MARIJE ALTORF

Murdoch and the Art of Imaging

Marije Altorf, Iris Murdoch and the Art of Imaging, Continuum, 2008, 150pp.,
$130.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780826497574.

Reviewed bySharin N. Elkholy, University of Houston

The general public often knows more about the personal lives of female artists
and thinkers than their actual achievements. This is likely the case with
philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch who was the subject of a recent
film, Iris (2001), based on her relationship with John Bayley and her bout with
Alzheimer's disease. One of the first women to study philosophy at Cambridge,
along with Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Mary Warnock,
Murdoch went on to teach philosophy, making little of her status as a woman in a
field dominated by men. Instead, Murdoch broke with the analytic tradition she
studied and became the first thinker to write in English on the existentialism of
Jean-Paul Sartre, paving the road for the independent approach she would later
take to philosophical problems. Increasingly unsatisfied with Sartre's
philosophical account of the meaning of existence, Murdoch turned to literature,
her own, to explore human relationships and, above all, morality. Murdoch is the
author of dozens of novels, numerous plays, poetry and philosophical texts.
In Iris Murdoch and the Art of Imaging, Marije Altorf explores the relationship
between philosophy and literature in Murdoch's thought. She argues that while
there has been some consideration regarding the influence of Murdoch's
philosophy on her literature, little attention has been paid to the influence of
Murdoch's fiction on her philosophical work. Through an exploration of Murdoch's
use of imagery, Altorf works to portray the distinctiveness of Murdoch's approach
to philosophy and morality. Altorf believes that through a study of Murdoch's
literature the reader may arrive at her vision of philosophical truths and the
forms of morality she deems valuable.
Writing literature allowed Murdoch to explore the intricacies and ambiguities of
human existence in ways she was unable to in her philosophical writings. Altorf
argues that Murdoch's conception of literature serves as the springboard for her
philosophical positions, as well as the source of her criticisms of contemporary
existentialism and philosophy of language. Observing the changes in Murdoch's
imagery and metaphors, Altorf suggests, one can gauge the development of
Murdoch's thought, culminating in her understanding of the role of the
imagination and fantasy with regard to the "Good." Murdoch's notion of the
"Good" is hard to decipher and the reader will not gain a definite sense of this
idea in Altorf's study. Perhaps, however, this is not so much Altorf's fault as it is a
problem in Murdoch's work, since Altorf also expresses her frustration over what
she perceives as Murdoch's "empty character of the Good." (112) Altorf writes,
"In preferring the universal to the actual Murdoch at times appears as a
philosopher who has only just returned to the cave and whose eyes still need to
adjust to the darkness." (111) Yet Altorf's study highlights, to the contrary,
Murdoch's emphasis on the particular, specifically with regard to the diversity of
human relationships and the depths of individual character.
Altorf utilizes the methodological framework of Michele Le Doeuff to discuss
Murdoch's use of metaphor to shed light on the human condition. According to Le
Doeuff, images either signal difficulties in the text that require a justification, or
stand where a justification would have been warranted. Drawing on Le Doeuff's
framework, Altorf examines the relationship between literature and philosophy in
Murdoch's work by focusing on Murdoch's use of imagery to reveal her notion of
moral goodness and her philosophical perspective.
However, Altorf's book is partly a collection of previously published essays, some
of which do not draw heavily on Murdoch's literature. Therefore the reader
should expect to find a range of topics covered pertaining to Murdoch and her
work. In addition to arguing that philosophical truths and forms of morality are
revealed in Murdoch's literature, Altorf also, for example, discusses Murdoch's
work and life within a feminist context of women philosophers and their place
within the practice of philosophy.
In her analysis of Murdoch's "The Idea of Perfection", Altorf shows how Murdoch's
use of imagery enables her both to criticize tenets upheld by analytic
philosophers, as well as to discuss a certain picture of the good. Altorf reveals
the uniqueness of Murdoch's thought -- her awe for the singularity of each
human existence and her idea that moral goodness is an ongoing process --
through a reading of Murdoch's example of the change in a mother's perspective
on her son's fiancé. M, the mother, does not approve of her soon to be daughter-
in-law, D. She finds her undignified and uncouth, lacking the proper accent,
mannerisms and attire. One day D, the daughter-in-law, disappears from M's life.
This gives M enough time to re-conceive of D no longer as a simpleton, but as
simple and spontaneous. This change of vision comes about without any external
prompting and is what Murdoch considers to be good; as Altorf puts it, the
change yields "a better picture of D." (63) In this example, Murdoch illustrates
that one can never completely know an individual because there is always more
to a person than meets the eye. Otherness occasions a failure in the imagination,
writes Altorf. (79)
This image of M's metamorphosis demonstrates Murdoch's commitment to the
idea of a rich inner life that stands in contrast to the rejection of such life by
analytic philosophers. Consider:
If D had been there all along, it is easy to picture how M might have
changed her mind for a variety of reasons: M may feel obliged to defend
her son's choice against neighbours or colleagues; both women could get
more used to one another; M accepts the situation out of love for her son,
etc. (63-64)
But Murdoch makes a great effort to show that M's vision of D changed while D
was completely out of the picture so to underscore that the change occurred in
M's mind alone. Moreover, because of M's refinement she had always been
acting graciously and respectfully towards D. Thus the change in M's perception
of D was not concomitant with any change in her outward behavior. The change
in perception that M underwent came about in complete isolation from anyone
else and all external circumstances. Murdoch uses the image of this change to
reveal the significance of the inner life against the demands made by analytic
philosophers that change be explained by reference to circumstances situated in
an independent reality. This concern with forms of experience that are
empirically unverifiable is a constant in Murdoch's thought.
In her chapter titled "Imagination", Altorf explains Murdoch's division of
imagination into "bad fantasy" and "good imagination." Fantasy involves an
egoistic concern with oneself that often draws false pictures and engages in the
practice of self-centered, wishful thinking. Good imagination, to the contrary, is
able to arrive at certainties but is often able to explain neither how it has done
so, nor the nature of the certainties themselves. Murdoch does not accept the
relegation of the imagination to the passive side of the mind. Building her theory
in contrast to the role of the imagination in Kant and Plato, Murdoch believes
that we are imagining all of the time. Imagination affects all cognition and
perception and is central to our lived existence, as we inhabit a world not of facts
but of our own creation. Furthermore, she highlights how we often know things
that we cannot explain, things that go beyond mere facts. Yet Altorf recognizes,
somewhat disapprovingly, that Murdoch nevertheless has an implicit sense that
the world is a certain way and that the way of the world is known to all. In fact,
according to Murdoch, a person cannot be good unless they have some sense of
what others are experiencing in the world and this comes from having an
understanding of the world as certain.
Altorf explains what she perceives to be the difficulty with this approach.
Responding to a passage from Murdoch's "On 'God' and 'Good'" where Murdoch
explains that morality rests on a kind of realism, Altorf writes: " So the good man
must be aware of his surroundings, but what are these 'certain' things? What
things? Surely not facts?" (70) Altorf then shows how Murdoch, rather than
provide an argument to support her claim that morality is a form of realism, true
to her style, turns to an image. Murdoch draws on Rilke's observation that
Cezanne's paintings do not depict the world as he sees it, but as it is. He did not
paint "'I like it', he painted 'There it is.'" (70) But again, Altorf questions what
exactly Murdoch means by the use of this image to support the idea that there is
only one reality that is accessible to all equally. For example, she describes how
Murdoch believes that it is obvious to everyone that Shakespeare is the greatest
of all artists. Murdoch also believes Tolstoy's greatness to be self-evident. In
response to Murdoch's reference to Rilke, Altorf notes that Cezanne was not a
photorealist but a post-Impressionist painter.
Murdoch, therefore, uses art to reflect upon morality and sees morality reflected
in art. Asserting that there is a link between art and moral goodness, Murdoch
claims that a careful consideration of great art reveals to the critic what is good
about human action and also allows access to "truth." Here the good seems to
be revealed in a sort of presentation that the observer can recognize as certain,
yet may not be able to explain. Since Murdoch believes that moral ideals are
ordinary and obvious, they do not need complex theorizing. Altorf consequently
discusses Murdoch's objection to the widely held philosophical notion that the
unexamined life is not worth living. She states that for Murdoch artists may
portray moral ideals and actions that are not amenable to exact explanation.
Thus we get a sense that it is perhaps through the imagination that one
confronts the limits of imaging. Altorf's work opens an exploration of this notion
as well as other intricacies of Murdoch's thinking, which will, I hope, prompt the
reader to explore the depths of Murdoch's wide array of writings.
(https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/iris-murdoch-and-the-art-of-imaging/ )

May 21, 1991

Iris Murdoch Defends Art Against Plato

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

ome of the Western world's finest writers and philosophers have debated
the validity and morality of art, even as they have continued to practice it
themselves. Cynthia Ozick's own dazzling stories, for instance, have frequently
questioned the very principles of the fiction-making process. As she once wrote
in an essay, storytelling threatens to violate the Second Commandment ("Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image"). It can lead to idol-worship and the
solipsistic pleasures of magical creation.

I. B. Singer has created a succession of stories in which art, like sex, embodies
the temptations of the secular world of knowledge and sin; and in his later years
of religious fervor, Tolstoy declared that true art must be created "with the
awareness of fulfilling the work of God" -- his own novels, "War and Peace" and
"Anna Karenina," he derisively consigned "to the category of bad art."

Of course, the first and perhaps most vocal critic of art remains Plato, who
recommended exiling dramatic poets from the ideal state and also proposed a
meticulous program of censorship. His views on art and artists are the subject of
"The Fire and the Sun" by Iris Murdoch -- an intelligent and provocative essay
that illuminates Plato's esthetics while at the same time shedding new light on
the many Platonist themes (including the pursuit of the Good, the illusory
shadow-dance of love, and the centrality of death) found in her own fiction.

Ms. Murdoch, who taught philosophy at Oxford for many years, explicates Plato's
ideas with lucidity and assurance, making his complex arguments readily
accessible to the general reader. Explaining Plato's view of human life as a
pilgrimage from appearance to reality, she begins by reviewing his famous myth
of the Cave. In the beginning, mankind is equated with a group of prisoners in a
Cave, chained to face the back wall, where all they can see are shadows cast by
a fire that is behind them. Later, the prisoners manage to turn around and see
the fire and the shadow-casting objects. Later still, they escape the Cave and see
the outside world in the light of the sun. In the last stage, they see the sun itself
-- the Form of the Good, in whose light the truth may be finally glimpsed.

As Plato saw it, Ms. Murdoch explains, artists perpetuate and reinforce the world
of illusion found at the back of the cave. At several removes from reality, they
naively or willfully accept appearances instead of questioning them as they
should. A writer who portrays a doctor, in Plato's view, does not possess a
doctor's skill but simply "imitates doctors' talk." Because of the charm of their
work, such artists may be mistaken as authorities, thereby misleading people
further. "Surely any serious man would rather produce real things, such as beds
or political activity, than unreal things which are mere reflections of reality," says
Ms. Murdoch, explaining Plato's view.

Although Plato does not make a blanket dismissal of all art, Ms. Murdoch says,
his area of acceptable art is very small -- even smaller than that advocated
nowadays by the followers of Jesse Helms. Mimetic or imitative art is bad
because it is a copy of something illusory; art that is coarse, violent or
immoderate is bad because it may encourage similar behavior; and art that
conceals the absence of God or his distance is bad because it offers false and
misleading consolations about the harsh facts of human existence.

In examining Plato's often shockingly puritanical attitudes toward art, Ms.

Murdoch notes that his feelings may have had "an element of envy": "He had
been himself a writer of poetry; and when a man with two talents chooses (or at
any rate concentrates upon) one, he may look sourly upon the practitioners of
the other."

Instead of rebutting Plato's views, Ms. Murdoch begins by comparing them with
the views of other thinkers. She finds parallels between his suspicion of art and
Kant's suspicion of beauty (unpretentious wallpaper, she says, is the sort of
simple, conceptless beauty both of them would have approved of); she draws
analogies between his mistrust of written words and Wittgenstein's mistrust of
language; and she points out that both he and Freud regarded sexual love as the
impetus toward knowledge and achievement, and that both of them wished "to
heal by promoting awareness of reality."

Toward the end of this volume, Ms. Murdoch makes a fiercely argued yet
restrained rebuttal of Plato's basic thesis -- an argument that stands as both an
eloquent defense of her own work as a novelist and as a persuasive philosophical
brief.

Although Ms. Murdoch characterizes art as an essentially unnecessary treat --

"We can be saved without seeing the Alps or the Cairngorms, and without Titian
and Mozart too" -- she argues that "great art points in the direction of the good
and is at least more valuable to the moralist as an auxiliary than dangerous as
an enemy."

Art, in her opinion, need not reinforce people's illusions by providing an easy
form of escapism. Indeed, it may help to communicate and reveal the nature of
reality. If art is "jauntily at home with evil and quick to beautify it," it can also
"show how we learn from pain."

"The spiritual ambiguity of art," she writes, "its connection with the 'limitless'
unconscious, its use of irony, its interest in evil, worried Plato. But the very
ambiguity and voracious ubiquitousness of art is its characteristic freedom. Art,
especially literature, is a great hall of reflection where we can all meet and
where everything under the sun can be examined and considered."
(https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/20/specials/
murdoch-fire.html )

The state of the writer in the ,, Black Prince’’

1. Introduction

Iris Murdoch’s T he B la ck Prince (BP), which was published in 1973, is

considered her most successful and brilliant novel by her readers as well as by
her critics. Richard Todd describes it as her “closest approach to the ‘post-
modernist’ novel”1, which is especially in the context of narrative unreliability
highly interesting and complex. However, the central theme of this paper
concerns the relation between the two writers Bradley Pearson and Arnold Baffin.

It will be discussed which function is ascribed to this comparison of the two

characters in T he Black Prince and to what extent the frequently quoted “artist-
saint contrast”2of Murdoch’s works is applicable to this constellation.

Therefore, the first chapter is concerned with Bradley Pearson’s account of

himself and Arnold Baffin as writers, and to a certain extent with the question of
Bradley’s narrative reliability as well as – and this is essential – with Arnold’s and
Bradley’s different definitions of the art of writing. The relation between Arnold
and Bradley, which is already a topic of the following chapter, will be particularly
examined in the last chapter where the focus will be on the discussion about the
(hypothetical) artist-saint contrast within T he B la ck Prince.

2. Bradley Pearson’s account of himself and Arnold Baffin as writers

In B P, the reader has to be aware of the fact that every explicit description of
Arnold Baffin as well as of Bradley Pearson himself is given by Bradley’s account
which is always a direct or indirect comparison to his own work where he clearly
makes out distinctions. Furthermore, the kind of comparison the reader receives
is not merely based on statements on character traits or the personality of
Arnold and Bradley, it is also grounded on a rather abstract level, their “quality”
as writers in relation to true art. Therefore it is first of all essential to present
Bradley Pearson’s main theories about art, which can be implicitly suspected to
mirror views on art of Iris Murdoch herself. 3According to Barbara Stevens Heusel
Bradley can even be considered as the author’s “mouthpiece”. 4

Thus, the following subchapter will be concerned with the discussion of “art” as a
notion defined by Bradley Pearson, at the same time being a writer, and with
Arnold Baffin, his direct counterpart.

2.1 For the sake of art

“Good art speaks truth, indeed is truth, perhaps the only truth”5, Bradley Pearson
enlightens his readers at the beginning of his novel “The Black Prince. A
Celebration of Love” which is the “inner part” of Iris Murdoch’s T he B la ck
Prince. As “[a]ll art deals with the absurd and aims at the simple”

(11) he is free to use “the elements of crude drama, the ‘fabulous’ events which
simple people love to hear of” (12) for his novel. In fact, even with the overall
construction of the novel which consists of three parts – or three acts – (as well
as of the postscripts and two forewords) and with the mentioning of his
“’players’” (14) Bradley convinces the reader of his story as a drama “which
brought [his life, T.S.] so significantly to a climax.” (15) By this – so Hilda D.
Spear concludes –, i. e. by creating the drama of his life, by remembering the
most influential events and by reflecting and interpreting from a narrative
distance Bradley is able to see the meaning his life took on through this
autobiographical work.6

If “[a]rt comes out of endless restraint and silence” (50), Bradley Pearson must
be the creator of a notable masterpiece of good art since he knows: that “before
I could achieve greatness as a writer I would have to pass through some o rdeal”
(18) which in the end is, indeed, given by the tortures of love and his (perhaps
wrongful) imprisonment. So he is right in saying: “A work of art is as good as its
creator” (11). Bradley struggles endlessly to write his book; the reader notices
numerous attempts of him to leave London in order to find the necessary silence,
“darkness, purity, solitude” for writing (127). Nevertheless, he cannot “escape”
the unpredictable system of contingencies he is exposed to, for instance the
unexpected appearances of his sister Priscilla, his ex-wife Christian or his former
brother-in-law Francis and the thereby arising network of connections. However,
as “[f]or an artist, everything connects with his work, and can feed it” (125),
Bradley Pearson absorbs every single event he is confronted with, especially the
ones which he could not have anticipated, and avails himself of them for his
work. He prepares his readers for the “truth as [he] understands it, not only
concerning the superficial and ‘exciting’ aspects of this drama, but also
concerning what lies deeper.” (11)

Love and its entanglements, especially the “tribulations of marriage” 7are –

despite being emphasised in the title – just a minor theme of Bradley’s (and
Murdoch’s) novel which, in fact, is much more occupied with the “discussion of
art and of life”8. Hilda D. Spear states that “the novel follows Bradley’s journey of
self-discovery” and she supports her thesis with Freudian-like analyses
concerning Bradley’s mental restraints in relationships, which are said to be
connected to his family background (likewise Francis uses such analyses within
his postscript).9Supportive to this view of Bradley’s way to self-awareness is a
line from his own postscript: “How littlein fact any human being understands
about anything the practice of the artsoon teaches one.” (381) His
autobiographical work – in which “[a]rt is akind of artificial memory (381) – is a
device which helps him to reconstructhis life until a certain point and to reveal
the inevitable coherences of eventsand the implications depending on the
persons he is confronted with. In thisregard it is interesting to read that “In the
twenty-five novels she haspublished since 1954 [...], Iris Murdoch has avoided
what she sees as ‘theobvious danger for a writer’ – writing autobiographical
novels.”10 In turn, thereliability of the narrator can be questioned and very much
so – already in‘his’ part of the novel “The Black Prince. A Celebration of Love”. In
anyevent the reader is left alone with his own speculations after having readThe
Black Prince since Bradley admits that he has modified reality in respectof the
shape of art by conceiving the drama of his life. Particularly theframing
postscripts bring in new (critical) perspectives on what is until thispoint the only
truth for the reader; so Bradley’s account can be doubted as“[t]he postscripts set
the reader up for closure or consolation that nevercomes.” 11 Nevertheless, the
discussion about narrative unreliability shouldremain a subsidiary aspect of this
paper. Instead it is relevant to scrutinise, atfirst, one of the initial concerns,
namely Murdoch’s depiction of BradleyPearson as a writer.
(https://www.grin.com/document/122873 )

She published her first book, Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, in 1953 and her first
novel, Under the Net, the next year. Since then she has published twenty-four
formal, traditional novels, including The Sandcastle (1957), The Bell (1958), A
Severed Head (1961), A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970), A Word
Child (1975), The Sea, The Sea (1978), which won the Booker Prize for that
year, The Philosopher’s Pupil (1983), The Good Apprentice (1985), The Book and
the Brotherhood (1987), and The Message to the Planet (1989).

INTERVIEWER
Do you think you could say something about your family?

IRIS MURDOCH
My father went through the first war in the cavalry; it now seems extraordinary
to think there was cavalry in World War I. This no doubt saved his life, because,
of course, the horses were behind the lines, and in that sense he had a safer war.
My parents met at that time. My father’s regiment was based at the Curragh
near Dublin and my father was on leave. On his way to church he met my
mother, who was going to the same church on the same tram. She sang in the
choir. My mother had a very beautiful soprano voice; she was training to be an
opera singer and could have been very good indeed, but she gave up her
ambitions when she married. She continued singing all her life in an amateur
way, but she never realized the potential of that great voice. She was a beautiful,
lively, witty woman, with a happy temperament. My parents were very happy
together. They loved each other dearly; they loved me and I loved them, so it
was a most felicitous trinity.

INTERVIEWER
When did you know you wanted to write?M U R D O C H
I knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer. I mean, when I was a child I
knew that. Obviously, the war disturbed all one’s feelings of the future very
profoundly. When I finished my undergraduate career I was immediately
conscripted because everyone was. Under ordinary circumstances, I would very
much have wanted to stay on at Oxford, study for a Ph.D., and try to become a
don. I was very anxious to go on learning. But one had to sacrifice one’s wishes
to the war. I went into the civil service, into the Treasury where I spent a couple
of years. Then after the war I went into UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Association, and worked with refugees in different parts of Europe.

INTERVIEWER
You were a member of the Communist Party, weren’t you?

MURDOCH
I was a member of the Communist Party for a short time when I was a student,
about 1939. I went in, as a lot of people did, out of a sense which arose during
the Spanish civil war that Europe was dangerously divided between left and right
and we were jolly well going to be on the left. We had passionate feelings about
social justice. We believed that socialism could, and fairly rapidly, produce just
and good societies, without poverty and without strife. I lost those optimistic
illusions fairly soon. So I left it. But it was just as well, in a way, to have seen the
inside of Marxism because then one realizes how strong and how awful it is,
certainly in its organized form. My association with it had its repercussions. Once
I was offered a scholarship to come to Vassar. I was longing to go to America—
such an adventure after being cooped up in England after the war. One did want
to travel and see the world. I was prevented by the McCarren Act, and not given
a visa. I may say there was a certain amount of to-do about this. Bertrand
Russell got involved and Justice Felix Frankfurter, trying to say how ridiculous
this was. But the McCarren Act is made of iron. It’s still here; I have to ask for a
waiver if I want to come to the United States.

INTERVIEWER
Even now?

MURDOCH
It’s lunatic. One of the questions sometimes asked by some official is, Can you
prove that you are no longer a member of the Communist Party?
INTERVIEWER
I should think that would be very difficult to do.

MURDOCH
Extremely! I left it about fifty years ago!

INTERVIEWER
Could you tell me a little bit about your own method of composition and how you
go about writing a novel?

MURDOCH
Well, I think it is important to make a detailed plan before you write the first
sentence. Some people think one should write, George woke up and knew that
something terrible had happened yesterday, and then see what happens. I plan
the whole thing in detail before I begin. I have a general scheme and lots of
notes. Every chapter is planned. Every conversation is planned. This is, of course,
a primary stage, and very frightening because you’ve committed yourself at this
point. I mean, a novel is a long job, and if you get it wrong at the start you’re
going to be very unhappy later on. The second stage is that one should sit
quietly and let the thing invent itself. One piece of imagination leads to another.
You think about a certain situation and then some quite extraordinary aspect of
it suddenly appears. The deep things that the work is about declare themselves
and connect. Somehow things fly together and generate other things, and
characters invent other characters, as if they were all doing it themselves. One
should be patient and extend this period as far as possible. Of course, actually
writing it involves a different kind of imagination and work.

INTERVIEWER
You are remarkably prolific as a novelist. You seem to enjoy writing a great deal.

MURDOCH
Yes, I do enjoy it, but it has, of course—I mean, this is true of any art form—
moments when you think it’s awful, you lose confidence and it’s all black. You
can’t think and so on. So, it’s not all enjoyment. But I don’t actually find writing
in itself difficult. The creation of the story is the agonizing part. You have the
extraordinary experience when you begin a novel that you are now in a state of
unlimited freedom, and this is alarming. Every choice you make will exclude
another choice, so that it’s rather important what happens then, what state of
mind you’re in and what you think matters. Books should have themes. I choose
titles carefully and the titles in some way indicate something deep in the theme
of the book. Names are important. The names sometimes don’t come at once,
but the physical being and the mind of the character have to come pretty early
on and you just have to wait for the gods to offer you something. You have to
spend a lot of time looking out of the window and writing down scrappy notes
that may or may not help. You have to wait patiently until you feel that you’re
getting the thing right—who the people are, what it’s all about, how it moves. I
may take a long time, say a year, just sitting and fishing around, putting the
thing into some sort of shape. Then I do a very detailed synopsis of every
chapter, every conversation, everything that happens. That would be another
operation.
(https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2313/iris-murdoch-the-art-of-fiction-
no-117-iris-murdoch)

Iris Murdoch, who would be ninety-six today, thrilled to paintings of every stripe,
but she was compelled by one work in particular: Titian’s The Flaying of Marsyas,
from the late sixteenth century. She mentions it in her 1990 Art of Fiction
interview:

INTERVIEWER

Do you see a painting you are particularly interested in and think, I might be able
to use that some day in a novel, or I’d like to use it because it attracts and
interests me?

MURDOCH

The novel often indicates a painting during the process of creating the
characters. Somehow the character will lead to the painting. A great painting
that I have only recently seen—it lives in Czechoslovakia—is Titian’s Flaying of
Marsyas. He was over ninety when he painted it. This painting gives me very
much, though I have only referred to it indirectly.

Elsewhere, Murdoch has called the painting the greatest in the Western canon. It
makes prominent appearances in her novels A Fairly Honourable Defeat, The
Black Prince, and Jackson’s Dilemma; she even went so far as to include it in the
background of her portrait, which hangs at the National Portrait Gallery in
London. The Flaying of Marsyas has “something to do with human life and all its
ambiguities and all its horrors and terrors and misery,” she told the BBC, “and at
the same time there’s something beautiful, the picture is beautiful, and
something also to do with the entry of the spiritual into the human situation and
the closeness of the gods … I regard Dionysus in a sense as a part of Apollo’s
mind … and want to exalt Apollo as a god who is a terrible god, but also a great
artist and thinker and a great source of life.”

The painting was one of Titian’s last, and it’s full of primeval fire. It’s drawn from
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which the satyr Marsyas brags that his skills on the
auros, a double-piped reed instrument, are superior to Apollo’s on the lyre. The
two agree to a kind of duel-cum-jam-session. But Apollo is, of course, a god,
meaning he’s not just a better musician but a more temperamental one, inclined
to punish all who defy him. And so he flays Marsyas alive for his hubris, a fate
Ovid describes with violent relish:

As he screams, the skin is flayed from the surface of his body, no part is
untouched. Blood flows everywhere, the exposed sinews are visible, and the
trembling veins quiver, without skin to hide them: you can number the internal
organs, and the fibres of the lungs, clearly visible in his chest. The woodland
gods, and the fauns of the countryside, wept … The fertile soil was drenched,
and the drenched earth caught the falling tears, and absorbed them into its deep
veins.
Titian, painting with his brush and his thumb from a palette of squalid browns
and reds, depicts the flaying every bit as vividly. There’s something especially
gruesome about that little dog at the bottom, sniffing, if not lapping, at a puddle
of blood. “Did Titian know that really human life was awful,” Murdoch writes
in Henry and Cato, “that it was nothing but a slaughterhouse?” Short answer:
yes.

Small wonder that Murdoch, whose novels are meditations on cruelty, was so
attracted to Titian’s painting. It bears the same moral weight she brought to her
fiction. “A novelist is bound to express values,” she said in her Paris
Review interview, “and I think he should be conscious of the fact that he is, in a
sense, a compulsory moralist.” And there’s something compulsorily moral
in Flaying, which demands that the viewer reckon with intense physical suffering,
and to judge it as right or wrong. But her reading of the painting departs from
the norm, as Jeffrey Meyers notes in an excellent piecefrom The New Criterion a
few years ago. (Meyers interviewed Murdoch for our Art of Fiction series,
too.) “Instead of using Marsyas in a conventional novelistic way,” he writes,

Murdoch alludes to it indirectly. She opposes traditional interpretations of the

picture, and perversely distorts its meaning for her own fictional purposes.
Where others have found in the myth a cruel story of a vengeful god, she finds in
it a religious experience, in which the sufferer learns to transcend the loss of
ego.

If you look at Marsyas’s face, you can see what Meyers means: far from
anguished or abject, his expression is placid, if not outright peaceful. “Why do
you peel me out of myself?” he asks in A. S. Kline’s translation of Ovid—a
formulation that gets at the transformative, self-abnegating effect of his pain.
While I don’t think I can join Murdoch in seeing its religious import—you can put
me in the “astoundingly cruel god turning life into a slaughterhouse” camp—
there’s no doubting that it haunts us, in its vagaries and ambiguities.

Dan Piepenbring is the web editor of The Paris Review.

(https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/07/15/iris-murdochs-favorite-painting/
)