Saturday 7 June 2014
Still Life with Oysters and Lemon
Mark Doty is enlightened through an experience with a painting that forces him to question our very substance of being. The boundaries that distinguish reality, through which light can pass is a fine art that painters fight amongst themselves to re-interpret. Painters have studied insurmountable levels of skills to develop pigments, oils, and brush effects to reproduce the fascinating mist of light that penetrates everything. He sees the light around bodies of oysters as almost dissolving, the shells of the lemon as luminescent as though the artist has captured them on the edge of reality. Painters are the equivalent of poets of light, and it brings Doty to question the substance of being. A painting can be a reflection of reality and capture the light and essence of lemon, in defyingly outrageous curls of peel, that spark the feeling and memory of taste such that one can't help but pucker at the mouth. Doty points out that the artist is waging his arrogant skill in the art of evoking memory and sense through light. He is brought to another, deeper question: What is reality? If it is there at some moment in the past, it is also there captured at in the painting in super-reality, or is it in the memory? Doty takes us back to the memory of his mother, now dead, but with the memory he questions what is the real form of his mother, other than the memory; She is not in the form of the carcass he recounts seeing as a child. Doty argues, instead, the carcass was not death. As he leaves the museum, he is left with a hue that he's taking out into the world. He describes it as a warmth but not love; Something greater than love, but without the vocabulary to describe the gravity of his sense of enlightment, that he is simply part of the matrix of this world. This matrix of light, in which styles one form of death.
The Picture of Dorian gray: A review of Oscar Wilde's Novel about a painting.
What if instead of being haunted by the beauty of painting, we become a haunting of the reality ourselves? If we are mere spectators of life's theatre, then in theory we can get away with murder without partaking in the play. “To become a spectator to one’s life” Our protagonist says, “is to escape the suffering of life”. Oscar Wilde artfully tells the story of a painting that supernaturally becomes imbued with all the toils of life, trading it's portrait owner into the soulless, mere image of beauty. The story is set upon the undercarriage of Victorian England, thick with all the pomp, glory and material values of aristocracy, that railroad our thoughts into parallels of today's culture. Dorian Gray discovers that without suffering the consequences of life, he can recklessly indulge his senses like a spoiled boy. He remembers that “he had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old”. The gift of a beautiful portrait though, becomes a mirror into his growing ugly soul. We rarely see our true selves, as we do not think to wish for it as Dorian did “It seemed monstrous to even think of them”. Our narcissism blinds us to only see what we want to see, often concealed with vanity. But given that gift of truth, would you hide that mirror of shame? The story becomes an important one to read because even though it is “unreal” and supernatural, it begs some deep questions about the things we want to see, and how blinded narcissism can affect those around us.
Oscar Wilde plays the idea of switching souls and lack of empathy to answer all the questions that disturb us. The allure of beauty, conceals the ugliness of vanity. Pleasure and indulgence bury our shame. What happens when we hide our shame? How big will the lies become when you are afraid of being exposed. How ugly is vanity when it cannot be satisfied, and like a vampiric vessel Dorian, he cannot even suffer or feel the wrongs, except only remember them when the painting reveals it's new scars and degradation of the crimes he committed on life. In the story “[Dorian] shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil the true reason why he had wished to hide the painting away”. The reason was his shame, just as in real life shame cannot really be disguised or locked away and forgotten when it rears it's ugly head. The story results in a dreadful horror, a supernatural tale that in actual fact is disturbing to us because the dimensions between realities with Wilde's subtle stories are layers of morality that are actually too close to comfort to bear. Wherever the tracks of time lead, consumerism and vanity that consumes the soul lives with us today.
Like a ghost Dorian becomes blissfully unaware, asymptomatic of the pain and scandal he causes on others. “For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck [the painting’s] fairness. But he would not sin. The picture changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.” For every sin that Dorian commits, he does not even bear the weight of the crime on his mind, but the painting instead bears the visible burden. The painting keeps it's promise, and protects Dorian's beauty at all costs, forfeiting the lives of others like an invisible curse of all those who wish harm or truth from him. “Sir Geoffery put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the animal’s grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray”, as another threat to revealing the ugly sin of Dorian becomes a victim to the crossfire of the curse. The readers are the only witness of invisible murder, as the characters within the book fall foul, and you become the only one who knows the truth. Readers are participants in the story, in that we are playing the devils advocate and rooting for the evil, and we watch how without Dorian’s ability to feel the terror, pain or sadness eventually befalls some ill.
Horror fans will love this story, as it opens with some gothic beauty in story-telling and with a vampiric-like tale. “Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day” The narrative tells us, as Dorian contemplates “Yet he had not dreamed at all. His night had been untroubled by images of pleasure or of pain.” There is a moment early in the story where Dorian becomes cursed, and at that point readers are the secret witness to curiously anticipate what situations could unfold by trading souls with a painting. We are used to seeing snapshots of ourselves getting older, but what if over time our mementos didn't give away our age? How will it affect the relationships you have with friends, would it incite jealousy or fear? In fact, Wilde is clever at playing with failings in honesty, the crux of misunderstanding that generates fear. On one hand Dorian becomes pitifully alone, unable to share and resonate with anyone long since aged, and on the other in his anger that he should be reminded of his ill ways through a painting, he mocks it by bullying his soul to render it into the ugly creature in the painting that it becomes. Through this, we can all relate with the story, that scares us the most is perhaps our own failings that turn us into monsters.
However, the real essence of the story is what keeps it very much an issue of social responsibility for today. In the reading of this story, the participation in voyeurism without affectation of crime, we bring ourselves back to reality and are forced to question. How much have I invested in vanity? “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing” exclaims Lord Henry, a principal character in the novel who proclaims to be a bad influence. However it is a simple but accurate statement even for today. How much have I buried my shame with pleasure? How much have I been ashamed to hide? Does hiding the full truth, equal a lie? If I lie, who does it really hurt? Simply opening ourselves to these questions with examples that Dorian faces is enough of a start to think about how to become better people today. Sometimes we are completely blind unless shown other people's mistakes and the fallout it has on others. “One has the right to judge of man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity” As Dorian’s pursuit of indulgence causes a ripple effect on others, the reader is pushed often to wonder how many instances similar to this that we affect others and may also be judged. Our reality, is simply not just our own, we are collectively responsible for how we behave.
Oscar Wilde plays the idea of switching souls and lack of empathy to answer all the questions that disturb us. The allure of beauty, conceals the ugliness of vanity. Pleasure and indulgence bury our shame. What happens when we hide our shame? How big will the lies become when you are afraid of being exposed. How ugly is vanity when it cannot be satisfied, and like a vampiric vessel Dorian, he cannot even suffer or feel the wrongs, except only remember them when the painting reveals it's new scars and degradation of the crimes he committed on life. In the story “[Dorian] shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil the true reason why he had wished to hide the painting away”. The reason was his shame, just as in real life shame cannot really be disguised or locked away and forgotten when it rears it's ugly head. The story results in a dreadful horror, a supernatural tale that in actual fact is disturbing to us because the dimensions between realities with Wilde's subtle stories are layers of morality that are actually too close to comfort to bear. Wherever the tracks of time lead, consumerism and vanity that consumes the soul lives with us today.
Like a ghost Dorian becomes blissfully unaware, asymptomatic of the pain and scandal he causes on others. “For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck [the painting’s] fairness. But he would not sin. The picture changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.” For every sin that Dorian commits, he does not even bear the weight of the crime on his mind, but the painting instead bears the visible burden. The painting keeps it's promise, and protects Dorian's beauty at all costs, forfeiting the lives of others like an invisible curse of all those who wish harm or truth from him. “Sir Geoffery put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the animal’s grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray”, as another threat to revealing the ugly sin of Dorian becomes a victim to the crossfire of the curse. The readers are the only witness of invisible murder, as the characters within the book fall foul, and you become the only one who knows the truth. Readers are participants in the story, in that we are playing the devils advocate and rooting for the evil, and we watch how without Dorian’s ability to feel the terror, pain or sadness eventually befalls some ill.
Horror fans will love this story, as it opens with some gothic beauty in story-telling and with a vampiric-like tale. “Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day” The narrative tells us, as Dorian contemplates “Yet he had not dreamed at all. His night had been untroubled by images of pleasure or of pain.” There is a moment early in the story where Dorian becomes cursed, and at that point readers are the secret witness to curiously anticipate what situations could unfold by trading souls with a painting. We are used to seeing snapshots of ourselves getting older, but what if over time our mementos didn't give away our age? How will it affect the relationships you have with friends, would it incite jealousy or fear? In fact, Wilde is clever at playing with failings in honesty, the crux of misunderstanding that generates fear. On one hand Dorian becomes pitifully alone, unable to share and resonate with anyone long since aged, and on the other in his anger that he should be reminded of his ill ways through a painting, he mocks it by bullying his soul to render it into the ugly creature in the painting that it becomes. Through this, we can all relate with the story, that scares us the most is perhaps our own failings that turn us into monsters.
However, the real essence of the story is what keeps it very much an issue of social responsibility for today. In the reading of this story, the participation in voyeurism without affectation of crime, we bring ourselves back to reality and are forced to question. How much have I invested in vanity? “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing” exclaims Lord Henry, a principal character in the novel who proclaims to be a bad influence. However it is a simple but accurate statement even for today. How much have I buried my shame with pleasure? How much have I been ashamed to hide? Does hiding the full truth, equal a lie? If I lie, who does it really hurt? Simply opening ourselves to these questions with examples that Dorian faces is enough of a start to think about how to become better people today. Sometimes we are completely blind unless shown other people's mistakes and the fallout it has on others. “One has the right to judge of man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity” As Dorian’s pursuit of indulgence causes a ripple effect on others, the reader is pushed often to wonder how many instances similar to this that we affect others and may also be judged. Our reality, is simply not just our own, we are collectively responsible for how we behave.
Tuesday 6 May 2014
Two Paintings by an Art Director, Valery Leventhal
“Roxane” and “Cyrano De Bergerac” by Valeriy Yakovl'evich Levental'
I had stumbled upon two seminal pieces of art, that were at the fulcrum of story-telling for the Bolshoi Theatre, in Moscow. My journey started with dis-ease. It was a Sunday, a day I should be resting, taking it easy. I had made an effort to rest easy but anxiety to make space for myself in one day was taking over, and I had already had a thorough bowel disturbance, or maybe that was a sign of relief from a week of pent up issues. As I'm waiting for the bus, I'm dismayed that I get a phonecall from a work colleague. It cannot be good to do business before the week's start. The phonecall is abruptly cut-off because of the noisy bus journey. I'm immediately drowned in my phone again checking in on an auction, which failed to sell one of my own designs. As I arrived to view a private collection, a Russian Santa Claus came out to greet me, and all my frustrations were forgotten. As I stooped into his dark and crazy submarine of a lockup, I saw old photographs of famous ballerinas pinned to spaces here and there. He was not stopping, he squeezed me between these great high battened stacks, and here and there would draw my attention to a serigraph in a workstation, paintings set on easels in a corner, framed within frames. Frames hanging empty, paintings cached in cardboard, paintings on solid wood hung infront of more cached boxes of paintings. I was in the artist’s collection and personal horde of art. The music was playing a Chinese opera in the background. Oh my God! How was this even possible? Down on the floor outside of one corner of light, there were leaning two huge paintings. He casually drew them upright for me, they were cached in cardboard and thick laminate folders. I became sucked into them, he offered me to handle them which I did, and started telling me about them. But I did not know the names he spoke of. I couldn't see the whole painting unless I stepped back a few feet. I struggled to draw the paintings into a pool of light to compare them. Huge, they couldn't even stand upright on their own weight in the cardboard. My wingspan to hold the paintings delicately forced me to only see parts of the paintings at a time, nose-distance. After toiling them onto their sides into the light, I respectfully stepped back to gaze at them. I had totally forgotten my ills of the day, and then when Leo, the Russian Santa Claus said to me, those paintings I handled were worth the order of six figures each, it nearly brought my bowel attack back.
The first painting, was a regal woman, a huge frock of finery that dominates symmetrically the width of the portrait. This was what I spied in the dim light, the huge costume, for I have built many costumes for performers, and structures of seventeenth century I cannot fail to notice. Leg-of-ham sleeves dominate her tiny waist. The French dress panniered out from under her tight bodice like an incompressible pillow upon which her frame is pinned on-top. Her hair pushes out in thick swirls like batting that was untamed when her garment was upholstered on. Underneath, she is a doll, of pale porcelain skin, her costume nailed to her like the cushion of a violin backed maple chair, upon which her gently clasped porcelain hands are resting. Hundreds of thousands of brush points like pin headed gems pointillate her garment, giving me an impression of some finely embellished fabric, heavy and woven from Italy. There also sit two fine peacock birds on her dress. Symbolic, as though every regal bird is attracted to her beauty and wishes to sit upon her throne. Indeed, this was her role and perspective in the story of the play to which she belonged.
The lady is like a bust form upon which all regalia is imposed to record her character. Looking closer at her skin, I see the artist's pencil lines as he swooped blindly chasing her beauty from his mind. The texture is gesso'd like plaster, upon which it has sucked a veil of watercolor in translucent layers. The broad watery brush strokes fights with the texture resulting in a ghostly soft out-of-focus porcelain skin despite her stoney texture. Some of the water appears to escape the fighting brush and cries down her face. She has the serene look of a raphaelite beauty, disguising something else within. Her eyes are the only clear windows, picked out with ink and flecked with titanium white, her eyes are perfectly in focus, and knowing. There is something in the knowing eyes that gives this impression of sadness, invisibly crying down her face, from her story of tragedy where she is now frozen in time.
I was told it was an esteemed friend of Leo’s, an individual of the Russian Theatre Arts called Valeriy Leventhal that lovingly produced this painting in 1982. At the time of painting this impression of her, he was the chief artist at the Bolshoi Theatre. The lady in the portrait is the character Roxane from the Bolshoi theatre's play of Cyrano de Bergerac, and she was played by a famous and loved ballerina Lyudmila Semenyaka. As the stage play goes, every man wants Roxane, but she holds herself with high dignity of virtue, and will not easily be wooed. She waits for proof of love to comes to her as a series of poetic letters before she will let believe that her heart’s desire is reciprocated with true love. Roxane is actually quite shallow to become infatuated with a young man, then wait for him to prove his love. Finally the story ends sadly when she realizes too late who really wrote the love letters. Modern day reinterpretations have been done of her story, with the ending changed to a happy one, and there is a striking similarity of appearance with the cast roles from the movie “Roxanne” (1988), where Daryl Hannah plays the role in an eerily similar form of appearance, those thick swirls of hair, and long doll-like face. It is only the costume that is not carried over into the modern film, which looks like a blueprint for any costume maker to follow. It’s structural quality, has to be engineered with basket weaving to produce that panniered silhouette. The impressionistic style of the painting gives abstract qualities that a costume designer will strive to achieve in real life, without over-prescribing their creativity for them. The depth of emotion in this painting allows the concerto of artists building her role, from the choreography, to the actors, and the setting, to portray a unified approach to her character, creating the lady Roxane as a somewhat deceived bird in a gilded cage.
The second painting seems at first quite the opposite of the former regal beauty I was looking at, except they share mystery in equal measure. I was bemused at a fellow with an audacious nose and pompous outfit. His gesture spreads across the scene in akimbo overshadowing someone behind, deep in the shadows. His outfit is quite eclectic and ridiculous, with rich motifs as though he were the joker from a pack of playing cards. His hat waves with gaiety of peacock feathers that remind me of a jester's foule-bordeau. His bold character seems in contrast to the subtle elegance of the first painting. His stance stem from the flourish of his ruffs, cuffs and bloomers, the extremity of his poise tightly masked with gloves and fitted boots. Not one part of his body exposed save for the head, set upon an executioner's starched platter. It is a first indication of the tragedy that awaits Roxane. Even though the man looks at us, his face averts to a profile which can’t help but exaggerate his Pinnochio nose. This man could be a story teller, and upon his clothes we feed ourselves with the feast of imagination. But there is the sad shadow in the distance underneath. What is this character hiding and masking? The great symbolism everywhere points to a meaningful subcontext of the story awaiting to be told.
Underneath this male character, and by no mistake of intention, there appears to be a mournful man in deep in the background. A sadness reminiscent in the first painting. His lowered face and drawn sigh are highlighted in a color-less pale light like the passing moon. He appears shrouded with a cape, and a musketeer's floppy hat without the regalia of the person dominating the frame. He appears ghostly, indeed the gesso work and dry texture give a softness like he is an apparition. He could be like the invisible voice that sits on one's shoulders and whispers a line of conscience or devil play. This man however, looks sad, or in pain. He is the soul in the background of the prancing exaggeration before us. It is the underlying sadness in both of these paintings that draws me to the core of an important story-telling arc of this theatre play.
The painting is a large backdrop piece from a recognized play, that was coveted by the Bolshoi Theatre. This painting is also acrylic on gessoed paper, of similar size 45” x 31” often considered lesser value than paint on canvas, but this specific choice has given a distinct and unique quality to the paintings that raise clarity to it's original purpose and intention. Leventhal was a well written about honored artist, graduating from the school of cinematography as a designer of film, he went on to spend 20 years working at the world famous Bolshoi in Moscow. It is in one Russian hardbound coffee table book, “ВАЛЕРИЙ ЛЕВЕНТАЛь” ( Е. Луцкая 1989) in which I discovered reference and images of the same painting. The book describes Leventhal’s paintings in the chronological order of his seminal career as the People’s Artist of the USSR. The book archive places the Cyrano de Bergerac of some level of great significance to his career, yet here I was breathing upon the painting. It's colors and depth are striking compared to the desaturated print of the book. And there is more, the stage play at the Bolshoi was derived from a fictional play surrounding the life of the real Cyrano de Bergerac, a real-life dramatist who suffered the untimely death from an occupational hazard of being a well-known duellist. In the stage play, Cyrano de Bergerac never overcomes his insecurities to requite with the object of his love Roxane, from the former painting. It is clear that Leventhal added much background to the painting to give the character real depth, making this impressionistic painting one of the canon in the archived book. The book is not only listing the painting, but making the play itself a noteable point of Leventhal’s career. Internationally recognized awards place Leventhal in a Canon of aspired art of Russia, it sets the bar-standard to protecting the art of stage production design, for which he has become the predicate for future contemporaries to sustain.
I first became attracted to both paintings because of the detailed yet impressionistic depictions of flamboyant costume design of the 17th Century, and their irresistible theatrical size. I had no idea at the time that my gut feeling was right on the money. When I first handled the paintings I became acutely aware at their delicate medium which made them all the more valuable, as though they were rescued, and indeed they are relics. Had they been intentionally produced on canvas, they would have been portraits. These are not portraits, these are artefacts of the Bolshoi Theatre and a channel of communication between a huge team of understudies and the art department. These are working designs, painted on backdrop paper, hand gessoed in a fervent quick slurry. This was done to stabilize huge amounts of backdrop paper for the immense task ahead. I have worked on film sets myself and can relate to the huge amount of work he had ahead of him when he chose to focus on the pivotal roles to develop the rest of the play design for the Bolshoi. I saw in these paintings the rich details that went into her costume, like a map telling someone like myself, the costume designer, how to construct her regal costume. Should other painters develop supporting roles, they would have a blueprint to follow from his meticulous detail. And for the actors, dancers and understudies, rehearsing and working under the gaze of those paintings, I could see them discuss their roles. Leventhal was pivotal and hugely collaborative with the play writer to portray these lead roles with all their insecurities. He brought these characters to life, as we all wear insecurities. We disguise insecurities with masks and behaviour, and out of this disguise comes deception and the constant battle of morality. If honesty is the cornerstone for integrity, then surely living in denial, deceiving the one you love by withholding truths is a doomed prospect. It goes against the overall philosophy of living by truth and not one I would recommend. As in doing so, lying, no matter how you disguise it, creates a very sad soul. The repercussions and rippling effects portrayed in these richly detailed and moralistic paintings are the upstanding will of the Bolshoi Plays.
Self Portrait as Bacchus, Boy with a Basket of Fruit
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| Boy with a Basket of Fruit (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Bacchino malato (Caravaggio) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Graham-Dixon: “Caravaggio”; A Critical Analysis
The author compares two paintings of the same painter "Caravaggio" picked out because they were mentioned as particularly memorable and relevant to the painter's biography. The first painting is described as a dry portrait, often referred to as "Sick Bacchus". A man holding a bunch of grapes, with a pallid tone like a statue, in a poetic salute to the God of Wine. Graham-Dixon does not question the painting being a self portrait as he gathers anecdotal evidence stating the fact it was grouped with other mirror based self portraits of the artist. There is a question, however if the painting is an alludes to the artist's sickness. It is known that the artist was recently discharged from hospital before creating that painting, and there is the dry texture and expression certainly raising the issue, "why the God of Wine: Bacchus". In Greek Mythology, the author recounts to us that Bacchus was surrounded by all the anarchy of over indulgence. It is possible that his striking pose was the painter's personal manifesto of a turmoil with alcoholism. The second portrait by contrast shows us a fresher, brighter painting of a boy holding fruit. Only this time, the model for this painting is suggested to be a young Sciccilian friend, in which Caravaggio shows off all his abilities to show off his unearthly skills. The author tells us that quite opposite of the self portrait, Caravaggio has exceeded the classical style of established painting and captured a snapshot of real-life. At that time in the late 15th Century it provoked much astounding judgement and turmoil that Graham-Dixon poses many sources of evidence to illustrate those perspectives.
Friday 4 April 2014
>>Art for Sale<< Coming soon!
Thursday 3 April 2014
Le Piano by Joseph Cornell
Today I was overwhelmed. My strange journey in and around the arts has culminated in concentric circles taking me into a fast tunnel like a wormhole into a new life. I've been studying English, the theme for focus is "Art and Research". The assignment was to pick a piece of art, and describe it - for which I got an "A" this time. I feel as though I am developing very fast in my abilities to articulate what I see and interpret them for you. Hopefully as I switch attention into the Art-Horde, my skills to translate art and it's value will continue to appreciate. For now, here is my essay on one of Joseph Cornell's pieces. "Le Piano". I believe it is currently held in a museum in Japan. +Yoshihisa Kawamura +jane muhammad of the DIC corporation, the owner of the Kawamura Memorial museum which houses the Cornell works of art.
“Le Piano”
I'm looking at a photograph of a home-junk cabinet-box, so innocuous I overlooked that it held secrets of a haunted past locked within. It stands merely a foot tall upon a lip-base of wood, capped with a bookend on top, silhouetting the grand form of a pedestal. It is a rectangular box upended on one end, constructed of what appears to be found wood, solid on all sides except one window-face. The lap-framed window is joined at the corners pointing through a tight bevel seam. I am compelled to look through the glass, and I've made note that it's maker has inscribed the words "Le Piano" across the top lip of the pedestal, and there is an aged decoupage of music script underlining the cabinet-box, on the lip-base. I wonder if it's maker was indeed creating a metaphor for a grand piano out of this curious presentation? I look into the cabinet-box, at two glass shelves, and the cabinet is also lined with a cleaner music decoupage. Inside it is fresh, perfectly preserved, I imagine it to be perfectly crisp and smelling of wood and paper, in contrast to the outside which is almost acidified. Except below the bottom lead-blue glass shelf, there is a hue painted so deep I cannot make out the lower third. It hides like a deep ocean something unknown to me. Then, tempting me with trinkets I cannot touch, there are laid out in perfect balance to each other, three odd little boxes on the glass shelves; one on the middle, two on the top. I am smitten by secrets of childhood, and want to hear the music from the past. “Le Piano” is an eerie time machine that channels memories as if nostalging over a silent musical movie.
The bookends stacked top and bottom of this box are codified, like a vault with a sequence lock. Starting with “Le Piano” en Francais, and ending with an intricate musical score, both in languages foreign to me like a library classification. The lips top and bottom are like the spines of old books laminated with annotated paper. What lies in between is the library of objects one has to make the time to study to find any meaning. But the hint is there in the classified bookends, they are aged and oxidized, accumulating a wealth of memory between them. The secret knowledge and worth is categorized into the little deposit boxes pretending to be trinkets inside. It is memories that are sealed like precious gems behind a door of that jewelry box. I am curious to know what is being kept safe, and am drawn in like a thief.
The door is sealed against trespass with the likes of some superstitious blessing, codified like a spell from some Turkish or Hebrew stenciling. Looking at the geometric pattern penciled onto the cabinet facing, is like looking at the envelope of it’s sender. The bevel joined corners remind me of the wrapping of an envelope. It is perhaps no coincidence the frame is enveloped in aged paper bearing this pattern like wonderful interrupted circles that crisply define the perforated edges of a stamp. Have you ever looked at an aged postage stamp, with it’s feint postmark pattern and tried to decipher something of it’s origin? What culture was this cipher pattern from. Was the artist's father Jewish? I had to Google the artist Joseph Cornell, I had to find out if there was a connection there. His parents were Dutch, there could be a connection but no-matter. The lead pencil work outlines a geometric pattern, with a mere suggestion of the star of David, entwined with circles. The pattern is interrupted by age and cracking at the bevel seam, as though this was a cherished old envelope, previously opened but faithfully refolded at the seams like a memento from a sweetheart. The time spent carefully aligning and circumscribing the arcs of the circles imbue the sealed door with respect and patronage. The muted pencil lines now faded under a veil of oxidizing stain, impart a sense of history; A hint? Purposefully waiting to be revealed! I'm activated into thinking about family secrets. How I've often wished there were no secrets and I could be free from the past. This pattern is like code, hoping to be solved. I get a deep sense of enjoyment that maybe I'm the only one listening to his speaking without saying anything. I'm the only one witnessing his cathartic cryptic "Frame" presenting an unknown and haunting history.
There is a window through the envelope, looking at a romantic music score that sets a backdrop for this scene, a potential story of tragedy, love or nostalgia. Behind the window all is pure and white, not like the baked window frame. We get to see the secret note mournfully kept crisp in Snow White’s glass coffin. It is not often you are privy to read someone else’s lover’s letter, I feel a great sense of respect that the artist has opened his bleeding heart from something that he pined for many years ago. We are let in to that cherished memory, and with respect I am thankful he has shared this piece of himself, and am reminded of such moments of my own. Could I be as brave to share my own? I think perhaps not, that will be a private conversation between myself and the silent music box. It can rest assured that I will keep it’s confidentiality, that I have developed a deep feeling of understanding and will not share this as common gossip amongst other dancers. The music sheet sings with a pitter-patter of ballet pique turns chained together across the glassy stage set infront the romantic score. Before of the backdrop of music, there are the two glassy stages, two shelves. Upon two of the crisp white matchboxes, are the chaine footprints of the romantic corps de ballet. The lines of the music score that decorate the white boxes, run across the stage. The notes spell out like a string of pearls the complex pointe work of the ballerinas. The shelved stages containing act one, and act two, of perhaps a tragic love story, set in a scene of woe and virginal white.
Alice in wonderland, wants to prise open the cabinet, trespass and poke around with the boxes. They are perfectly decoupaged matchboxes; angular, white music notes. Except one, the salt of old leather seeps through the edges of the top-most box. You know piano keys, right? You know the flat key, or the sharp key; the one that always sounded off? This is that box, the tanned leather box. As a kid, I was always fascinated by the mechanics and geometry of boxes. I loved the fact you could poke a matchbox, and it would slide with a smooth motion, and make a yawning, ghostly whisper. I would hide spiders inside them, or grasshoppers. The leather box with the stain of wetness, makes me wonder what sinister thing was inside that flat note. No wonder sharp, flat notes always sounded off to me. Yet without them, there is no chord. And here we have three perfectly placed notes, the boxes on the shelves, spelling out a chord. If I were big enough when I was a kid, I would have looked down at my splayed hand across the keys hitting each note, but I could not reach with the width of my tiny hand. The matchboxes are rotationally organized in a way that mirrors my splayed fingers on the keys. Yet I cannot grasp them through this glass door. I am still frustrated Alice through the looking glass. The only thing I was ever good enough for with the marvelous mechanical creation of the organ, was stabbing and plonking at the keys. Here I am wondering if this marvelous little diorama, that so reminded me my father's organ, was indeed not only the intent of its maker, but also his own frustration? Ghosts from the past haunt us with their unrequited frustrations, while we suffer regrets of decisions we never had the courage to make in the past.
My father’s music haunts me from my childhood, memories I had locked away like this sealed box are coming back. My brother and I used to run around the house, and the sombre notes from his organ would penetrate all the walls and plumbing and rumble through the steel radiators like a deep whale song. My memories are resonating from the depths of the cabinet's blue ocean. Those organ foot pedals would lay on the base notes, and he would weave music by treddling a deep dark magic. My brother and I used to nervously giggle as picture frames sinisterly hummed by themselves as the vibration gave them new life. I could never understand or even hope to understand the majesty of that organ. My father was the only one who could unlock its potential. And here I am again, looking through the sealed door of that most curiouso cabinet. A grand pedestal in its own right. A Victorian museum sealed to keep the poltergeist of the past within, what other horrors could I unravel?
Studying the photograph with better light on another day, and comparing with other pictures, I can now make out the child statue in the depths of the ocean of tragic memory. The Victorians mortified their memories in stone also. Alfred, husband of Queen Victoria commissioned sculptors to fashion copies of their newborn babies limbs into porcelain. The curios of cupid limbs remain locked in cabinets to this day, a rather choking and deathly memento that pangs of sadness despite it’s sinister appearance. My sense of realization is so overwhelming to me I want to cry the salty tears of the ocean. Deep in the ocean of memory is the smiling child perhaps that he was, that I also remembered being. It was so hard to see I couldn't make it out at first. But now I see it, like a little porcelain angel, all that was innocent and hidden deep, almost overlooked, until I struggled to see within. Our tendancy to forget our childhoold, is made more poignant that Cornell kept it in a box. Except that it is anchored like stone to the bottom of memories abyss. What choked me with sadness is realizing I had memories buried deep, to forget rather than to forgive. There was a deep sense of remorse that I had not reconciled, and simply let memories live on like Cornell’s in his shrine.
I realize this cabinet is like a window into Joseph Cornell’s life, and his home. And in the depths of "le piano" tucked deep into the corner, I had to search more to see the mechanical instrument. I'm guessing it's one of those tiny wind up music boxes that I only ever had the pleasure of tinkering with when I was five, with my grandma. As a child, like the statue Cornell used to sit by the piano and listen to his mother’s playing too. That’s where he’s sitting now forever next to his mother’s music. I'm searching further back in time to the loving memories of grandma’s nurture, where she told me to be careful as I fingered the sharp knubs cast into the brass music drum. The needles pluck the music unwinding from a delicate comb. Sleeping beauty is waking up from her pricked finger. I have not seen a mechanical toy like this since those days with grandma. It's a memory that swims to the surface about this quaint little toy. I wonder if it should play now, the wooden box might amplify the hidden music... I think it does, and "Le Piano" is also amplifying muffled memories of the past. It’s funny how this seeming random box of junk, has brought me full circle to home. To a place where I cannot go back, with junk on the shelves, and nurture that is gone. To feel like I have regressed with all the emotions of a child and trespassed into his space. Is it even possible to trespass into art? Whatever. My sentiment is grateful that he shared his vulnerability, and that I am reminded of my own. Cornell's past or my own, I only wish I had the turnkey to hear the music and refresh my memories of childhood once more now, and share the echo of his music box.
Friday 14 March 2014
Why Is Art Valuable?
I used blogger to draft out my essay for English 1 at +Santa Monica College before using +Google Docs™ to double space and add the MLA formatting.
Unfortunately I got a shitty grade (7/10) because this is more of a synthesis article than an illustrative essay. So I've decided to publish the original unedited draft form of this essay, on how not to write an illustrative article LOL.
Why is art important
Art is an echo of its creator, it creates a window of opportunity for us to empathically connect with it's originator. Like a video recorder that plays back, art gives us the opportunity to understand the context in which it was created. And if we can understand and relate to it, we can build on that substance. When we relate though similarities in our culture, we reach therapeutic realization when we identify with the situation that the art presents. Art creates a level of transparency that murmurs through the dimensions we are normally thought to be bound. Without art, we are missing an exercise of thought that challenges and develops our understanding of limits in many dimensions.
In the feature film based on a true story titled "Monuments Men" I learned that in the midst of war, people risked their lives to protect and save objects of art. The lieutenant describes to his unlikely band of men in the drought of any likely success, the importance of their mission to save art. "You can wipe out a generation of people, you can burn down their homes and somehow they'll still come back. But you take away their achievements, and their history, and art, then it's like they never existed." What I believe this contemporary film is reminding our current generation, is that without art we take a substantial loss of our society's collective understanding.
In Jeanette Winterson's "Art Objects" I found her statement "a society in denial will not find much use for [art]" profound. It struck me that those whom cannot understand the language of art when looking into the mirror will not see the truth. If we don't exercise active submission, which is my interpretation of her saying "Letting art is the paradox of active surrender" (Winterson 6), we lose the ability to see further than what we are accustomed to accept. We will stay ignorant and in denial that there is more to the world, myopically seeing only what we want, propagandizing and twisting truths out of context. For if you cannot empathize you will not transcend yourself. You can educate yourself, but you cannot become cleverer; Yet learning to understand art divines for something similar, if there is such a thing as becoming cleverer. Absorbing art exercises your ability to connect, identify, relate, and normalize your perspective with the world around you, and [question] how you, yourself fits into that.
In "Decreation" by Anne Carson, I am introduced to more than shades of gray in between black and white. Rather, that depending which perspective you take, you will see things differently. By taking her prose "If conditionals are two kinds now it is night and all cats are black" (Carson 100) I strike a chord and resonate that a white cat in the blackness of night must surely go invisible as there is no contrast. And therefore what Carson says becomes a true argument, based on seeing things differently. I know math is important because it has structure on which to logicize rules to extrapolate predictions. Math is an accepted form science. But there is also the art of science, the art of letting us question those rules. We accept questioning as it allows us to strive for new ways of fulfilling, just as Winterson said implied. I tried to find patterns in Carson's prose to figure it out, this is my usual way of thinking, but what I found was a puzzle. I struggled to solve her prose by looking for a pattern, and even applying logic: if this, then this; when this, else this; if conditionals apply then statement equals true. I had yet to "let" Carson's work wash over me. Perhaps by studying Math I become more logical; Science I become more searching; Studying Art, I break down the boundaries and preconceptions I am conditioned with, culturally, or by pedagogy. Carson's poetry forced me to struggle and question my boundaries of thinking. It exercised my mind by creating a turmoil of questions and chaos before I could distill some truth, I had to break down my preconceptions and understand that argument, was built on perspective. Art, then to me is another vehicle for relaying perspective.
In Helene Cisoux's "Without End", I struggled and struggled to relate to what she was talking about. But after actively surrendering as lessons learned by Winterson, I did get it. She wants the scruffy notes before the essay, unedited, uncensored and full of emotion. The marginals, rather, the gut reactions I punctuate these essays with while I angrily try to absorb what I am looking at. And so, while she is describing what she sees in art, she writes in this poetic form that at first I found profoundly irritating to understand. I graffitied her essay with my notes of frustration and questions. It was only when I read back over the battle in my marginal notes that I realized, triumphantly how right she was. Through drawing, she sees a battle from the landing of the quill to capture an exchange between the artist's living subjects. What emanates from the artist's line cannot be a freeze frame, but the struggle to connect the emotion, the exchanges that are happening before him, from the beginning of the scene to the finality of the scene, in one line. A painting cannot exhibit that kind of struggle. A painting is the edited form of the drawing, as her essay is the edited form of her messy notes. She admits she did not want to censor herself, she wanted us to listen as she rattled off. And in dealing with the battle of her writing, I "got" terrible truths of the scenes she saw in those drawings. The subject people were real, their exchanges and defiance were real, and whose side was the artist taking? And the executioner proudly wins and glorifies a bloody act without repentance. It makes me fearful of the way people lived back then, fearful of the way society was to drive on such a freakish act. I saw what she found horrifying, and felt it. Art exercises our ability to empathize, which I believe combined with our other skills accumulates to a greater intelligence than the sum of each skill on its own, and therefore is a valuable ingredient to complete our wholeness.
The ability to empathize transcends our humanity. It transcends the boundaries of race, culture, language, history, age and prejudices and unites us. And those side by side, also viewing, and the traces of echoes from the past are symptoms of error and fear or rapture we can learn from. I saw a Facebook picture of a scene with a painting hanging on the wall of a museum, depicting a dancer in the midst of prose. Infront the painting a girl no more than three or four years old was so taken with the fantasy, she mimicked and danced in front of the painting. Her joy was so overwhelming to others seeing the scene that they stole snapshots of the girl fixated before the painting using their phones, to remind themselves how a three year old became a vessel for the art. This is the picture I saw, of a girl so young before she can articulate evoked and mirroring the painting, and like a channel she provoked the same awe in others, and like a ripple even onto myself just seeing a memento of that scene. I am moved by the value of art that language and words alone are inefficient to explain, and yet even a three-year-old can.
Unfortunately I got a shitty grade (7/10) because this is more of a synthesis article than an illustrative essay. So I've decided to publish the original unedited draft form of this essay, on how not to write an illustrative article LOL.
Why is art important
Art is an echo of its creator, it creates a window of opportunity for us to empathically connect with it's originator. Like a video recorder that plays back, art gives us the opportunity to understand the context in which it was created. And if we can understand and relate to it, we can build on that substance. When we relate though similarities in our culture, we reach therapeutic realization when we identify with the situation that the art presents. Art creates a level of transparency that murmurs through the dimensions we are normally thought to be bound. Without art, we are missing an exercise of thought that challenges and develops our understanding of limits in many dimensions.
In the feature film based on a true story titled "Monuments Men" I learned that in the midst of war, people risked their lives to protect and save objects of art. The lieutenant describes to his unlikely band of men in the drought of any likely success, the importance of their mission to save art. "You can wipe out a generation of people, you can burn down their homes and somehow they'll still come back. But you take away their achievements, and their history, and art, then it's like they never existed." What I believe this contemporary film is reminding our current generation, is that without art we take a substantial loss of our society's collective understanding.
In Jeanette Winterson's "Art Objects" I found her statement "a society in denial will not find much use for [art]" profound. It struck me that those whom cannot understand the language of art when looking into the mirror will not see the truth. If we don't exercise active submission, which is my interpretation of her saying "Letting art is the paradox of active surrender" (Winterson 6), we lose the ability to see further than what we are accustomed to accept. We will stay ignorant and in denial that there is more to the world, myopically seeing only what we want, propagandizing and twisting truths out of context. For if you cannot empathize you will not transcend yourself. You can educate yourself, but you cannot become cleverer; Yet learning to understand art divines for something similar, if there is such a thing as becoming cleverer. Absorbing art exercises your ability to connect, identify, relate, and normalize your perspective with the world around you, and [question] how you, yourself fits into that.
In "Decreation" by Anne Carson, I am introduced to more than shades of gray in between black and white. Rather, that depending which perspective you take, you will see things differently. By taking her prose "If conditionals are two kinds now it is night and all cats are black" (Carson 100) I strike a chord and resonate that a white cat in the blackness of night must surely go invisible as there is no contrast. And therefore what Carson says becomes a true argument, based on seeing things differently. I know math is important because it has structure on which to logicize rules to extrapolate predictions. Math is an accepted form science. But there is also the art of science, the art of letting us question those rules. We accept questioning as it allows us to strive for new ways of fulfilling, just as Winterson said implied. I tried to find patterns in Carson's prose to figure it out, this is my usual way of thinking, but what I found was a puzzle. I struggled to solve her prose by looking for a pattern, and even applying logic: if this, then this; when this, else this; if conditionals apply then statement equals true. I had yet to "let" Carson's work wash over me. Perhaps by studying Math I become more logical; Science I become more searching; Studying Art, I break down the boundaries and preconceptions I am conditioned with, culturally, or by pedagogy. Carson's poetry forced me to struggle and question my boundaries of thinking. It exercised my mind by creating a turmoil of questions and chaos before I could distill some truth, I had to break down my preconceptions and understand that argument, was built on perspective. Art, then to me is another vehicle for relaying perspective.
In Helene Cisoux's "Without End", I struggled and struggled to relate to what she was talking about. But after actively surrendering as lessons learned by Winterson, I did get it. She wants the scruffy notes before the essay, unedited, uncensored and full of emotion. The marginals, rather, the gut reactions I punctuate these essays with while I angrily try to absorb what I am looking at. And so, while she is describing what she sees in art, she writes in this poetic form that at first I found profoundly irritating to understand. I graffitied her essay with my notes of frustration and questions. It was only when I read back over the battle in my marginal notes that I realized, triumphantly how right she was. Through drawing, she sees a battle from the landing of the quill to capture an exchange between the artist's living subjects. What emanates from the artist's line cannot be a freeze frame, but the struggle to connect the emotion, the exchanges that are happening before him, from the beginning of the scene to the finality of the scene, in one line. A painting cannot exhibit that kind of struggle. A painting is the edited form of the drawing, as her essay is the edited form of her messy notes. She admits she did not want to censor herself, she wanted us to listen as she rattled off. And in dealing with the battle of her writing, I "got" terrible truths of the scenes she saw in those drawings. The subject people were real, their exchanges and defiance were real, and whose side was the artist taking? And the executioner proudly wins and glorifies a bloody act without repentance. It makes me fearful of the way people lived back then, fearful of the way society was to drive on such a freakish act. I saw what she found horrifying, and felt it. Art exercises our ability to empathize, which I believe combined with our other skills accumulates to a greater intelligence than the sum of each skill on its own, and therefore is a valuable ingredient to complete our wholeness.
The ability to empathize transcends our humanity. It transcends the boundaries of race, culture, language, history, age and prejudices and unites us. And those side by side, also viewing, and the traces of echoes from the past are symptoms of error and fear or rapture we can learn from. I saw a Facebook picture of a scene with a painting hanging on the wall of a museum, depicting a dancer in the midst of prose. Infront the painting a girl no more than three or four years old was so taken with the fantasy, she mimicked and danced in front of the painting. Her joy was so overwhelming to others seeing the scene that they stole snapshots of the girl fixated before the painting using their phones, to remind themselves how a three year old became a vessel for the art. This is the picture I saw, of a girl so young before she can articulate evoked and mirroring the painting, and like a channel she provoked the same awe in others, and like a ripple even onto myself just seeing a memento of that scene. I am moved by the value of art that language and words alone are inefficient to explain, and yet even a three-year-old can.
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