Martel - Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action

J.F. Martel is an incisive cultural critic with a penetrating vision of art. His book is a quiet manifesto for the creative act, reminding us of the numinous quality of the aesthetic object, as well as the intrinsic strangeness of our lives in the world.

Daniel Pinchbeck, author of Breaking Open the Head and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

The complete colonization of the mind is the final frontier of capitalist domination. As Martel is aware, this domination proceeds, at ever-increasing speed, through the reduction of the imagination to that which can be predicted and controlled. Far from being merely the commodification of the aesthetic, this project is engineered to eliminate the ineffability and uniqueness of human existence, as such. This book is a beautifully written lament and a passionate, prophetic plea for what remains not only of art but also of humanity.

Joshua Ramey, associate professor, Grinnell College, and author of The Hermetic Deleuze

Art, J.F. Martel writes, astonishes and is born of astonishment. And that is the theme of this extraordinary book: that beauty is indispensable because it mounts a continual challenge against false views of reality. Drawing his examples from across cultures, history and genres, Martel celebrates mystery, the imaginationand, above all, arts power to testify to the individual consciousness. An ambitious, exciting debut. Highly recommended.

James Arthur, assistant professor, Johns Hopkins University

Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice argues for the beauty of the transcendent experience of art in contrast to the jarring world of modern artifice. Moving confidently and effortlessly among films, literature, and paintings, J.F. Martel shows usin a carefully reasoned progressionthat all great art is ultimately rooted in the powerful mystery of life.

David Staines, professor, University of Ottawa

This is a fascinating and invigorating book. In explaining art as a concrete expression of a mythic reality that is simultaneously beautiful, awesome, terrifying, numinous, and sublime, J.F. Martel fuses a high metaphysical and ontological vision with a rich sensibility that is equal parts mysticism and weird horror. Whats more, he offers a dead-on diagnosis of our present cultural moment as an age of artifice in which political and commercial concerns have hijacked the power of art and forced it to serve the demons of hype and propaganda. I hope Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice reaches a large number of sympathetic readers, and that they will find its argument as resonant and inspiring as I do.

Matt Cardin, author of Dark Awakenings and A Course in Demonic Creativity

Here is a lucid and timely reminder of those things that so often seem to be forgotten in considerations of art, notably the absolute importance of beauty, of mystery, of depth. After decades of the cant and pretentiousnessto say nothing of the trivialitythat has surrounded art, reading J.F. Martels book was a serious wake-up call, as refreshing as a sudden access of deeply breathed, ozone-laden air.

Patrick Harpur, author of The Secret Tradition of the Soul

Copyright 2015 by J.F. Martel. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout written permission of the publisher. For information contact Evolver Editions c/o North Atlantic Books.

Published by Evolver Editions, an imprint of North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712

Cover art iStockphoto.com/blackred
Cover design by Michael Robinson and Mary Ann Casler
Interior design by Mary Ann Casler

Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action is sponsored and published by The Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martel, J.F., 1977
Reclaiming art in the age of artifice : a treatise, critique, and call to action / by J.F. Martel.
pages cm. -- (Manifesto series)
Includes bibliographical references.
Summary: Draws on examples ranging from prehistoric cave art to modern pop music to discuss the nature and purpose of art and its use by powerful social and cultural forces-- Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-58394-578-0 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-58394-859-0 (e-book)
1. Aesthetics. 2. Arts and society. I. Title.
BH39.M3975 2015
700.103--dc23

2013045038

v3.1

For Lesley

Man is made a mystery for mysteries and visions.

Arthur Machen, The House of Souls

I would like to thank the following people for their help and support in the writing of this book: Daniel Pinchbeck, Richard Grossinger, Doug Reil, Vanessa Ta, Christopher Church, Franois Baril-Pelletier, Dominic Bercier, Jean-Michel Le Gal, Aaron Poole, Filip Zalewski, and especially David Staines, Jean Martel, Louise Blanger, Pierre-Yves Martel, Ginette Gratton, and Lesley Halferty.

Art is the name we have given to humanitys most primal response to the mystery of existence. It was in the face of the mystery that dance, music, poetry, and painting were born.

Since the dawn of the current era, art has been under threat.

In the place where it belongs on the cultural landscape, two idols stand like golden calves demanding worship:

Pornography, the use of aesthetics to manipulate through desire; and

Propaganda, the use of aesthetics to manipulate through fear.

Even where true art is made, powerful economic and political forces are there to subjugate it to one of the idols.

The work of art is apolitical and free of moralism. The artist, Wilde said, is free to express everything.

It is precisely the absence of political and moral interest that makes art an agent of liberation wherever it appears.

Art opposes tyranny by freeing beauty from the clutches of the powers of this world.