ROBERT GROSSETESTE TALKS TO FRANCIS BACON

 

“Ah, Francis, good of you to drop in at such short notice,” said Dr. Robert Grosseteste from behind his imposing oak desk, apparently to no one, which was indeed the case, as Grosseteste was alone, trying out different approaches to begin his conversation with young Francis Bacon, one of his most promising students, and in whom, it was rumored throughout the corridors and cloisters of Oxford, he placed great faith.

 

“Ah, Francis. Nice of you to accept my invitation.” No, this didn’t really set the tone at all. After all, young Bacon would be slightly nervous about this unexpected call from the deacon, and would no doubt be thinking that this might mean some kind of punishment, or observation on his recent semester paper, which Bacon had intended to publish with or without the approval of the chancellor. Grosseteste remained deep in thought.

 

At that moment, with Grosseteste fiddling over a rare Canada Goose pen quill, given to him by his late mother, the yawning of heavy metal hinges announced the opening of the dark hewn-holly door to his office. Grosseteste swiveled in his chair to face the appearing countenance of his favorite student.

“Francis, Francis. Come in, come in. Please sit down.”

 

“Excellent. No need for formalities here, what?”

“As you wish, sir,” Bacon delivered uncomfortably.

“Well, Francis – you don’t mind me calling you that do you?”

“Not at all, sir. It’s just that …”

“Yes. Come on, boy. Out with it…” offered Grosseteste, affably.

“It’s just that my name is ‘Roger’, sir.”

“Roger?”

“Roger.”

“Well,” said Grosseteste, somewhat ruffled. He regularly confused his students’ names, but he wasn’t expecting to have done so with so bright a pupil. “Well, that settles it. ‘Roger’ it is,” he concluded, yet at the same time searching the ledgers of his memory for a ‘Bacon, Francis’.

 

Grosseteste’s short but all-enveloping in totius was sufficient to provoke a sudden demonstration of the impatience which had earned Bacon the nickname of ‘Groucho’ amongst his colleagues. He sharply awoke his master from his ruminations.

“Master Grosseteste.”

“Sorry…?”

“Master Grosseteste, you wished to see me with some urgency on some matter. Could you please state what it is?”

 

Grosseteste returned to the present situation. “Coke?” he asked, pointing at a set of two clay pipes on his desk.

Bacon looked slightly disapproving. “It’s a little early for me,” he stated bluntly. “Indeed. There are those who say that it is a little early for me, Bacon,” smiled Grosseteste, lighting his pipe. “But I do manage to keep it down to three pipes a day.” Grosseteste sucked on the pipe, and stroked his free hand over a sheaf of papers. “It’s about your treatise, Master Bacon. There will be opposition.”

 

Bacon leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the edge of the carved armrests. He brought his hands together as if at prayer, and bowed his head slightly before raising his eyes and replying.

“I am aware of that, sir. Which is why I have considered publishing it out of walls…”

“Which,” interrupted Grosseteste, “you can only do as an extra mural yourself … You are also, I imagine aware of that?”

 

Bacon sat back in his chair and crossed his ankles. “I believe, sir, that it is the most important document that has been written by a member of this academy for more than a decade. It would be a shame, to say the least, were it to be granted public status without due reference to this institution.” His eyes followed the march of a soldier ant as it probed its way up the oiled front of Grosseteste’s desk.

 

“Ars Populi”, read Grosseteste. “Art of the People… Are you sure of your convictions?”

“Pop Art is what we prefer to call it in English, sir. And, yes, I am,” stated Bacon, coldly staring out of an arch window at the steam rising with the evaporating of the morning dew. ‘Another shitty, stinking summer’s day’ he thought to himself. “I and my colleagues believe it will cause something of a revolution in the way that the layman considers art and – “

“You and this Andrew Warhol fellow … and Graham Sutherland?”

“Precisely. Although we call Graham ‘Vivian’ and Andy ‘Roy’”

“Indeed,” continued Grosseteste, now feeling the soothing effects of the cocaine rattling round his brain.

“If I may go on, sir…”

“Do, please. Do, do, dooby, do.”

“And that this revolution in terms of the perspective of art…” Bacon noticed that the ant had come to a stop at what, from this distance, appeared to be a fruit stain on the edge of his master’s desk, “will lead to a greater opening up of appreciation towards something that has remained beyond their understanding for so long.”

“Interesting, Bacon. But,” Grosseteste puffed coke smoke rings into a shaft of brighter than usual sunlight, admiring the blue-gray patterns dispersing as atoms of weakness in a field of overwhelming power, “why should the common man be even interested in art? What does art have to do with him? Isn’t it enough for it to exist and be appreciated without someone forcing it down his throat?”

“I was afraid you would say that, sir.” Bacon stood up. “It is precisely this type of attitude that prevents art from being something truly belonging to the people. I fear I shall have to take my work elsewhere. I bid you good morning, Master Grosseteste.”

 

Bacon strode willfully to the door. Before he opened and closed it, in the space between the two exiting, he turned to Grosseteste and said sharply: “There is a soldier ant on the front of your desk, sir. It seems to have discovered sugar of some kind. It will report this find to its fellow workers and soon they will return in droves. I suggest you kill it before it does so.”

 

Grosseteste, alarmed, stood up and walked to the front of his desk. He spotted the soldier ant near a stain he had made when he was lying naked on his back eating a peach on Monday morning. He felt irritated about having missed it when he cleaned the desk afterwards. And at the same time grimly guilty yet grateful. ‘How many stains had he missed before?’ he thought.

 

He allowed the creature to wander onto his thumb, and walked, puffing at his coke-pipe, over to the window, looked out and watched a medieval Wednesday go by. “You little bitch,” he said to the ant.

 

Ants are reputed to be among the most resilient of creatures. They can be found, in many different forms, and often by other names, in every region of the globe except the polar circles. It is estimated that there are 10 million billion ants, and that this number has remained more or less a constant throughout the ages. On this medieval Wednesday morning, at precisely ten forty-three and 44 seconds a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, there was one less than there had been a second before.