The False Dissembler?

Uriel in the Sun

Satan is described in Paradise Lost 3.681:

So spake the false dissembler . . .

A dissembler is a dissembler, so a false dissembler is a non-dissembler, right?

So much for Milton's great epic! I'll never again trust a word of it! But WAIT, if Satan is a non-dissembler, then we CAN believe each and every single one of his very words. BUT whom are we to believe? Satan? Or Milton? OR does it not even matter?

Oh, this lit-crit business, so hard to get a handle on.

Bruce L. Edwards on Satan in J.B. and Paradise Lost

Bruce L. Edwards

The C. S. Lewis scholar Bruce L. Edwards tells us that MacLeish's Satan in J.B. is similar to Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost:

In the climax of J.B., it is Satan — as he arguably does in John Milton's Paradise Lost — who seems to emerge as the more sympathetic and compassionate character. The implication is that as soon as men and women discover this — as J.B. and Sarah do at the play's end — they no longer need God; they have the opportunity to grapple with human suffering without slogans and empty religious dogma.

Perhaps Edwards has a point, but only if Satan seems sympathetic to us in our human predicament, not that he really is sympathetic. He starts off as a sympathetic figure in Paradise Lost but quickly falls in our estimation of him. Does he have this trajectory in J.B.?

Milton: Books are not absolutely dead things . . .

John Milton

I borrowed from at least two different writings by Milton and at least a couple more not by Milton in composing this sonnet below, which is in the series of poems I've called the Writing Block series. In order to make this more fun, let's see which readers can find the sources to the poem below:

Not Books Alone

Also is letter not completely dead,
But in the vial of the living word
Sustained is law that oft soundeth absurd,
Provoking object that, provoking, led

To choiceless choice, for reason is but choice,
And Satan quick did grasp the naked truth,
That Eve and Adam, much to their great ruth,
Grasped naked, that reasonless meant the Voice

To excite voiced obedience: "Now choose
Life" from the Tree of Life and live by faith
Sustained through grace, or so He sayeth,

Yet still I fear can this salvation lose,
Though grace hath promised that she ever stayeth,
For gaze on Lucifer, who ever strayeth.

There it is, a sonnet in process, which might or might not be finished. I generally keep tinkering on my poems forever . . .

Writer's Block 4: Windfall

Satan Arousing
Rebel Angels
(1808)
William Blake

I'm still suffering writer's block, so I've commiserated with myself by drawing lines from John Milton to write today's poem:

Writer's Block 4: Windfall

When I consider how my life is spent,
Which far as angel's ken once held purview,
Above Most High insatiate to pursue,
Too well I see and rue the dire event.

Oh how unlike the place from whence we fell,
But here at least, we shall be fondest free,
And what I should be, all but less than He,
To rule th'infernal world, this deepest Hell.

We glory to've escaped the heavenly host,
As gods, thus through our own recovered strength,
Not by the grace of some supernal Power.

Here may we reign secure, and might I boast,
To reign is worth ambition, whate'er the length.
In Hell thus reign; serve not in Heaven's bower.

*With apologies to John Milton.

Milton's not around to receive my apology, but I think that he would have understood, and even approved.

Homework: Who is the speaker in this poem? Obviously, it's . . .

Don't Angrify the Blood

Aku vs Lord Hater

Today's idiolectual idiom: "Mad as a hater."

Note: The rare word "hater" rhymes with the common word "tater."

What? Not "hater?" "Hatter?" Okay, "Hatter" it is!

Mad as a "hatter,"
That's whatsamatter.

Devil's Advocate

Devil's Tower

Google Images

Give the Devil his due, for he is persistent! He's been trying to squeeze this hard, dry one out for several million years now . . .

The Devil's Jobs Program

Shoveling Coal in Hell?

Google Images

The Devil finds work for idle hands . . . by bringing back the old coal-shoveling jobs.

Mephisto . . .

Mephistopheles

The novelist Rachel Kushner speaks of "Jonathan Franzen's Crackling Genius" in the New York Times Magazine (October 12, 2015), but also of Mephistopheles:

[A]s I drank coffee and ate toast in Jon and Kathy's kitchen, we discussed Faust and Mephisto, who connect to [Jon's novel] "Purity" by way of its epigraph. Jon had said, the night before, when I asked him why Mephisto wants Faust's soul, "Because that is his nature."

This means that Mephisto's motive is simple, irreducible to more basic components. Here's the epigraph, borrowed from Goethe's Faust, spoken by a part of that power (ein Teil von jener Kraft):

. . . die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.

This is Mephistopheles introducing himself to Faust, stating that he is a part of that power "that eternally wills evil and eternally creates good," a somewhat ambiguous introduction.

Read Faust and discover if he speaks the truth . . .

Satan Seen Somewhere Suspicious, Says Someone

Old Scratch

Chesley Plumbing Supply

Houston

Concerning the Satan image above, someone at Glasstire on Instagram announces: "Seen at Chesley Plumbing Supply in Houston." A commentator named Brittanie Shey says she's "Pretty sure Poison Girl has this velvet too." Eh, what's that? A velvet artwork that doesn't feature Elvis Presley? Blasphemy! Although . . . Elvis himself was last sighted in a bathroom, wasn't he. And given Presley's years of hard living, this image might possibly be a Dorian Grey sort of mirror into Presley's oppressed soul.

Anyway, if it is Old Scratch, he apparently isn't bottomless, unlike that 'beer' he offered to the naif in my novella . . .

Milton's Satan: "how awful goodness is"

Marilynne Robinson
Alec Soth/Magnum
NYT

I posted the following on the Milton List a couple of days ago:

Wyatt Mason interviews Marilynne Robinson and reports back in "The Revelations of Marilynne Robinson" (NYT, October 1, 2014), in which there is a brief allusion to Milton:

The drama of how a human mind can become an inhospitable home to its owner is old and well documented. "The mind is its own place,” Milton gives Satan to say in "Paradise Lost," "and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." But in Robinson's new novel, that drama is renewed, Robinson managing her most daring, as she would put it, testimony. If, in "Gilead," Lila is mentioned by name only once by her reverend husband, the 77-year-old John Ames, in "Lila," we now hear from the woman herself.

This seems to be Mason's musing, but he applies it to Robinson's writing in her recent novel, Lila.

In response - perhaps to Satanic 'badness' - Milton List member Nancy Charlton posted a link to another review of Ms. Robinson's Lila, a review (in part) about "goodness":

Today's NYT Book Reviews has a full and lovely review of "Lila" by Diane Johnson. This paragraph stood out to me:

Central to all the novel's characters are matters of high literary seriousness - the basic considerations of the human condition; the moral problems of existence; the ache of being abandoned; the struggles of the aging; the role of the Bible and God in daily life. It's courageous of Robinson to write about faith at a time when associations with religion are so often negative and violent. And goodness, a property Midwesterners like to think of as a regional birthright, is even harder than piety to convey without succumbing to the temptation to charge it with sanctimony or hypocrisy. That is not the effect of this lovely narrative.

It sounds to me as if the last Miltonic word on this book might be from III.470-71: O Goodness infinite, Goodness immense,/ That all this good of evil shall produce . . . ."

That line quoted by Charlton goes on to say, "And evil turn to good." I am reminded of Milton's Satan, struck down by virtue: "abasht the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is" (PL 4.846-7). That's "awful" in the older sense of "awesome."

I think I need to read Robinson's books . . .

Terrance Lindall's "Dinner with the Devil"

Dinner with the Devil
Email from Terrance Lindall

Terrance Lindall sent me an email to remind me of his "Dinner with the Devil" - partly in honor of the artist and soothsayer Bienvenido "Bones" Banez - on this upcoming Friday the 19th of September, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. More details are available here on The Satanic Verses, a collaborative work by Lindall and Banez, as well as glimpses of their artwork used in illustration of the poem. I am not an unbiased reporter:

"The poetic conceit that Bones is working with is that we're already living in the tribulation of the eschaton, and the poem is his artistic vision, accompanied by vivid, electrifying artworks depicting, in some way, those troubled times." - Dr. Horace Jeffery Hodges

But this man knows the score:

"Consisting of ten books, lavishly illustrated with Banez's visual masterpieces, The Satanic Verses, in alignment with Paradise Lost, contextualizes the devil in times of modernity. The collection obviates man's archaic fear of the hellmaster, which for six millennia prevented humankind from understanding Divine perfection. From being God's chief rival in earlier books, Beelzebub, taking advantage of man's power of reasoning, morphs himself as everything that tempts, pleasures, and taxes man, snaring practically everyone, believers and unbelievers alike. Ultimately, the Prince of Darkness is disclosed with sound philosophy as instrument for the actualization of a higher, yet unrealized, Almighty scheme!" - Phillip Somozo, Journalist and Art Critic, Manila, The Philippines

And this man knows even more:

"Without a doubt, Terrance Lindall is the foremost illustrator of Paradise Lost in our age, comparable to other great illustrators through the ages, and someone who has achieved a place of high stature for all time." - Dr. Rober J. Wickenheiser, Renowned Milton Collector

Check out this website: The Satanic Verses! Given Lindall's stature and Banez's genius - or vice-versa - you can bet this Dinner with the Devil will prove a lively time as Lindall recites from the epic poem inspired by Banez, and Banez plays his Satanic Rhapsody, not to mention dinner music by the Julianne Klopotic Duet! Possibly also a reading of my poem "Hell's Bells," depending on Lindall's whimsy, if the time and the mood are right . . .

I can't make the event, for I'm stuck in Seoul, but if you'll be in New York City that evening, get your tickets now.

Keith Loria on Marcus Kyd as the Old Adversary

Marcus Kyd

The Devil In His Own Words

Photo by Scott Suchman

DC Theatre Scene

Theater critic Keith Loria calls our attention to an upcoming performance about the Prince of Darkness, "Marcus Kyd, chasing the Devil for Taffety Punk's revival" (DC Theatre Scene, September 8, 2014):

Marcus Kyd had lots of questions about what was being taught to him [as a child growing up in a Catholic home], especially about the Devil . . . . "The Devil was always confusing to me. My big question was, 'Why would a creature like this exist?' It's scary when you are a kid . . . . It was never sufficiently answered for me . . . . In 2001, I was reading Milton's Paradise Lost, as I had exhausted all Shakespeare and was still hungry for classical literature, and the portrayal of Satan in that story was fascinating to me . . . . I had never seen such a thought-provoking, sympathetic portrayal and what Milton did really got me excited as he took the point of view of the character, the way a playwright would, and provided a motivation. He became much more than just this black-and-white mythological creature and started to seem human."

That Miltonic experience led to wide reading:

After that, Kyd was hungry for more. His search for other works turned up an almost unlimited amount of literature about the Devil, as it seemed almost every famous writer had tackled the supernatural entity in some way.

He then did something similar to what I did in my novella:

"I started pulling my favorites out and I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I knew there had to be a show in this," he says. "I started fitting bits and pieces together to see if I could fit it into a narrative."

The result is The Devil in His Own Words, a fast-paced tragicomedy that digs deep into the identity of humanity's oldest villain.

There's more to read at the site, and also a brief video of the show's opening lines. If any of my readers are in Washington, DC between September 12 and October 4 and happen to see the performance, then let us know your response.

Terrance Lindall's Dinner With The Devil: September 19, 2014

Dinner With The Devil

My NY friend and famous illustrator of John Milton's Paradise Lost (as well as of the BBB), Terrance Lindall, is having a Dinner With The Devil this coming September 19, 2014 in honor of the electrifying artist Bien 'Bones' Banez, inspiration for the soon-to-be-famous Satanic Verses of Bones Banez!

My own minor poem, "Hell's Bells," might receive mention, but that doesn't matter. More important is the menu, edifying both inside and out!

Here's the cover, aka "Out":

Such meals might be subject to change . . . possibly transubstantiation? I'm merely guessing, based on my knowledge of the authors' whims about sub sandwiches.

But that sort of transformation only makes things better!

Stephen Vincent Benét's "chauvinism or narrow nationalism"?

Daniel Webster

Wikipedia

In the April 5, 1943 issue of Life magazine's editorial on the recent death - March 13, 1943 - of Stephen Vincent Benét, "Stephen Benet: The Ultimate Objectives of Free Men are to be Discovered in their Arts and Letters," is found an admission that "[b]ecause of his strong American utterance, Steve Benét has sometimes been accused of chauvinism or narrow nationalism" (page 22, column 3). The charge is immediately refuted, but in a time of National Socialism in Germany extolling Teutonic nationalism and Aryan racial superiority, the strong American patriotism of Benét perhaps needed some defense. He had, after all, opened his epic poem John Brown's Body (1928) with an invocation to the "American muse":

American muse, whose strong and diverse heart
So many men have tried to understand
But only made it smaller with their art,
Because you are as various as your land . . .

And his 1937 novella The Devil and Daniel Webster, Benét has the famous senator, orator, and lawyer Daniel Webster defend a New Hampshire farmer who had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for good luck. In the course of an argument between Webster and the devil, the latter insists that he himself is American, at which point Webster persuades the devil to let his client have a trial by jury:

"I stand on the Constitution! I demand a trial for my client!"

"The case is hardly one for an ordinary court," said the stranger, his eyes flickering. "And, indeed, the lateness of the hour-"

"Let it be any court you choose, so it is an American judge and an American jury!" said Dan'l Webster in his pride. "Let it be the quick or the dead; I'll abide the issue!"

The devil agrees to the conditions, but fills the American jury with traitors, criminals, and other unsavory men nursing a grudge against America. Webster, however, rises to the challenge:

He started off in a low voice, though you could hear every word. They say he could call on the harps of the blessed when he chose. And this was just as simple and easy as a man could talk. But he didn't start out by condemning or reviling. He was talking about the things that make a country a country, and a man a man.

And he began with the simple things that everybody's known and felt - the freshness of a fine morning when you're young, and the taste of food when you're hungry, and the new day that's every day when you're a child. He took them up and he turned them in his hands. They were good things for any man. But without freedom, they sickened. And when he talked of those enslaved, and the sorrows of slavery, his voice got like a big bell. He talked of the early days of America and the men who had made those days. It wasn't a spread-eagle speech, but he made you see it. He admitted all the wrong that had ever been done. But he showed how, out of the wrong and the right, the suffering and the starvations, something new had come. And everybody had played a part in it, even the traitors.

Then he turned to Jabez Stone and showed him as he was an ordinary man who'd had hard luck and wanted to change it. And, because he'd wanted to change it, now he was going to be punished for all eternity. And yet there was good in Jabez Stone, and he showed that good. He was hard and mean, in some ways, but he was a man. There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing too. And he showed what the pride of it was till you couldn't help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it. And he wasn't pleading for any one person any more, though his voice rang like an organ. He was telling the story and the failures and the endless journey of mankind. They got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey. And no demon that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it - it took a man to do that.

And by his eloquence and gentle manner, Webster reminded those twelve damned men of their innocent childhoods in what came to be America, and of the mistakes that men make, and he even succeeded in getting Stone released from the conditions of his contract with the devil - all by reminding men of what being free Americans felt like, even if the twelve had gone on to err in their adulthood.

From these passages I've quoted, I wouldn't call Benét's nationalism "chauvinism or narrow nationalism," though it is an American-centered nationalism . . .

Stephen Vincent Benét: National Literature?

Stephen Vincent Benét

Wikipedia

I am scheduled to give a talk of 15 to 20 minutes about "literature and the national community" on September 26th, so I'm thinking about some of the influences of American literature on my own writing, for example, a story about the devil by Stephen Vincent Benét. In Jackson J. Benson's book Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work, we find a remark about Benét:

Benet (author of John Brown's Body, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Listen to the People) was interested in native materials and the importance of bringing forth (as Emerson had advocated a century earlier) a uniquely national literature divorced from the influences of Europe. (Benson, pages 64-65)

The so-called "influences of Europe" alludes to a long-held American belief that Europe was corrupt and corrupting. The story titled "The Devil and Daniel Webster" was about powerful patriotism, a strong love of country, so strong that it could even defeat the devil. Of this powerful patriotism, John Griffith - writing the entry on "Stephen Vincent Benét, 1898–1943" for The Poetry Foundation - informs us:

From his earliest years, Benét developed a taste for romantic, melodramatic, and heroic fiction and poetry, a sympathetic observer's interest in America's regional cultures, and an old-fashioned devotion to domestic and patriotic values[,] . . . . his patriotic love of the United States . . . [stemming from his appreciation of America's] vital complex of culturally distinct regions and heritages."

I'll have to give this issue a lot more thought, perhaps by looking back at Emerson's call for a national literature . . .

Spoof BBC Site: Sympathy for Lindall's Devil?

Lindall's Satan

In some slightly old 'news,' the spoof-BBC site, Och Aye the News Scotlandshire, reporter Outa Conteckst writes on "Salmond's sympathy for the Devil" (Thursday, May 1, 2014) - Salmond being Alex Salmond, Scottish politician and separatist leader:

All right thinking people across the globe have called on Alex Salmond to apologise for comments in which he lavished praise on Satan and described him as an "angel", punished for taking on heaven's "stifling status quo". The splittist leader also called God "dictatorial".

The spoof - which continues for several paragraphs - was apparently a response (written in spoof BBC style) to a Daily Mail article "Fury as 'insensitive' Salmond praises Putin for restoring Russia's pride in itself," which arguably takes Salmond's remarks on Putin 'out of context' (hence the spoof reporter's name).

Some of the local allusions go past me, but for context, just note that BBC Scotlandshire - which is not part of the BBC - publishes fictional stories in the style of BBC Scotland to satirize the latter.

The connection to Lindall was a reference to "Milton's 'Paradise Lost', a copy of which was lying on the table," apparently a copy with the Satan image shown above . . . in the spoof, anyway.

By the way, note that the 'porthole' in Satan's belly shows hellfire within the old devil, this being Lindall's allusion to Paradise Lost 4.75, where Satan declares that he himself is hell. To experience more 'sympathy' for the devil, see this poem: "Hell's Bells"! But don't expect much sympathy here.

Milton's Paradise Lost: Adam and Eve Should Have Known Better!

Eve and the Serpent
You'd think she'd have suspected . . .
By hawanja

I previously said that with respect to Adam and Eve's awareness of the foe's aims, the alert reader should consider PL 9.351-356, in which Adam elucidates faculty psychology further:

But God left free the Will, for what obeyes
Reason, is free, and Reason he made right
But bid her well beware, and still erect,
Least by some faire appeering good surpris'd
She dictate false, and misinforme the Will
To do what God expresly hath forbid . . .

On the Milton List I noted an implication of what God had forbidden, for God had forbidden only one thing, eating from the tree of knowledge:

Given that Adam said (9.356), "To do what God expresly hath forbid," Adam and Eve would seem to have an inkling that the foe would somehow try to get them to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, for what else could Adam be referring to? And what else could Eve have understood him to be referring to? Yet, Eve seems not to remember this . . .

I was challenged on my statement that Eve had forgotten the command, but I actually meant something a bit different, as I clarified:

[P]erhaps I wasn't clear. I meant that Adam's warning about doing what God had expressly forbidden implies that Adam knows - and that Eve should realize - that the foe they face will use the tree of knowledge in some way to try to mislead them, yet they also seem simultaneously not to know this, since otherwise they would speak more directly about avoiding the tree.

I also think that if Eve was expecting the foe to use the tree, she should have recognized that she had met the foe as soon as the serpent led her to the Tree of Knowledge.

Why didn't she?

Yi Kwang-su on Milton's Satan - Of the Devil's Party, but Knowing it?

Choi Chongko
Photo from Center for Korean Studies
University of Hawaii at Manoa

In his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793), William Blake wrote that Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it." Perhaps a youthful Yi Kwang-su was similar - except for the "without knowing" part - for I've recently read of Yi Kwang-su's love for Milton's Paradise Lost and his admiration for the 'heroic' figure of Satan there. I posted a bit about this on the Milton List:

[H]ere's something on Yi Kwang-su's appreciation of Milton:

Yi also felt drawn, however, to the poetry of Byron and Milton because he thought it expressed a Satanic passion that contrasted with the morality of Tolstoy. Yi had been awestruck by the defiant pride of Cain in Byron’s poetry. He admired, moreover, the image of Satan in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”: “I found his Satan heroic, falling to Hell after failing in his effort to lead a rebellion to dethrone God, and standing in the midst of the eternal flames of Hell, arms crossed, refusing to abandon his defiant will. I myself wanted to become a disciple of Satan and follow him.” (page 252)

Ann Sung-hi Lee, "The Early Writings of Yi Gwang-su," Korea Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2002 (pp. 241-278).

I then realized that most scholars on the list would have no idea who Yi Kwang-su was, so I added a follow-up post:

I might add that Yi Kwang-su's interest in Milton is perhaps more than a curiosity.

Yi was more than a novelist, though he is considered to have written the first modern Korean novel (Heartless). He was a poet and a man of letters, a translator and a thinker, a Korean nationalist who ultimately worked with the Japanese colonialists, and possibly the central literary figure during the interwar years, a man who was abducted by the North Korean army during the Korean War (he died in captivity) and whose legacy continues to be disputed by the left and the right.

The passage . . . [above in my first post to the Milton List] was written by Yi's grandaughter, and since she gives no citation, I conclude that the quote on Satan comes from Yi's unpublished journals (which she refers to in the context). I suspect there's more there on Milton. Perhaps a Korean scholar on Milton could look into this.

I then decided to ask an expert, Professor Choi Chong-ko:

You might be interested to know that I posted . . . [about Yi Kwang-su] on the Milton List . . . [because Yi cited Satan in Paradise Lost, as I learned in a journal article by] Prof. [Ann Sung-hi] Lee, [who,] however, did not provide a citation. I'm inferring that she's quoting an unpublished journal.

Professor Choi replied, referring to Yi Kwang-su by his pen name, Chunwon:

[T]hanks for your inspiring message. I guess, Prof. Ann Lee's "Early Writing" means Chunwon's diary of 1909/10. Sure, Chunwon fell in [with] Byron and Satanism shortly as a young writer and intellect, but it was just an experience and temptation. The Korean text of the diary is to be contained in my coming book "My Life: Chunwon's Autobiography" published soon.

That should prove interesting, if my wife can take a look at the passage, which is in Korean. I wonder if Yi's identification with Milton's Satan was motivated by Korean nationalist feelings directed against the Japanese imperial domination over Korea since Japan had held sway over Korea since 1905 (though colonization began in 1910). Professor Choi considers Yi's admiration of Satan to be a folly of his youth, but even youthful follies have their reasons . . .

Terrance Lindall and Bienvendio 'Bones' Banez: Paradise Lost and Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses Gold Folio

Terrance Lindall has recently announced the upcoming Gold Elephant Folios, projected to be available by September 2014, in which Bien's Satanic Verses will be illustrated with his own images centered and Lindall's images along the periphery. Lindall's work of this sort has already been praised highly by renowned Milton collector Robert J. Wickenheiser:

Without a doubt, Terrance Lindall is the foremost illustrator of Paradise Lost in our age, comparable to other great illustrators through the ages, and someone who has achieved a place of high stature for all time.

That quote appears at the website linked to just under the above image, as does a quote from me:

The poetic conceit that Bones is working with is that we're already living in the tribulation of the eschaton, and the poem is his artistic vision, accompanied by vivid, electrifying artworks depicting, in some way, those troubled times.

I've said even more about Bien's art and self-commentary, in an email to Lindall:

Bien's a great artist. His writing is not always the clearest in meaning, but I've found that if I don't try to pin down too precisely what he means, then I can understand him well enough. His writing is, of course, bound to be of interest to future art critics and art historians.

There's a certain fallen glory in the images that he displays -- like stained glass windows of hell. I've never seen anything quite like them.

Bien's Satanic Verses might seem more clear than his raw words themselves, for they've undergone some editing by Lindall and me, but the words should never be taken quite so literally as one might think, but, rather, literarily!

I'll be interested in seeing the final product, which may differ to some degree from the version I edited . . .

Bienvenido "Bones" Banez Jr. - Rising Fame?

Bienvenido "Bones" Banez Jr.
Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art

An email from my friend Terrance Lindall informs me that "New sites have picked up Bien." He refers to 'psychedelic' surrealist artist Bienvenido "Bones" Banez Jr. and his artwork. One site that has picked Bien up is the Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art, which has this to say about itself:

Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art is a privately owned venue for artistic expression. It is strategically located within a cluster of progressive communities South of Manila. It has an independent exhibition area able to accommodate large-scale works, and a spacious garden ideal for outdoor programs, performances and sculpture installations.

Goals of Kulay-Diwa:

To discover and promote the works of talented, young and deserving Filipino Artist[s]; To serve as a cultural outpost and make the arts more accessible to the fast-growing communities South of Manila; and To foster cultural interaction and exchanges with the local regions, Southeast Asia and other countries.

Kulay (Color)

Diwa (Spirit, Thought)

Phillip Somozo, writing for the website of the Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art, says: "At a time when Manila is rocked by controversies surrounding the questionable declaration of some personalities as National Artists, a Davao-born art talent quietly carved a niche among history's greatest surrealists," adding that "his name, profile, and sample work recently are published in a German edition of The International Encyclopedia of Fantastic, Surrealist, Symbolist, and Visionary Artists." Here's a sample of what this gallery offers as characteristic of Bien's work:

This artwork is a photo of Bien's famous statue of Satan, but modified by mixed media colors on the photograph. Of these colors, Gerhard Habarta, writing for the The International Encyclopedia of Fantastic, Surrealist, Symbolist, and Visionary Artists, has this to say:

What makes Banez a paradox among surrealists is his depiction of hellish conditions not as murky depths, but psychedelic sceneries where spectra of colors enthrall viewers. Figures -- human, geometric or biomorphic curiosities -- lose tactility and become translucent images and luminosities swirling, shimmering, or disintegrating in a world bereft of gravity . . . . Esthetically mesmerizing [as] the colors are in a Banez canvas, the portrayed perversion and misery of humankind are as morbid and offensive to good taste. Apparently, the artist captures the viewer with chromatic wonder; then, in succeeding moments, pounces on his cognitive faculties with horrors of the wages of sin.

Bien, I gather, is a very religious artist, and his "666 Art World" seemingly depicts the trials of the Christian "Tribulation" as set forth, rather murkily, in the Book of the Apocalypse, but Bien's vision shines through that murk with an aesthetically captivating chromatic miracle of a seeming paradox between artistic color and morbidly 'tasteless' imagery -- to put the matter in Habarta's terms!

Another art site, the Visionary Art Gallery, offers this colorful painting:

Our World 666 Extinction

The site also shows one of Bien's paintings on display in the Phantasten Museum, Vienna, Austria, but I'm not able to copy the image for my Gypsy Scholar site.

Yet another website, Our Own Voice, offers several images (also uncopyable, unfortunately) and says this:

Bañez's art revolves around the reign of evil in the world, which he likes to refer to as 666. To Bañez, the perpetrators of wars, poverty, injustice, environmental degradation, cultural decadence, and terrorism -- are already the incarnates of 666; no need to look further, or make paranormal theories and computat[i]ons. Evil is here, doom is close by. And Bañez expresses all these in a kaleidoscope of psychedelic human and sub-human figures.

As I noted, a very religious artist, in his motivation and also in his manner of expression, so take a look, a very long look, into this colorful abyss, and consider Bien's words, namely, that "Satan brings color to the world" . . .