logo banner

Insanity and High Art

Share on twitter
Share on facebook

Someone who apparently wasn’t Albert Einstein: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.

Maybe it’s the fact that I grow more and more into Charlie Brown every day, but I really think the above art is a million times more relevant to the whole world than the Mona Lisa or anything that Caravaggio (random artist I learned about in High School Humanities – I couldn’t identify a Caravaggio if my life depended on it) painted.

Look there is a real Caravaggio. Kind of creepy isn’t it?

Unfortunately, just putting any one strip into a museum would miss the point since Charles Schultz ended perhaps thirty gazzillion strips with it.

First of all, Lucy is not going to ever let Charlie Brown kick that ball and Charlie Brown knows it. Lucy is always going to go Lucy on him, but he keeps on trying. Is this the sign of a true never say die romantic or just another idiot falling pray to the same stupid mistake over and over again?

I suppose that it’s inspirational that he never gives up and refuses to change his outlook on life, but shouldn’t Charlie Brown’s dad come home from that f-ing barber shop and teach him about life and women and all the other hazards out there?

You could argue that Schultz sort of ripped off the myth of Sisyphus so props to the Greeks for coming up with it first.

And yet me and all my heroes keep embracing the Charlie Brown role. I’ve felt like this at least 12 million times in my life, with probably an equal amount of sort of sympathetic people telling you that you have to get your act together.

I think there is a line from Rosie Perez in White Men Can’t Jump where she says something like “You better get yourself a new life honey because the one you got ain’t working for you.”

And yet who doesn’t love a martyr after they are dead and gone?

Oops, now that I think of it she said that to Spike Lee in Do The Right Thing.

Join the Conversation

2 Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Also – the angel is definitely male. The face is indeterminate, but the body structure makes it clear. There is a lot going on in this painting. Not saying I don’t appreciate pop art – I do. But hey, classical art is just the pop art of an earlier time.

  2. I like the Caravaggio – it’s erotic. Did you notice how the monk is rubbing his own nipple while the angel caresses him?