Oftentimes, the condition needful to the character of the “artistic”, persuaded of deep and ineluctable transmutations, doth prophesy upon Art, regressing into an altered conceit of the Self. Such foreknowledge doth precede and foretell the advent of the Missing Art. The cause hereof is to be sought in the discord betwixt a resolv’d inward inspiration and the narration thereof returned by contingency, which the subject knoweth not nor doth accept.
From “The Parallel Lives of Joseph Conti”
In the estate of human health, subdu’d to the sway of atmospheric humours, the chosen among men did delight to behold and ponder upon Art, marvelling thereat beyond measure and esteeming themselves to be enlightened and boundless, both in greatness, in majesty, and in comeliness. From time out of mind hath it been held for certain, that the mutable weather commandeth dominion o’er the health of the artistic man; and such belief is grounded in the noting that many artists of sundry ages, diverse humours, and several manners, dwelling in sundry places, are yet stricken at once with the selfsame chimera — the Phantom Art.
With what deep wisdom so fair a system be fram’d shall be manifest to whosoever beareth reason in his head; it is made plain by the utterance of those that suffer from the Phantom Art, who abide in a wholesome dread, though they possess the literal scrolls of true traditions. This thing is most true, and I myself had some proof thereof, when first I began to muse and reckon. Seeming to me, therefore, this phenomenon most wondrous and clear, I began to examine with utmost diligence the sundry facts that do accompany it, and at length became assur’d that in the very air do lie the first-born seeds of this stirring.
This chimera was made plain in my youthful treatise, Of the Affects and Airly Sentiments, when I observ’d how, beneath certain airs and in some seasons of the year, there arise within the animal engine of the artistic man certain singular disorders. Yet whilst the greater number among the folk hold that such disorders come of the changes from heat to cold, from moist to dry, I do avow that in the artist the true cause lieth in paroxysmal alterations of the state of resilience.
Behold in brief the proofs of the strange perceiving of the Phantom Art. ‘Tis a working of the mind that toucheth not madness, whereby thought imagines the substance artistic as yet existing, or as if some memory thereof did linger still. Of itself, it bringeth not sharp pain, but a lively excitation. The dolor of the Phantom Art ariseth chiefly when the artist is in the daily condition of inspiration. Above all, as it chanceth with near all craftsmen who are devout champions of their own high art, they deceive themselves, believing their utterance to be in true accord with necessary and concrete causes, exalted to the dignity and state of knowledge.
Now, to bring the many things into one, and to end this concept, let us bear in mind the consequence that emerges from the narrated truths for itself, because the proverbial man needs memory. The sensation of phantom art is an intense awareness of a missed yet necessary and authentic art, sometimes accompanied by slight paresthesias. Frequently, artists feel only a part of the missing Art, often the coveted consensus achievement, the last phantom sensation to disappear. It is as if paroxysmal electrical activity facilitates perception in those men reputed now to be geniuses now to be gods. In such abasement, then arises the verbal witchcraft of the Numinous, which liberates the unexpressed artistic concepts and inflames them with the infinite conviction of the otherworldly.
Divers treatments — such as the simultaneous exercise of metaphor, the striking of inspiration, or the employing of certain devices to allay excessive creative urgings — may bring solace. Among remedies, the vegeto-mineral waters and the warm local bath do prove full helpful in the season of greatest inflammation.
The sense of the Phantom Art is not perilous; yet artists, unthinking, do oft seek to rise upon both legs and tumble, most of all when they wake in the night to make for the privy.
Some passages are taken from: “Observations on the casual and periodical influence of particular states of the atmosphere ec, – Observations over the casual é periodical influence of the particular states of the atmosphere on human health and diseases, notably Insanity , with a roster of Authors: by Thomas Forster ec, ec.: Second Edition . та. London 1919.” and freely repurposed following the exoskeleton technique proper to Lar.
