Prodigy and Mastery in a Postmodern World
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Prodigy and mastery in a postmodern world HOUSTON – At this city’s Museum of Fine Arts is a historic exhibition called “Portrait of Spain” that is historic, in part, because of the decimated Spanish economy that encouraged Museo Nacional del Prado to begin lending to American museums a trove of masterworks created for 17th century royalty and expected not to leave their homeland. While the reason to attend such an exhibition is to see, outside Madrid, six-foot-high works by Diego Velazquez, an artist Spain would argue remains the world’s greatest portraitist, the Velazquez works may not be the exhibition’s most awesome. In our sport’s cancelled first quarter of 2013, it appears a better pursuit to examine our recollections of masterworks abstractly and apply what abstractions result than try the intellectual’s feat of elevating lesser events and their participants to prove it can be done. Let us consider, then, prodigy, like Adrien Broner’s and Floyd Mayweather’s, and prodigy-cum-mastery, like Muhammad Ali’s, in an age marked by its postmodernism – an architectural example of which, this city’s RepublicBank Center, adorns the page. It is the embroidery on the stockings one is most likely to miss, whether gazing briefly at Antonio De Pereda’s “The relief of Genoa by the second Marquis of Santa Cruz” or studying it for hours at MFAH’s current exhibition. Of the many colorful figures in the enormous work (it is 9 1/2 feet high and 12 feet wide), six wear stockings that are visible and feature embroidery. It is a detail that belies the age of its artist – for Pereda was only 24 when he created it. In the masterpiece’s center, where the doge’s red velvet gown reflects the marquis’ steel breastplate that is itself reflective of the doge’s gown, one finds evidence of what tricks Pereda already knew, tricks enough to be invited to contribute to a Hall of Realms that would feature Velazquez himself. Pereda probably never surpassed, in four decades of trying, what he did at age 24. Therein lies a lesson about prodigy: It is wrong to assume about it a steady rate of acceleration, though we invariably do – “If he is capable of this at such a young age, imagine what the future holds!” Prodigy rarely works like that. While most every master, of whatever craft, begins as a prodigy, very few prodigies grow to become masters, and more frustratingly still, many of them fail even to surpass their later-arriving peers whose rate of acceleration is both lower and more constant. HBO’s Max Kellerman alluded to something like this during the telecast of Adrien Broner’s last match, an eight-round going- through of Antonio Demarco in November; most of the signature matches in a master’s career happen well past his physical prime, as the prime is a perishable thing. The greatest Muhammad Ali the world saw, according to Howard Cosell, was the 24-year-old who stopped Cleveland Williams in three rounds in a now-defunct concept called Astrodome that stands, still, six miles south of where this is written, and yet, who that recounts the achievements of Ali’s career thinks to include that Williams fight in his first 10 citations? There is not yet evidence Adrien Broner’s talent may not be a prodigious one that grows into mastery, and no such evidence is expected Saturday when he defends his lightweight title against Gavin Rees, a 32-year-old Welshman making his maiden voyage across the pond for his 40th prizefight – which is another way of imparting that Rees is a designated opponent for Broner. Expect dancing and showmanship from Broner and zealous overselling by HBO who, in case it went unnoticed, has no real pay-per-view fixture to replace what revenue is now lost to Manny Pacquiao and will be lost soon to Floyd Mayweather. Broner promotes himself as an eventual replacement for Mayweather, and while that is possible, it is unlikely, as Broner, who has most of Mayweather’s talent and maturity, is about to be asked to support an economy at a much, much younger age than Mayweather was when he assumed half the burden from Oscar De La Hoya and shared it four years with Pacquiao. The mistakes Mayweather made between his 24th birthday (Broner’s will come in July) and his fight with De La Hoya were many and also comparatively unnoticed because Mayweather’s then-promoter, Top Rank, had other assets in its portfolio, including De La Hoya himself. Broner, managed by Al Haymon and sublet to Golden Boy Promotions, hasn’t the same luxury of obscurity Mayweather had – and everything one needs to know about Broner’s emotional IQ can be learned by asking “The Problem” if he thinks obscurity and luxury may coexist. There is worse news for those who would profit by Broner’s ascendency, though, and it is the judgment on imitation passed by this, our postmodern age. If one seeks to be a blatant imitation of another, he’d best do it ironically – à la Hector Camacho Jr. – and even then expect harsh reviews and, more importantly to anyone who’d try such a gambit, diminished returns. Postmodernism, as an aesthetic philosophy, allows junk to be praised so long as it is original but shows little mercy to others’ ideas reworked even carefully or faithfully. There appears little that is careful or particularly faithful in Broner’s rework of Mayweather’s invention, and so, unless one thinks a talking hairbrush on free social media is the way to a million pay-per viewers, it is time to hope someone discovers originality within Broner by subjecting his prodigious talent to transcendent competition – which Broner, through no fault of his own, will not find at 135 pounds or even 140, if we’re being honest. Unbeknownst to them, a growing number of people’s future paychecks depend on Broner’s willingness to do something startling, like leap from lightweight to welterweight, right now, while he is in his prime, that fleeting thing. Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com..