The Flaying of Marsyas
Titian has a painting titled The Flaying of Marsyas. The story: the satyr Marsyas challenges the god Apollo to a contest of the arts, whoever wins is allowed to flay the other. Marsyas, challenging the gods, that is to say, going beyond himself loses, and he is being flayed in the painting, all of his skin exposed, Apollo gently takes off his flesh, almost lovingly.
In Michelangelo's painting of the Last Judgment, Saint Bartholomew rides up to Christ. Bartholomew who himself was flayed alive. He is holding up his skin, but anyone who knows art a little realizes that this empty flesh, the flayed flesh in not that of Bartholomew, but of Michelangelo. It is his grey, stripped face, his stonemason's body represented in the hanging skin.
So this is a theme in art. Here is a question for the artist to ask: I ask it myself. Around this question comes many, many troubling revelations which assault our assumption about success. Most of the people we will ever meet are fully prepared to be mediocre. If you would succeed at all times you can only do that which you are sure of doing flawlessly.
But now so the artist. We must always go beyond ourselves and in a way. Whether we hold up the flesh to Christ, or are flayed by Apollo, we always challenge the God within, we always respond to that call, and in some way, we always lose. So winning is not really the question. The question the consummate artists must ask is this: have I offered myself up? Have I gone beyond and ripped off the skin? Have I been merciless on myself and gone into myself? Surely this is the only way. Have I been flayed?
Believe it or not, the only answer that brings peace and rest is, "yes."
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