Joseph Nicolello – Preliminary Response to ES’s Portrait – More to Come – 10/9/2023

As I transitioned from exclusively writing literary works into the sphere of biographical

writing – I am at present working on my first biography, that of the Homer translator, poet,

scholar, and friend of Flannery O’Connor, Robert S. Fitzgerald – I became at the same time

increasingly interested in deliberate collaboration between the visible and invisible. And to this

end, I had long felt in wandering museums that there are not enough portraits today: anyone can

take a thousand crystal-clear photographs with a phone; but painted portraits seem, alas, bound to

the museum. Moving beyond the surface-level intuition of artists in pursuit of poets, and vice

versa, it struck me that the natural collaborative form and all the potential it entailed had come to

seem like something we once did.

There is some interesting work ongoing in Philadelphia, collaborations between writers

and artists; but I fear it is very unorganized. Working with the son of C.K. Williams on a textual-

artistic collaboration gave me a taste, especially as Jed’s father’s book on Whitman is one I am

fond of using in the classroom, of the visible and the invisible merging. But more deliberation

was needed: to contemplate works of literary art which lend themselves to illustration, as well as

greater dialogue in general with visual artists.

One year ago, then, in October 2022, I distributed a letter asking acquaintances to send

artists my way whom I might contact for a portrait, in particular artists active in NYC,

Philadelphia, &c. – I was just another Gertrude Stein in need of a Picasso.

I looked at many catalogues of contemporary artists, all of whom were very talented in

distinct measures. But to me there was an essence about the work of Emily Strong that struck me

as transcendent. This initial feeling has been solidified by having seen her work in person,

including my very own portrait.

To offer such an observation, I know, demands specificity: which particular works is he

talking about? What exactly does he mean by transcendent? Why does he not offer detail on his

interpretation of perhaps three separate works or so?

Firstly, this brief response to Strong’s portrait is exactly one thousand words long, in

keeping with the old adage. Secondly, when the time is right (no one knows the day or the

hour!), I would like to offer a full-length article exploring Strong’s works. I believe that in

approaching a dozen of them, with some ideas of the French phenomenologist Michel Henry in

mind, a salient essay may be at hand.

For when Strong’s work was first brought to my attention, I was reminded of films,

literary works, even theological languages – ranging from occult history into the great martyrs

and heretics across time, into actual biblical imagery itself – as well as issues of existence more

generally: the human condition; the concept of its object in particular, in a fashion other

contemporary artists did not draw out of me.

To see some of the vaster canvasses in person, then, at the mansion in Catasauqua, is a

profound experience. I do not use the word ‘profound’ carelessly. For one giving a talk on Henry

James at this year’s MLA in Philadelphia, and with The Turn of the Screw on my mind, could a

portrait find a better culminative place than a haunted mansion? To see my own portrait hanging

on the wall stunned me in the way it has since stunned other viewers: there is a collective instinct

to come closer, examine the work, and whisper about how much is happening within the painting

itself.

*

The larger works of Strong’s which first caught my attention called to mind a phrase

from Ezekiel, who William Blake has always reminded me of: “Because I was flesh.” This

phrase likewise has the distinction of being the title of what is probably the greatest American

literary work of art to date, in Edward Dahlberg’s Because I was Flesh. Here at last literary

prophecy and apocalypticism (through Blake and Ezekiel) fused with narrative perfection

(Dahlberg) – and here Strong brings it out, and renders it visible.

*

As a society, we face so many different crises that on top of all of them together, we

suffer from a crisis of being unable to concretely assess our multitude of crises. Political,

existential, technological, sure: but also spiritual, pharmaceutical, economical, and even

aesthetic. In terms of the latter, I believe we have an opportunity: a greater deliberate fusion

between the visible and invisible, as a means by which to revolutionarily reassess the ontological

crisis that is contemporary existence.

Of the desire to reconsider portraits of literary artists, as well as written reflections of

visual artists, there is another prescient dimension: artificial intelligence, automation and

simulation, things which force us to reconsider the soul of the work of art, even if we do not

believe in the soul.

Let us observe that this specter of sentient artificialness forces us to reconsider the

essence of mortality, or finitude. What the great prophets such as Baudrillard and Benjamin saw

many moons ago is in fact the reality within which we find ourselves. As Robert Musil could

write: “Pseudo-reality prevails.” Does it? Time shall tell.

But the very idea of pseudo-reality prevailing also offers us an unparalleled chance for

immersion into psychic worlds previously imperceptible. I partially noted this a couple of years

ago in employing Musil as epigraph for my book Until the Sun Breaks Down: A Künstlerroman

in Three Parts – but then one does not expect anyone to read 1,100-page philosophical novels!

Still, I think the point stands that unprecedented crisis – let us call it, The Apocalypse of

the American Soul – is not simply an entranceway into nihilism and despair. Such things are

always reliable and ever-present – but they are also tools, groundworks, vessels, with which to

apprehend the crisis of the present moment, deliberately fusing the visible and invisible.

Rimbaud once referred to “the time of the assassins” – why don’t literary, artistic,

cinematic, and musical assassins … unite and take over?