CULTURIST ART CRITICISM AND THE SALVATION OF THE WEST

The Last Judgement

by John K. Press

Twenty-five years ago Camille Paglia cured me of veganism.  Her amazing art history book, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertitti to Emily Dickinson, argued that art criticism needs passion, violence, and sex, not PC censorship.  In a side note, she said vegetarians are out-of-touch with nature because they work for a clean, sinless world; real nature worshippers feel its cruelty. I love Camille Paglia.

However, this article will harshly criticize Paglia’s newest art survey book, Glittering Images. And you may be thinking, "Who cares? I'm into politics, not art." But, appreciating art is central to Western survival. Multiculturalists tell us that the West has no core traditional culture to protect and promote. Western art refutes that, and can serve as a guide to our cultural revitalization. To make this point firmer, the article will contrast Paglia's work to Kenneth Clark's marvelous culturist 1969 BBC survey of Western art, Civilisation.

FRANCIS BACON AND THE DEGENERATION OF THE WEST

Lucien Freud or the Elephant Man?

by Tim Haydon

A triptych by the Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon was sold by Christie’s in New York for the record sum for any artwork at auction of £89 million this month.

Bacon’s three depictions of Freud seem sketchy indeed. Each shows him seated within a framework of lines that look like aids to drawing perspective. Freud’s foot escapes from this framework cage in some sort of symbolism. The artist breaking the boundaries of art?

Freud’s face is a distorted blob, as if, instead of Freud as a sitter, Bacon was in lurid fashion painting the Elephant Man. Actually, if one had not been told, one would have no idea who the sitter was. It could have been almost anyone – a stranger off the street. And here we have the key to this work. For who tells us that this is Freud? It is Francis Bacon, the artist.