Happy Birthday, Julian Schnabel!

 In 1996... I was about to write this other painter's name, but why do that?

In 1996, another painter, famous, interesting, but a very unpleasant human being, told me about a recent auction he had attended, where one of Schnabel's plate paintings came up for sale. Nobody bid on it. Then one of the plates fell off.

Then, as the interesting, unpleasant painter told it, a ripple of laughter began, which soon became riotous.

The way he told the story, Schnabel, in 1996, was already a has-been, a joke.

In Sydney Pollack's documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry, Schnabel calls Gehry's critics "fleas buzzing around the head of a lion." That's exactly how I think of that other painter now in relation to someone as great as Schnabel. That other famous painter, that unpleasant, cruel man who for a time had me somewhat under his sway, could only relate to others in terms of dominance, conflict, sneering laughter and degradation. Great artists such as Schnabel have a completely different spirit, a spirit which overflows with generosity. I believe that this sense of generosity comes from an awe felt at some things which religious people have been explaining for thousands of years, and which we atheists often have a very hard time describing, let alone explaining, but which exist.

I've never met Julian Schnabel, but I've felt those things through his work. Don't put too much stock in meeting your artistic heroes, be they painters, musicians, actors or what have you. If they're good at their jobs, they've already given you the important things. You don't need to meet them, and if they're famous, there aren't enough tiny little pieces of them for all of their fans. Give them a break, leave them alone, let them work. 

In 1997 I parted ways with that other painter. He's passed away since then. I can only hope, for his sake, that he got some soul before he departed. Like I said, this is hard for atheists to talk about coherently. I hope he was touched by some of the grace that flows from great artworks, such as Schnabel's paintings, but to which he had been blind because of a pre-occupation with dross such as in-crowd reputations, the buzz of the fleas.