In Which We Find Eric Gill Among Some Old Books

The Antidote

by MARK ARTURO

As years go by, Eric Gill becomes more, not less, unsettling.

- Fiona McCarthy

Art is not an aesthetic but a rhetorical activity.

- Ananda Coomaraswamy, epigraph to Eric Gill's essay "Art"

The natural world is God's present to himself.

- Eric Gill, Last Essays

Eric Gill would fuck anything: family members, strangers, a dog. It might seem strange, then, that he wrote essays praising Christianity, specifically Catholicism. I don't know that he even was admiring Christianity as much as he lived in wonderment in the pleasure of believing in something.

Eric Gill never had a regular job — he spent most of his time working on sculptures. They became more and more erotic, since he was obsessed with the carnal pleasures of the body. But even so, he had the temerity to write an essay entitled "Work." (Why is it the people who don't work always have so much to say about the meaning of it?) He wrote:

We must return again and again to the simple doctrine: physical labour, manual work, is not in itself bad. It is the necessary basis of all human production and, in the most strict sense of the words, physical labour directed to the production of things needed for human life is both honourable and holy. And we must remember that there no exceptions.

What is man? Is he just an animal for whom earthly life is all? Or is he a child of God with eternal life in view?

I honestly don't know which answer is worse.

Eric Gill kept a vial of poison in his workshop, just in case the mood struck him.

Quite naturally, Eric Gill made the act of creating art into a heavenly task. Perhaps he never imagined it would be democratized to a willing populace.

Eric Gill designed only one home in his long career. It was utterly normal-looking.

Eric Gill's nudes in particular are disturbing, given the various harms he perpetrated on his daughters. He found no boundaries in life, and since he was good at one thing, he felt it justified his pursuit of many others. You can find a similar quality in public figures. Moreover, they never apologize for their behavior, and take every opportunity to continue doing what they enjoy.

Eric Gill writes, We are ourselves creators. Through us exist things which God Himself could not otherwise have made. Our works are His works, but they are also in a strict sense our own, and if we present them to him, they are our presents to Him and not simply His to Himself. They are free-will offerings.

Do you understand why this is not a good philosophy?

Let me give you an example. I once knew a writer who was completely paranoid others would steal his precious ideas. He had this idea — I can share it with you now, because I think he is a priest or something like it, and gave up writing — about a murder mystery that involved a chase across the Andes. I don't know why he thought this was such an original concept, although it might have made for a nice story. When I tried to talk to him about it he put his fingers in his ears.

He also loved Eric Gill, and introduced Eric Gill to me. His name was Ben.

In a diary of his trip to Ireland, among other insulting things, Eric Gill writes, At Ballinasloe saw the first people either distinctly Irish or distinctly beautiful — two girls. Otherwise, all the people ugly as in England.

Do you understand why this is not a good philosophy?

The world of men lasted for quite a long time. It was a natural extension of a philosophy that there was a reason why some things were beautiful, and a reason why things were ugly. Because if you think at any length about this, it is more a trick of the mind than an actual perspective on events. Therefore, objectifying women was morally correct for such people, and Eric Gill.

By 1930, Eric Gill began to suffer from intermittent amnesia. Even in this forgetful state, he knew he had done awful things to people he should have cared for, even beyond how much he cared for and loved himself. Life had completely proved his view of things wrong, and the creeping sensation of this infected what remained of his existence, as well as his writing.

He wrote:

I believe in birth control by the man by means of:

(1) Karetza.

(2) Abstinence from intercourse.

(3) Withdrawal before ejaculation.

(4) French letters.

I don’t think 3 and 4 are good. I don’t think abstinence from orgasm is necessarily a bad thing. It depends on the state of mind and states of mind can be cultivated. (Anyway there’s no point in ejaculating seed into a woman who doesn’t welcome it – they can jolly well go without, if they don’t want our spunk they needn’t have it.) Let us talk about Matriarchy next time.

In 1934, Eric Gill went to Jerusalem for the first time. He saw all the usual tourist sites, with the wonder of a child. He began wearing a long, black robe and a head cloth, in a demented parody of Jesus, a man he admired. He was so happy, and then God bestowed upon Eric Gill a painful toothache. I guess sometimes God gives himself a gift.

Mark Arturo is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Manhattan.

In Which We Hastily Marry The Wrong Woman

Terrace Woman

by MARK ARTURO

Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrera, had chosen Raphael to paint a canvas for him. It would be a spirited depiction of the intervention of the god Bacchus to defend a woman, Ariadne, left alone on an island to die by her lover Theseus, the founder of Athens.

The Duke used a go-between to deal with his artists, Jacopo Tebaldi. Raphael died in 1522, and Bellini was right behind him, so the Duke wanted Titian to paint the canvas. This was a problem, since Titian had no intention of doing this.

After no sign of Bacchus and Ariadne, which he had already paid for, the Duke wrote a letter to Jacopo Tebaldi:

Take care to speak immediately to Titian and tell him to do me a portrait as soon as possible and as though it were alive of an animal called gazelle, which is in the house of the most honorable Giovanni Cornaro. It should fill the entire canvas. Attend to this matter diligently and then send it to us immediately advising us of the cost. And remember to send those spice jars, which were supposed to be sent to us some days ago.

By the time Titian made it to Giovanni Cornaro's, the gazelle was dead and its body had been tossed in the canal.

Titian kept his girlfriend/housekeeper, Cecilia, in a small house near his studio. She was the daughter of the barber from the country, and she bore him three children, losing the last to a miscarriage. Titian named his first son Pompeo.

It so happened that Bellini had once painted a gazelle. Titian went to see it, and pretended he would paint another for the Duke. He never did, and Giovanni Cornaro's house burned down in a fire a few years later.

The Duke got progressively more impatient:

See to it that you speak to Titian, and tell him from us that when he left Ferrera he promised us many things, and up to now we have not seen that he has kept any of them, and among others he promised to do for us that canvas which we especially expect from him: and because it does not seem to us worthy of him that he should fail to keep his promises, urge him to behave in a way that will not give us cause to be saddened and angered with him, and to make sure above all that we have the above-mentioned canvas quickly.

Ariadne was King Minos' daughter. She was left on the beach because Athena appeared to Theseus and told him to leave Ariadne and her sister, who had been married to Theseus but preferred her stepson. Theseus left Ariadne even though she had given him the clue that led him out of the labyrinth.

Titian could not concern himself with these events of the distant past. He was distracted by an altarpiece he was preparing for the local legate. Alfonso considered demanding this piece, and the artist was willing to comply for a price. But it was really Bacchus and Ariadne that the Duke wanted. The Duke invited Titian to spend the Christmas holidays with him: would he perhaps consider bringing Bacchus and Ariadne? Titian went to Treviso instead.

The Duke was irritated, but it's not like there was another master painter handy. On Tebaldi's suggestion he invited Titian to come with him to Rome and meet with the pope:

Please advise Titian that if he wants to come he must come quickly. We would dearly like his company, but tell him he must not speak of this matter to anyone. And perhaps he should dispatch our picture at his earliest opportunity because there will be no question of his doing any work on our journey.

I myself recently broke off a relationship. I had been thinking about it for awhile, but recently I was at the Museum of Modern Art, and it didn't feel quite right. Actually, nothing did. I guess that's why I am thinking about how Bacchus and Ariadne and how art used to be, even if the conclusion is that the profession is not terribly different now from how it was then.

When Theseus returned to Athens, they left his ship in the docks. Ariadne had given him a ball of yarn to find his way out of the labyrinth. He missed her a lot, but he didn't go back for her.

Neither the Duke nor Titian went to Rome to see the pope. The heat was now on Tebaldi, who began making excuses for the artist. Most were unflattering - Titian spent too much of his time whoring, he spent money too freely and the like. The first part was maybe partially true. The artist loved the attention of women, but he was not known for consummating the delicate pleasure of flirtation. It was actual work that prevented him from doing what the Duke asked, as well as, perhaps, a lack of inspiration.

At this point the Duke was apoplectic and Titian knew it. He told Tebaldi that "if Christ were to offer him work he would not accept anything if he had not finished your canvas first."

Ariadne waited on the island called Naxos for some time. Bacchus took pity on her and when he married her, he gave the woman a golden crown. (Better to be married to a god than a man.) The way she looks at him when he saves her lets you know that she is actually the one saving him, a concept that is integrated into the various majority of wedding toasts I have heard recently. By the time Titian had his first daughter, he was married to Cecilia.

When Cecilia was critically ill and in labor with Titian's fourth child, he hastily married her so that his sons would be acknowledged as his own. She recovered and lived five more years. The Duke married himself, his second such arrangement, to Lucrezia Borgia.

After Bacchus and Ariadne, Titian spent the vast majority of time working on portraits for his wealthy patrons. According to his closest friend Aretino, he could finish them "as quickly as another could scratch the ornament on a chest." I have always hated Titian's portraits. The Duke may have been impatient, but he did wait. If the painting wasn't worth the time it took, he would not have waited.

Mark Arturo is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Manhattan. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. Visit our mobile site at thisrecording.wordpress.com.

In Which We Climb The Tower In The Substitute Castle

Stoplight

by MARK ARTURO

This is the only way I can explain it. You're on a long walk and the ground becomes unstable, vacillating from side to side. You have the option of jumping to more level ground beneath you. Once you're there, it may take everything in you to rise.

She is the youngest child of a very old family. She braids her hair, always. I may as well address you directly, even though you are not here and will never be again. It was my choice, but it was also yours.

Your first boyfriend vanished without a trace. Later, you discovered he had emigrated to the Ukraine, where money stretched a lot further. This is the kind of world you lived in. As an American, I could claim to know nothing of it except for this: we place a different value on people. What value that is, whether it is truly better or worse, I don't feel confident enough to say.

painting by chris ballantyne

In six months or thereabouts, she will be a citizen. Her children, if she ever has any, will be citizens. But I will just be Mark. It feels good to know it is possible to become something else; it does not necessarily mean I will become it. The most south I have been is Colombia, where I met a girl with long legs and a gruff way of deciding even the smallest problem. It took me some time to realize I was just another problem. The furthest north I have been is Nova Scotia, maybe.

I'll look at a map, later, after I finish writing this. It is nearly morning where I am: rain and thunder lash at the brocades. Get an idea of the place you are in as a kind of jail and it never leaves you. Here, I never touch myself or offer absolution to others. I am not a monk, but I wish I was.

C.S. Lewis was strongly against masturbation. He never made himself come, which seems to me like a waste. Masturbation, he said, was just an expression of interiority. The point of life is to come out of ourselves, and masturbation – I'm paraphrasing – is a substitute for that which should be sought in the real world. "The danger is that of coming to love the prison," he wrote.

Lately, on my garden walks or hikes I have been cataloguing scent. There are not many other human bodies around here, but thinking of what my nose found in them, it is easy to recall a variety of sweats, anxieties and garbage-type smells. Once, a woman queefed an odd scent. She stood by the window and a dog howled. She should have laughed, but only I did, and I know she felt wronged by that. We were both there, under the mountains.

Here the tiniest market imaginable provides my own sustenance. There is fresh fish always, and though I never liked the texture of the beasts before, I have grown to find certain varieties appetizing. The proprieter is a rough woman of sixty who would be quite unsettling if she was not clearly so happy with who she was. I told her that I envied her, and she nodded. "The old envy the young, and vice versa. If that wasn't so, the young would never become old." I was like what.

How long it will take me to get over this latest heartbreak, I'm not one hundred percent sure. It becomes a lot harder to trust people each time, even though I know it's not them I ever put my faith in, but my own perceptions. I don't want to think that I am incapable of certain things: commitment, prolonged desire, friendship. I think it is more that I don't truly know what they mean until I am absorbed in them. Being conscious makes things so difficult.

painting by chris ballantyne

Christians are not the only reading material in this place. Hegel was not really a Christian although maybe he was. Reading him is no fun at all, and I disagree with what he is saying on almost every point except this one — there is no self-consciousness without another self. And you are not here.

When I take a trip someplace, the last moment of my departure inculcates a feeling of immense sadness for the person I have left behind. Not the last one I saw, or cared about, but you. That is how I know I loved you beyond any of the others. Women represent the limit of my conscious thought. They are a stop sign, a fevered pause. You are the word go at last.

Mark Arturo is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Toronto. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here.

painting by chris ballantyne