In a long life, I have read the books and learned the deeds and studied the scholarship and seen the art of the famous in many major countries of the world. The work of some of us in this little corner of where I have lived and which is blessed and loved is just as good as the best I’ve seen or known anywhere. Such men are equal to anyone. Here are two that my life has been enriched to know.
• Denis Williams’s masterpiece was probably the Prehistoric Guiana, published in 2003. In that magisterial book we have the work of world-renowned archaeologist and anthropologist Denis Williams. But amazingly, Denis was much more than that. He was certainly one of the most wonderful men I have ever met in my life. In my day-to-day experience, Martin Carter only matched him as a creative presence in the nation. When those two men died within a year of each other in 1997/98 you could almost feel the world of art and sensibility in Guyana growing narrower in imagination, modest in spirit, shallow in intellect, in smaller in stature, weaker in everything that inspires humanity to do its best.
When Denis returned to Guyana from Africa in 1968, I met and got to know him. He went into the interior of farming and writing and painting. I used to send books and magazines to him in his forest zone and he never failed to thank me in letters that I treasured for their amazing range of interest, depth of reflection and clear literary expression. From that time when I came to know him well, it seemed to me, in the variety of his passions and enthusiasm, a kind of Leonardo Da Vinci from West India. He seemed filled with that keen desire to understand all the mysteries of the world which the scientist Louis Pasteur called “the inner god, which leads to everything.” There is a piece about Da Vinci, that greatest of all Renaissance men, who could have described Denis as I remember in him the excitement of his enthusiasm:
“He seemed to have nothing impossible, that he could try anything – and understand anything. He composed essay after essay; with supreme self-confidence he sought to delve into the secrets of art, water, air, mankind, the world. He was interested in geology, in fossils, in ancient architecture and in mountain formation. He investigated the origins of milk, colic, tears, drunkenness, madness and dreams. He talked about writing what the soul is. He dreamed of flying like an eagle or a kite and began drawing plans of flying machines. Alongside a picture of a bird in a cage he wrote: “my thoughts turn to hope.” ”
Denis was continually full of creative energy. In an article by Malcolm Gladwell, I have read that creative insecurity of this kind is what distinguishes the truly gifted. The difference between Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, and his forgotten musical contemporaries is that they have a handful of ideas for their names while Bach in his lifetime has created more than a thousand full musical compositions. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones band tells how they had to throw out hundreds and hundreds of ideas and words before they were left with the classic Exile album on Main Street. At least in part, genius is genius because it comes out with an astonishing amount of insights, theories, random random findings, unexpected connections between different points of view, all pouring into a stream that is very likely to produce diversity final of original concepts and finished creations.
Denis’ creativity was expressed in an amazing variety of ways. Some men write novels, some are famous painters, some write deep works of scholarship, some edit important magazines, some make great careers of lecturing and teaching, some are staunch keepers of a nation’s heritage. And in each case what these men do so well is enough to make them famous and fill their lives with value. But Denis Williams did all these things with passion and intelligence mixed with high achievement. And, beyond the myriad of public achievements, it is well known – and I can attest – that his private conversation is a full and stimulating education all on his own. There is an African saying that when an old man of wisdom dies an entire library is burned down. When Denis died a library not only burned, but whole galleries of art and the imagination went up in flames.
• Then there is the master spirit who lived among us. Philip Moore was a patriarchal 90. His life’s work is a glory for his land. I think he is one of the great artists of the world. His paintings and sculptures should grace famous galleries and maybe one day they will. For now let us feel fortunate that his mysterious, dark, highly skilled, African-centric shaman-inspired masterpieces are available to see in Guyana. There will come a day when they will be universally respected.
I once visited Philip where he lived when he was in Georgetown. The place was filled with his work hung and propped on walls and occupying tables and chairs. He showed me around. I was in awe. There were many wonderful times in the pipeline. Then in his small bedroom he showed me a wonderful thing. It was a coating of some kind, perhaps the oil-skin material or animal hide extended and stitched. Philip had painted over every inch of his two surfaces in the brightest colors in interconnected patterns of sun and moons and stars and crosses and cilts and hearts and priests or prophets in white robes. In the darkness it amazed me. Universe, he called it.
Philip said that when he felt weakness in himself, when he felt exhausted by the world, he would lie down and wrap this cover around him and rest on his alone and gradually he would regenerate, slowly his soul would clear, slowly his vision would come back to him, his dreamy dressing spirit would strengthen and finally he would be ready to do his work again.
“Wrapped in my dream mantle”. Naturally, I’ve remembered such a wonderful and wonderful thing ever since. And it has seemed to me that all those exceptional human beings we call geniuses, and one that Philip Moore is certain of, one way or the other, in fact or figuratively, dress themselves have dreams when it is needed to bring their miracles out of fulfillment.
The columnist’s note
In my February 7th column on encounters with extraordinary people, my frank words of Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson omitted mentioning that he had become an international pariah later in life for unscientific and racist views on genes and race.
I should have checked before recording my early memory of meeting Watson in Cambridge and then I would have been able to give a more true picture. The horrible nonsense that Watson has expressed on race should of course be dismissed.
As Dr Francis Collins, a renowned geneticist and Director of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, said in rejecting scientifically false and “very unfortunate” statements, “It is disappointing that someone who made such innovative contributions continues to hold such unhelpful beliefs and harmful. ”