highlights include Wesley Willis, Daniel Johnston, Jandek, and Bingo Gazingo.
One of the attractions to the so called “outsider artist” is their often enigmatic character. Henry Darger diligently produced thousands of paintings and tens of thousands of pages of writings. Yet he is said to have been largely unknown to his friends and neighbors.
No one really knows whether Darger had something wrong with his mind. Willis and Johnston were considered to have schizophrenia, while Jandek and Gazingo are simply considered unusual.
The transcription of Darger’s “Realms of the Unreal” has yet to appear in a full publication. In 2002 J.M. MacGregor published a very thorough study of Henry Darger. MacGregor suggests that Darger was a kind of Christian mystic, similar to St. Augustine and Spinoza, and even the Book of Job.
The Darger documentary details that Darger’s Catholic faith was very important to him. He attended Mass regularly. The Vivian Girls, title characters in his main story, are said to attend Mass and receive communion daily.
Many scholars of Darger’s work have wondered why he describes such violent events in his stories. However, such events are common place in the records of the Christian martyrs. For example, the Japanese Catholic martyrs of the 17th century were often tortured to death in very terrible ways. Darger was likely aware of the Catholic veneration of martyrs, and was incorporating this theme into his story.
There is a sense in which Darger’s faith makes his need to create art more understandable than that of other “outsider” artists. His works were produced for God, and since God is the highest audience no other audience was necessary.
The fascination with these unusual artists seems to come from trying to figure out why they do what they do. Many of them have created writings, pictures, and music, which is supposed to be outside of the social conventions of the late 20th century. But there is a sense of possibility I can see, because these are the artists who have personal visions which they believe in.
It is sometimes necessary to think outside the box to represent one’s personal experience of reality. Unusual art tends to resonate with unusual characters, people who have had unusual experiences.
Darger continually worked on his art and stories from 1909 until 1972 when he was too sick to continue. His neighbors thought he was simply collecting rubbish outside, but everything he collected served a purpose.
His story, Realms of the Unreal, concerns a war between the Christian nation of Abiennia and the Child slave owning nation of Glandalenia. The Abiennians have a picture of Jesus on their flag. Darger’s pictures often show the evil Glandalenians as wearing the grey uniforms of Confederate soldiers. Darger wrote that the child slavery in his story was much worse than what Uncle Tom suffered. He even wrote songs for his story, with one of them being based upon the song "John Brown’s Body".
One interesting aspect of Darger’s tale is his willingness to mix fact with fiction. He wrote in the character of John Manly as one of the evil Glandalenian generals. John Manly was someone that Darger knew as a boy, and he wrote that Manly was very fierce when angry.
Many people have wondered why Darger wrote about children. But most people who knew him concluded he was basically a childlike man. He wanted to adopt a child, but his appeal was rejected. Seeing as how he later believed he did not make enough money to support a dog, the Catholic authorities probably figured he definitely did not make enough to support a child.
In the Darger documentary there is covered Darger’s search to find the photo of the murdered girl Elsie Paroubek. He had cut her picture out and then somehow lost it. He wrote in his diary of setting up a shrine and praying daily for the return of this picture. Darger had written Elsie into his story as a character that is martyred for the cause of the Abiennians. When he fails to find the picture, he writes himself into his tale as Judas Darger, fighting for the godless Glandalenians.
Long before Gonzo journalism, Darger was writing himself into his stories. His view of himself in the story has some ambiguity, as he serves on both sides of the war, depending on the strength of his faith at the time of writing. His stories are a combination of diary, adventure tale, and history. But would Darger have called his stories fiction? To suggest they are fiction is to say that they are not real. But even so, Darger lived these stories every day of his life.
His neighbor Kyoko Lerner suggests that Darger had an extremely active imagination. Even though he lived a humble life washing dishes and scrubbing floors, he produced a body of work which raises the importance of his life. It could be said that people are remembered for the way their lives affected others. Darger’s life was largely private, and so he did not affect many people while alive. But his artwork has provided a very large impact on many people.
What initially interested me about Darger is that he devoted his entire life to his art, and he produced a huge body of work. He did not do it to make money or be famous, but he did it because he loved doing it. That is probably why his art is unlike anyone else’s.
It’s a kind of contradiction, considering that Darger based much of his art off of advertising images which he traced or sketched. Yet his compositions are totally different because he arranged these images to serve his own purpose. Even though he did not have much money, he still managed to create huge and interesting works of art.
Even though Henry Darger was not known during his life, he has become famous now because of his artwork. His work is preserved in art museums in Chicago and New York City. He is widely hailed as one of the most original and unusual American artists. His life serves as an example that faithful devotion will pay off in the end. Darger’s works will continue to provide inspiration for many artists in the future. I hope that someday his writings are finally collected and published. His work is only beginning to be studied and understood.