Deciphering The Asia Series: Courtier Bob with Churchill's Sheep in Dullsville

Courtiers are like magicians: They deceptively play with appearances, only letting those around them see what they want them to see. With so much deception and manipulation afoot, it is essential to keep people from seeing your tricks and glimpsing your sleight of hand. - Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power

Open confidences are being made every day, and it remains for the eye to train itself to see them without prejudice or restraint. - Man Ray, "The Age of Light"

A way to gain some insight into what Bob Dylan might have had in mind with his controversial Gagosian Gallery show The Asia Series is to examine the clues that he has planted in the interview that appears in the catalog. I've covered a few of these in my two previous posts and there are still many more to consider.

In the interview Dylan states, "Winston Churchill made a lot of paintings, mostly landscapes and cottages. Nobody compares his artistry with his diplomacy. He said that he knew of nothing else that more completely occupied the mind without exhausting the body. That's probably a clue to why people paint."

Dylan flat out tells you that this is a clue. He also just told you that black is white; Churchill's artistry and his diplomacy are intertwined and Dylan is quite aware of this. In his memoir Chronicles: Volume One Dylan uses elements from a section of Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power titled “The Science of Charlatanism, or How to Create a Cult in Five Easy Steps" in a most intriguing way. I explore this in my 2010 New Haven Review essay "Bob Charlatan." In Greene's book Law 24 is "Play The Perfect Courtier" and I suggest that Courtier Bob is referencing this example given by Greene:

Scene XI
Winston Churchill was an amateur artist, and after World War II his paintings became collector's items. The American publisher Henry Luce, in fact, creator of Time and Life magazines, kept one of Churchill's landscapes hanging in his private office in New York. On a tour through the United States once, Churchill visited Luce in his office, and the two men looked at the painting together. The publisher remarked, "It's a good picture, but I think it needs something in the foreground — a sheep, perhaps.” Much to Luce's horror, Churchill's secretary called the publisher the next day and asked him to have the painting sent to England. Luce did so, mortified that he had perhaps offended the former prime minister. A few days later, however, the painting was shipped back, but slightly altered: a single sheep now grazed peacefully in the foreground.

Interpretation
In stature and fame, Churchill stood head and shoulders above Luce, but Luce was certainly a man of power, so let us imagine a slight equality between them. Still, what did Churchill have to fear from an American publisher? Why bow to the criticism of a dilettante? A court—in this case the entire world of diplomats and international statesmen, and also of the journalists who court them—is a place of mutual dependence. It is unwise to insult or offend the taste of people of power, even if they are below or equal to you. If a man like Churchill can swallow the criticisms of a man like Luce, he proves himself a courtier without peer. (Perhaps his correction of the painting implied a certain condescension as well, but he did it so subtly that Luce did not perceive any slight.) Imitate Churchill: Put in the sheep. It is always beneficial to play the obliging courtier, even when you are not serving a master.

Other elements from this section of Greene's book show up in Chronicles: Volume One. Regarding Fred Neil at The Café Wha? Dylan writes, "He was the emperor of the place, even had his own harem, his devotees. You couldn't touch him. Everything revolved around him." That is right out of Scene II in the "Play The Perfect Courtier" chapter. There Greene writes, "The Chinese emperor was considered more than a man—he was a force of nature. His kingdom was the center of the universe, and everything revolved around him."

Dylan balances his portrait of Fred Neil with some interesting nuances. Not only is Neil part Chinese emperor, but Dylan also has painted him with colors drawn from Sax Rohmer's description of Dr. Fu-Manchu's slave girl Kâramanèh. (I owe the Rohmer observation to Ed Cook.)

Chronicles: Volume One, p. 10:

Freddy had the flow, dressed conservatively, sullen and brooding, with an enigmatical gaze, peachlike complexion, hair splashed with curls and an angry and powerful baritone voice that struck blue notes and blasted them to the rafters with or without a mike.

The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer:

What eyes she had!—of that blackly lustrous sort nearly always associated with unusually dark complexions; but Kâramanèh's complexion was peachlike, or rather of an exquisite and delicate fairness which reminded me of the petal of a rose. By some I have been accused of romancing about this girl's beauty, but only by those who had not met her; for indeed she was astonishingly lovely.

At last her eyes fell, the long lashes drooped upon her cheeks. She turned and walked slowly to the chair in which Fu-Manchu had sat. Placing the keys upon the table amid the scientific litter, she rested one dimpled elbow upon the yellow page of the book, and with her chin in her palm, again directed upon me that enigmatical gaze.

In a review of the Dylan show that appeared in The New York Times yesterday Holland Cotter writes, "It’s just dull, and in the context of the present pervasive dullness and unoriginality of a lot of painting in New York, it fits in all too well." Context is critical when considering what Dylan is doing. It is easy to just place Dylan's work in a boring context and label it boring as well, but Cotter does more. He hints that there might be something else going on, hedging his bet by noting, "...unless there’s some Duchampian gesture afoot here..." in his review. I pointed out such a Duchampian gesture in my post "Dylan, Duchamp and the Letter from Woody" two weeks ago.

I suggest that the editors at The New York Times give staff enigmatologist Will Shortz a crack at The Asia Series. He is better equipped to recognize the schemes that are afoot in the puzzles that surround the paintings. He might have a view that plunges past "remarkably dull."

Dylan makes a game out of being labeled dull by critics in Chronicles: Volume One. When writing about hearing Roy Orbison on the radio he notes, "I'd listen and wait for another song, but next to Roy the playlist was strictly dullsville . . . gutless and flabby." One of the things that Dylan is doing there is referencing a review of one of his concerts that appeared in Variety. The headline was "BOB DYLAN DESTROYS HIS LEGEND IN MELBOURNE: CONCERT STRICTLY DULLSVILLE." That review was published on April 27, 1966. Nearly half a century later some recent headlines might as well have read "BOB DYLAN DESTROYS HIS LEGEND IN NEW YORK: PAINTINGS STRICTLY DULLSVILLE." Dylan's dullsville dispatches deserve a deeper dive.