Darling
Is it better to be an observer—alienated—or to become part of the society and suffer it’s ills? Which leads to the greater ultimate pain?
Few ever became close enough to Julian to see the deep tragedy of his life, for he concealed it well behind layers of imperious defenses. His life was one of the most difficult among all our Modern and Post-Modern artists. In examining his work, one never gains the barest sense of ease, only struggle.
Hard as he tried, Julian never truly found his place in the world. At a certain point—which surely must be dated as sometime in his early Spleen and Quarry Period—a clear change comes over his pieces. He seems to abandon the attempts to reconcile with society that dominated the middle years of his work. The twin themes of Society and Death pervade all of his work, but a much greater fatalism comes to the fore subsequent to that period.
A leading art critic once said, “Julian Priest? He is an angel of death, exiled to live among humans, but never to be one.”
