Dylan, Rouault, Maritain

and art of transcendence

(screenshot from trailer for A Complete Unknown)

Interesting connections here. A friend directed me to the trailer for the Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” to be released Christmas Day.

My friend has a keen eye — he noticed a Georges Rouault painting on a wall of what is depicted as Dylan’s 1960s apartment. It’s in the upper left corner of the screenshot above. It is titled “The Old King.”

The French-born Rouault (1871-1958) has been called “The Monk of Modern Art.”

Created sometime between 1916 and 1936, the story of “The Old King” as told by ArtWay.eu begins “During the first decades of the 20th century, when God was increasingly forgotten and the human image dismantled or erased, Rouault turned his full attention with great compassion toward the broken human image observed around him, seeking its heart and its healing. Among the paintings from Rouault’s long artistic career, The Old King stands out as arguably the most powerful, the most mysterious, and the most personal.” You can read the rest of the fascinating story here.

The original painting, while not currently on view, is held at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. That link will take you to details of the painting.

Rouault, it seems, was a bit of a loner, but had a great friend in philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973). Maritain wrote a brief biography of Rouault. Their influence on each other has been studied in two recommended scholarly papers. An essay by the late Notre Dame professor of literature Bernard Doering (1924-2016) can be found here.

And Thomas Hibbs, professor at Baylor University, presented a paper titled “Rouault and Maritain on Art of Transcendence” in 2022. A video of his presentation can be found here.

Knowing this background helps one appreciate Rouault.

If Dylan did have “The Old King” hanging on his wall, we wonder what attracted him to it. Maybe the film will touch on art of transcendence. There’s always hope.