A man sits drawing, black ink on white paper. Designs, patterns,
sketches, caricatures of no-one in particular. Each a small consideration,
none a full explanation. Just shapes, ideas, cohesive strokes of a
black ink pen; few more than 2 or 3 inches wide.
One day the man's teenage daughter - insisting that he let her show
his creations to the world - convinces him to let her enlarge one
of the faces, frame it and enter it in the Archibald. The art world
went into an absolute frenzy :
"Such simplicity!" they cried.
They wanted more! They'd stand for hours on end studying the piece,
admiring it from all angles and pondering its meaning; which they
could not ascertain. The man's daughter carefully released more pieces;
the man consenting with :
"Certainly, sell them if you must; no other person will know what
they mean."
Every fashionable person wanted one; an original to hang over their
dining table, a print for their reception, magazines of them for their
coffee tables. The rich socialites snapped them up, badgering their
art critic friends for explanations for what they meant. The critics
pulled at the collars of their black skivvies and muttered vague things
about the confusion of society; until finally they all went to the
man at the ends of their anguish :
"Please tell us what they mean!" they said.
"Why must they have a meaning?" the man asked.
"Everything means something…" they replied.
"Only in your minds," said the man, "although you probably can't
understand that."
They asked over and over what had inspired the drawings, what their
message was, what they meant; and when he simply smiled and said they
could mean nothing to them, they went and got books of art - similar
and totally different.
"Here!" they said, thrusting them under his nose, "do you identify
with any of this?"
"No," came the reply, "I identify with the artist if he was pressed
for meaning… but I did not take inspiration or meaning from works
such as these."
So the critics left him alone and argued amongst themselves. Whole
magazines were devoted to the question; book after book appeared,
each with complicated explanations and long-winded theoretical discussions
of form, media and expression. Art students based their theses on
the question of the man's drawings, editorials discussed the phenomenon
at length.
All through this time, the man continued to draw his pictures. He
became rich from his daughter's selling of the pictures. His house
was filled with the finest items, the most advanced electronics; they
ate the best food and drank the best wines. He sat in the midst of
this reserved opulence with his black pen and white paper, drawing
pictures.
The white paper ran out. The man had no more in his house; so he
went to his desk and found some red paper. Shortly after, the critics
returned in droves to beg for an explanation - he'd done something
new! Once again he insisted that only they were placing great and
deep meanings for society on his drawings.
"They're just drawings, I'm not trying to say anything with them,"
he said.
"But you must be!" came the frustrated reply.
"Why? To satisfy your curiosity? To feed your belief that all artists
want to solve the world's problems? To attack my innermost feelings
in order to understand them? What shit. When you ask for meaning you
search for something you want to be there; not what is there, or what
it means to me."
They pounce :
"AHA! SO YOU ADMIT IT MEANS SOMETHING!" they screamed in unison.
He sighs.
"Only to me. You want to discover some reason for why I draw these
things, to have a meaning given to you so you can give it to your
rich socialite friends. Why can't you just look at them for what they
are?"
"Because you won't tell us what that is!"
"They're drawings, Nothing more, nothing less."
"But they must have a meaning otherwise what did you do them for?"
"I've already given you the answers to your questions. You just refuse
to accept that because the answers aren't the ones you want to hear."
The critics left him once again and wrote more books to explain the
red paper. Theories were in abundance : the man is angry that nobody
can understand his statement, red is anger, red is sadness in the
form of spilled blood. The man laughed and put white paper on his
shopping list.
He goes to the art shop and buys more white paper. While doing so
he notices a set of black pens; various thickness, different shaped
tips. He buys them, and begins trying different ideas, different sized
drawings.
Agonised, the critics (many of whom are now halfway to insane) come
back. They demand that he reveals his secret, that he tell them why
he is drawing the things he draws. He stopped drawing with a sigh.
"All right," he said, "I'll tell you."
A mad scream of delight comes from one of the more deranged critics,
who then passes out. His peers stand on him to get closer to the man.
He looks at them, sighs again, and says quietly :
"I draw them because I think they look cool, and I find them easy
to draw - they just come out. I changed to red paper because I ran
out of white. I used new pens to play around. That's all."
A long silence descends on the room.
Finally one critic breaks the tension :
"YOU'RE A FOOL! An idiot! Everyone knows that a change in media denotes
new meaning… everyone knows the drawings have a meaning! Everyone
except you!"
"But I drew them. I say they have no meaning."
The critics decide he is a moron, a philistine, an uncultured dunce.
They rush off to start their new books.
The man stands up, still holding his pen; thinks for a moment, and
announces to his daughter :
"I feel like something new. I think I'll take up painting."
He smiles, and puts the pen down.
"I think I've said all I needed to."
ENDE