Landscaping the Imagination
"Good painting is the kind that looks like sculpture."
-Michelangelo
Italians have culture. Anglo-Saxons don't 'have' culture; Anglo-Saxons have an appreciation for culture. Being an Anglo-Saxon, therefore, I don't pride myself on having culture. What I have is an appreciation for culture—not merely appreciation—but an actual liking for “culture.” It gives me confidence knowing I'm not alone. I can't prove it, however, I'd be willing to bet I wouldn't have any at all if not for all the pointers I have received. A little like the new, pet canary, which needs to hear even so much as a recording of mature canary song in order to develop the ability to sing.
What I do feel is in need of clarification is any implication of condescending, patronizing, patient superiority. Occupying my seat at a show, while waiting for it to begin, I will admit to indulging a touch in feeling a patron of the Arts. Supporter, here, is a euphemism for buyer. That, in turn, makes the performer a purveyor, a worker, one earning by performing. My only remaining worry, therefore, is over the class dichotomy of "the" worker-performer / bourgeois-audience member.
After that advisory, everything else about culture is pure aesthetic delight. Venice was an empire built upon trade, commerce, and not through war and colonial conquest. Talent in Italy is a thing to be proud of, and earning for talent equals legitimacy, respectability. It is true, the humble artisan might charge a higher fee, calling down upon himself the criticism of mercenary motives. Judging by the proud bearing of every single Italian, however, artisanal pride is the more highly esteemed object, paralleling the aesthetic enjoyment taken in the work of art by patrons.
Perhaps I see artistic flourish where none was intended. Maybe I flatter myself. It may be an instance of confirmation bias. If so, it's a non-lethal, high-functioning paranoia. Mine is not simply the (self) affirmation of taste. It is a perception of artistry attributable to the human hand, along the same lines as Saussure's synchronic-diachronic semiology. As there, the signified is to the meaningful gesture, as the signifier is to the gesturing hand. It is the epistemology of perceived meaning where none exists in nature.
Outside my apartment is a great Ponderosa pine. It is the only such specimen as far as the eye can see. It was certainly planted after the building was erected. The building was designed as a short-stay, holiday motor hotel which was converted, in the 1980s, into condominiums. As long-stay apartments, they are too small for more than one tenant, and consequently rented. Neighbors who still own tell me the neighborhood has changed. The Ponderosa pine has lived its natural life, and looks like it won't survive another year. There was a twin close by, but it was dead when I moved in, and fell over in a windstorm last year.
The property manager is a wise guy. When the tree fell over, he asked me why. The property manager (Mike) has a son, Mike (junior). Since I lived here, Mike, Jr., has grown up. Once, when I had not seen Mike, Jr., in awhile, I asked Mike, Sr., where Mike, Jr., had gone. Mike, Sr., said he went “back” to New York. That was when Mike, Jr., was around age 20. I understood. I assumed he wouldn't be returning, as in, “you can't keep them down on the farm,” -but he did. The property owner lives in New York. It is a family concern (the neighbors tell me), and junior stayed with relations in New York.
Family ties are stronger than youthful wanderlust, and Mike's father needed his help. Mike, Jr., eventually returned. From a cultural point of view, I was curious, when Mike returned, what effect New York had on him. Today, Mike, Jr., runs the operation. He has a staff of full-time groundsmen, and a family of his own. Mike keeps the place up, and, more tangibly, keeps it a family-owned property. Property values, here, have more than quadrupled just since I moved in. I'd be willing to bet that, if Mike's family ever sells, the State will elbow-out all other bidders. Its location is that strategic.
Mike is an efficient manager, but—because he's Italian—I gave more weight to his potential, than to his efficiency. I just knew he could do more than he lets-on. I kept looking for talent. I knew it would shine one day. Italians are proud because they are talented. They don't just do a good job. They do the job with good taste. Because (as they say) good taste costs no more. That's also great value. It's up to the buyer to appreciate it, as I began by saying, which is the complement of my definition of art. And, make no mistake; it's not just about making good choices, it's about the reason behind the choice. That, I might add, is aesthetics.
Mike's big moment finally came -as I knew it would. It was to be a public exhibition of his tree-trimming ability. Not, to be clear, that he did any of the trimming himself. He directed the performance. The tree is dying. As one without knowledge of trees that is not immediately evident to the senses, the tree's condition might be stated as in articulo mortis. It is still green (in patches), but dead below the branches. It is sad. The wind can yet be heard in the branches. It is a sigh, however, not the whisper of living pine needles.
When the job was finished, and everybody went home to dinner, I wondered at the totally dead branch left untrimmed. Maybe the job's unfinished, I thought. The next day there was no further work done on the tree, and the next, and the next. I thought I might be wrong about the potential of Mike's tree trimming ability. As they say about surgery: “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” Perhaps Mike decided it was not worth it? Then I saw it (the tree) from a distance, a full block away, while I waited for the walk signal to change at the intersection. The ensemble of branches, trunk, dead limb and all, came together as a unity. It appeared to be a perfect—ideal—representation of a pine tree, the type seen in Italy. Don't go running to image search for examples. You already have, in mind, the idea of the perfect Italian pine tree.
It looked like the idea of a pine tree. If you insist on comparison, to be fair, be philosophical. Listen to Respighi's “The Pines of Rome” for an example of what I mean. It's the concept of a picturesque tree, see? -the idea latent in matter, and which the artist exposes like an anatomist reveals the layers of muscles, veins, and nerves beneath the outer layer of skin by dissection. Inside the dead husk of my dying Ponderosa pine is the living being of a pine tree apparent to the inner sense of the intellect. A sketch, capturing in a few deft strokes, the eternal form of the ideal tree. And not just any “tree.” It's a signed representation of the cultural memory of the Italian pine tree latent in Mike's (and my) memory.
I can write these thoughts with confidence where perhaps no one will read them. That, as opposed to personally congratulating Mike on a job well done -even better than average, etc. If I did that, Mike would just look at me, as if to say, “C'mon, you're putting me on.” Or, he might think I was hiding criticism behind an off-handed remark about his tree-trimming job. It's still the last pine standing in the area. Even the birds shun it for nesting. It could fall with the next wind storm. It has lost the moment of insight for me, as well, with familiarity. And yet, for one miraculous moment, the stone crypt of matter opened, revealing the latent soul within the tree.