A SATIRE: IS IT BETTER OR WORSE IF YOUR DOCTOR, WHO HAS JUST BEEN EXPOSED AS AN IMPOSTOR, IS NO LONGER SERVING THE MEDICAL NEEDS OF YOUR FAMILY?(THE RHYMES, RHYTHMS AND METERS OF THREE DUTCH MASTERS)

       Frans Hals, Adriaen Brouwer and Jan Steen are three of the brightest stars in the Dutch Sky. Frans Hals outshines everyone else– not just because he was the teacher of Adriaen Brouwer, Jan Steen and a whole bunch of other Dutch masters, but because his art truly was peerless in his time. Let us examine their compositions today.

       The diagrams below show some of my findings at the root of the art of those masterpieces. Those findings are easy enough and are self-explanatory enough to warrant no further analytical discourse from me. As I have repeatedly told my young friends such as Leander Hughes and Satoshi: 

                 

                  when confronted with Beauty, one can only be astonished!

                   So let there be silence!

       

               If a person finds himself offended by a satire, he has himself to blame!     

                                                 Chinese proverb.   

                     

The career path of the new MFAs/Ph.Ds (a satire)

Let us examine our young folks who call themselves “artists”–or even “masters” today.There are many of those people around and a good portion of them have not even heard of Frans Hals, Adriaen Brouwer or Jan Steen, let alone Van Eyck, Rubens or Rembrandt.

        Our friend with the gross ignorance in the great art of Van Eyck, Titian, Velazquez, Rubens, and Frans Hals goes on to acquire an MFA or Ph.D in Academia. He satisfies his examiners (who may just be as ill- informed as he) and the lay public by setting up his exhibitions or installations without first understanding what Art is. That can be indicated by his gross ignorance in the genius of Hals, Brouwer and Steen. He then wins a prize or two–by way of improving his resume. At the heel of such successes, he goes on to become a college professor in painting, sculpture or printmaking if Academia likes what he does. Some of them even become famous. They have noisily proclaimed themselves as anti-this and anti-that! These days, if a person makes a noise loud enough he could easily gain the attentions of the media. However,when you ask our friend what he seems to be reacting against, he would probably tell you some fantastic giberlitz,he would probably quote Faucault or Derrider and speak to you in a learned tone, with sentences punctuated by big words and jargons–so that no one except he could decipher what is being said! Our friend desperately wants to impress you how deep–indeed, how intellectual he is when it comes to Art. Our friend may not have time for the great Frans Hals, Van Eyck, or Titian, but he definitely has the audacity or the daring to call himself an artist! He has not studied or understood the Art of artistic geniuses but is gutsy enough to fashion himself as a philosopher of the current anti-Art movement known as postmodernism!

       In my opinion,our friend is either too passive, lazy, or arrogant to neglect the study of the artistic geniuses– especially the Flemish and Dutch masters who had dominated European Art for many centuries. The combined effect of those weaknesses serves to indicate the falsehood in our friend’s claim to Intellect or Talent.

       Fancy this:for someone who has proclaimed himself as an artist or master–it would be mighty incomprehensible and inexcusable for him to entertain a gross oversight upon those very significant Dutch and Flemish masters who are the sole reasons for European Art! It is simply impossible to miss a Frans Hals or a Van Eyck if that person has essentially considered himself talented. Together with Van Eyck–the Peerless One and Rubens, the Fabulous One, Frans Hals belongs to the trio supranova that have brightened up a good portion of the Dutch Sky–the rest being lit up by such supercreators as Rubens, Adriaen Brouwer, Jan Steen and Rembrandt, etc.

        Before one has studied the artistic merits of and from those masterpieces, before one has thoroughly understood those works and are eventually enlightened in Art through those masters, it would be too inordinate to proclaim oneself as an artist, let alone a master!– unless, of course, if that person has set himself up to become an impostor.

        What is my definition for an impostor? In my opinion, an impostor is someone who plunges himself into a pool of lies and a life of deception, stealing from the various grants,foundations or endowments for the Arts. He is also the Highway man / Bluebeard in Academia because no students with a sound mind could possibly understand a person making utterances in total delirium such as his! In the final analysis, he earns his keep through gross deception!

      But who will run the show if our impostors are removed forthwith from the scene? That is not exactly a stupid question but it is getting pretty close! That question would have been much better addressed in this fashion, pretending that we are not dealing with anything at the spiritual level.

      Is it better or worse if your doctor, who has been exposed as an impostor, is not serving your family’s medical needs anymore?

      Please don’t forget: true artists and poets can be far more important in the long run than your doctor who simply look after your physical health. 

      True artists and poets are doctors of the spirit– if you come to think of it!  The health or ills of an entire civilization are their concerns!

      For that reason, one must have a revolutionary frame of mind when it comes to spiritual health. Be radical when it comes to the spiritual health of your family! Tell the impostors: “Enough is enough!”–and reject the values of such places that trumpet the merits of existential, egalitarian, relativistic or postmodernist values, i.e., any place that you feel might be of wholesale artistic imposture. Weed cannot grow without your patronage! Weed can strangle your garden if you pay no vigil.

        If your kid wants to be a composer, a poet or an artist in the future, simply ask him/her to study from the true masters listed here on www.trueartblog.com to see if their natural gifts can par with the great masters. Not only would you save a bundle of money, but you would also radically alter the spiritual horizon of our world one day.

      The postmodernists are extremely clever at their games. They have decided to dismiss the phenomenon of  “artistic genius” altogether, claiming that largely because of an “elitist mentality”, or owing to “the patriarchal order of things”, the “myth of artistic genius” is allowed to perpetuate in Humanity.With one broad horrid stroke, they have attempted to re-write history! That is clever, and yet simplistic at the same time! If only one were thoughtful enough to look into their account of claimed knowledge ability,or talent, one would agree with me about their utter emptyness in spirit and the unsightliness in the forms of their “art”. They try to deny true Beauty to the lay public in order to cover up their own impotence, incompetence and imposture. It is done with the utmost guile and methodology with all kinds of excuses and theories so there is a never-ending possibility for them to be in charge of the foundations and grants–to continue the exploitation of the valuable resources generously bestowed in the public arena.

                 That is a life of self-delusion, conceit and deception–is it not?

      The truth is, artistic genius is neither a myth nor a cult. Examine the geometric ground plans of the following masterpieces and you know artistic geniuses do exist! Supreme mathematical relationships do exist! Beauty is both sublime and universal- it is neither a myth nor a cult. The masters have spoken. They have articulated this single word: “Mathematics!” in their compositions. That awesome chorus resonates down the corridor of History.

       Art does not require theories or debates. Art requires the hands,the eye,the heart and the mind of a singular genius who is the only true guiding light at hand. Are there many geniuses in existence in the world at any given era? The answer is negative! History has provided us with ample amount of evidence for that answer. From out of the past century and a half, we have only seen Ingres, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, DeKooning, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, Seurats, Miro and a handful more others, some whose names slipped my mind right now–and some as yet to be re-discovered in the future. As far as I know, they all studied from  Egyptian Art, Greek Art and especially the Dutch and Flemish Masters before they finally found themselves and got enlightened in Art. 

       So why are there so many people in the world noisily proclaiming themselves as “artists”, “gurus” or “masters” then? It really baffles the mind, does it not?

 

 

The above article was contributed by the painter Ben Taishing Lau after he was struck by the younger people’s pretentious arrogance, their relentless bids for fame and  their gross igorance in the works of the artistic geniuses.

 

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Figure 1:Frans Hals The Laughing Cavalier 1624

        The Laughing Cavalier shown above is a timeless masterpiece. Without examining art at its root, a contemporary art critic often assumes that Hals’ brushstrokes are “spontaneous” and the “freedom” of Hals’ expression is incredible, etc., etc…” Upon more careful examinations, one would be astonished to discover an extremely complex program of straights and curves that are playing one against another, as though such rhymes, rhythms and meters were an orchestration of the most heavenly music–even Mozart would be pleased! The same can be said about the compositions of Brouwer and Steen.  Just a small portion of their supreme mathematical relationships is shown in the diagrams below:

         Please enjoy these findings! If you are a young person who gets completely drawn into their timeless beauty, excellent! To be so drawn tells you that you may have artistic talent! Seriously study these geometric ground plans because one day they will  tell you what Art is. The masters shown here attained their enlightenment solely by themselves–so that is something that you would never find out from your professors!

    

 

Figure 2 & 3 : Adriaen Brouwer Peasants Fighting 17th C

 

 

Figure 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 : Jan Steen In Luxury, Look Out! 17th C

 

Once again,let us place a Matisse and a masterful calligraphy ( by Master Li yung of Tang Dynasty)nearby so that intuitive recognition can be instantly made.

       

Figure 9: Nude with Still Life by                  

             Henri Matisse 19C

Figure 10: Calligraphy by Master Li Yung of Tang Dynasty