There was something about that sky that captivated him

 

There was something about that sky that captivated him

 

There was something about that sky that captivated him today. The harmony of faint layers of blue between the white & darkening-lightening grey. It invited him, encouraged him to introspection. There was the off hand cutting that painting pastorals wouldn’t win him the Turner prize. The focus was on political art. Anyway I’ve banged on about this before. What is it about the middle class that they enjoy reading about privation far from their ken. Sometimes in the same street. Not that they would notice. They keep suffering for text & colour, line & form. As if by feeling vicariously they are fighting a battle. & so he stuck with the sky. Inscrutable yet undeniably inviting him somewhere as yet unknown. The blue thickening out a good deal yet intertwining with the grey which now was filtering the late afternoon/early evening light. & barely a breath of wind. The birds moving about yet almost mute. A last ditch for the day’s food. No time to gabble. Soon enough the magpies will say their evening prayers while the other birds busy themselves with the evening’s retelling of the day & the blackbirds & shrikes look for a late worm. Why the city art scene so hostile to nature? If you ignore it much longer it’ll be lifting off your roof. Now a breath of peach-baby pink on the horizon & the sky lifting off before it shuts down. Phil Lynott taking flight on the antiquated cd, a gift many years ago from his eldest brother, though lost, though never forgotten. A memory. Wait, memories are out. We live in an amnesic zeitgeist. The present constantly rewriting itself. Hence the hostility to Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer when it appeared in the mid 30s, 10 years too late for the post war influx of currency-rich Yanks & a depreciated franc & the real bohemians stuck around through leaner times. & so all great movements in art come at times of prosperity for the struggling artist & nowadays we’re too poor to make art from leisurely contemplation. Preoccupied with poverty, filled with existential fear & dread ours is shoddy, thought poor, hastily made. Hence conceptual art, which is ready sculpture isn’t it? Just bought or brought art because the artist has no imagination nor technique & so all she can do is piggyback off foreign horrors. Somewhere between literature for the semi-literate & the techniqueless hammer & chisel man. Back to the sky & the grey had lifted not 10 minutes later. Much larger expanses of blue like you could Holi and be splattered in colour. It is inviting me in like a lover now & we will lie together in carnal sanctity.

 

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.