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

Frank Stella's Hyena Stomp

Hyena Stomp

"A two-dimensional surface…has to allow for both a flat and shallow space. It has to create convincing recessional depth and theatrical projective illusionism” -Stella

Personal Thoughts:

Unlike Rothko, whose works focused on the liberation of hues, Stella is intrigued by the containment of color as well as their ability to define designs. As in Hyena Stomp, intricacy, precision, and the fundamental drawing are the key concepts in affecting how red or green might be used as form. The flatness of the paint’s application and lack of fluctuation within the lines is also contrasted with the depth created by the illusion of a tunnel or spiral maze. And unlike Rothko's interest in color subtleties (perhaps to erase linearity and create a lack of structure), Stella juxtaposes color (in particular, pure, one toned-colors) in hopes of putting an almost architectural, robotic graphic spin on his artwork so that there is very much structure and definition.

Question:

Geometry, dimensionality, and color are all components of Rothko's No. 16 and Stella's Hyena Stomp; yet, the two have very different feels. What do you think this says about the goal of each artist? Are they trying to achieve a similar end, but simply by different means? Or are their focuses completely different? Does the fact that Stella came after Rothko change your opinion/alter your understanding of these pieces at all?

Mark Rothko's No. 16

No. 16 (Red, Brown, and Black)

“I’m not an abstractionist. I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.” -Rothko

Personal Thoughts:

What Rothko accomplishes so skillfully here is the creation of atmosphere and the expansion of something flat and two-dimensional into a very dynamic and multi-dimensional thing such as emotion. Specifically, the artist creates a sense of pensiveness, retreating from flashy materialism into the arguably cavernous corners of our minds and suggesting an organic state deeply rooted in silence.

As in all his other pieces, Rothko uses color here to convey a poignant feeling, scale and hue to envelop the viewer so that one is within the painting rather than front, and varying saturation to create a balanced composition.

Question:

I think I would have easily "missed the point" if I didn't ask the following: What do you feel when you experience No. 16? Can you pinpoint why?