In Search of an Honet Man

 In Search of an Honest Man, this is a title that comes from the 3rd century B. C. Greek philosopher Diogenes. And I like the title because I find it humorous, actually, for a serious subject. He must have appointed himself the Arbiter of Honesty. You know, it’s, which is a pretentious thing to do, and I don’t necessarily admire Diogenes, but it sort of has caught on historically, this, the title and the subject has been, used in painting and sculpture, really I know of in the 19th century and probably earlier.

Timothy Standring had curated an exhibition for the Denver Art Museum about the artist Castiglione, and there was a piece in there called Diogenes. In Search of an Honest Man. And it was an illustration of the story of Diogenes. It did kind of crack me up. I thought it was rather humorous.

And I thought, yeah, now I have a title, all I need to do is a painting. And, it very seldom goes that way. It’s usually, I do a painting and then I labor for months trying to figure out what to call it. The origin of this painting had to do with a drawing by Rembrandt, which was called Old Blind Man Being Helped by a Woman, and that title kind of caught me because of the passive language, passivity in the language. I’m sure that’s a translated title, and translators aren’t quite as fluid in English usually. But in a way, I like the awkwardness of the title, and I liked it, an old man being helped. And then I started thinking of it, the subject of Diogenes kind of came to me after that.

I mean, I was aware of all these things for years, and I thought, yeah, that kind of fits with the Honest Man, too. And although there’s some symbology that wouldn’t be here. He should be carrying a lantern in search of the Honest Man. And that’s, I didn’t want the lantern. But I did want the dog because he was a cynic. Which I don’t appreciate cynicism at all, but a symbol of the Cynic was a dog, and he lived like a dog in the streets. And, you know, he famously scolded Alexander the Great for blocking his light then when he was living on the street. But then I went on to, something that might be kind of autobiographical.

Which I didn’t think of at all when I was painting it, but it was pointed out to me later. It’s that the stages of my life. There’s me painting now. And then there’s me as an old man. And then there’s me after I’m an old man. On the left. I didn’t even think of that until somebody pointed it out. But I kinda, I think it makes more sense than anything else.

So why are the skeleton, the real reason to paint the skeleton? The real reason’s nowhere near as interesting as a sort of fable reason. I wanted to have those sharp stripes in the cloak to be repeated, and I wanted to find a way to do it, and the ribs were a way to do it, and that that was the real incentive for doing it.

It wasn’t really a, it was a compositional reason more than a philosophical one.