Gustav Klimt

Ok now here is the other guy.

Gustav Klimt was a very important Austrian artist in the early 1900s. He lived in Vienna and was renowned for his characteristic style, which is realistically painted women (often naked or in some sort of suggestive poses....the guy was a sex fiend) who are shrouded and/or floating in this amazing geometric chaos. But there was a purpose to this sex fixation! Klimt painted pictures that were called pornography in their time in order to shock the Victorian era out of its prudeishness. Along the way they ended up being beautiful and just really cool.

Here's some of the tamer of his more passionate work:

He also did a lot of landscapes with the same eye for detail as in his nudes.

Ok, quick recap:

Paints surreal pictures full of mysterious women and sex with great attention to detail and the purpose of provoking society into feeling.

So what do you think? Are the similarities between Haruki Murakami and Gustav Klimt enough to overcome the simple fact that one is a modern Japanese author and the other was a turn of the century Austrian painter?

Sublime?

As my paper progressed, I decided to compare the way that artists depict the sky, and to find a way to determine which depictions could be considered sublime, if not all of them. Along with works by Turner and Friedrich, which I find to be very sublime, I looked closely at the work of Maxfield Parrish.

I don't see Parrish's work as sublime, but I wanted to determine why exactly that is, namely what the difference is between his work and that of the others. During my investigation, I found that those paintings of the sky that I felt were more sublime were those that did not necessarily depict it as it is, but as humans experience it. The Parrish, while incredibly detailed, does not provoke the same awe in the face of the forces of nature as does the Turner.

What do you think? For you, what criteria can be used to label something as sublime or otherwise?

Haruki Murakami

Ok, just to preface this post. My paper is a comparison of a Japanese author named Haruki Murakami and an Austrian painter named Gustav Klimt. I'm not sure why it occurred to me to compare the two, other than the fact that I really like both and that it's easier to write about topics you care about, but the more I thought about the idea the more I realized how perfectly the two fit together. In a weird way that doesn't make sense until you really start to deconstruct exactly what makes their respective work beautiful. So I'll give a quick profile of each of them and let you connect the dots between the two, because that was half the fun of this paper.

Haruki Murakami is the most popular Japanese author right now. He writes novels and short stories which are generally very strange, but in the way that a dream is strange and we still don't question it. In fact, often when his characters dream what happens in the dream is just as important as what happens in their reality. His protagonists are almost always men, but it is usually the women in his books that hold the real power. These women are mysterious, often with unexplained mental powers, and usually end up having sex with the protagonist.

It would be nearly useless to give plot summaries of his works because what the books are "about" is rarely what they're actually ABOUT. What the entirety of his work is actually ABOUT is the empty souls of modern Japan, people who have fallen into a state of apathetic subsistence that requires such strange catalysts as psychic prostitutes, wives leaving husbands right and left, earthquakes, being trapped in a well, etc. in order to break free from the monotony into a state of feeling.

Also, the context of his books is undeniably Japanese; there are tons of little cultural aspects that make it into the novels because Murakami pays very close attention to the tiniest details of physical appearance and daily habits. My guess is that this is to keep the book grounded, keep it real enough to make the weird stuff believable. Another strategy he uses is to set his books around the same time as real events in Japanese history, even if they only tangentially affect the story line. So as a result of this inherent Japanese-ness people in the books are totally cool with having Shinto priests tell their fortunes or being told that their troubles are the result of a bad flow of energy in their houses, which is really interesting.

Ok so recap:

Writes surreal books full of mysterious women and sex with great attention to detail and the purpose of provoking society into feeling.

Do you think the dream world is a useful and interesting device for exploring the boundaries and limitations of reality? Or did the stuff about psychic prostitutes and being trapped in a well scare you off?

IMAGES

I can't get the images to attach!! Here are the links.

Fragonard, The Swing, 1776
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Fragonard%2C_The_Swing.jpg

Degas, The Tub, 1886

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/graphic-arts.html?no_cache=1&zoom=1&tx_damzoom_pi1[showUid]=4041

Degas Sketch

http://johnnyholland.org/wp-content/uploads/edgar.jpg

Chuck Close, Fanny, 1985

http://thepacegallery.com/#/q_title=Now%20Searching:%20fanny&q_keywords=fanny&r_referrer=nav&r_type=keyword&r_details=x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_&r_page=x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_x_&r_search=0~q_title=Now%20Searching%3A%20Home&q_searches=6&q_id=1&q_q_1=homepage&q_c_2=Artist&q_q_2=Artist_isPaceArtist%3Atrue&q_c_3=Catalog&q_q_3=Catalog_yearPublished%3A2008&q_c_4=Catalog&q_q_4=Catalog_yearPublished%3A2009&q_c_5=Catalog&q_q_5=Catalog_yearPublished%3A2010&q_t_6=Museums%20Exhibitions%20Search&q_c_6=MuseumExhibition&q_q_6=Exhibition_category%3Acurrent&r_referrer=nav|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|&p_visible=1&p_type=ArtWork&p_itemName=ArtWork&p_id=2051&p_ids=2051

Robert Ryman, Ledger, 1982
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=13058&tabview=image

Let's Play Baseball

http://img.buybabydiaper.com/images/Popular-Lets-Play-Baseball-Super-Sturdy-Picture-Books-Costs_517WSM3Q80L._305_235.jpg

Essay Revisited

So I kind of rewrote my essay (taking some of your advice) so I have to rewrite my post.

I explored the idea of secrets and curiosity scientifically, and found every article basically saying that our curiosity is innate. The more I thought about it, the more mystery because my fascination. We get so preoccupied with mystery, sucked in to books like Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code. From there, I extrapolated to the idea of art, curious as to why I'm so attracted to some and not to others. Why, when there are many individuals who can precisely replicate a scene photo-realistically with paint, are the artists in the museums people like Rothko and Ryman; more importantly, why do I like Ryman so much more than a photo-realistic oil paint landscape. The answer is mystery. Mystery is ultimately what is most attractive about art and, ultimately, about life. We play hard to get, we research new fields, we step into the shoes of another through community service or acting or psyche. Furthermore, our ability to harness our curiosity further than food and shelter seeking is what makes humans unique.

So I explored the different kinds of mystery in art from Fragonard, to Degas, to Chuck Close, to Robert Ryman. I then looked at the Frost poem "The Road Less Traveled" as suggested, and actually related it back to the good and bad children's books I originally took in for that class.

EVERYONE BE CURIOUS ABOUT LIFE. Life is too short to sit around allowing things to happen to us; we must seize every day and learn something new!

Yah! Happy Holidays
PS. Images in the next post

on the topic of illustrations...

Sooooo these are some really cool illustrations I found online. I think it'd be interesting to find poems to go with each one. I'm not sure what would go with each, but this would be an interesting experiment as far as painting with words: to find what poem, the mood and word choice and images, go with which image. I'm a big fan of all three of these. The one on the bottom right reminds me almost of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," which is a sensory bombardment, but not nearly as happy and bubbly. Still, if anyone reads this post: http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm Definitely worth checking out. At this point there's not much I can ask about my essay, since I've finished it, but I would issue a challenge to try to find poems to match these illustrations. They have to be cool poems, since they're cool pictures, but anything else goes.

Illustrating poems

I decided to do my paper on the combination of poems and illustrations. I think that this is a unique approach to painting with words because poems can be expanded in two directions: first, poems are meant to be read aloud (excluding concrete poems), as well as read silently. Reading poems aloud adds to their effect. Second, poems can be augmented with illustrations. This expands on their visual aspect, not only the length of lines and quality of words, but also the visual images that the poems present.

William Blake's poems are interesting to look at, because he was an artist as well as a writer. Here's one of his poems from Song of Innocence and Experience, called "The Tyger." Here, his illustrations enhance the poem because they add to the general dark mood, with the red-eyed tiger, sharp, thin branches, and dim colors.

When interpreting someone else's poems, the process is different. What would you suggest as a strategy for doing this?

different approaches to using ruins

I found this bottom painting also by Hubert Robert called "Imaginary View of the Grande Galerie in the Louvre in Ruins." It makes me wonder what the effect of showing such a prominent building in ruins has. Robert's piece contrasts sharply with the top one, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, called "Ancient crossroads of the via Appia and the via Ardeatina." While Piranesi seems to emphasize the great detail of the ruins and their towering magnificence, Robert instead uses them to create a mood of mystery and sublime melancholy. His building fades away into the haze of the distance, while Piranesi's stays distinct and clear. Also, in Robert's piece, the people and the foreground have more importance than the people in Piranesi's peice do. In his, the clutter of the architecture overpowers the people in it.

What elements do you think ruins bring to both these paintings? What elements, besides the ones I've already mentioned, do you think are used in one but not the other? What should I mention about the paintings that I haven't already? Color? Texture?

Comments

I've been trying to comment a dozen times, but every time I click [Post Comment] the comment evaporates. (If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know!) So here are my comments:

1. A Secret- Lil' G

Secrets... that's a really interesting way to look at how/why we interact with words and images. But I think enlightenment and sense of belonging are not always essential to appreciating a painting or a poem. Sometimes, they leave me completely confused (Rothko's color field paintings, for instance) but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying those works. I think a painting does offer more than words because it's immediate. Whereas we have to process and at least try to understand a written work, we tend to react more immediately to a painting based on its aesthetic cues. Between creating an image for writing and vise versa, I don't really prefer either one; I think we do both at the same time. Writers/poets don't share the entire secret and we often times have to fill in the gaps ourselves (i.e. create a story, or at least, narrative details). Similarly, I think we "create an image" when we look at one. For instance, people see different things in a cloud (carrot, rocket, fish, etc.). Even if the image is a more concrete painting, I think we notice different things and essentially see a different painting based on our biases/interests/preferences/etc.

2. Video to Text Comparison - Kyra

Wow! It's vastly different from what I thought it would be. I read the text version with a different pace and understanding of the tone. But one of the major differences between the two that most struck me was volume. Unless it's a movie script, writers don't tell us how to read their text, but volume in the performance really added to the meaning of the poem. There's a difference between "What do you want?" and "What do you want?". Similarly, performance italicized parts of the poem and highlighted the poet's attitude, which due to this poem's subject matter, was especially important to understand. The performance didn't necessarily change the meaning of the poem, but did add to my interpretation of it because it was more direct.

Although this doesn't really fall within the scope of your paper, I thought it might be interesting to consider an additional category. In addition to poem vs. poem + performance there's poem + music (i.e. hip-hop/rap) which is pretty distinctive from the other two.

Here's an example of poem + music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACg8T5eliTE&feature=related
(words being around 1:15)

Not every song has a "poetic" feel to it but what makes a poem a poem is like discussing the definition of "painterly" so we'll save that for later :p.

And lyrics (or the poem):

All causes and all effects.
No college shit necessary to acknowledge it.
Some call it love and some call it sex. Opposites.
Call it what you want, but with one touch and you’re gone, so call in sick.

Human politics, from whispered hushes and distant crushes.
Mental fits breakin’ pencil tips and inkin’ brushes.
Simple rushes.
God makes man, and this is the devil’s finishing touches.

From dukes to duchesses and kings to queens.
From dust to dust, this is the sinful theme.
The scene for crack fiends and gun-packin’ teens
High on vaccines, magazines and saccharine.

From dukes to duchesses and kings to queens.
From dust to dust, this is the sinful theme.
The scene for crack fiends and gun-packin’ teens
High on vaccines, magazines and saccharine.
Lovescream.

Surrealism

I would have liked to compare this passage from "Walking Around" to Francis Bacon's "Pope Screaming," which is an adaptation of Velasquez's "Pope Innocent X." Do these depictions of religious symbols offend you at all? DO you think both artists had the same intention?

"Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold."

--Neruda

Walking Around

I chose to do a creative piece where I combine vignettes describing my own experiences walking in the streets of Colombia with analysis and description of Pablo Neruda's "Walking Around." Originally, I wanted to compare some sort of visual artwork but that, I decided, would take away from the narrative.It would have been interesting to juxtapose the differing styles of these two pieces (Guernica and Mystery and Melancholy of Street) with their similar moods and how they may relate to the surrealist attitudes in "Walking Around."



vs




Do you get a similar mood from this:

"There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical
cords."
-- Neruda

Surrealism in Children's books

An interesting subject that I would have liked to address in my paper but didn't find a place for is the comparison between the surrealism employed in children's illustrations (I noticed that few illustrations attempt to convey direct realism, at the very least using a style of representation that made it clear that the images were drawn, as in H.A. Rey's Curious George) and that of the surrealist art movement. Though the main differences would likely be the level of sophistication, depth of meaning and intent involved in the work of art, there are certainly similarities to be found in terms of the way in which they both convey visual ideas. In my paper I discussed the aspects of children's illustrations that distance them from other art, but I think that looking at the ideas and motivation behind surreal elements in some illustrations can serve to bring the genre closer to other forms of art. The next thing to consider would be where is the distinction drawn between nonsense and surrealism?

Alice in Wonderland, John Tenniel

Vs.

Giorgio de Chirico, "The Uncertainty of the Poet", 1913

Could you find this in an art gallery?

Assuming you don't know where it's from, would you be surprised to find the above work in an art gallery? What about this:


Personally, I think I might be more surprised by the latter than the former; the first reminds me of the artwork of the Harlem Renaissance. However it's the latter work of art, a piece by Cy Twombly entitled Souvenir that is more likely to receive attention as a work of art than the former, an illustration from Ezra Jack Keats' children's book, The Snowy Day. For my paper, I'm exploring the distinction between children's book illustrations and other forms of art, including why we generally don't value illustrations as works of art separate of their place in children's literature. I compared Keats' illustration to a Cy Twombly piece in particular because to me it seems reminiscent of something that a child could create (which is not to demean its artistic value), and I find it curious that particularly in the realm of modernism, we can place more value on art that can be likened to that created by a child than on that created for a child. Children's book illustrations serve a unique purpose in supporting the development of a child's mind, but given the beauty and innovation of some of those illustrations I don't think that they should be limited to that purpose. What are your thoughts?

Video to Text Comparison

In most cases of spoken word performances, though  the author of the piece may perform their work many different times in different venues, their work is only meant to be heard once. It is not meant to be repeated to the same people over and over again for them to analyze and pick apart and do close readings—viewings?—of in order to find their own meaning in it. I feel that spoken word poetry is meant to be a personal statement that others can identify with, at times, but the author is not opening up their emotions for discussion. The way they perform it, as the writer, is the only way it ought to be interpreted.

That being said, here  is the link to the video of the performance from which I transcribed the text (watch it! It's only 3.5 minutes long!).

Is it vastly different from what you thought it would be? Did you think it added to the poem? Distracted from it? Did it change the meaning or your interpretation of it?

Music & Painting

The above painting is called Composition VII by Kandinsky, who's quoted to have said,Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. He supposedly saw color when he heard music. Not everyone's a synesthesiac, but I think there's value in understanding the relationship between color and music. I've doodled before with a song in mind, letting that song take over my hand. You may be familiar with the Windows Media Player visualization in which random bars or waves are generated based on the song you're listening to. *Questions* How do painters use color to add sound to their painting? Do you think this is effective? Between painting and writing, which is more effective for describing music? What elements would you emphasize if you were to paint a sound?

Silence in Painting

We have adjectives like small, loud, fragrant, sweet, and silky to describe our world, but similes and metaphors are more helpful for this purpose. We can compare _______ with sunset, caramel, just about any "thing" that has a name. But even then, it's difficult to describe visual and tangible things like a leaf or an insect, let alone something more abstract like a feeling. And compared to vision, there are fewer sounds in the realm of hearing we can refer to in a simile.

A writer can use devices like auditory imagery or alliteration (especially if spoken) to describe a sound. While the writer has the advantage of referring to a sound that already exists in reader's memory and prompt the reader to retrieve and play that sound, a painter lacks the kind of auditory, figurative language of a writer. But this doesn't stop them from attempting to visually describe a sound. Munch actually turns his medium's weakness -its silence- to accentuate his point. *Questions* How would you paint a "scream" (or any other sound)? How is sound described in painting vs. writing? Which one do you think is more effective and why?

the mood embodied by the aesthetics of ruins in paintings

Hi guys, I wanted to investigate what effect ruins have in painting. These two paintings ( the top one is called "View of Gothic Chapel in Ruins" by Carl Georg Adolph Hasenpflug; the bottom one is "Architectural Landscape with Canal" by Hubert Robert). It's clear that both these paintings have a distinct atmosphere, and the ruins play an important role in creating this mood. I get a strong feeling of decay and impermanence, but yet I also feel there is a sense of strength conveyed by the stones. There's also a feeling of the sublime, like there's this awesome construction from another time, and the painter's compositions, specifically the placement of the ruins, demonstrates this. I feel there is also an interesting contrast between the architectural and natural imagery in the paintings.

What do you focus on when looking at these paintings? What interests you the most? What would you write about?

role of the artist in Bartleby

I'm exploring how Melville sees the role of the artist/author and what type of artist he sees as successful. When he wrote Bartleby he had just been forced to accept much harsh criticism about he shift from writing merely what was asked of him to writing great and complicated works like Moby Dick and Pierre. He had receded into himself and defiantly continued writing. Many critics see Bartleby as an autobiographical piece about the trials and sacrifices of being an author. I am interested in looking at how Melville critiques the artist who focuses completely on the hardships of life and of writing and fails to see beyond it to the important questions found in human connections and love. I am looking at the character of Bartleby as a writer who allows himself to be trapped by hardship and forgets how to connect to others. I am also thinking about how Melville would have responded to Edward Hopper's impression of people as lonely and trapped. Would he have said Hopper failed because he could not see the reality of human connection, because he saw only his own solitude? Or would he have praised hopper as a realist?

Capturing Loneliness

I am writing about how Herman Melville in his story Bartleby and Edward Hopper depict loneliness. This painting, Sunlight in a Cafeteria portrays the loneliness of a man and a woman in a city restaurant, attempting to connect with each other but unable to do so. The emptiness of the restaurant, the ominous gray building across the street, the way the figures are turned towards each other without looking at each other, the way the people seem out of place in this city, the blank wall behind the woman, the geometric windows and tables and walls... these aspects of the painting and others evoke loneliness.

I am currently thinking about the light in the painting and how it contributes to the loneliness. Hopper often used light in interesting ways; light is often as important a character as the people it illuminates. His light is often cold and harsh, revealing the flaws of the figures rather than warming or comforting them. How does the light isolate the characters in this painting? What role does it play in depicting their aloneness?

Style Differences

For my paper, I was looking over various articles about the importance of color in illustration, and found these quotes that you might find interesting:

"It is not the form that dictates the color, but the color that brings out the form."
-Hans Hofmann
"The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it."
-Leonardo da Vinci
These quotes got me thinking, and I began wondering about the essence of illustration; is it the form (the artistic style-i.e. collage) or the use of color that make a lasting impression? Which method is more effective for the sake of creating childrens' books? Art in general?
The pictures attached are a black and white sketch of a peacock by an anonymous artist and a peacock by Eric Carle. Both pictures illustrate the same thing. Which picture is your favorite and why? What roles do style and color play in your decision?

Illustrators' Images

Oops! I uploaded the images incorrectly; here are the pieces that go with my article on Eric Carle and Ezra Jack Keats. The first one is actually the Keats piece, rather than the second.

The Written Spoken Word

Is spoken word poetry meant to be written down? When it is, can the same meaning be gotten from the words without the visual and phonic aspects? 


As someone who attempts to be somewhat knowledgeable about spoken word poetry, I've often wondered exactly what its true purpose is and what makes it so different from written poetry--if it is different at all, that is. Since spoken word poetry is meant to performed rather than read on a page, I decided to focus my paper on whether or not it should  ever be written down for an audience to read. 


Take for instance this transcription* of a spoken word piece (I will post the video later for your comparison, but first, just read this): 

I am your puppet

You are my iron lung

I’m mommy’s little girl

My head is hollow because you said,

“Pretty girls don’t need minds,

Just a man they can

Leech themselves onto”

You were always churning me out to be a soft kind

Never could hate

Or love kind,

Why don’t I just work

At the pharmacy kind—

I don’t want to be kind,

I want to be generous

I have glass eyes that never close so I can’t hide behind the blinding flash of your camera

Constantly in my face

click-click-click

I can’t wick, this is sick

I need to get out

Mommy, when you told me that

After a certain amount of water the grass starts to brown,

I went out and tried to give the lawn a spray-tan

See, I‘d rather die brown and drunk than green and thirsty

I am your puppet

You are my iron lung

I’m mommy’s little girl

My skin is wooded and grainy from your chemical bleaching balms [?] and firming creams

And I can feel

My internal flesh burning as my body is yearning,

Starving for nourishment

But mommy,

You don’t cook anymore

Because you said I don’t need to gain

Another five pounds

Instead, you take me out in public on a leash

After forcing my torso into a corset

Stifling each breath

As I attempt to be Disfigured Barbie

But at least

This is a pattern

And I’m all

About rhythm

Because my breathing

Is the rhythm

My blinking is

The rhythm

And the nurse in the [?] promising to heal me taps

A rhythm

And did I ever tell you

I like to listen to music

Real soft

Because then,

I think it’s coming

From me

I am your puppet

You are my iron lung

I’m mommy’s little girl

I have hinges in my legs, arms, and especially my neck so I can,

“Yes, mother,” “never,” “no, ma’am,”

To the dictator of my household

But you always were the nurturing kind

Except for 17 years, I’ve been trapped

Pumped to life by an iron lung,

My neck elongated like I’m ‘bout to be decapitated

And the metal working

Away at my soft, soft body

Churning, pumping, contracting

‘Cause you know I can’t

And if for a little while I start to feel big

I will always fit

Within your cold, hard embrace

You watch too close

Your depiction of me

Will always be unsatisfactory,

One disappointment after another

I’m sorry mother

Maybe if I was made of plastic I could fit into your world

But I am human

This is real flesh

This is real body

This is real mind

I am smart,

I don’t need to front behind beauty

I do not fit in themes,

I bleed them

I do not follow dreams,

I lead them

I do not apologize

I realize

I cannot be your puppet

You are not my iron lung

‘Cause you are not my master

 Is it really possible to get the true meaning of what the speaker/author is trying to say from just looking at this transcription? Yes, these are the same words being said, but I feel that the performance aspect introduces the reader to a new level of understanding. The video will be coming soon!

*I did this transcription myself after watching the youtube video many times. There are a few words I couldn't understand. They are indicated by: [?]

Illustrators

As a result of growing up in a family of educators, I became quite a bookworm as a child. Children's books played such a huge part of my childhood that I remember asking my mother for art supplies so that I could make my own picture books with my own illustrations and stories. Two of the children's authors and illustrators that influenced me the most growing up were Ezra Jack Keats and Eric Carle. After our amazing class in which we were able to bring in children's books (my favorite discussion of the semester), I knew I wanted my paper to incorporate authors that doubled as illustrators, and these two men immediately came to mind, especially due to their unique illustration styles, which tie into the whole point of this class-how art can "speak" to the viewer, and about how words can become a sort of "visual language".

Both Carle and Keats use a type of collage style to make their artwork, resulting in unique, memorable illustrations that have won both Carle and Keats multiple honors and awards. Here are two of my favorite pictures by both of them; the first is from Carle's 10 Little Rubber Ducks, and the second is from Keats' The Snowy Day. What do you guys think? Do you prefer collage-style illustrations to say, drawings? Paintings? If so, why? Why not? Or do you think choice of medium is not important when it comes to effectiveness of illustration?

Style

Clearly, not all paintings are delightful little scenes of sunflowers and sailboats, but I think there is a difference between unpleasant subject matter and art that is actually ugly. Many paintings about torture, death, and other unpleasant subjects are quite graceful:

Cain Slaying Abel, Tintoretto

This Tintoretto painting is extremely violent; Cain is descending with a dagger while Abel struggles. However, the image itself is beautiful, with the two men's rippling forms spotlit against the darkness. (Maybe that's why the site I got this image from is selling posters of the painting!)

Now compare it to the Baselitz in my first post. To me, beauty is not so much a matter of subject but of style.

My question is, why would an artist or writer intentionally create something ugly?

Ugly

Curly Head, Georg Baselitz, 1967

I'm interested in painting and poetry that embrace "the ugly." (I'm looking at that which is intentionally so, not that which is simply by some poor person with no artistic ability. Side note: if you're procrastinating, check out Elizabeth Bishop's "Large Bad Painting:" http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/large-bad-picture/).

The Baselitz (above) is hanging in Harvard's Sackler museum, and every time I go in (which somehow seems to be a lot,) I can't help staring at it. It's just so disconcerting. The fractured, disproportionate figure is painted in ruddy flesh and mud tones, with some blood reds at the top (which you might not be able to see in this photograph.) It's crudely done, with inch-thick brush strokes and sketchy, unfinished edges. There is a heaviness to the painting, with its crowded, confused background/figure and dulled hues. At the bottom, the tree trunk and fat, puffy feet are painted with the same palette, suggesting almost a conflation of person and environment. There's also a face at the right (which could be a human, or possibly a tiger?) that adds a sense of danger to the painting, with its shifted eyes and shadowing.


Now read this (amazing) poem by Seamus Heaney.

Death of a Naturalist

All the year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampots full of the jellied
Specks to range on the window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.

Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

To me, this conjures some of the same feelings as Baselitz's piece. Heaney's language is so rich, yet that richness is achieved through rotting flax, "rank" cow dung, "warm thick slobber / Of frogspawn" and "blunt heads farting." I love this poem-- the intensity of the language; the way it perfectly reflects what it's describing. We are as revolted as the narrator, and I don't know about you, but the last line makes my stomach clench a little. Really, though, would it be truthful to write a pretty poem about frogspawn?

Questions: Does anyone have ideas about what Baselitz is trying to achieve with "Curly Head?"

Also, does anyone have any suggestions for other paintings/poems with similarly "ugly" approaches to their subject matter?

The Sublime

Over the course of this semester, the concept of the sublime has cropped up on more than one occasion in my various classes. I'd never before fully understood what the term meant, especially as it pertained to art, so I decided to investigate. The understanding that I came away with was that the sublime is a depiction of a vast greatness and magnitude that cannot be calculated, explained, or compared.

The aspect of the sublime that intrigues me most is its application to nature. On several occasions, I have stood atop a mountain, at the edge of a cliff, or simply in my backyard, and have found myself gazing in complete wonder up and out at the incredible forces of the natural world.

I find it both wonderful and terrifying that no matter how much money and power a man has, he can still be swept up in a tornado or shaken up by an earthquake. We are at the complete mercy of the forces of nature, which can be tranquil and sunny one day, only to flood entire towns the next.

For my project, I want to compare the way in which different artists have tackled the immense feat of capturing the sublime on canvas. Some of the artists I am focusing on are Turner, Friedrich, and Rothko.

Has anybody else felt the sublime as I have when faced with scenes of natural wonder? If so, how would you describe the feeling? Or can you think of any other aspect of life that can be described as sublime?

What to use?

I will probably be using Chuck Close, Edgar Degas, and To the Lighthouse.


This piece is done by finger prints with pencil. I think there is something amazing about the organic nature of it. there was nothing in between him and the canvas - no brush or pen in the way. I think it speaks to him and to her. I can create a life story for this woman that might be all wrong, but who knows?

I love this piece because it's a glace at this dancer privately stretching for herself. she has a whole story of performance, of passion. I get a view into it and can create her entire life story - understand it for a moment...but perhaps I've got it all wrong. Does that take away from it?

quotations from To the Lighthouse:
“All these were so coloured and distinguished in his mind that he had already his private code, his secret language, though he appeared the image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the sight of human frailty” (3-4).

“When she looked in the glass and saw her hair grey, her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have managed things better—her husband; money; his books. But for her own part she would never for a single second regret her decision, evade difficulties, or slur over duties” (6).

QUESTION: Is there an image or a description in a book (including To the Lighthouse) that stood out to you? that makes you create an image or a story?

What about when a book - in which the story is given, and then you create the images - is made into a movie? When you saw Harry Potter for the first time after reading the book, were the images like what you had imagined? Did it take away from the books or make it better? Wasn't it difficult to then picture anything beside Daniel Radcliffe when you turned to the new books after seeing the movie? why? !!

A Secret

Why does something inside us always want to know the secret? Want to be in on the joke?

I'm exploring this idea and how it relates to words and images. Can a description of someone or something let us in on a secret better than a painting or visa versa? Do we like knowing the whole story or do we like inventing some of it? Can a portrait tell more about a person than a description of her? Why do we instinctively like this voyeuristic view? This private scene?

Every person has so much to him or her. Every moment of our lives that we share with someone, that we keep to ourselves, every fall, every cry, every laugh, every memory. We each have our own and so many of them. Can a painting shed light upon all that, or could writing do so better? Which gives more? Which is more satisfying and why?

QUESTION: what do you think? Does a painting offer more than words can? Is a picture worth 1000 words? If so, why? Which do you prefer, reading something and creating an image (or movie) in your mind from it, OR looking at a picture/painting and creating a story for it?

Graffiti as Cultural Preservation

Graffiti is “not for normal everyday people, its for the certain set of people....You’re not doing it for other people on the street. You’re doing it for yourself and you’re doing it for others, because unless you’re a writer, at the end of the day, you can’t even begin to appreciate or understand it” (Macdonald, 157).

There is a sense of exclusivity that naturally comes with graffiti. To be a graffiti writer is to be one of the "elite", a person that is privileged enough to appreciate both the aesthetic and literary qualities of graffiti. In a sense, this exclusivity juxtaposes (from a writer's perspective) "us" against "them". It creates a sort of tension.

‎"A Chicano kid grows up with walls of many kinds around him. When somebody is born into that situation there are several things he can do. He can ignore the walls, and sink into apathy. Or he can become violent and try to blow up the walls. But there is a third way. And that is to perform a kind of ritual magic to neutralize the force of the walls by decorating them with signs, symbols and art....graffiti is their way of saying 'I am', 'We are.' (Cessareti)

This tension can then foster a sense of community. Graffiti writers identify space as a commodity. By "bombing", they aggressively reclaim space that was taken by corporate America. When taken into the context of cultural preservation, looking specifically at the Chicano movement of East Los Angeles, graffiti is used to create a sense of community, a sense of belonging. By incorporating images iconic of the Chicano culture, graffiti writers are superimposing their own cultural identities, the Chicano identity, onto physical space. With the construction of highways that intersect barrios, thereby ultimately botching them, graffiti serves as an adhesive to rebound the damaged community.

Question: Do the violent implications of graffiti overshadow its cultural significance? As pertaining to the group of "them", can outsiders ever come to appreciate the deeper significance of graffiti, not simply its superficial, commercialized face (i.e. the OBEY brand)?

Dual Levels of Comprehension, the Exclusivity of Graffiti

“The whole art form is based upon lettering...[breaking it] from its classical form. You don’t want to lose the basis of the letter, but you want to lose the letter.” --Bomb It (documentary)

Possible thesis: the marriage of literary and visual elements in urban graffiti creates a dual level of comprehension, the visual for the masses and the literary for the selected.

A few weeks ago, we discussed the idea of a letter, or rather a word, transcending its literary purpose and serving an artful purpose. In my essay, I will try to analyze the literary and visual elements of graffiti in order to create distinctions between its audiences. It is true that graffiti has become a sort of main stream urban culture, but what's happening at the street level? For most people, the literary aspect of graffiti has been lost. Instead, they are left with visually stimulating pieces. But on a street level, at a deeply urban, inner-city, and even personal level, the words carry meaning. Not only do they transcend their "classical form" to express the artists individuality, but they create exclusivity. The artist prepares his piece so that he can filter his audience.

“The only thing you have is your name. You have to defend it.” --Bomb It (documentary)

The artist, or rather "Graffiti Writer", makes his tag--his personalized stamp, his own trademark--difficult to read so that he can preserve his own identity amidst mass consumption and forced advertisement. "The rituals revolve around making a place for one's self on the streets and helping create a sense of belonging in an indifferent environment" (Romotsky, Los Angeles Barrio Calligraphy). Graffiti is the writers way of simply saying that he exists.

My question to you is: is graffiti an effective way of preserving one's identity?

An Idea for YOU! (if you've waited this late!) =#

My original idea was to take a short story (mine was going to be Greenleaf by Flannery O'Connor, may personal favority female author) and analyze the way in which the author of the story "painted with words." In the case of Greenleaf, I was planning on analyzing how O'Connor used light in her story and the implications that painting certain scenes and characters with certain lights had. In the case of O'Connor, she usually uses light to symbolize divinity--as in, in the "heavenly" lit scenes where the bull is shrowded in purple light, she is setting the bull up as a Godly figure in the story. Contrary to that, she often uses the sun's light--wich appears harsh and bullet-like to Mrs. May, the anti-protagonist of the story (she's a really nasty main character!)--to appear as God's truth striking down upon her as almost too strong for her to recognize, emphasizing her sense of character.

With so many wonderful authors out there and SOO many great stories, why don't you just pick one and analyze it using the tools we've gained over the course? Ditch the literary analysis, save that for English class! Focus on the painting WITHIN the words!

Here's a pretty picture with light! (Not much to look at, unfortunately, when analyzing literature!)

What I'm writing about!

So, basically I decided to take on what we did the very last week of class--I know I already had another idea that I thought I was going to do then, but I got really inspired by our work together in class and thought I could write a paper over it! Basically, I'm taking some of the concrete poems we worked with in class and creating a useable theorem to decipher between which of these are "artful" or not. "Artful," a term much like painterly--don't even get me started on that!--is defined to the best of my abilities in the essay, but my question to you guys is: What do you think? Which of these fit with YOUR definition of art? It's a really interesting idea, I think, and I'd be even more interested in seeing if my classifications fit with yours or if what our ideas about what "art" is are different! Here's some concrete poems (I basicallly used the ones we talked about in class)! Actually, it won't let me add another picture, so what I'll do is just make new posts with links!

I thought working with this type of expression was very appropriate, seeing as how the course's name is "Painting with WORDS!"


[Update from PFP: James's links, coming to you live:

- James's 1st link: a new one on love...
- James's 2nd link: Il Pleut (It Rains)
- James's 3rd link:  Apfel 


Check the sidebar for tips on posting pictures and creating live links.]

(Speaking of Stomp...)

Inspired by Jenn's post on Stella.  For your listening pleasure...

Count Basie, "Panassie Stomp," 1938

Charlie Christian, "Stompin' at the Savoy," live, 1941