I live on a piece of rock which sticks out of the sea in the top right hand corner of the world (as long as you look at it from a certain way). People call it Great Britain.
On this particular bit of rock, and there are a fair few poking out of the sea here and there, so not sure why this is special, the whole idea of nation states has, despite clearly being fundamentally ridiculous, taken hold somewhat.
And, on this rock, Germans tend to get short shrift. Somewhat – nut not entirely – unreasonable, albeit mainly due to the various unpleasantnesses of the last century.
But despite all the Nazis and Kaisers, they were also kind enough to furnish us with Albrecht von Wallenstein, Kant, Beethoven, Nietzsche, Engels, Marx, the last 17 monarchs of our rock, and a chap called Goethe. Joe Goethe.
Goethe said and wrote loads of really cool stuff – just Google the fella if you don’t believe me – but by far my favourite was the idea that life is short, art is long. He added stuff about judgement, transience and things, but the first bit is the important part.
Art is long. It lasts, y’know? I happen to pop along to a building which has been built on our rock, near to another building on our rock, in which I live. In that building (not the one I live in, the other one) there is a painting called Calais Sands at low water Poissards collecting bait, by a chap called Joseph Mallord William Turner.
I’ve seen it dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and it always, always takes my breath away. It is astonishing. It is beautiful, alluring, strange, immaculate, emotive – it is a work of art. It has been since it was painted in 1830. It will remain so in 2030, when I am 64, and will remain so in 2130, when I am long, long dead.
Thing is, art happens a lot, and it is important. Tonight I watched telly; among the Masterchefs and low grade sketch shows was This is England 86. At first, we (my couchmate and I) would chat. And then we stopped chatting, and just watched. And watched.
We were talking about important stuff, but we stopped to watch this. Because it was more important, because it was art. Because it mattered, and will last. It will last longer than me, than my couchmate, but because we experienced it, we are now part of it. We add our experience to the collective experience of everyone.
Which, I think, is what Joey G was on about. Art lasts, but because it adds and augments every little life it touches, and every life that touches it, makes it last.
So what does this mean for our twitter centric, living in the now generation? Nowt. We are the same. Art lasts for us, just as much as our lives are short, but it lasts because we experience it, and add to it.
Just go and look at some nice pictures, yeah?
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