Genius and What It Isn't

The Bard

Van Gogh

By Terry Rodgers

On a more abstract level, his works concern his fascination with the dialectic coalescence of contradictory impulses in a subjective perspective.
--Blog post describing painting by Terry Rodgers

There is much blather in political discourse.  People who love to hear themselves talk, auditory narcissists.  Geniuses full of gravitas, like Henry Kissinger, Zigneb Brezhinski, and with less affectation of gravitas, Rush Limbaugh.

There is much tedious nonsense in academia.
Anyone who has spent much time listening to pundits in either area will sooner rather than later want to tear out his hair (or her hair) and run screaming from the room, "What utter bullshit!" 

There is even stupid talk masquerading as wisdom in places where you'd least expect it, like science, an area where the whole  idea of the scientific method is to "prove" what you are saying is irrefutable, at least today.

But no place in the intellectual universe can outdo art for drivel, and people talking to hear themselves sound important and intelligent.
Genius's are anointed every day in the galleries and art shops along Madison Avenue, in Santa Fe and San Francisco, by phonies who would not know what makes good art if they could even recognize it when they see it.

Just recently, the Phantom stood before six paintings by an unfamous local New Hampshire artist and someone trotted out the word, "Genius," and the Phantom thought. "Not actually."

It was true the pictures were stunning, and left you a little breathless. It was like seeing a really beautiful woman for the first time. But would the effect hold, over time?

And there's something else that typifies "genius" for the Phantom: When the Phantom stands before a van Gogh, almost any van Gogh, there is a different sensation entirely. You have the feeling you have caught a glimpse into a man's soul, and you want to know more about the painter. J.D. Salinger once remarked he knew a book was good when he finished the last sentence, and he felt the urge to run to the phone and call up the author immediately. Just had to speak with him. 

For the Phantom, it's much the same. You see that painting and all the selection and rejection and inclusion wrapped up in it, and you just want to buy that artist lunch and listen to him, to ask him about where that painting came from. 

In all likelihood, the conversation would be disappointing, like talking to Ernest Hemingway. You would not have a clue from the banality of the person what he was capable of creating.

But sometimes, when you stand before a painting, you have to shake your head and wonder: Where did that come from?  Is this artist even from planet earth? For the Phantom that happens with van Gogh, with Picasso, with some of Thomas Eakins but not so much with one of the Phantom's  favorite artists, Edward Hopper. 

Hopper is a wonderful painter and the Phantom's calendars abound with Hopper,  but somehow the gut punch is not there with Hopper, most of the time. It is with "Chop Suey" but not with "Nighthawks."  It is with every vanGogh and with Utrillo and Pizarro. 

The Phantom had a childhood friend, Terry Rodgers, who grew up to be an artist. His paintings are viewable on line, just google @ www.terryrodgers.com/artist.   Talking with Terry, you hear what might sound like an artist's blather, but it's not. Terry talked that way since he was nine years old. He is no phony. But, at least for the Phantom, he is no genius either. His work is very dark and interesting. You look at the pictures and you do want the story behind them, but if you look at more than a half dozen, you realize, there really is no story. They are depressing and arresting and technically dazzling, but there is an emptiness behind the eyes. Hard to explain. It's just not vanGogh or Vermeer. There is no girl with the pearl earring, just naked ex-debutantes with nipple piercing and cocaine noses. 

As for music, well there is much genius in music. Dylan, "genius"  has his picture by it in the dictionary.   

But musical "genius" is present in the act of almost any good musical riff which works. but it's not "genius" in the sense of a vanGogh or a Bob Dylan.  It's a wondrous technical virtuosity, which allows a man to write the riff for "Heard it Through the Grapevine," or "Piano Man" or "Your Song" or "Lean on Me." 

Whatever that wonderful collection of genes, experience and will which allows musicians to be musicians, there are thousands of them around.

But there are very few Bob Dylans, or Vincent VanGoghs. 

Looking at the life stories of the real "geniuses" it is not at all clear that  genius is a blessing. May be a curse. But, whatever it is, it does not occur often in the life of a species.

Terry leaving his studio