Of course. In the spirit of fair use for commentary and analysis, here is the key passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions (1973) in which the abstract painter Rabo Karabekian explains the meaning of his work. This occurs during a climactic scene at an arts festival in Midland City:
From Chapter 19:
“The painting did not exist until now,” he went on. “It is now that the painting is about. The moment of creation is the subject of the painting. The moment of creation is now.
“The Temptation of Saint Anthony,’ ladies and gentlemen,” said Karabekian, “is the first and only painting which is about the awareness of every creature that it will die. It is about nothing else. The vertical band of light is the awareness. That is all I have to say.”
Later, in his defense of the painting against a critic, he elaborates more famously:
“…The painting is a picture of the soul of a sacred society organism which is this nation of us,” he said. “It is a picture of everybody’s soul, including mine. The soul is a band of light. It is a very thin band of light. In fact, it is only one chemical element thick. The chemical element is the innocence of us animals who do not know what we are doing here on Earth. The vertical band of light is all the unfallen, innocent awareness we have. All the rest of the painting—all the blackness, all the emptiness, all the tawdry, silly chemicals which surround the band of light—that is the rest of the universe, as perceived by the animals.”
“It is an unwavering band of light,” said Karabekian, “and I painted it with great care. It is the one pure, unwavering element in the painting. It is the only thing in the painting which is not an accident. Everything else was an accident, but this band of light is not. It is my soul—and your soul, too. It is unwavering and pure, no matter what happens around it. If you protest that I have not painted your soul, I can only reply, ‘I have painted mine.’”
“I now give you my word of honor,” he went on, “that the picture your city owns shows everything about life which truly matters, with nothing left out. It is a picture of the awareness of every animal. It is the immaterial core of every animal—the ‘I am’ to which all messages are sent. It is all that is alive in any of us—in a mouse, in a deer, in a cocktail waitress. It is unwavering and pure. No matter what preposterous adventure may befall us, it is unwavering and pure.”
“It is all we have,” he said, “and we must protect it with all our might.”
Citation: Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of Champions. Dell Publishing, 1973, pp. 221-224.
This passage is central to the novel’s themes of meaning, consciousness, and the search for dignity in a chaotic, commercialized world. Karabekian’s defense posits his minimal, seemingly absurd abstract painting as the only honest representation of the immutable, innocent core of awareness within the accidental and often tawdry materialism of the universe.
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Of course. In the spirit of fair use for commentary and analysis, here is the key passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions (1973) in which the abstract painter Rabo Karabekian explains the meaning of his work. This occurs during a climactic scene at an arts festival in Midland City:
From Chapter 19:
Later, in his defense of the painting against a critic, he elaborates more famously:
Citation: Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of Champions. Dell Publishing, 1973, pp. 221-224.
This passage is central to the novel’s themes of meaning, consciousness, and the search for dignity in a chaotic, commercialized world. Karabekian’s defense posits his minimal, seemingly absurd abstract painting as the only honest representation of the immutable, innocent core of awareness within the accidental and often tawdry materialism of the universe.
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