Like Dylan, Artist Daniel Botkin Reconfigures American Classics

Dylan Crossing His Delaware (Detail A)

One of the speakers at this year's Duluth Dylan Fest was Harvard Classics professor Richard Thomas, author of Why Bob Dylan Matters. One of the features of his lecture, extensively expanded upon in his book, was the concept of intertextuality as a response to the accusations of plagiarism in Dylan's work. According to Wikipedia, "Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. It is the interconnection between similar or related works of literature that reflect and influence an audience's interpretation of the text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. Intertextuality is a literary device that creates an 'interrelationship between texts' and generates related understanding in separate works."

North Country Gothic

Intertextuality has to do with texts, so I don't know what the word would be to describe artists who draw upon the works of other artists. A number of years ago the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art hosted a exhibition of painters whose paintings were influenced by Picasso. Each room would have a Picasso painting with two or three paintings by others that were echoes of what Picasso had done. I specifically recall one piece by Jasper Johns in this show.

All this is by way of introduction to the four paintings Daniel Botkin contributed to this year's Duluth Dylan Fest art show. What follows are his artist statement and descriptions of the four pieces he shared with us in late May.

Bob Dylan borrowed elements of American folk music and wove those elements together to create brand new songs. Following Dylan's method, I have borrowed pieces of popular American folk art and used those compositions to create brand new paintings that blend Dylan and Americana.
-Daniel Botkin

Dylan Crossing His Delaware, full painting

When the Ship Comes In: Dylan Crossing His Delaware
Dylan crossing over from all-acoustic to electric. "Another Side" was his last all-acoustic album. "Bringing It All Back Home," his transitional album, was acoustic on one side and electric on the other. It was followed by "Highway 61 Revisited," his first all-electric album. Some fans considered him a traitor for going electric, one of them famously yelling "Judas!" at a concert. That fellow is in the lower left corner of my painting.
Oil on canvas, $778.

Forever Young
Patterned after Norman Rockwell's Triple Self Portrait. The small pictures on the easel are from Dylan's early career and his childhood home in Duluth.
Oil on canvas $678.

Bobby's World: Stuck Inside of Duluth and Hibbing With the Freight Train Blues Again
Patterned after Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World. The yellow house is the Dylan home in Duluth and the blue house is the Dylan home in Hibbing. The title of my painting is a tweaking of Wyeth's title, followed by a blending of two Dylan song titles, "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again" and "Freight Train Blues."
Oil on canvas, $578

North Country Gothic
Patterned after Grant Wood's American Gothic. Young Bob Dylan with Echo Helstrom, his high school sweetheart, with the Dylan home in the background. Echo died in January 2018, just about a month before this painting was completed as a tribute to her for being the inspiration for Dylan's song "Girl From the North Country."
Oil on canvas, $578

Dylan Crossing His Delaware (Detail B)

Dylan Crossing His Delaware (Detail C)

Related Lnks

To Purchase, Visit the Daniel Botkin gallery/website.

Ennyman's Dylan-Themed Pictures and Paintings on Flickr

Until death it is all life. Embrace it.

Why Bob Dylan Matters: New Book Brings Still More Insight Into His Genius

2017 was yet another good year for Dylan literature. Late fall as I began reading a friend's copy of Richard F. Thomas' Why Bob Dylan Matters, I put it aside till I could acquire my own copy so I could underline passages and write notes in the margins. Evidently the author, a George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics at Harvard, teaches a class on Dylan which is nicknamed "Dylan 101" and called the "the coolest class on campus."

I read once that 100,000 books were written about Napoleon, the most written about person in the 19th century. One question this stat brings to mind might be, "What did all these author say that had not already been said?" And even though Dylan literature hardly compares to Napoleon in volume, the same question does emerge. It's probably something akin to scientists sharing new research on an old phenomenon. There's always a new angle or it wouldn't be relevant, and the lens through which Thomas peers does bring new revelations, new insights on Dylan's genius.

Genius
1. exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability.
2. a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative, either generally or in some particular respect.

Some may chafe a bit at the use of the word genius, which Thomas uses to describe Dylan, but when you read the dictionary definitions, it's apparent that Albert Einstein was not the only genius of the past century, and that if a word is overused (see my rant against the word awesome) this doesn't necessarily mean it's inaccurate. In point of fact, the Nobel Prize was to some extent a ratification of his genius. (I'm guessing that Dylan himself would shuffle his feet and look a bit self-conscious about all this mumbo-jumbo adulation. Oh well.)

* * * *
When you read this book you encounter the mind of a man whose expertise is Classical poetry. When Pro. Thomas listened to Dylan he had a background most of the rest of us did not have, total familiarity with Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Cicero and their Greek and Roman comrades. As a result, he heard echoes, with connections most of us would have never made. At the very beginning of the book Thomas writes:

For the past forty years, as a classics professor, I have been living in the worlds of Greek and Roman poets, reading them, writing about them, and teaching them to students in their original languages and in English translation. I have for even longer been living in the world of Bob Dylan's songs, and in my mind Dylan long ago joined the company of those ancient poets. He is part of that classical stream whose spring starts out in Greece and Rome and flows down through the years, remaining relevant today, and incapable of being contained by time or place. That's how Dylan matters to me, and what this book is about.

* * * *

The book is surprising on several levels. First, it is so accessible. If you fear boring erudition from a Harvard prof, you needn't worry. The guy who wrote it is quite down-to-earth and despite his titles and career, he is a fan who knows how to be one of us. Second, he sheds a brighter light on the plagiarism charges that some leveled against our contemporary Bard, noting that what Dylan was doing has literary precedents and is called intertextuality. Finally, we get new insights into many of the songs which we have been enjoying because, gosh darn, what he has been doing is more amazing than we even realized.

At this point in time there are few reviews at Amazon.com, in part because it is so new and perhaps in part because... ? It's a small enough quantity of comments that you'll get a good sense of where you find yourself with regard to making this a must have for your Dylan library or not.

* * * *
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH DEPARTMENT
Preparations for 2018 Duluth Dylan Fest have been ongoing since last summer here in Duluth. A theme has been finalized and a schedule of events assembled. The week will kick off with a concert for the Armory on Saturday May 19 and will continue through Sunday May 27. Music, art, poetry, and more music... Mark your calendars.  Highlights always include the Singer-Songwriter competition and the Blood On The Tracks Express.

Meantime life goes on all around you. Engage it.