Portrait of the Artist

He imagines himself to be
speaking with the sharp edge
of knowledgeable authority
as he confidently and earnestly
plies the museum visitors with
the background he has so
assiduously gleaned from avid
perusal of the literature and fame
extolling the authentic vision of
the artist whose paintings and
sculptures chronicled the
American opening of the
Western frontier, coping with
all the raw and lethal challenges
inherent in wresting a land
from its original inhabitants
zealously defending their place
in time and history, becoming a
legend in the process, even in
inglorious bloody defeat. There
is little neutrality in the art
portraying those massively
destructive clashes of
'primitivism' and civilization
the natural world and the
constructed, decidedly unnatural
one, but the skill in portrayal is
what commends the art to us now,
not the moral judgement that
gags one's viscera, and we most
politely accede to the docent's
portrait of the artist revealed.