it's a pleasure

I'm not a Hedonist, well, maybe a long term hedonist, rather than seeking short term gratification (which doesn't really work), so maybe i am.. no. Maybe i'm more in line with Epicurus (he was in that book on philosophy i read, he wasn't a materialist though, as many people claim, wrongly. He didn't believe we should be gluttonous, he was more a believer in basic needs to fulfill pleasure - friendship, shelter, food. Simple pleasures).

ANyway...

what i meant to say was about painting. Because painting is pleasurable, i mean maybe this applies to all art forms, but paint, especially oil, with it's slippery, buttery feel, it's pleasurable to paint with that, or its pleasurable to paint with pleasure in mind. Not that that's all painting is, or that's all a painter's life should be - pleasure. The opposite in fact, for me definitely, roughness of life, turmoil, depression, anxiety, apathy, unhappiness, troubles, all conspire to make paint pleasurable, if painting is your goal. Not that i advocate chasing after these negatives in order to paint better, though maybe i did that when i was younger. Wanting to paint better, being inspired by good ideas, having painting tied up with your life, that's as good a way as any. Making painting your centre, not your centre of focus, but what you focus with.

All these painters i love, from the past, Boucher, Fragonard, Rowlandson, they are not 'dry' painters, they have flair and style, and the tip of their brush or pen is filled with excitement, and jitters, and flowing, it glows. Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Baselitz, Van Gogh, Richter, Cecily Brown, Chardin, Daumier... And the content? nowadays it's been pulled apart for so long that it's a struggle just to not worry about content. Just to paint what's around you, to be comfortable. That's what it is, 90% of life is rhetoric, and that goes for the arguments you have with yourself.. that's how you win them. Well, not win, but a convincing argument is enough. Especially in matters of art, which are removed from life, they do not require as much reason as life does.

Art, i may be wrong in saying (but i convinced myself) that Wittgenstein did for philosophy what Duchamp did for art, not that their intentions were the same, but that the effect they had was that art began to turn in on itself (oh this has happened before, and began in art probably, in earnest, with Monet and Impressionism.) When art started to be less about life, and more about art. And when philosophy became less about life, and more about philosophy. When it all became a bit insular and elite. Funny how, during these 'elite' years, art has been more accessible to the public via free galleries and tv programmes than at any other time.

Actually it was pretty rather pointless to say, that last paragraph, wasn't it? (Is my bumbling manner offensive? i didn't think it could be, but i don't seem to put people at ease in telephone conversations, even when i'm being really really nice..)

Pleasure, it's in writing too. But it's not the pleasure of a cake or a lazy day in front of the television. Its the pleasure of a beer on the top of a mountain. Or a kiss after a years separation.