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During the Watergate scandal I was painting the Journey, a triptych that attempted to describe the rise and fall of civilizations. Part one was an illustration of a poem by Robinson Jeffers: *Be Angry at the Sun* that reads in part:
That Public men publish falsehoods is nothing new.
That America must accept
Like the historical republics, corruption and empire
Has been known for years.
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you.
Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on that wheel,
These people those warriors,
This republic, Europe, Asia.
Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies,
The passionate man plays his part: the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.
* * *
Men struggle for power and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.
Robinson Jeffers © 1941
It is not obvious but this painting contains what I was also listening to, during the first meeting of the Trilateral Commission (1973). At the far left of the painting the world is erupting and golden coins are falling from the sky. They are landing in turbulent waters that are invading this surreal scene. Some of the survivors of societies-collapse then attempt to use these coins as temporary life rafts which they use to take them to the saving nets that seem to offer an escape from the ever-present depths. But for the many, the ‘nets’ are only prison cells, a rectangular version of the walls in the hives of so many other species.
We see that some of the more determined have managed to climb up the dividing walls of the prisons themselves to become part of that mass that struggles to become this monstrous image of what the lust for greed appears to have become. This is part of the key to what is happening now, just as it was during the opening act of Watergate; underscored by the New World Order that found a controlling fiscal arm, within the newly formed Trilateral Commission of David Rockefeller.
To the right the global cities of the world appear in all their bizarre and fantastic blends of old and new. But under glass in the lowest center of the image are the puppet masters of it all. These painted insects have ridden the Watergate Cable Car out to their own private observation post, where they can watch at leisure what their deeds have set in motion. They have come out from their gated cities to observe this age old battle over who shall rule the mobs, but unfortunately for us, not who shall really rule the world.
The sculpture is of Prometheus, whose liver was consumed every day by the eagle that came to torment him for his original-crime of giving fire to human beings. The rocks on which he struggles with his chains are some of the frozen faces of the many that have imitated his efforts down through the centuries. This then is where I envisioned the beginning of this curse of humanity, in our lifelong struggle with the demons of empire that has plagued us all
- throughout the length of recorded history.
The Journey - kirwan (c) 1974
Jim Kirwan
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