The Human Conditioner

SQUIRE: It's amazing.
ROBE: Stunning.
SQUIRE: And so spiritual.
ROBE: A perfect approximation of 'the human condition'.
SQUIRE: Profound.
ROBE: Beautiful.
SQUIRE: Incredible.
ROBE: Brilliant.

Enter GREENSKIN.

GREENSKIN: Like it?
SQUIRE: It's a masterpiece.
ROBE: Fabulous!
GREENSKIN: Thanks.
SQUIRE & ROBE: What? You mean...?
GREENSKIN: Yes. I'm Greenskin Bowman.
SQUIRE: We love your work.
GREENSKIN: Thanks.
ROBE: How did you ever come up with such a brilliant piece?
GREENSKIN: I used my imagination and a brush.
SQUIRE: Ha ha. But really, what form of spiritualism inspired this painting?
GREENSKIN: How do you mean?
ROBE: Well, we noticed a touch of Buddhism in the way you used the light, and also a clear undercurrent of Christianity in the way the people are arranged. We were just wondering what religion you are partial to.
GREENSKIN: None, actually.
SQUIRE: But there must be one — how do you explain all the symbolism?
GREENSKIN: What symbolism?"
SQUIRE: The sun, for one.
GREENSKIN: The sun?
SQUIRE: Yes. Surely you must have intended it as a symbol of ancient religion, bathing the populous in its life-giving essence.
GREENSKIN: No.
ROBE: Come now, Bowman, you don't need to be humble around us.
GREENSKIN: But I'm not being humble.
ROBE: These artist types are always trying to deconstruct analysis.
GREENSKIN: I'm not doing anything.
SQUIRE: Well, supposing for a moment that you didn't intend the symbolism to which we refer, what, in fact, was your goal in making this painting?
GREENSKIN: I just wanted to paint something simple and direct; something that celebrated people for who they are and nothing else. But really, the meaning is irrelevant.
ROBE: Irrelevant?
GREENSKIN: Yes. Everyone places too much meaning on things these days. All there is to it, really, is to try to be happy before you die. You know, find someone who loves you and all that.
SQUIRE: So you're agnostic?
GREENSKIN: No, I'm a devout atheist.
ROBE: You can't be serious.
GREENSKIN: Oh but I am.
SQUIRE: How can you be an artist, then?
GREENSKIN: What do you mean?
SQUIRE: How can you explore the depth and breadth of 'the human condition' if your philosophy states that we're all just monkeys with brains.
GREENSKIN: I don't see how that has anything to do with it.
ROBE: It has everything to do with it. The only thing that separates art from craft is spiritualism; the feeling that there's something more. And it's the artist's job to help us see the light, so to speak. Without this feeling, your art has no more worth then a chair.
SQUIRE: And it deserves to be sat on.
GREENSKIN: So you're saying you have to believe in God to make art?
ROBE: A suitably compromised assumption, but yes.
GREENSKIN: That's ridiculous.
SQUIRE: No, my good sir, that's ridiculous.
GREENSKIN: Suppose I'm right, though.
ROBE: Right about what?
GREENSKIN: About there being no God; no afterlife; nothing beyond our eyes.
ROBE: Yes...
GREENSKIN: Well, wouldn't that then, by rights, make all the spiritually motivated art meaningless and ignorant.
SQUIRE: That's absurd. We could say the same about atheist works.
GREENSKIN: Precisely. So it shouldn't make any difference what the artist believes.
ROBE: It makes all the difference. Atheist artists are pretentious.
GREENSKIN: Pretentious?
ROBE: Yes. If you paint a picture whilst thinking that nothing means anything, and then place it in a gallery where everything means something, you're being pretentious.
GREENSKIN: But surely it's more pretentious to convince yourself, with no proof whatsoever, that there is a God and then make artworks inspired by this belief.
SQUIRE: That's why you'll never understand art. Real artists don't need proof. They can tap into a world you'll never understand; a world that you deny the existence of only on the basis that you have never seen it.
GREENSKIN: Have you seen it?
SQUIRE: Yes. I have seen it through the eyes of the great artists.
GREENSKIN: So that's a no, then?
SQUIRE: Your Demeanour wearies me. Come, Robe, let us leave this impostor in our wake.
GREENSKIN: The work hasn't changed, you know.
ROBE: What?
GREENSKIN: Despite all that's been said and revealed, the work is as it was when I first put down my brush.
ROBE: So it would seem. Good day.