Part treatise, part critique, part call to action, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is a journey into the uncanny realities revealed to us in the great works of art of the past and present.
J.F. MARTEL is a writer and award-winning filmmaker working in the
Canadian film and television industry. In addition to making
several short films, he has researched, written and/or directed a
number of documentary programs on topics related to culture and the
arts for major Francophone broadcasters, including La Portee des
mots (season two), a twelve-part documentary series exploring the
transformative power of song with some of French Canada's great
songwriters.
Martel is a contributor to the web magazine Reality Sandwich. His
essay on Stanley Kubrick was included in the first Reality Sandwich
anthology, Toward 2012- Perspectives on the Next Age
(Tarcher-Penguin), edited by Daniel Pinchbeck and Ken Jordan. His
work will also appear in North Atlantic Books's forthcoming title
Pluto- Astronomy, Astrology, Mythology, edited by Richard
Grossinger.
“Leaping gracefully from Coleridge to Kubrick, from the Bible to
Baudrillard, J.F. Martel offers us a lovely and powerful reminder
that the greatest art presents the world through mystery rather
than manipulation. Arguing that art's prophetic promise comes from
its capacity to rupture the workaday world of means and ends,
Martel calls for a visionary return to the imaginal rifts of a
novelty beyond artifice.”
—Erik Davis, author of TechGnosis
“A key work for the soul of our time, Reclaiming Art in the Age of
Artifice is for the seasoned artist and the novice alike, for all
those who dare to walk in, as J.F. Martel writes, an ‘excess of
meaning.’ We need those today who would dare to live this way, and
this book is a resounding call to return to the Imaginal life.
‘Sing in me muse,’ spoke Homer, and Martel has writ this large
across the pages.”
—Jeremy D. Johnson, editor at Reality Sandwich
“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: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal
“‘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
imagination—and, above all, art’s 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 us—in a carefully
reasoned progression—that 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. What’s
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 pretentiousness—to say nothing
of the triviality—that has surrounded art, reading J.F.
Martel’s 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
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