Art & Lies
Art Objects, Jeanette Winterson


I read these two books recently, in that order. Art and Lies is fiction, Art Objects is a book of short essays, and whilst they cover some similar territory, ideas on what art is and how it fits within life, and in particular within our culture of corporate consumer capitalism, I think that Art & Lies is probably the more beautiful read. That said, all of Winterson's prose is essentially poetry, and I find it a joy to read even when I think she has been opinionated, bombastic or arch - maybe especially then!



Art and Lies had great passages of beautiful prose which I would memorise if I had the dedication to do so. Kind of like the type of literary tattoo I would get it you could print words into the ether around you rather than images into flesh. There is one passage about the sea, in Art and Lies, which is particularly wonderful. the story looks at what it is to be a woman artist (painter, writer) - to grapple with expactations and sexual politics and double standards. One of the characters is the female Picasso in modern day England grappling with family expectations and the presumption of madness, one is Sappho the poet who exists both as the historical figure and modern day lover, one is Handel, a surgeon who loves opera and God and is deemed quaint and archaic by his colleagues.

"There's no such thing as autobiography, there's only Art and Lies"

Handel struggles to feel, to allow expression of his passions, to be authentic to himself in the midst of corporate culture - which has art merely as accessory, gross consumption but no tasting of what is consumed, lack of appreciation, of wonder. He is afforded staus and position, but leaves it to nurture his soul. The women are awash with passion and talent, but constrained by the self-serving interests of father/brother (in Picasso's story) or Church and misrepresentation (in Sapppho's story).

The story weaves around in a way that plays with time and place - gently a story emerges. It is not a linear, pointed, fast and obvious plot by any means, but more like a beautiful symphony which takes you along and connects directly with your subconscious. If you've read other worksby Winterson you wil be familiar with the style. If you haven't, I suggest Sexing the Cherry, or The Passion as great starting points. For the sake of categorisation, some people apply labels such as 'Magic Realism' to her work (see the absolute shocker of an entry on Wikipedia - boy did someone not like this writer when they wrote that!), but this is a descriptor the author rejects.

I think essentially this is a piece on authenticity - of spirit, of being authentic to ones true nature, and of the repurcussions that may transpire as a result of expressing authenticity in an world more comfortable with thoughtless reproduction. It is a pretty damming reflection on how society deals with creative women, and on how muted and rationed feeling and expression is in a culture dictated by the market.

From Art & Lies:

"It is so easy to be a brute and yet it has become rather fashionable.."

"It's comforting, my busy life, left alone with my own thoughts I might find that I have none"

"...Such habits and a contemplative nature, have not fitted me for a world that knows neither restraint nor passion. the fatal combination of indulgence without feeling disgusts me. Strange to be both greedy and dead"

"I confess that I am frightened of the sea.There is the sailor sea and the commercial sea, the oil well sea and the fishy sea. The sea that tests the land through sub-lunary power. The rise and fall of the harbour sea and the sea that exists to make maps look prettier. But the functional sea is not the final sea. There is that other sea simply itself. A list of all the things that the sea does is not what the sea is...."




"Some people find this book very difficult. What do you say to that?

Why should literature be easy? Sometimes you can do what you want to do in a simple, direct way that is absolutely right. Sometimes you can't. Reading is not a passive act. Books are not TV. Art of all kinds is an interactive challenge. The person who makes the work and the person who comes to the work both have a job to do. I am never wilfully obscure, but I do ask for some effort. Certainly Art and Lies is my most closed piece of work. Perhaps it is hermeneutic, though no more so than plenty of books by plenty of guys .It was written at a time when I was looking inwards not outwards. It is thickly layered, concentrated and often dark. But it's a book not a crime. If you don't like it, don't read it." (From the authors website)


Winterson on Art Objects:

"it's a verb not a noun. Art objects to the lie against life that it is pointless and mean. The message coloured through time is not lack but abundance, Not silence but many voices. Art, all art is the communication cord that cannot be snapped by indifference or disaster. Against the daily death it does not die." (From the authors website)

Quotes from the book:
"To suggest that the writer, painter, the musician, is the one out of touch with the real world is a doubtful proposition. It is the artist who muct apprehend things fully, in their own right, communicating them not as symbols but as living realisties with the power to move."

"For the artist,any artist, poet, painter, musician, time in plenty and an abundance of ideas are the neccassary basics of creativity. By dreaming and idleness and then by intense self-discipline does the artist live. The artist cannot perform between 9 and 6, five days a week, or if she sometimes does, she cannot gaurantee to do so. Money culture hates that. It must know what it is getting, when it is getting it, and how much it willcost. The most tyrannical of patrons never demanded from their protegees what the market now demands of artists; if you can't sell your work regularly and quickly, you can ither starve or do something else. The time that art needs, which may not be a long time, but which has to be its own time, is anathema to a money culture. money confuses time with itself. That is part of its unreality." (pp138-9).