Sept. 27 HRC: Dodgson, Beerbohm, Hemingway.
Max, don't tell me if I'm wrong. I
know absolutely nothing about Max Beerbohm, or so it would seem. I'm looking at these drawings, quite nice
drawings, and while the figures and their representation please me, I am trying
to figure out if Max drew them and who they are of. I scan back and forth, my eyes grazing over
the collection. Are all of these the
work of Max Beerbohm? There are so many
names written on these mattes, so I take a chance and commit to an obvious
frame. The
title, I'm presuming, is Mr. William
Archer Really Conversing, by Max Beerbohm.
Funny, I have no idea who Mr. Archer is either. Beerbohm's portrayal of him seems less than
positive. Mr. William Archer sits
perched on a chair, on the very edge, in front of a tilted vanity mirror. Three combs are sitting on the edge of the
covered table. Mr. Archer, his back upright
and attentive, holds a notepad in his hand, poised for note taking. Most striking of all is Mr. Archer's face—or
lack there of. Mr. Archer's face is
featureless. The obvious compensation
for this is a mask that dangles loosely from his ears… a mask with a smarmy, grinning
visage. Along the decorated wall hang
other masks, perhaps Mr. Archer's masks, with various other features and faces. I
do not know who Mr. William Archer is, or Max Beerbohm for that matter. But
Max Beerbohm's artwork is some sort of commentary, I can gather that. Perhaps Beerbohm's satirical portrait is just
one of many cynical artistic productions.
The artwork in the cases is all apart of his overall work of social
commentary. I
can see Max, sitting in a room choked with cigar smoke, sipping from a glass of
cheap port wine. He's grimacing at the
thought of the injustices, the crimes, the two-faced politicians and the
journalists riding on their coattails, journalists more willing to pad their
pockets and their words than deliver facts.
And in my mind, Max is grumbling in discontent as he sketches, uttering
dissenting comments with each exaggerated stroke, with every telling line. As his work grows with life, with every added
detail, his anger and disgust are gradually placated to a gentle murmur. Max has done his part—he's painted the
hypocrisy that plagues him and now everyone will see it too. Max
scrutinizes the world with a calloused eye.
Men of evil motives surround him every which way. Shifty characters slither undetected among
us… nearly undetected. Max sees them. Max knows.
His lips part slightly and pull back into an all-knowing smirk. You cannot escape him. Max
is drinking scotch now, lounging in a formidable chair, chewing the end of his
cigar and thinking about people… all the people he's going to depict… all the
people he will expose as the crooks and thieves they really are. Sometimes Max is wrong, however. Sometimes Max feels compelled to articulate a
person on paper as villainous and malevolent, but honestly, the person is much
more innocuous than first perceived. Max
doesn't see this as his failure, but as a sort of redemption for humanity. Sometimes people are just people! With that notion, Max Beerbohm can sleep well
at night, with just a little help from his friend Gin. And
of course, this is merely speculation, derived from only one drawing, the one
drawing I can confidently pin to this mysterious Beerbohm. I could be completely wrong. I rather like my Max Beerbohm, however. Do
I really want to know what's right? Max
Beerbohm—a grumpy old cynic with plenty of acquaintances and extra money to
spend. Max Beerbohm—a man taunted by
politics, bureaucrats, and politics. Max
Beerbohm. Max, I wonder, do you have any
TRUE friends? A wife? Children? For some reason, I don't think so. A cynic like you couldn't ever truly love
unconditionally. You'd be wary of
ulterior motives, of flimsy devotion. Maybe
Max did have a wife, or a love, and perhaps he lost her. If it wasn't under tragic circumstances, I
have a feeling it was a symptom of his personality—his inability to open up and
let his true emotions show for fear of them being taunted or being taken
advantage of. Was there fear of
vulnerability, of being naked, of exposed mind and soul? Perhaps. I mean he IS an artist after
all. Generally, artwork stems from an
emotional reservoir that the rest of the world is unable to tap. So artists write, or paint, or dance; they
find some sort of vehicle to transport their emotions. I wonder if this sort of expression could
actually be a façade. Can't you just see
"artists" conveying their "emotions" but in all actuality, they just convey
false emotions, forced emotions, stifled emotions, all to ultimately hide their
true emotions they supposedly let out?
Though I'm sure this is not true of all artists, how sad it would be to
have to hide your emotions while you're trying to convey them abstractly. Would that be an ultimate lie? Complete total
self-deception? So
here's Max Beerbohm, crotchety and cynical, professing his dissatisfaction with
crooks and thieves, a possible expression of his state of mind. People see him
dragging grumpily by. Children make wide
paths around his lumbering figure in attempts to assuage his temperament. Women whisper among themselves; "Oh, that old
Max! He's disillusioned with society! Who could blame him? All those money-hungry politicians always
down his throat!" Men at cocktail parties
bite their tongues for fear of spiting his anger. They think it's the state of the world that
has him down. Just look at his ART work,
they say. But what if it wasn't? What
if it was a woman? A beautiful, fragile, loving woman who stole his heart after
he shattered hers. Max Beerbohm. A
heart-broken lover wallowing in his mistakes, loss, and despair. What if that was this artist's true
motivation? What if his persona was a
guise, a lie, a bluff? |