‘An Intenser Expression’: David Bomberg on Building Life and Art Anew

David Bomberg 1890–1957 Vision of Ezekiel 1912

'We must build our new art life of today upon the ruins of the dead art life of yesterday.’
David Bomberg

I recently visited a small exhibition of the early work of British artist David Bomberg. (The National Gallery until 1 March.) 

Bomberg was born in Birmingham in 1890, the seventh of eleven children. His parents were Polish Jewish immigrants who subsequently settled in Whitechapel in London’s East End. He grew up in poverty, but single-mindedly pursued an artistic career. After a chance encounter at the V&A with the established painter John Singer Sargent, he gained a place at the Slade School. 

‘I hate the Fat Man of the Renaissance.’ 

Whereas the British art establishment of the day steadfastly resisted the innovations that were taking place on continental Europe, Bomberg was one of a number of young painters who were emboldened by the likes of Picasso and Matisse. He gradually developed a radical style that combined the abstraction of cubism with the dynamism of futurism.

When he was 22 Bomberg’s mother died of pneumonia. She was just 48. He channelled his grief into 'Vision of Ezekiel,' a work that considered the biblical story in which a prophet is taken to the Valley of Dried Bones and witnesses their resurrection.

'And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.'
Ezekiel, Chapter 37

The geometric figures in ‘Vision of Ezekiel’ dance with pure joy, hug one another, and raise their hands ecstatically to the heavens. They are in awe at what has happened to them, animated with a renewed lust for life. It is a heartfelt work.

Detail from David Bomberg In the Hold, about 1913-14 © Tate

Bomberg’s paintings around this time responded to his family’s experiences and to the world around him. He was inspired by the muscular activity at the Judeans gymnasium where his brother trained as a boxer; by the dramas played out at Saint Katharine’s Wharf where ships brought in human cargoes of immigrants; by the raw physicality that he witnessed at Schevzik’s Vapour Baths in Brick Lane where locals went in search of ‘purification.’

Bomberg created sharp, angular abstractions, teeming with energy, vibrant with colour. There were jagged elbows, taught necks, arms aloft and legs akimbo. Stretching and straining, squatting and stooping. Wrestling, embracing, gripping and grasping. Holding on for dear life. His paintings had an urgency about them, an electric charge, a vital sense of struggle. 

Bomberg’s progressive thoughts and rebellious attitude got him expelled from the Slade. But he forged ahead, and within a year, in 1914, he was given a show at the Chenil Gallery, Chelsea. In the catalogue he wrote:

'In some of the work… I completely abandon Naturalism and Tradition. I am searching for an Intenser expression. In other work… where I use Naturalistic Form, I have stripped it of all irrelevant matter.’

Perhaps there is a lesson for us all here. So often in work and life we compromise, concede and dilute. We waste time and energy. We allow ourselves to be caught up in the trivial and superficial, the bland and banal. 

If we truly want to ‘build our new life of today’ the answer may reside in ‘stripping away irrelevant matter’; in finding more concise, more concentrated articulation of our feelings; in seeking out heightened experiences. We need to find ‘an intenser expression.’

David Bomberg, The Mud Bath, 1914. © Tate

With the onset of the First World War Bomberg enlisted and served in the trenches on the Western Front. Like many of his comrades he turned to poetry as an outlet. Distraught at the death of his brother and many of his friends, in 1917 he shot himself in the foot. He was fortunate to escape a firing squad.

After the conflict Bomberg’s experiences prompted a change in artistic direction. He increasingly painted portraits and landscapes, embracing a more figurative style. The radicalism of cubism and the optimism of the machine age just didn’t feel relevant any more.

‘Hemmed in. The bolted ceiling of the night rests
on our heads, like vaulted roofs of iron huts the troops
use out in France, - unlit. Grope – stretch out your
hand and feel its corrugated sides, rusted,

Dimly seen, six wiring-stakes driven in the ground,
askew, some yards apart; - demons dragging, strangling -
wire. Earth and sky, each in each enfolded -
hypnotised; - sucked in the murky snare, stricken dumb.’

David Bomberg, ‘Winter Night’

No. 266

A Taste of Honey: You Find Unusual People in Unusual Places

‘Dear Miss Littlewood,
Along with this letter comes a play, the first I have written. I wondered if you would read it through and send it back to me because no matter what sort of theatrical atrocity it might be, it isn’t valueless as far as I’m concerned.'

So began a letter sent in April 1958 by 19-year old Shelagh Delaney to radical theatre director Joan Littlewood. Delaney, the daughter of a bus inspector, was living on a Salford council estate. She had left school at 17 and worked in a number of low-paid jobs: a clerk at a milk depot, a shop assistant, an usherette and a photographer's assistant. The play that came with her letter was ‘A Taste of Honey’. 

'A fortnight ago I didn’t know the theatre existed, but a young man, anxious to improve my mind, took me along to the Opera House in Manchester and I came away after the performance having suddenly realised that at last, after nineteen years of life, I had discovered something that means more to me than myself.' 

Legend has it that Delaney was spurred to write ‘A Taste of Honey’ after seeing a production of Terence Rattigan’s ‘Variation on a Theme.’ This polite middle-class drawing-room drama was typical of British theatre at the time. To Delaney it seemed completely irrelevant and she believed she could do better. In a subsequent interview she observed:

'I had strong ideas about what I wanted to see in the theatre. We used to object to plays where the factory workers came cap in hand and call the boss 'sir'. Usually North Country people are shown as gormless, whereas in actual fact, they are very alive and cynical.’

‘A Taste of Honey’ is set in crumbling, neglected post-war Salford. It’s a world of industrial pollution and grinding poverty; of uninspiring schools and unfulfilling jobs; of a cold shabby flat with a shared bathroom and a gas cooker on the blink; of make do and mend, worrying about the rent, and keeping your cups in the sink. It’s a world of awkward truths and pernicious lies.

‘We’re all at the steering wheel of our own destiny. Careering along like drunken drivers.’

The play relates the story of working-class teenager Jo, who has grown up following her bibulous mother from one tatty bedsit and unreliable boyfriend to the next. 

‘When you start earning you can start moaning.’

Jo falls in love with a black sailor, but he returns to sea and leaves her alone and pregnant. She strikes up a friendship with gay art student Geof, who moves into her flat and looks after her.

'You need someone to love you while you are looking for someone to love.’

A mixed race relationship, single motherhood, homosexuality - these were themes that had not hitherto had a place on the British stage. Above all ‘A Taste of Honey’ was ground breaking in its frank and affectionate depiction of working-class Northern life.

‘In this country the more you know the less you earn.’

Despite all the daily injustices and inequities, Delaney’s Lancastrian characters are resilient, cheerful, sarcastic and funny. They move freely from bitter rancour to light-hearted teasing. They take life’s challenges in their stride.  

'I’m not afraid of the darkness outside. It’s the darkness inside houses I don’t like.’

At the heart of the play is an extraordinary portrayal of the relationship between a mother and her daughter. We see resentment and affection, rivalry and companionship. And we get a strong sense that they have more in common than they’d like to admit.

‘Why don’t you learn from my mistakes? It takes half your life to learn from your own.’

In May 1958, just a few weeks after Littlewood received the teenager’s letter, ‘A Taste of Honey’ opened at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. It was a runaway success, winning awards and a West End transfer. Delaney worked with film director Tony Richardson to translate it into the splendid 1961 movie of the same name, starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan and Murray Melvin.

'The only consolation I can find in your immediate presence is your ultimate absence.’

I found the story of Shelagh Delaney’s first play both thrilling and troubling. On the one hand, it’s marvellous to encounter such talent in someone so young: so bold and original; so determined and confident.

‘I just applied my imagination to my observation.’

On the other hand, one can’t help wondering: How lucky was Delaney to find the supportive Littlewood? Would similar talent be recognised and rewarded today? How many words go unspoken? How many voices go unheard? How many perspectives go unexpressed? How many ideas go unrealised?

‘My usual self is a very unusual self.’

Nowadays we spend a good deal of time in the world of communications obsessing about transformation and reinvention. We tend to imagine that all the answers are to be found in new models, new platforms and new processes.

But the greatest opportunity facing this, and so many other industries, may reside in untapped talent – in young people from classes, regions and ethnicities that are currently overlooked. You find unusual people in unusual places.

‘People of my age – a bit younger than me – want to go somewhere and they know what they want to do, and they’re all like tethered… jerking about waiting for someone to cut the tether. Let me off. Let me go!’

Delaney’s letter to Littlewood concluded with a simple plea for help:

‘I want to write for the theatre, but I know so very little about it. I know nothing, have nothing – except a willingness to learn – and intelligence.’

Isn’t that all you can ask for?

You can see a fine production of ‘A Taste of Honey’ at the Trafalgar Studios in London until 29 February.

'I dreamt about you last night
And I fell out of bed twice.
You can pin and mount me like a butterfly.
But 'take me to the haven of your bed'
Was something that you never said.’

The Smiths, ‘Reel Around the Fountain’ (S Morrissey / J Marr)

No. 265

Trojan Business: Can an Ancient Myth Teach Contemporary Lessons?

Filippo Albacini (1777–1858), The Wounded Achilles. Marble, 1825. © The Devonshire Collections, Chatsworth

'Like the generation of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
now the living timber bursts with the new buds
and spring comes round again. And so with men:
as one generation comes to life, another dies away.'
Homer, ‘The Iliad’, VI

I recently attended an exhibition at the British Museum considering the enduring myth of ancient Troy. (‘Troy, Myth and Reality’ runs until 8 March, 2020.)

The displays recount the legend of the Trojan War as described by Homer, Virgil, the great tragedians and poets. They consider the central role the story had in ancient cultures, the archaeological endeavours to discover the true site of Troy, and the range of artistic responses to the myth through the centuries.

According to legend, the Trojan War was precipitated by the abduction of Helen, the wife of Spartan King Menelaus, by the Trojan Prince Paris. An alliance of Greek kings, led by Menelaus’ brother, Agamemnon of Mycenae, rallies in support. They sail in their ‘sea-cleaving ships’ across the Aegean for ‘many-towered’ Troy. A huge army of ‘well-greaved‘ Greeks then embarks on a ten-year siege that culminates in the fall of the city. 

'At last the armies clashed at one strategic point,
they slammed their shields together, pike scraped pike,
with the grappling strength of fighters armed in bronze
and their round shields pounded, boss on welded boss,
and the sound of struggle roared and rocked the earth.
Screams of men and cries of triumph breaking in one breath,
fighters killing, fighters killed, and the ground streamed blood.’
Homer, ‘The Iliad’, IV

It’s a story of fearless bravery and human frailty, of camaraderie and brutality. Heroes strive through their acts of courage to create reputations that will endure through the ages. Theirs is a quest for immortality. But ultimately their fates are determined by the gods, who are fickle, capricious and partisan.

'And someday one will say, one of the men to come
steering his oar-swept ship across the wine-dark sea
'there's the mound of a man who died in the old days,
one of the brave whom glorious Hector killed.'
So they will say, someday, and my fame will never die.’
Homer, ‘The Iliad’, VII

The ancients studied Homer and Virgil as sacred texts that revealed truths about life, death, individual responsibility and destiny. Let us consider whether these same myths and legends have any contemporary relevance.

1. Life and business are about hard choices

Inevitably the true origins of the Trojan War derive from a disagreement among the gods. Paris is asked to arbitrate in a dispute over a golden apple inscribed ‘to the most beautiful.’ The apple is claimed by three competing divinities: Hera, the goddess of marriage and power, who promises Paris an empire; Athena the goddess of war and wisdom, who guarantees glory in battle; and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who vows to give him the most beautiful woman in the world.

Paris chooses the path of passion and sentiment, and so sets in train the events that lead to war.

We may censure Paris for his short-sightedness. But what was he to do? Which goddess should he have chosen? Whomever he selected, wouldn’t he inevitably have encountered problems? 

The exhibition features a 1569 painting of Queen Elizabeth I by Hans Eworth that shows that Paris could have been more creative. Elizabeth, confronted with the same dilemma, chooses to reject the offers of the three goddesses and retain the apple herself - thereby demonstrating her extraordinary wisdom, and instinct for diplomacy and peace.

And this is the first lesson: life and business are about hard choices.

Hans Eworth - Elizabeth I and the Three Goddesses 1569. © The Royal Collection Trust

2. Petty rivalry divides a team

‘Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.'
Homer, ‘The Iliad’, I

A central character in the siege of Troy is ‘swift-footed’ Achilles, fearsome warrior and Greek hero. The war rages for nine years without any decisive victory, but in the tenth year an argument prompts Achilles to withdraw from the fray. He has been given Briseis, the queen of a neighbouring city, as his prize. However, ‘wide-ruling lord’ Agamemnon pulls rank and demands her for himself. Furious Achilles threatens to remove his troops and return home. He prays that the Trojans will succeed and retires to sulk in his tent. 

This seemingly insignificant incident tips the scales in favour of the Trojans, who drive the Greeks back behind their defences. The Trojans now have the upper hand.

Beware. Petty rivalries, trivial feuds and false pride can divide a team and determine events.

‘Love at first sight’: amphora, c530BC (detail), showing Achilles killing Penthesilea. Photograph: British Museum

3. Everyone has an Achilles’ heel

'I know you and what you are, and was sure that I should not move you, for your heart is hard as iron; look to it that I bring not heaven's anger upon you on the day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo, valiant though you be, shall slay you at the Scaen gates.'
Homer, ‘The Iliad’, XXII

When Achilles was a baby, his mother Thetis made him invincible by dipping him into the River Styx. But since she held him by the heel, one foot was untouched by the magical water and was therefore left unprotected.

When Achilles is eventually persuaded to reengage with the combat, he kills ‘horse-taming’ Hector, the first-born son of King Priam, and drives the Trojans back behind the gates of the city. But triumphant Achilles is then shot by Paris. The arrow is guided by the god Apollo ‘with the unshorn hair’ to strike Achilles at his one weak point: his heel. It seems a tragically modest way for such a man to die.

Even the most fearsome warrior has an Achilles’ heel. And even the most celebrated businessperson has a vulnerability, flaw or weakness.

4. You’re most at risk at the height of your success

And then one day, as ‘rosy-fingered Dawn’ rises over the city, the Trojans awake to discover that the Greeks have sailed away across the ‘wine-dark sea’. They assume that the invaders have been fatigued by the years of fighting, or that the gods have demanded their departure. They then discover that the Greeks have left a huge wooden horse on the beach and interpret this as an offering to appease the heavens. The Trojans drag the horse into the city, breaching their own defensive wall in the process.

‘Four times it stalled before the gateway, at the very threshold;
Four times the arms clashed loud inside its belly.
Nevertheless, heedless, blinded by frenzy,
We press right on and set the inauspicious
Monster inside the sacred fortress.'
Virgil, ‘The Aeneid’, II

In fact the wooden horse conceals the Greeks’ best warriors. When night falls, the Greek fleet sails quietly back to Troy and the warriors emerge from the horse. Troy is sacked, suffering many atrocities.

When we think we’re on top, we’re most exposed to complacency. Pride comes before a fall.

Exekias
Achilles and Ajax Playing a Board Game 540-530 BCE. Terracotta amphora. Height 2 feet (Musei Vaticani, Rome)

5. It’s not enough to be right

'I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts.’Virgil, ‘The Aeneid’, II

Red-figure jar, c480-470BC: Odysseus, strapped to the mast, sails past the Sirens. Photograph: British Museum

The tragedy of Troy’s fall is enhanced by the fact that, first the priest Laocoon, and then the priestess Cassandra, warn that the Greek horse cannot be trusted.

Serpents emerge suddenly from the sea and devour Laocoon and his sons, seemingly confirming that the horse is bona fide. Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam, is gifted with prophetic skills, but cursed never to be believed. With the fall of Troy she is taken back to Mycenae as a concubine by Agamemnon, and subsequently murdered by his embittered wife.

Sadly, it’s not enough to be right in life or business. Your success and happiness revolve around your ability to persuade others that you are right.

6. Sometimes it pays to delay

'So by day she’d weave at her great and growing web—
by night, by the light of torches set beside her,
she would unravel all she’d done. Three whole years
she deceived us blind, seduced us with this scheme.’
Homer, ‘The Odyssey’, II

Meanwhile the Greek heroes have left their loved ones to cope without them for ten years. In Ithaca Penelope, the wife of ‘great hearted’ Odysseus, must fend off an army of suitors who assume that the king is dead. She is obliged by the laws of hospitality to entertain these admirers at great expense, but, ever loyal, she devises a scheme to keep them at bay. She promises she will choose a new husband when she has woven a shroud. So she sits all day weaving this garment and then spends all night secretly unpicking her work.

We tend nowadays to celebrate speed of thought and immediacy of action. But sometimes, as Penelope knew, it pays to delay.

7. Leave a legacy

There are passages in ‘The Iliad’ that are little more than relentlessly grim lists of wretched, painful deaths. The phrases and epithets are repetitive and formulaic. The plot seems stuck in a rut.

There is, of course, poetic truth in these ‘retarded’ verses: war is a brutal, endlessly monotonous exercise in munitions, names, numbers and statistics. It has no neat narrative shape.

Scholars have also concluded that ‘The Iliad’ was not originally a written work, but rather was transmitted orally. Primarily performed around a campfire, the poem was the product of improvisation, adapted to the location and audience. Homer may have felt obliged to name-check the local hero of the townsfolk he was addressing. And so with time the work accrued more and more valiant deaths.

'My doom has come upon me; let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.’
Homer, ‘The Iliad’, XXII

With ‘The Iliad,’ Homer secured the immortality of legions of heroes for generations to come. Perhaps we too should sometimes focus on the reputation we leave behind us. 

 8. Follow your destiny

Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ picks up the tale of Troy with its demise, and pursues a positive theme. It relates the fate of Aeneas, a Trojan prince who survives the defeat, endures adventures, and goes on to found Rome. ‘The Aeneid’ suggests that some people are ordained by the gods to achieve great things. They will undergo hardship and tragedy on the way, but they will succeed.

'Duty bound, 
Aeneas, though he struggled with desire
to calm and comfort her in all her pain, 
to speak to her and turn her mind from grief, 
and though he sighed his heart out, shaken still 
with love of her, yet took the course heaven gave him
and turned back to the fleet.'Virgil, ‘The Aeneid’, IV

We may conclude our review of the Trojan story with a somewhat outdated sentiment. Perhaps we, like Achilles, Hector and Aeneas before us, would do well to pursue our lives and careers with a belief in our own destiny; with a sense of purpose; with an ambition to leave a legacy in the hearts and minds of our colleagues and friends. 

Even in this anxious modern age - even in the context of contemporary commerce - it’s still possible to be a hero.

'When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;
Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.’
Henry Purcell, ‘Dido’s Lament’ (Nahum Tate)

 No. 264

Flawed Beauty and Awkward Truths: What I Learned from My Brief Career as a Ballet Dancer

"Ballerina In Sink II, London" (2004) Credit: Courtesy Mary McCartney

'I don't want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance.'
Choreographer, George Balanchine

Did I ever tell you I once performed in a ballet?

When I was a student at Oxford, a visiting ballet troupe from London put on a production of ‘Cinderella’ at the Playhouse. The custom in those days was for touring companies to recruit extras from the local student population. Our friend Jez had some connection with a theatrical agent, and we were always interested in earning a few extra quid.

So, one afternoon, along with a handful of my mates (Tall Jez, Little Jez, Matty and Alex), I tramped along to the Playhouse for a briefing. We were of varying height, aptitude and agility, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. An hour’s instruction and we were stage-ready, match-fit.

When it came round to the performances, I think we acquitted ourselves rather well. We employed the principles of method acting to inhabit our roles as military cat people. We stood to attention and looked distinguished. We held spears and marched about a bit. The highlight came when four of us carried a feline ballerina across the stage in a sedan chair - a cat litter, I suppose.

I was left with a couple of enduring impressions.

First of all I developed a real respect for ballet. I had had no previous exposure to classical dance and I guess I thought of it as a rather rarefied, elegant affair. I had no idea of the physical exertion involved. But as we stood in the wings awaiting our next entrance, the principals would join us from the stage, having completed a seemingly effortless, graceful, gravity-defying pas de deux. The moment they were out of the audience’s sight, they would be bent double with exhaustion, gasping for breath. 

Ballet dancers are not just artists. They are athletes.

George Balanchine and Arthur Mitchell

Secondly I had a rather chastening encounter with my ballet costume. We got changed in the archaic theatrical dressing room backstage at the Playhouse. Space was limited and we were surrounded on all sides by mirrors with bright bulbs around their edges. We’d been given a number of feline military garments to accompany our roles. Coarse black breeches, red velvet waistcoats and white furry cat heads. But before we could don these, we first had to strip right down and put on a pair of pink ballet tights that extended up to our chests and were suspended by thick elastic shoulder straps.

As I regarded myself in the unforgiving dressing room mirrors, clothed only in my long pink ballet tights, I was confronted with the truth of my moderate looks and unconvincing masculinity. There was nowhere to hide. I was indeed no Rudolf Nureyev. It was a humbling experience. 

'The mirror is not you. The mirror is you looking at yourself.’
George Balanchine

I was reminded of this recently when judging the APG Creative Planning Awards. 

Across a diverse range of categories and tasks, brands were taking a long hard look in the mirror. KFC sought to acknowledge its historically flawed fries and the logistical disaster when its stores ran out of chicken. Mothercare focused on real women’s bodies post childbirth and endeavoured to translate ‘body shame’ into ‘body pride.’ And with its ‘Bloodnormal’ campaign Bodyform/Libresse shed a positive light on the truth of periods. 

In the age of transparency, brands need to be prepared to recognise their flaws and failings – indeed sometimes to celebrate them. Brands also need to be positive and proactive around issues that were hitherto regarded as unappealing and unattractive. We must speak honestly, talk candidly, take on taboos vigorously. We must learn to embrace flawed beauty and awkward truths. 

Though scarred by my experience with the pink tights, I retained an affection and respect for ballet, which in my later years has translated into something of an enthusiasm. Ballet is where art meets athleticism. It’s both an escape from, and an engagement with, the real world. It’s an exercise in essential truth.

As the great choreographer George Balanchine once observed:

'Music must be seen, and dance must be heard.’ 

'Mirror in the bathroom,
Please talk free.
The door is locked,
Just you and me.’

The Beat, ‘Mirror in the Bathroom'

No. 263

What Medium Do You Work In?: Bridget Riley and the Art of Perception

Detail from Pause, 1964. Photograph: Bridget Riley 2019

'Focusing isn't just an optical activity, it is also a mental one.’
Bridget Riley

I recently attended a fine retrospective of the art of Bridget Riley. (The Hayward Gallery, London until 26 January.)

Triangles, curves, rhomboids, stripes and dots. Shapes that shimmer, hover and flicker. Discs that hum, throb and float. Circles that disappear into a fold in time. Dizzying, blurring, rippling contours. Everything moves. Reality warps. The images seem to be shouting: ‘Forget what you know. Don’t trust your senses. Hold on tight.’

'The word 'paradox' has always had a kind of magic for me, and I think my pictures have a paradoxical quality, a paradox of chaos and order in one.’

Born in Norwood, London in 1931, Riley studied art at Goldsmiths College and the Royal College of Art. After her education she spent some time as an illustrator at JWT. Her early work was figurative and impressionist.

Then in 1959 Riley copied Georges Seurat’s pointillist painting ‘The Bridge at Courbevoie’ ‘in order to follow his thought.’ The experience set her on the path to her signature Op Art style, and the resulting work has hung in her studio ever since.

Riley began to paint black and white geometric patterns, exploring the dynamism of sight and the illusions of seeing. She liked to ‘take a form through its paces in order to find out what it can do.’

Riley’s art was disruptive, unsettling, mesmerising. It chimed with the spirit of the ‘60s - an age of doubt and disorientation, of anxiety and apprehension. 

Bridget Riley review. Cataract 3, 1967. © Bridget Riley 2019

'There was a time when meanings were focused and reality could be fixed; when that sort of belief disappeared, things became uncertain and open to interpretation.’

Our eyes travel across a Riley painting, restless, uneasy, looking for a centre. But there’s no place for our attention to settle.

'In general, my paintings are multifocal. You can't call it unfocused space, but not being fixed to a single focus is very much of our time.’

In 1967 Riley introduced colour to her abstract work. She became interested in its instability and interactions, in different couplings and combinations.

'If you can allow colour to breathe, to occupy its own space, to play its own game in its unstable way, it’s wanton behaviour, so to speak… it is promiscuous like nothing.’

Riley’s method involved what she called ‘conscious intuition.’ She explored the intersection between the hard, precise, clinical drive of the rational brain and the unfocused impact of intuition and emotion.

'I work on two levels. I occupy my conscious mind with things to do, lines to draw, movements to organize, rhythms to invent. In fact, I keep myself occupied. But that allows other things to happen which I'm not controlling... The more I exercise my conscious mind, the more open the other things may find that they can come through.’

At the exhibition you can see Riley’s preparatory drawings and studies, precise instructions for her painting assistants. Some look like grand contour maps of new frontiers, of unknown terrain. They reveal the painstaking calculations that the artist invests in her work, the countless decisions about form, colour, structure and scale. 

High Sky, 1991. Photograph: Bridget Riley 2019

'It seems the deeper, truer personality of the artist only emerges in the making of decisions... in refusing and accepting, changing and revising.’

I was particularly struck by a remark Riley made about Seurat’s art.

‘His work gave me a sense of the viewer’s importance as an active participant. Perception became the medium.’

This abstract, conceptual definition of Seurat’s medium seems to suggest fresh possibilities for art, to open up new horizons.

As we embark on a new year, it may be helpful to pause for a moment and reflect on our own core competences. What is it that we do? What are we good at? What medium do we work in? 

Should we define ourselves by our output? By adverts and art direction, design and data, copy and content? There is an admirable, plain-speaking directness to such descriptions. Maybe we see ourselves as artisans or makers?

Or do we deal in something more abstract? Perhaps we are persuaders, curators, cultural commentators, consumer champions, brand spokespeople? Perhaps we create and manage ideas; or nurture talent; or navigate change; or provoke disruption; or stimulate growth?

Or do we, like Riley, work in the medium of perception?

‘Looking is, I feel, a vital aspect of existence. Perception constitutes our awareness of what it is to be human, indeed what it is to be alive.’

'Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying.
Now I want to understand.
I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding.
You must help me if you can.
Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong.
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?’

Jackson Browne, ‘Doctor My Eyes'

 No 262

‘All the King’s Men’: Observations on a Tarnished Politician and a Jaded Fixer

‘Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.’ 
Willie Stark, ‘All the King’s Men’

I recently read the American political novel ‘All the King’s Men’ by Robert Penn Warren. Published in 1946, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1949 it was adapted into a film of the same name that won the Oscar for Best Picture.

‘All the King’s Men’ follows the political career of Willie Stark, a liberal populist in the South during the 1930s. His story is narrated by Jack Burden, a reporter who is employed as a personal aide when Stark becomes Governor. 

It’s a tale of infidelity, betrayal and corruption under the throbbing Southern sky; of debt, restitution and nameless despair; of broken promises, broken relationships and broken people.

Sugar-Boy puts the throttle to the floor. The Cadillac speeds along the white slab in the dazzling heat, past the corner drugstore and the tin-roofed, white-framed houses. There’s a smell of sweat, stale cigars and gasoline fumes. There are hushed conversations with men in well-pressed suits and two-color shoes. There’s coarse liquor drunk in shady bars. And an iron bed under the electric fan. 

It’s a compelling read. 

I was struck by a number of themes suggested by the two central characters.

The Tarnished Politician

Willie Stark, 'the Boss,’ starts out as an idealistic lawyer, a humble, well-meaning man looking to represent the ordinary country folk he cares about. 

‘My study is the heart of the people…Your will is my strength.’

Through bitter experience he transforms into a charismatic populist, who can rouse a crowd with his plain speaking, tub thumping oratory.

‘This is the truth; you are a hick and nobody ever helped a hick than the hick himself. Up there in town they won’t help you. It is up to you and God, and God helps those who help themselves.’

Stark climbs the political ladder by exposing the corruption and complacency of the incumbent administration.

‘The machine had been operating so long now without serious opposition that ease had corrupted them. They just didn’t bother to be careful.’

But Stark’s own Governorship is tainted by power. Convinced that the end justifies the means, he becomes mired in patronage, bribery and intimidation.

‘Did you ever see the flies stay away from the churn at churning time?’

Let’s consider the fundamentals of Stark’s approach to politics. We may find there are contemporary resonances.

1. Stir ‘em up

The key to Stark’s popularity is his ability to whip up a crowd, to connect with them at a raw and basic level. He realises that it doesn’t matter so much what you say, so long as you can inspire a passionate response.

‘Hell, make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em think you’re their weak erring pal, or make ‘em think you’re God Almighty. Or make ‘em mad. Even mad at you. Just stir ‘em up, it doesn’t matter how or why, and they’ll love you and come back for more.’

2. Be prepared to sacrifice your dignity

Stark is not afraid of looking foolish or silly. He’s not shy of mockery or ridicule. None of these things constrains him from the pursuit of power.

‘Yeah, I’m Governor, Jack, and the trouble with Governors is they think they got to keep their dignity. But listen here, there ain’t anything worth doing a man can do and keep his dignity.’

3. Write off the costs against the gain

Stark is prepared to make concessions to achieve his goals. He doesn’t realise that compromise can be corrosive.

‘All change costs something. You have to write off the costs against the gain.’

4. Don’t shy away from dirt

Stark had a religious upbringing and he retains a Calvinist conviction that all men are tainted by original sin.

‘Dirt’s a funny thing… Come to think of it, there ain’t a thing but dirt on this green God’s globe except what’s under water, and that’s dirt too. It’s dirt makes the grass grow. A diamond ain’t a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot. And God-a Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you do with the dirt. That right?’

5. Just fix it

Ultimately Stark becomes a ruthless operator, blind to the ethical responsibilities of office. He believes that every man and woman has a price, and he’s prepared to pay it.

‘My God, you talk like Byram was human! He’s a thing! You don’t prosecute an adding machine if a spring goes bust and makes a mistake. You fix it.’

The Jaded Fixer

'There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad of it.’

Jack Burden is a student of history, a former journalist who acts as a fixer for The Boss. He’s smart and can be charming when he wants to be. But he’s also a detached, world weary, hard drinking cynic ‘hiding from the present... [and taking]refuge in the past.’

‘Maybe the things you want are like cards. You don’t want them for themselves, really, though you think you do. You don’t want a card because you want the card, but because in a perfectly arbitrary system of rules and values and in a special combination of which you already hold a part the card has meaning. But suppose you aren’t sitting in a game. Then, even if you do know the rules, a card doesn’t mean a thing. They all look alike.’

We come to realise that Burden’s misanthropy and nihilism derive from a broken heart. He is a man who has been in love too long.

'If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.'

Stark sets Burden a task: to dig up some dirt on a respected former Judge who has crossed him politically. It’s fascinating to watch Burden in action, combining his historical research and journalistic skills in pursuit of his prey.

Author Robert Penn Warren - 1950. (AP Photo)

1. There is always something

Burden goes into his investigation with the conviction that there is inevitably a clue to be found, a secret to be unearthed, a truth to be revealed. There is always something.

‘For nothing is lost, nothing is ever lost. There is always the clue, the canceled check, the smear of lipstick, the footprint in the canna bed, the condom on the park path, the twitch in the old wound, the baby shoes dipped in bronze, the taint in the blood stream.’

2. Try the obvious first

Burden is conscious not to walk past the simple solutions, the straightforward resolutions to a problem.

‘Finding someone in a city if you can’t call the cops is quite an undertaking. I had tried it often enough back when I was a reporter, and it takes luck and time. But one rule is always to try the obvious first.’

3. Ask it quick and fast

Burden’s interviewing style is forceful and direct. He likes to cut to the chase and surprise a response.

‘I asked it quick and sharp, for if you ask something quick and sharp out of a clear sky you may get an answer you never would get otherwise.’

4. Listen for the hollow sound

Once past the direct questions and obvious explanations, Burden switches to a more speculative approach. He plugs away at a problem looking out for something that doesn’t quite tally.

‘When you are looking for the lost will in the old mansion, you tap, inch by inch, along the beautiful mahogany wainscoting, or along the massive stonework of the cellarage, and listen for the hollow sound.’

5. Sleep on it

Finally Burden leaves room for intuition and gut response. After he’s investigated every highway and byway, after he’s examined every clue, he sleeps on the problem.

‘I had reached that stage of the problem where there is nothing to do but pray. That stage always comes. You can do all you can, and pray till you can’t pray, and then you go to sleep and hope to see it all in the dream, by grace.’

Inevitably Burden’s investigation reaches a melancholy conclusion. ‘All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.’ But there is a sense that Burden ends the story less detached, recognising that we cannot live as isolated individuals: there are connections between us all – between our choices and responsibilities, and between our past, our present and our future. 

'Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events… Direction is all.'

Time for a festive break.
Next post will be on Thursday 9 January 2020.
Have a restful Christmas.
See you on the other side, I hope!

'You know that it's the time of year,
When certain things that you see and hear
Remind you of the holidays.
When I hear the bells ring
I think of you, and I start to sing.
You hold me tight all through the night.
Peace and calm is in your arms.
Silent nite
Feels so right, 
All is calm, all is bright.
Silent nite.’

En Vogue, 'Silent Nite'

No. 261

Happy Accidents: Will You Open the Door When Opportunity Knocks?

William Henry Perkin

'Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.’
HW Longfellow, ‘A Fragment' 

I recently attended an exhibition exploring the intimate relationship between art and science. ‘The Art of Innovation’ at the Science Museum, London, considers how creative thought has been integral to many scientific breakthroughs and how technological change has inspired a good deal of great art. (The exhibition runs until 26 January, but you can also listen to a BBC podcast on the same theme.)

'I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’
Albert Einstein

Observe how the train revolutionised timekeeping, how the study of botany precipitated the first photography book, how Polaroids inspired David Hockney. Learn about experiments with laughing gas, about orreries, artificial limbs and delta wing jets. Examine John Constable’s records of the clouds over Hampstead Heath, Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic studies of ‘The Horse in Motion’, and Ada Lovelace’s illustration of the first algorithm - the unassuming Note G. It’s fascinating stuff.

I was particularly taken with the story of mauve.

In 1856 the 18-year-old student chemist William Perkin was experimenting in his shed in Shadwell, East London. He wanted to see if he could synthesize the anti-malarial drug quinine from aniline, a derivative of coal tar. The experiment failed and he was left with a black sludge. Still curious, he determined to dry this sludge into a powder, which he then dissolved in methylated spirit. This process produced a rich purple solution. The inquisitive Perkin then tried dipping a piece of white silk into the solution and was struck by how well the fabric took the purple colour.

Most fabric dyes at that time were extracted from plants and lychens, and were expensive and limited in variety. The industrial revolution had created a booming textile industry and an increasing demand for new, more affordable colours.

Assured by dye experts that this new compound could function well as a commercial dye, Perkin and his family built a factory near Harrow and marketed the dye under the sophisticated French name ‘mauve’. The British public, the great and the good, and even Queen Victoria, were delighted with the new, vibrant purple fabrics. Mauve became the most fashionable colour of the 1850s and 1860s. It was the first of a new generation of cheap, high quality synthetic dyes.

‘The mauve complaint is very catching: indeed, cases might be cited, where the lady of the house having taken the infection, all the family have caught it before the week was out.’ 
Punch, 1859

Of course the history books are filled with great scientific discoveries and inventions that began with a chance event, a happy accident.

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming after he returned to his lab from a two-week holiday to find that a mould had grown on some of his culture and killed the staphylococci he’d been investigating.

The Kellogg brothers invented corn flakes after boiling wheat for too long in a sanatorium kitchen.

Velcro was conceived by Swiss engineer George de Mestral after he got burrs stuck in his clothes when he went hiking.

The microwave was created by engineer Percy Spencer after his chocolate bar melted while he was testing a new vacuum tube.

Silk dress dyed with William Henry Perkin’s mauve aniline dye. Photo by SSPL/Getty Images.

‘One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.'
Alexander Flemming

We can all probably think of instances in our own careers when an unexpected occurrence has produced a fortuitous outcome – a random experience, a misguided experiment, a serendipitous conversation. The unforeseen consequences of unplanned events often deliver breakthroughs and revelations. Chance can play a key role in innovation.

But we have to be agile and alert to respond to a happy accident. We have to be curious, open to distraction, prepared to take a different path. The window of opportunity rarely remains open for very long.

Perkin was probably not the first scientist to conduct that particular experiment on aniline. But whereas others had thrown away the black sludge, he persisted, sensing there was something worthwhile further down the line.

I suspect that sometimes we’re too focused on achieving our objectives to be distracted by the unplanned and unexpected. We may be too time-constrained to pursue our curiosity; too disciplined to redirect our resources. We’ll never know how many chances have passed us by because we were cautious, blinkered or blind.

Of course we all want to be beneficiaries of random good fortune. But we have to ask ourselves: Are we sufficiently open-minded to spot a happy accident? Are we willing to pursue a possibility even when it’s not what we originally envisaged? Will we open the door when opportunity knocks?

'Getting stuck on you, baby,
Was the last thing I had in mind.
But now you got me wanting you, baby,
Want your love all the time.
I slipped, tripped and fell in love,
Fell in love with you, baby.’
Ann Peebles, ‘Slipped, Tripped and Fell in Love’ (G Jackson)

No. 260

When Revolutionaries Become Reactionaries: Alfred Munnings and the Disenchantments of Age

‘My Wife, My Horse and Myself’ - Alfred Munnings

‘The most radical revolutionary will become conservative the day after the revolution.’
Hannah Arendt, Philosopher and Political Theorist

I confess I’m partial to the art of Alfred Munnings. 

In the first half of the twentieth century Munnings painted East Anglian life in bold, bright colours: race meetings, horse fairs and hunting; farm hands, gentry and gypsies. Mostly he just painted horses, for whom he seemed to have a greater affection than he had for people. He titled one painting ‘My Wife, My Horse and Myself’ and the horse takes centre stage.

To modern eyes Munnings’ paintings are not particularly challenging or thought provoking. But in his youth he was part of the progressive art colony based on the south coast of Cornwall, the Newlyn School, and he served as a war artist during the First World War. His work is honest, open and true. It is rooted in the English countryside and English painting tradition. It is in its own way rather beautiful.

‘Every hero becomes a bore at last.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist

Sadly Munnings’ reputation in the art world is tarnished. As he grew older he developed a passionate dislike of modernism. In his late sixties he served as President of the Royal Academy of Art and, in a speech broadcast live on the BBC in 1949, he drunkenly accused his fellow painters of ‘shilly shallying in this so called modern art.’ He suggested that Cezanne, Matisse and Henry Moore had corrupted art, and he joked that he’d like to join Churchill in kicking Picasso up the arse.

’The Start at Newmarket’ - Alfred Munnings

‘A great scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.’
Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning Physicist

I was prompted to think about Munnings by a piece I read in The Times (Rhys Blakely, 17 September 2019). A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tracked the careers of 13,000 elite scientists, looking at their funding, published papers and citations. The research suggests that ‘superstar scientists,’ once they have achieved a position of authority, tend to suppress new ideas from other quarters. After their deaths their field of study is often invigorated by younger rivals, who suddenly publish research at a faster rate, and by scientists migrating from other adjacent subject areas. 

‘Our results suggest that, once in control of the commanding heights of their fields, star scientists tend to hold on to their exalted position – and to the power that comes with it – a bit too long.’ 
Pierre Azoulay, MIT

This conclusion may resonate with people working in business today. The senior ranks of industry are quite often filled with individuals who in their youthful prime were high-achieving radicals. However, with the passing of the years and the accrual of status, recognition and rewards, these same people can become increasingly conservative, set on defending their turf from new people and new ideas. They can’t help regarding the world through the prism of their own talents and beliefs. In time most revolutionaries become reactionaries.

’Morning Ride’ - Alfred Munnings

Speaking from experience, as you get older you can feel marginalised. The world seems to be reinventing itself around the needs and tastes of new generations. It’s easy to resent change. And conservatism creeps over you like a comfortable blanket. We all occasionally suffer Luddite leanings.

‘All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age.’
Robert Louis Stevenson, Writer

I’m not sure it’s wise to ‘rage against the dying of the light.’  At least not in the reactionary way that Munnings did. We may not want to run at the future, but we certainly shouldn’t run away from it. The grumpy old man or woman is rarely attractive, seldom makes for an effective leader, and should probably avoid the sauce when speaking in public.

'Old man, take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you.
I need someone to love me
The whole day through.
Ah, one look in my eyes
And you can tell that's true.’

Neil Young, ‘Old Man'

No. 259

Breaking the Fourth Wall: Advertising that Acknowledges it is Advertising

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

It has recently been reported that the first filmed Western was ‘Kidnapping by Indians,’ an 1899 short shot just outside Blackburn, England (The Times, 1 November 2019). Classically the status of first Western has been allocated to the 1903 silent film ‘The Great Train Robbery,’ written, produced, and directed by Edwin S Porter.  It is this latter movie that I’d like to consider.

‘The Great Train Robbery’ begins with bandits breaking into a telegraph office and forcing the operator to stop the train. Once on board, the villains steal the passengers’ valuables, and cash from the security box, killing a guard, a fireman and a fleeing traveller in the process. They transfer to their horses, and disappear into the woods. The telegraph operator escapes and, interrupting a dance, raises the alarm. A posse catches up with the bandits while they are splitting the loot. They are all shot.

Lasting only 12 minutes, ‘The Great Train Robbery’ was one of the first films to use cross-cutting to show what was happening at the same time in different locations.

At the very end, in a short additional sequence, the leader of the bandits, played by Justus D Barnes, looks directly into the camera. He sports a spotted neckerchief and a flamboyant moustache, and his hat is pushed back over his head. He also carries a six-shooter, which he fires repeatedly point-blank at the audience. 

It’s quite a startling moment.

This scene is sometimes cited as the first instance of cinema ‘breaking the fourth wall.’ 

The fourth wall was originally a theatrical convention: an imaginary barrier separating the actors from the audience. While the audience can see through it, the actors behave as if they cannot, remaining absorbed in the drama. 

Since the earliest theatre, playwrights have chosen occasionally to break the fourth wall by having their characters step forward to address the audience directly - as in Greek tragedy, Shakespearean soliloquies or pantomime. Bertolt Brecht lit the theatre with bright lights to encourage the public to acknowledge that they were watching artifice rather than reality. He also had his actors play multiple roles and rearrange the set in full view. Some dramatists have gone further and scripted their characters discussing the play as a play, or considering the nature of their characterisation. Pirandello’s ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ explores such themes, as does Laura Wade’s ‘The Watsons’ (which will play at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London from 8 May).

Breaking the fourth wall suggests that author, actors and audience are all complicit in the theatrical deception. We know that you know... It can be disarming. It shakes the audience out of our passivity, and prompts us to engage, to participate, to lean in and take notice.

As a device it is perhaps most familiar to us from movies like ‘Alfie’, ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Amelie’; and from TV shows like ‘House of Cards’ and ‘The Office.’ Of course latterly we’ve had ‘Fleabag’s’ side-eye.

‘What is that? That thing that you’re doing?’

Taken aback by the impact of this technique in a film from 1903, I was prompted to wonder what would be its equivalent in the world of commercial communication. 

We’re accustomed of course to brand spokespeople addressing viewers directly in advertising. This is so commonplace as to be mundane. But just occasionally a campaign steps out of the conventional mode of salesmanship and acknowledges the fact that it is advertising; that we the viewers know what’s going on; that we understand the transaction.

I’m reminded of Molson’s subversive ad from the late ‘80s:

‘Jim Dunk says ‘don’t drink it.’’

Or the classic VW 1996 ‘affordability’ campaign:

’We are withholding a Volkswagen ’surprisingly ordinary prices’ ad until we receive confirmation that a Volkswagen Polo L does indeed cost £7990.’

More recently KFC has drawn attention to the shortcomings of its own fries:

‘Dear KFC. No one likes your fries. Yours sincerely. The Entire World.’

These ads assume that we know that we’re looking at commercial communication, that we appreciate the process. They’re post-modern perhaps. And they have the ability to stop us in our tracks; to make us think. We have to do some work to decode them. 

Of course, making ads about ads can be a risky business. It can come across as narcissistic and self-regarding, as oblique and indirect. But used strategically, with wit and insight, breaking the fourth wall disrupts the inertia of conventional advertising. It creates impact and intrigue, collusion and compulsion.

As Bertolt Brecht observed:

'Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.'

'Robbin' people with a six-gun,
I fought the law and the law won.
I fought the law and the law won.
I lost my girl and I lost my fun,
I fought the law and the law won.
I fought the law and the law won.’

The Clash, ‘I Fought the Law’ (S Curtis)

No 258

The Industrialisation of Storytelling: Have We Lost the Plot?

Arthur Darvill as Dave in The Antipodes at the National Theatre (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

‘I just wanted to remind all of you that what you’re doing is important. We need stories as a culture. It’s what we live for. These are dark times. Stories are a little bit of light that we cup in our palms like votive candles to show us the way out of the forest.‘
Sandy, ‘The Antipodes’

I recently saw Annie Baker’s excellent play ‘The Antipodes’ at the National Theatre, London (until 23 November).

Baker’s writing is thoughtful, funny, full of nuance and intrigue. She seems more interested in character than narrative; in atmosphere than plot. Her dramas unfold naturally, in their own time, enigmatically. Critics have called her work ‘slow theatre’.

‘The Antipodes’ is set in a brainstorming session amongst a group of creatives trying to come up with an extraordinary story. No medium is specified.

Most of us recognise the large characterless conference room with its grand glass table and carpet reminiscent of ‘The Shining’. There is the industrial quantity of mineral water, the obsession with food – ordering it with great ceremony, eating it with quiet intensity. There is the reverence for authority and process, the dominant masculinity, the awkward silences, the vainglorious Boss. There is the arrogant veteran, the patronised PA, the eccentric knitter, the selective note taker. The participant who is ‘disappeared’ half way through the process. There is the mythologizing of the company’s Golden Age. The lanyards and the NDAs. The liberal use of ‘awesome’ and ‘genius’. The swearing.

It’s all painfully familiar.

‘The most important thing is that we all feel comfortable saying whatever weird shit comes into our minds so we don’t feel like we have to self-censor and we can all just sit around telling stories. Because that’s where the good stuff comes from.’

Of course, only the Boss is allowed to use his phone in this brainstorm, and he is constantly leaving the room, distracted by domestic concerns. A conference call with senior management begins with a chat about the weather and then lurches uncomfortably into technical difficulties. Despite promises to respect participants’ time, as the project proceeds the sessions become longer and later, until finally the creatives are sleeping in the conference room. 

 ‘The stories we create teach people what it’s like to be someone else on a visceral level. As storytellers we know how to shift perspective and inhabit different viewpoints. Imagine what would happen if everyone in the world could do every once in a while what we already do on a daily basis. It would be revolutionary.’

Baker seems to be asking us to question the value of storytelling and its relevance to contemporary issues and anxieties.

We all know that stories make sense of the world. They teach our children about cause and effect, freedom and responsibility. They enable us to articulate our brightest hopes and darkest fears. They provide understanding and escape. They help us walk in other people’s shoes. They bind communities together.

But we have turned storytelling into an industry. We classify and codify it. It is a course we can take at college, a craft we can learn, a process we can teach. It’s a commodity, a business, an algorithm.

Baker quotes Christopher Booker’s 'The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories.'

Annie Baker, Photo: Zack DeZon

1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Rebirth
6. Comedy
7. Tragedy

Baker wants to remind us that storytelling is not entirely benign. Stories can mislead and distract, exaggerate and embellish. Stories can obstruct truth and defer action. And our individual ‘journeys’ can be contrived and self-deceiving. One of the characters expresses concern that personal experiences shouldn’t simply be translated into material for storytelling. Surely some episodes are too precious to be broadcast.

‘I guess I’ve always felt like my personal life is the part of my life that I don’t want to turn into a story.’

We become aware that, while the creatives are struggling to invent the greatest story ever told, all is not well in the real world beyond the conference room. There seems to be an escalation of storms and natural disasters out there. Towards the end of the play the Boss questions the relevance of stories to a world facing existential crisis. 

‘I think maybe there are no more stories. Not that we’ve told all the stories. Or that there are only six types of stories or something. But I think maybe it’s the end of an era. Or maybe it should be the end of an era. Like maybe this is the worst possible time in the history of the world to be telling stories.’

So where does this lead us? 

Well, despite the compelling provocation posed by ‘The Antipodes’, I still believe in the power of stories to convey understanding, to create community and to inspire change. I still believe therefore that they have a role in tackling our current concerns. But I also think we need to protect the intimacy and magic of storytelling from commoditisation and industrialisation. We need to ensure storytelling prompts action rather than postpones it.  And we need to be cautious about the ends to which we deploy it.

 ‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live.’
Joan Didion

'But if you disguise
What these things are doing to me,
If you criticize them,
I'll know that you can see.
Until you realize,
It's just a story.
Until you realize,
It's just a story.’

The Teardrop Explodes, 'Treason (It’s Just a Story)’ (G Dwyer / N Michael / J Cope)

No. 257