Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“‘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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”