Saturday, March 30, 2013

Nothing To See Here

An article on Salon this past week sought to answer a question posed by others about former President George W. Bush's newfound passion for painting. The question was did his artwork offer any insights into the man or into his presidency. I would have to answer, along with the writer, most assuredly not.
I suspect the former president is as much a mystery to himself as he is to the rest of us, and his artwork, about which people so enthusiastically rave is no more than just a snapshot of what he happens to be observing at the moment. No self-reflection. No introspection, and certainly nothing that would give anyone anymore insight into who he is and what his presidency was about. I once told someone, a very devout Mormon in fact, that Bush has no spiritual connection that I have ever been able to discern. I think you could fairly argue that he has no active inner life either. No active self awareness and no inclination to question his motivations, feelings, etc.

This is very much like his arguably more intelligent, if equally opaque Vice President Dick Cheney. Both men during their time in the White House carried with them an aura of absolute certainty about their actions. Now certainty doesn't mean they were right. But they were never in doubt. They never gave themselves the luxury of asking questions, soliciting other viewpoints, or even wondering if they might be wrong if not insane.

So while Dick Cheney goes fly-fishing and tells the world to essentially go to hell for questioning his decisions, the former president may find himself, stirred by his new passion, asking, or attempting to ask the questions he never allowed himself to even entertain during 8 years as Commander-In Chief. Because art, doing art, invites that kind of inner journey. That is, if you want to do work that means anything. Some people will always be content doing still life renderings of bowls of fruit, flowers in a vase, or in Mr. Bush's case, dogs. Or on occasion, the picture of his legs in water as he sits in the tub, seeing nothing, understanding nothing.



And a river runs through the stygian blackness that is Cheney's soul.


Meanwhile, Mr. Bush paints what he sees. He just knows not what he sees or why.






More Later

KCD

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