Russell was an eternal boy, a giant boy, a hawk, a hunter, a peasant, a philanthropist of heart. He was a passion artist, a ferocious critic, a savage warrior in a losing battle. The more he lost the war against contemporary culture, the more dignified and noble and exasperated he became. He did not let his anger make him brittle or bitter; he simply burned, then went quietly back to that place where genius lives.
Like any genius, part of it was clear and simple, right there in front of us, easy to see, while another part of it was forever unseeable. With each painting, he pulled something living out of that swollen current, a nugget, the solid material of time, able to be held, admired — so breathtakingly beautiful — then returned, backward into itself, into the layers of it that lie beneath us. As if we are magnanimous, powerful and in control — deciding what goes and what stays. Is this not what the angler does? Is this not what the painter does? Deciding which palette, which brush, which line? A man or woman in a first garden, picking up a dab of clay, then breathing — perhaps gently at first, but later with a maelstrom — his or her inspiriting breath, animus, into the clay. As the fish, in its own way, breathes animus into the angler. Back into the angler. And the painting, back into the painter.
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