Redtree Times

On the Lake Road

What if culture itself is nothing but a halt, a break, a respite, in the pursuit of barbarity?

–Slavoj Žižek, Living in the End Times

This is another new small painting (only 2″ by 4″!) that is included in the Little Gems show now hanging at the West End Gallery. It’s called On the Lake Road. The first thing that came to mind for me was that it reminded me of the feel of the some of the roads that run around the edges of the lakes here in the Finger Lakes region of NY, especially in the summer when the roads are filled with summer residents and vacationers all seeking a pastoral break from their regular lives. There’s an almost palpable feeling of ease as you drive on those roads with the lake right there with you amid the quaint summer cottages.

I saw that feeling in this piece and named it accordingly.

While looking for a literary bit to pair with it, I came across this quote from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and it stopped me in my tracks. It made me wonder if our natural instinct as a species was one of barbarity and if art was one of the few things that kept from fully following that instinct.

Were all forms of art just a means to stifle our barbaric impulse? Is it meant to remind us that we have another option beyond our inborn tendency toward cruelty, selfishness, and tribalism? Does it exist to let us know that, though it is naturally within us, we have ability to reject that instinct and instead choose compassionate kindness? 

I don’t know. I am sure there all sorts of examples and differing definitions of art that contradict this but sitting in the dark in the computer screens glow at 5 AM, it sounds plausible. After all, so much great art in all forms has come from times when we were battling our own barbarity, often offering us another vision of what might be. And I believe we might find that the barbarians among us, those who are without empathy and compassion, also have no room in their life for art.

I might expand the old saying music has charms to sooth the savage breast (which, by the way, goes back to the first line from the 1697 play The Mourning Bride by William Congreve) to include all forms of art. 

Can even a small painting like On the Lake Road serve as a levee against our potential floods of barbarity?

Maybe. I would like to think so.

Here’s a song I’ve loved for many years now from the legendary bluegrass duo of Flatt & Scruggs. This is their cover of a Bob Dylan song, Down in the Flood.