Claude-Angele BONI's It's Alright, Ma + Eden

"It's alright Ma I'm only bleeding and
there are no truths outside the gates of Eden"

Over the years I have frequently repeated the quote, "If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well." The saying applies to women equally well, obviously, and the one I am applying it to here is Claude-Angele BONI, a French artist who has been immersed in Dylan-inspiration for five decades or more. 

In 1993 she published a book of her Dylan-themed paintings and collages titled Stuck Inside of Mobile (With a Rhapsody for Bob Dylan.) The more I see of her work the more I have been enthralled, not simply by the imagery but by the stories behind the pictures.

Here are some notes from our correspondence that help shed light on the painting here displayed.

She first heard "Gates of Eden" and "It's Alright, Ma" in 1966. Though she did not speak English she was impressed by the few words she was able to understand. For years she listened to his songs translated into French, so it wasn't until 1976 that found Writings and Drawings and was able to understand exactly what he was talking about, word by word. "I was amazed! I started to analyse those songs so mysterious and clear at the same time, like some "charade", some enigmas, so I left aside the conception I had of him based on his special voice and his fragile and innocent look and I started to consider him as a wise sphinx," she says.

"As soon as I had been free to paint again, in 1974, I made a painting on those two songs. It was the one I chose to offer him in 1978, the year I saw him in the flesh for the first time. It changed my life. Then I started to read a lot of books on history and psychology... The Pandora Box was opened! I started to consider my environment with my eyes wide open... " 

Of the painting itself she writes:

   

"It's alright ma I'm only bleeding'' is the main title. It refers to the struggle of life and "Gates of Eden" refers to resilience and faith. The complete title might be: "It's alright Ma I'm only bleeding and there are no truths outside the gates of Eden. 

This painting is about a son who has stayed long enough with his mother and needs to 'cut the cord' as we say in French when a boy remains too long dependent on his mum. Bob Dylan on the first plane is thinking about what it takes to reach his goal only by himself. Just on his left Bacchus and his bacchanalia will show him the good side of the emancipation, but first he has to 'kill the father.'

Beginning with Elvis laying down in his swimming trunks in Hawaii, like the young David, he will have to fight his opponents with courage using tricks and weapons. Many times, he will remember his mother who blessed him when he left and as soon as his trip really begins he will have a look at the door he has to close behind him, and take a deep breath before he enters the purifying waters. 

I copied David from a picture I had of a bronze by Donatello. I had just visited the city of Firenze (Florence, Italy) and the museum Palazzo Bargello. When I saw the statue, I felt like I was meeting again someone I used to know... I felt a lot of affection for this little David. 

At the Uffizi Gallery I also had the same feeling when I saw the painting by Caravaggio of a young "mischievous" Bacchus. So It gave me the great need to start a painting with Bacchus and David and the idea to add Bob Dylan came as an evident link to David. At the back, the Virgin Mary is a copy of The Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci. As I have, first of all, an Italian background I have a lot of affinity with the Italian painters. 

Thanks for making me have this look back at my beginning.

* * * *

Related Links
French Artist Claude-Angele BONI Explains Two Dylan-Inspired Treasures
Fun With Collage: Claude-Angele BONI's Lily, Rosemarie and the Jack of Hearts, Vers. 1 & 2

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Dylan Weighs In on the Disease of Conceit

There’s a whole lot of people suffering tonight
From the disease of conceit
Whole lot of people struggling tonight
From the disease of conceit
Comes right down the highway
Straight down the line
Rips into your senses
Through your body and your mind
Nothing about it that’s sweet
The disease of conceit

Conceit is a word we don't hear used that much anymore. We say things like, "He's full of himself," or "He's got a big head." We also hear quite a bit about narcissism, frequently in the context of dating advice. "Five Signs to Help You Spot Narcissistic Behavior" and "11 Signs that You're Dating a Narcissist" are on the first page when I Google this.

The word narcissism comes from the Greek tale of Narcissus who fell in love with his reflection in a pond. Dylan incorporated this tale into the last verse of "License to Kill" (Infidels):

Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled
Oh, man is opposed to fair play
He wants it all and he wants it his way

Narcissus by Caravaggio

Dylan's imagery hit me like a zap from a 220 volt copper wire the first time I heard it in 1983. What is it about our nature that inclines us to self-deceit and an overweening sense of self-importance?

The opening line of the song sets the stage: "Man thinks 'cause he rules the world he can do with it as he please..." 

Another word that can be used interchangeably with conceit is arrogance. Psychologist Karen Horney (Freud's first female student) in her book Our Inner Conflicts (A Constructive Theory of Neurosis) asserts that the greater the variance between our idealized self-image and our real self, the more amplified our neurotic tendencies. She writes:

"Precisely to the extent that the image is unrealistic, it tends to make the person arrogant, in the original meaning of the word; for arrogance, though used synonymously was superciliousness, means to arrogate to oneself qualities that one does not have, or that one has potentially but not factually."
--Our Inner Conflicts, p. 97

What Dr. Horney goes on to say is that our self-inflation is not something we do consciously. That is, arrogant people are unaware of how divergent their real behavior is from their idealized version of themselves. This is what makes it so tragic and troubling.

Dylan's "Disease of Conceit" breaks it down in some interesting ways. The first stanzas describe the results of conceit. People are hurt. It causes heartbreak. People are crying, and even dying because of it. "There's nothing about it that's sweet, the disease of conceit." 

Then comes the bridge in which he describes conceit as something of a mystery. (Life has many mysteries, doesn't it?)

Conceit is a disease
That the doctors got no cure
They’ve done a lot of research on it
But what it is, they’re still not sure

The song's last stanza is a reminder that we are but dust, a warning to beware of "delusions of grandeur" because ultimately we all await the very same fate. 

There’s a whole lot of people in trouble tonight
From the disease of conceit
Whole lot of people seeing double tonight
From the disease of conceit
Give ya delusions of grandeur And a evil eye
Give you the idea that
You’re too good to die
Then they bury you from your head to your feet
From the disease of conceit 

* * * 

In 1937 Salvador Dali produced a painting that he titled The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. If you Google the word Narcissus and click on images, most of the images will be of a yellow flower called the Narcissus, though more commonly called the daffodil today. 

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (Salvador Dali) Tate Museum
© Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation/DACS, London 2020

Though Dylan's "Disease of Conceit" ends with a rather bleak prognosis (buried from your head to your feet), there's a seed thought in the tale of Narcissus which Dali captures in his painting (currently on display at the Tate Museum in London). Here is a portion of the text that accompanies this image:

Narcissus was a youth of great beauty who loved only himself and broke the hearts of many lovers. The gods punished him by letting him see his own reflection in a pool. He fell in love with it, but discovered he could not embrace it and died of frustration. Relenting, the gods immortalized him as the narcissus (daffodil) flower.

Read the full Tate account here.

The Disciple
Oscar Wilde's ironic twist on the myth of Narcissus

When Narcissus died, the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.

And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair, and cried to the pool, and said: "We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he."

"But was Narcissus beautiful?" said the pool

"Who should know better than you?" answered the Oreads. "Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty."

And the pool answered: "But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw my own beauty mirrored."