Non Western 1: Ming Dynasty – more than pretty vases…

For my first exploration into art outside the realm of western influence I decided to pick something that spoke to the hidden poet within myself (yeah, he’s in there…somewhere).  Dipping into the immense world of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) art and culture I stumbled upon a work by one of the four most recognized masters of the period.

Shen Zhou was born the son of a prominent land owner and tax collector but chose not to become a public official, instead deciding to stay home and care for his mother (a noble and respected occupation).  His scholarly upbringing and artistic ability coupled with his life of filial piety provided the necessary elements that would come to influence his style of contemplative landscape paintings and poetry.

Prior to Shen Zhou, other artists had, to a lesser degree, begun to add writings to their works, but Zhou really popularized the style by adding poetry of his own as well as works by friends and other scholars.  One of his most famous pieces that beautifully illustrates this style is Poet on a Mountaintop (1500) which now resides in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.

Shen Zhou, Poet on a Mountaintop (1500)

In the piece, a man is seen standing atop a mountain looking out over a misty valley.  Directly in front of the man, lines of poetry hang in the air, as if they were placed there for the him to read.  I found many translations of the poem that all say essentially the same thing, just in slightly different ways.

The following is the translation that sounded the most poetic to me:

White clouds sash-like

wrap mountain waists,

The rock terrace flies in space,

distant, a narrow path.

Leaning on a bramble staff,

far and free I gaze,

To the warble of valley brook

I will reply, whistling

Much of the art and culture of the time consisted of works that reveal the artists observations of nature and society and reflected upon their pursuit of harmony in all things.

Zhou’s work speaks to me as an artist who is constantly searching for balance.  I think one of the things I like the most about his style is the great variation he shows from piece to piece.  I hope you’ll take an opportunity to explore this period in China’s cultural history and discover the wealth of beauty and harmony for yourself.

References:

Chinese Literati Painting.  http://www.indiana.edu/~ealc100/Art11.html

Painting by Shen Chou – Poet on the Mountain.  http://www.chinapage.com/painting/shenchou/shenchou3.html

Shen Zhou – Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Zhou

Early Modern (Dada) – Number 2 becomes Number 1!

Duchamp, The Fountain (1917)

In an attempt to present an open mind and a fair shake I have decided to take a more clinical look at the period known as Dada.  This is more difficult for me than it might sound as I am a certified, card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool, art snob.  And Dada bugs me.

Dada (It’s meant to sound childish) entered the art world as a means to undermine the status quo.  The movement sought to defy the nationalistic greed that was seen as the impetus of the Great War by devaluing the traditional ideas of art and supplanting a new understanding of value and worth.  It was thought that if the way things were going wasn’t working then maybe it should all be scrapped for a fresh start; from the beginning.  Enter Dada.

There is a fantastic quote in the text (Benton, DiYanni, pg. 347) by Hans Arp, Swiss “sculptor” (1886-1996) in which he claims, “Repelled by the slaughterhouses of the world war, we turned to art.  We searched for an elementary art that would, we thought, save mankind from the furious madness of these times.”  I admire this kind of passion and clarity of thought absolutely more than I appreciate the kind of art that came in response.

The artist I wanted to highlight in this entry holds a particularly conflicting residence in my psyche.  I say this because while I don’t favor the “art” of Marcel Duchamp, I very highly value his satirical off-kilter vision of ready-made art.  His piece titled The fountain (1917, Philadelphia Museum of Art) is a great example of what he called anti-art, that is art that embodied imagination, chance, and irrationality and opposed all recognized values in art and literature (Benton, DiYanni, pg. 348).

The piece itself is nothing more than a Urinal fixture found in any men’s latrine, signed under the pseudonym “R. Mutt” in bold black marker, and placed on its back upon a pedestal (see photo attached).  His intention with the piece was two-fold; first he openly admitted that he was “Mutt” in order to show that what the piece represented was in fact less important than who the artist was.  Second, he intended to show that where an item was viewed influenced its relevance and identity.  A person could walk into any plumbing store and see the same item for sale or step up to one in a latrine and use it without ever giving it a second thought.  But by placing it on a pedestal and inviting the viewer to observe it out of context, Duchamp granted the item new life and aesthetic appeal.

You could make the argument, “yeah, but all he did was take a manufactured item, stick his name on it, and call it art” and you’d be correct, except that you’d completely miss the point.  Duchamp wanted to challenge the way you see things.  He often used word play in his works in order to trick you into seeing things differently and it is in this way that his effect on the world of art has been most profound.

There is another piece of his ready-made art that upon first glance appears to be nothing more than a snow shovel, well, because that’s exactly what it is.  But upon reading the title In Advance of a Broken Arm (1915) one begins to conjure all kinds of scenarios based on a new understanding of the thing.  By altering the context of the item Duchamp challenges the viewer to understand its aesthetic value informed by very personally created narratives.  It’s an amazingly simple idea, but one that hadn’t been attempted before.

Not all of Dada holds this kind of appeal for me and at times, it’s hard not to just discard the entire notion as ridiculous.  But the effects of Duchamp’s ideas are hard to miss and even harder to dismiss.

But I’ll stop there for sake of brevity.   I do find that my shorter entries receive more attention and responses.  If you’ve taken the time to read what I’ve before you, please leave a comment and let me know you’re out there.

For more info on Duchamp and a timeline of his art visit: http://www.understandingduchamp.com/

Items referenced:

Dada – Duchamp and the Ready-Mades. http://www.smarthistory.org/dada.html Accessed 17 July 2009

Benton, J., DiYannii, R., (2008).  Art and Culture: An Introduction to the Humanities Vol 2 (3^rd ed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Impressionism – You never get a second chance…

In this week’s installment of “let’s pretend I’m a literate art commentator” we’re going to take a nod from the truth seeking Realists and call Impressionism what it really is, “trying really hard to make it look like it’s easy” or as I like to call it, “the $80 ‘Bed-Head’ haircut”. In this scenario, it looks as though you just rolled out of bed and into those ratty jeans when in actuality you spent hours at the hairdresser and paid good money for those faux-distressed jeans. Digression over.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Impressionist movement (if it can be called that) because I’m just a bit to anal about things like line quality, harmonious color palettes, and easily readable intentions. I’ve always been fonder of the play of light and dark found in the Baroque or the return to line and shape found in Neo-Classicism. And there are only so many paintings of people sitting around in bowler hats eating picnic lunches that I can stand. Phew!…What happened…I blacked out there for a second.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Impressionism is all bad or without its place in the history of art. Some

Degas - The Dancing Class (1874)

of the pieces to come out of that time are actually quite lovely. I am very fond of the works of the haughty and pretentious Edgar Degas, who used the sense of spontaneity found in Impressionism to create wonderful vignettes of life at that time just before and after the “ideal” moment. (He’d probably roll over in his grave if he knew we were still going on and on about his ballerina paintings, but their just so good.)

Degas’ style of balancing planning and realism with looseness and spontaneity earned him the contradictory title “linear impressionist” and when you compare his work, The Dancing Class (1874, housed in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris) to a true impressionist work like

Berthe Morisot - Summer's Day (1879)

(1879, National Gallery, London) it is easy to see the stylistic differences.

I am fond of a few Post-Impressionist works. A print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night (1889, Museum of Modern Art, NY) spent many years prominently displayed on the living room wall of my bachelor pad (it has, since marriage, been relegated to the guest bathroom) and I still have a 6 inch scale version of Rodin’s Thinker (1879-89, Met Museum of Art, NY) sitting on the shelf in my computer room. I’m a classy guy. I have a T-shirt that says so.

This blog post has been all over the place and probably raises more questions about my position on impressionism than it answers.

van Gogh – Starry Night (1889)

Rodin – The Thinker (1879-89)

If you are a fan of Impressionism I hope I haven’t ruffled your feathers too much. If you agree or disagree, let me know.

Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 – A fearful period indeed!

Funny titles aside, I had a chance to listen to the entire hour and five minutes of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and all I can say is, “Wow”.  In keeping with the focus of this entry I am supposed to evaluate and share my thoughts on a piece of music or theater from the Classical period (1700-1800) and underscore said pieces connection to the rise of the middle class.  I’m probably pushing the line a bit by witting about Beet’s 9th since it wasn’t completed and performed until 1824, well into the Romantic era, but I think it still stands as an epic reflection of where music was going at the time.

As the middle class began to demand more from artists and musicians, by way of commonly accessible works, the spiritual focus of earlier religious patrons gave way to more understandable and culturally relevant themes.  What this meant for music was a shift away from heavily lyrical choral music that leaned hard on religious matter or focused on the whims of the educated and financially prosperous, towards more socially available music for the “everyman”.  In it’s place would rise vast instrumental blockbusters that entertained the listener for no greater purpose than the joy of the composition itself.  Music for music’s sake.

The Classical era gave us the works of Mozart, Haydn, Boccerini and others, but for all the magnificence of the earlier works, nothing speaks unbridled musicality like the sweeping and thematically chaotic 9th Symphony of Beethoven, Ludwig van.  If you’ve only heard the opening of the second movement that would be enough to get a picture of what I’m talking about.   But to delve into the rest of the movement and surrender to the forces driving onward and upward really opens your senses to an emotional onslaught, a lashing, if you will, of ebb and flow that only stops when it stops.  That’s a whole lot of words that might not really mean much out of context, but this is my blog so just sit back and let it all wash over you until it stops…(see what I did there?  That’s called bringing it back).

Many of you are familiar with the fourth and final movement in which we hear the “Ode to Joy” and can readily identify some movie scene in great detail upon hearing it, but the symphony as a whole is so much more than the sum of it’s parts.  It does take some patience, as many reviewers have stated throughout the years.  One of my favorites (hinted at in the blog title) comes from The Harmonicon, London, 1825 (a year after the symphony was introduced) which stated, “We found Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to be precisely one hour and five minutes long; a fearful period indeed, which puts the muscles and lungs of the band, and the patience of the audience to a severe trial … . The symphony we could not make out; and here, as well as in other parts, the want of intelligible design is too apparent“ (1).  It’s a bit harsh and speaks to the varied, sometimes unaccountable, thematic developments presented in the piece, but really misses the underlying beauty of the overall work.  I think the seemingly absent sense of intelligent design is an intentional tool used to draw the listener in.  Just about the time you begin to wonder, “where is this all going?”…BAM!  The Ode hits and it all makes sense.  It all comes together.

I hope that through my ramblings you’ve found something that speaks to your own curiosity and pushes you to sit down in a quiet room and give this masterpiece a listen.  Something that I haven’t mentioned, and should be said, is that by the time Beethoven composed this piece HE WAS COMPLETELY DEAF!!! ( that last part was capitalized for those of you who are visually hard of hearing)  He battled with depression, self-imposed social disassociation,  and romantic frustration stemming from his hearing loss and his inability to proceed as a performing artist.  Yet he was able to create lasting relevance, artistic immortality if you will, though his compositions.

(1) Beethoven – The Immortal, http://www.lucare.com/immortal/9_critics.html

Caravaggio: Beheading of Saint John the Baptist – an exercise in the passionatelly mundane

Caravaggio: Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608)

For this entry concerning works of the Baroque period I had every intention of writing about the amazing depth and realism of Caravaggio’s The Deposition of Christ. However, upon searching for other works by the great master of the tenebroso (dark and gloomy) style, I happened upon a shocking piece that reveals more by way of meaning the longer you look at it. Caravaggio’s Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608) portrays the fateful moment when the act of his execution is realized. The scene itself uses all the visual tricks one expects to find in a Baroque piece i.e. trompe l’oeil, tenebrism, chiaroscuro, etc. but the real beauty lies in the commonality of the characters as they fulfill their dark deed. There are no colorful theatrics or over-populated displays of extravagant action to be found in a piece that seems to whole-heartedly embody the edicts handed down by the Council of Trent. It was the declaration of the Council that works should appeal to the masses though clarity, realism, and emotion so that they might imbue and strengthen faithful reflection and actions (Benton, DiYanni, 2008, pg. 103).

Caravaggio depicts John wrapped in bright red which immediately draws your attention to his prone figure and seems to contrast with the camel’s hair garment (seen protruding from under the folds) commonly associated with the saint’s chosen ascetic way of life. It seems to lay attention to the spiritual and social importance of martyrdom all the while hinting at the blood which has only begun to flow from John’s wounded neck. It is shocking and visceral and unnervingly mundane which places it firmly in the style of the time. Perhaps not immediately evident; one begins to recognize the message of conviction and passion upon learning that the image was commissioned to hang (and still resides) in St John’s Co-Cathedral at La Valletta, Malta; the church of the Knights of Malta. It must have served as a grave reminder of the weight of faithful servitude to those committed to the order.

The figures in the image (except perhaps the old woman) all seem to have resigned themselves to the task at hand and are represented in such great detail and realistic caste that, if not for the gruesome act taking place, they might be anyone you could meet on the street. This was the appeal of the Baroque period and why I appreciate the era as a culmination of the early technique of the renaissance. Earlier works were beautiful, if fanciful, representations of idealized form and color, but they didn’t bind the viewer in any sense of commonality or shared experience in the way that Caravaggio and others of his period were able to. The Beheading seems real enough that you feel drawn into it, almost as an unseen observer.

I could continue to ramble about the significance of the color pallet chosen, the relevancy of the architectural detail, the implications of St. Johns prostrate position, etc., etc., etc., but what I want to finish with is what is identified as the only known visible signature of Caravaggio within one of his great works. Difficult to see at a distance is the name F Michelangelo written, as it appears, in the blood of St. John! The F stands for Fra or “brother” and seems to refer to Caravaggio’s membership in the order of the Knights of Malta (Strinati, 2008, Caravaggio.com). Placing his name into the work in this manner seems, to me, a bit audacious to say the least. It’s one thing to place your name in the corner of your work; to immortalize your efforts in such a monumental piece is common, but it takes a special kind of nerve to place yourself at the center of such a severe biblical iconographic representation.

I have come to understand that Fra Caravaggio was always down for violent foolishness (he spent his last few years in prison on murder charges) and might not have enjoyed the company of inquisitive artistic upstarts like myself, but I think I could have learned much from such a talented , if self-destructive, individual.

Thanks for dropping by…Leave a message and let me know what you think about Caravaggio’s works.

P.s.  You can find a great introduction to Caravaggio at www.caravaggio.com.  There you’ll find a multimedia list of his certified works as well as other (less than certified) works attributed to him.

Campin: Merode Alterpiece -What do you mean the walls are closing in?..

Merode Alterpiece, Campin ca. 1426

In this entry I present for your consideration a piece (possibly) by Robert Campin titled Mérode Alterpiece.  Painted in Flanders in 1426, it now resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as part of The Cloisters Collection.  I was drawn to this image (or series of images – in truth a triptych) initially upon reading about the artist in our class text, Arts and Culture, An introduction to the Humanities. I was stunned by the artistic evolution of depth and color that Oil Paints brought to the medium at that time, so much so that, at first, I didn’t pay any attention to the obvious spacial, perspective, and scale problems (we’ll come to that later).

After delving deeper in to the great works of the Northern Renaissance (hereafter Ren) it becomes easy to see the different ways in which the diluted Italian influence evolved and mutated on its travels north.  Whereas the masters of the Italian Ren focused on form and function through mathematical precision and attention to anatomical realism, the Northern artisans began to center in on the details of daily life with great attention to (often mundane extremes) aesthetic hyper-realism.

The Mérode Alterpiece depicts the Annunciation, that time when Gabriel visits upon Mary the truth of her future and ushers in the physical incarnation of God in the form of (her yet to be born, and immaculately conceived) son, Jesus.  In one panel we see Joseph hard at work in his workshop and in the opposite panel, the patron of the artist (at least for this work?) Ingelbrecht of Mechlin (text pg. 62) – it is interesting to note that for whatever reason, the image presented in the text is, in fact, flipped horizontally.  The image (as seen above) places the merchant on the right and Joseph on the left, but within the text the image is completely reversed (as if seen in a mirror).

Upon further study and research it seems that the image is full of iconic symbolism disguised as everyday objects (another common theme of the period) such as the extinguished candle (a reference to the moment of God’s human incarnation) and the placement of the Lily on the table which I only recently learned was the symbol of Mary’s virginity.  I admittedly don’t fully understand or recognize all the religious imagery and would encourage you, the reader, to spend some time discovering the myriad messages and representations embedded within this work.  The audio “conference” between Drs. Harris and Zucker at the SmartHistory.org website is especially enlightening and helpful in understanding some of the seemingly mundane objects and references in this work and can be found here.

I mentioned before that the detail caught my eye to the exclusion of all else, and now that I have examined the work further, it is the “else” that now draws my attention.  While beautifully detailed and richly colored, the image is lacking in any sense of visual continuity.  There is no linear perspective, no proper sense of scale, no spacial orientation, and a forced and contrived depth-of-field that shifts as the eye moves about the image…  In fact the objects and characters are so utterly thrown into the space that it is difficult to imagine them being able to move about with any amount of ease!  The figures themselves display no tangible anatomical identity and vary so much in scale as to make them seem like cartoon caricatures inhabiting a whimsical world of contrasting physical laws.  But I digress…

These things which I have pointed out, these “inaccuracies”, do seem to be common among other works of the period and stand as further evidence of the paradigm shift between the mathematically accurate works of Italian Ren and the developing aesthetically pleasing works of the Northern lands.  So long as one is able to “suspend disbelief” and get beyond those practical hang-ups, one can begin to appreciate the immense amount of work that went into a piece of this caliber.

P.S.  As an additional side note, I noticed something that may or not be intentional (these kinds of things usually are).  If you follow the visual pathway from the rooftop in the upper right corner down and to the left you  will find that it very nearly intersects with Mary’s abdomen.  If you follow from the bottom of the stairs on the lower right and trace up and to the left the pathway crosses the first and makes an “x” that squarely  marks the candle (the aforementioned symbol of God).  Just some artistic food for thought.

P.p.s  I didn’t even go into the fact that the Annunciation ( a biblical event) in this image takes place in the, then modern, Flemish landscape of Flanders.  Tidbits for another day…

Just a short one…

While doing homework today I came across a video I hadn’t seen in a couple months and had to share.  For those of you still hiding under a cultural rock and not familiar with the Blue Man Group it’s time to take a peak and discover how much fun it is to watch a bunch of grown men play with music and neon paint.

The video is a collab they did with Dave Matthews (say no more right?) that is amazing.  As the end of the song approaches I just find myself wishing for more.  It’s a pop-y song that melds clever percussion with haunting plucked-string riffs and a melancholy guitar that seems to imbue Mathew’s “uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin” persona with sincerity.  Matthews perfectly portrays the constant everyman in each of us, lost and isolated in a sea of humanity – just looking for someone to sing along.  I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

Hello world!

Short vacation in a very hot place...

Well, the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step right?  I’m going to be as up-front about this as possible and say first that I am the worst blogger ever.  This is in fact my third attempt at starting a blog.  The other two have virtual spider webs dangling from their dusty inards and are in danger of collapsing from disuse.

This blog is a requirement of a new “Art Appreciation” class I am enrolled in this semester so at the very least it should see a couple of months of attention before listing to one side and capsizing in the sea of infinite web-chatter.

Thanks for checking in, I hope you’ll enjoy my ramblings as much as I’ll certainly enjoy sharing them.

artisan X