It’s that time of year. The only time of year when it’s okay to drag a tree into the living room, sing as loud as you want, stuff your face with cookies, and sport the Christmas sweater. A good Christmas sweater combines all your favorite Christmas characters (Rudolph, Frosty, Mrs. Claus etc.) or (literally) screams “TIS THE SEASON”. Here Garth and Kat work their Christmas vests complete with matching turtlenecks.
And it seems that no other source could have inspired Kazimir Malevich’s “De Sportlieden”. Malevich (1875-1935) was a Russian painter, born in Ukraine, and originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement. A pioneer of geometric abstract art Malevich was influenced by Cubism and wrote his manifesto From Cubism to Suprematism, laying the foundations of a new art movement that focused on fundamental geometric forms. Although famous for his “White on White”, Malevich gives us a little more detail to unearth here. Four men stand stiff, their bodies divided into quarters, with their legs split from the waist. Varying holiday colors are placed on the men’s clothing, and they appear with half-colored faces and mismatched shoes. Their turtlenecks peak out from their sweaters as they stand frontal and composed (in fact expressionless). Malevich depicts these men flaunting their Christmas sweaters boldly and without excuse as a lesson for those who wish to spread holiday cheer, no matter the detriment to their pride—don’t let the Christmas sweater wear you.
Did you know that the Dalai Lama has an email and an interest in neuroscience? Rick Ray’s documentary “10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” gives insight into the life of the Dalai Lama, as well as Tibetan culture. Furthermore, Ray details the silencing of this culture and what it must overcome in order to be heard.
Ray presents the mandala, a gigantic representation of Buddhist philosophy made out of colored sand. The sacred mandala structures in Buddhist monasteries take generally 3-5 days to build, and are preceded by and closed with elaborate prayer ritual. The meticulous design enhances a 3D visualization of an imaginary palace, that is built going from the outside to the center, as one goes through life. In the West, Ray adds, such designs would be put up on a wall or preserved in a museum, but in Buddhist cultures shortly after a mandala is finished it is deliberately destroyed. The sand is swept and poured into a nearby river as a reminder for the Tibetans and observers of Buddhism everywhere that all things are temporal on this earth and attachment to them causes great loss and sorrow.
In this way Ray introduces the mandala as an analogy for Tibetan culture. In 1950 Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-Tung sent an enforcement of Red Army troops to “liberate Tibet from elitest Dalai Lama rule”. At the time the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was 15 and foresaw peaceful negotiations with Tse-Tung. He would come to find Tse-Tung’s true feelings about religion as a “poison” that “undermines and retards the progress of any country”. Consequently Tibet was forced to sign a 17-point agreement and the Tibetan army was disarmed as the Chinese army moved in and Tibet came under Chinese control. Although the Dalai Lama and many Tibetan immigrants live in safety in Dharamsala, India, such was not the case for those in Tibet during the takeover of the new government. Approximately 1,200,00 Tibetans were killed, even more imprisoned, 600 monasteries were destroyed, art, books, everything ancient or of religious significance ruined. Chinese immigrants were then sent to Tibet to colonize it, establishing what Ray calls a “cultural genocide”. It is unfortunate that Ray’s analogy for Tibet must come in the fate of Buddhist mandala structures.
Feeling artsy and chic on a Thursday night in Nashville my chic artsy friends and I outdid ourselves in over the top chic artsy do’s and took our chic artsy selves to the Frist. We could not have felt more out of place. We took seats near the back, even though our outfits placed us in the front row, to listen to Gloria Gloom (a chic artsy name if you ask me) lecture on the “Painter of ‘La Vie Modern’”. In correspondence to the Frist’s “Birth of Impressionism” collection Gloom’s lecture was to address the early Impressionists’ responses and challenges to the modern. In an age of transitioning painting styles Gloom insists we look not only at the subject, but what they’re wearing.Gloom cites the fall of the republic, following the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), as the break down in court life. After France’s loss in the Franco-Prussian War a sort of democratization took place and the court in Paris took on a relaxed attitude, as seen in relaxed positions of the salon portraits. Tissot depicts this casual fashion-forward woman in a fringed bolero surrounded by her books in a middle class room. “Mademoiselle L.L.” (1864) provides further proof of the break from the previous aspirations to be a part of La circle de la rue Royale. With the development of department stores and the circulation of fashion magasins fashion norms were created in which social classes could buy the same silhouettes. Tissot’s “modern” portrait in fact took me to the housewives of the 1950’s and 60’s (minus a few feet on the hem), with the cropped ball-fringe bolero, full skirt, and dainty hair piece. In this way Gloom makes her point clear—that art and fashion are intricately linked and it is through this link that we can give form to certain periods.
Jesse Shaw does not bother depicting anything other than what he sees. Jesse Shaw does not bother depicting exactly what we want to see. Although I, personally, haven’t seen his collection in the gallery at Austin Peay University, he grabbed the attention of my Art History teacher, who I’m pretty sure has seen a lot of art. His “American Animals I” is as up front as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. In a scheme of little blank space he depicts a snake enveloped by cicada-like bugs and skunks, monster-like ants dragging beavers demonically into their ant-hole, agitated interwoven bulls, fish carcasses below bears fishing in buckets, a crowded mass of screaming chickens, and group of feisty horses eating away at a whale carcass. Although obviously open for interpretation, the work speaks to me about the treatment of American animals in a consumer society. The chickens recall a disturbing scene of the documentary “Food Inc.” in which the consumer of those McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets is confronted with the source. He says of the whale and shrimp motif: “your white whale and my white whale are shrimp to everyone else” (http://americanprintmaker.blogspot.com/) which speaks to me as our age of JUMBO shrimp—an apparent and disturbing oxymoron. His interwoven bulls appear as a hybrid, as if the previous form wasn’t sufficient. The skunks, cicadas and snake appear as jumbled road-kill. Jesse Shaw’s overall message of “American Animals I” may not be totally clear to the observer, but I think most can discern this view is not a pleasant one.
In relief (ha) of Romanesque art and architecture, my Art History class was presented with the task of creating our own tympanums. Inside our tympanum, Hannah and I depicted (the suggestion of) Simba from “The Lion King”. His power is represented through his (somewhat sacrilegious) placement inside a mandorla, the surrounding bowing animals and framing monkeys cooling him with fan-like leafs, and his very size at the center of the lunette. He appears (literally) “putting his foot down” or ruling over the jungle, with a powerful roar that scares away even the hunters on the lintel. We recreated an archivolt from leaf voussoirs and 2 jambs and a trumeau from trees.
Although characterized by the renewal of “Roman-like” and
classical elements, the Romanesque age is also characterized by the revival of monumental sculpture in stone. As a sort of updated Greco-Roman pediment, these Roman wannabes depicted large-scale carved Old and New Testament figures (rare in Christian art) in the lunettes (formally: tympanums) above the doorways to religious sanctuaries. Beneath the voussoirs, didactic images appeared in a symbolic image of each doorway as a the beginning of the path to salvation through (the doorway of) Christ— “I am the door; who enters through me will be saved” John 10:9
From this process I have a much greater respect for the detail of Romanesque tympanums (and their artists). I highly doubt, however, that any Romanesque church would consider our efforts anything more than comical.
My childhood, without apology, was succumbed to the pleasures of Saturday mornings in front of the T.V. watching Disney’s Goofy and Donald Duck dance across the screen. In reference to my past I can honestly ask: Where would we be without Mickey, and further where would we be without Walt? I believe even the excessively welcoming mouse or the pessimistic duck would attest to the validity of modern cartoon animists, as well as their order and structure. The flip book technique that provides these characters with movement has come a long way from the hectic compilations of the Early Medieval illuminated manuscripts.
The Utrecht Psalter was created between 820 and 835 during the Carolingian age and Charlemagne’s great revival of learning. Illuminated manuscripts as well as Psalters (collection of psalms) helped to convey New Testament and Old Testament stories to a largely illiterate laity. Here the artist depicts Psalm 44 (or Psalm 43 of the Vulgate text of the Carolingian era) and the plight of the repressed Israelites in pen and ink. The psalmist's intention was to make the Psalter appear ancient, as well as evoke earlier artworks with swift movement of the pen. The artist, however, would have benefited much from a view of modern comic book organization of text and images, as the three columns of Latin capital letters and subsequent depictions of the text lay in a hodgepodge of space, inseparable to the discerning eye.
The literal interpretations of the text—where the psalm says, “We are counted as sheep for slaughter” the artist drew slain sheep fallen to the ground in front of a walled city—however, provide for a simple picture that an illiterate laity could understand. In some ways the structure also gets the point across: the very chaotic nature of the battle against evil as God (or here the haloed Christ) merely overlooks the slaughter below. The chaotic structure testifies as well to the vivid movement of the scene, in correspondence with the sketchy upheaval of the earth, strained bodies, hunched shoulders, and heads thrust forward in action. Yet I cant help but imagine the Utrecht Psalter more effective as one of Walt’s Mickey Mouse cartoons.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of Auld Alliance Gallery, considering the work of a local artist, Pete Sullivan, William Carlos Williams’ (I’m hoping he went by Carlos) poem “Red Wheelbarrow” came to mind. The poem, which we recently dissected in English class, portrays a simple farm scene, which, at a second glance, is not so simple. In the same way, the simplicity of Sullivan’s work inspired me to look again. The scene has few defined edges, and the cars, seen only by their front lights and shadows, are the only animate objects. Two cars are easily made out, and a third set of lights peak over what seems to be a hill, or perhaps in front of the sheet of a morning fog. The fog is created by a transition of a cool color palette including a grey, baby blue, violet, and olive green that don’t distract the eye. The paint seems to have been applied like plaster with the edges of the strokes left unsmoothed. The gathering of the paint at the edges makes the painting appear still wet. Specific details of the cars and of the scene at large seem insignificant due to the rough outline of the four-wheeled objects and the horizontal strokes of thick paint applied.
And yet, just as “so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow,” so much depends upon the details of the scene. The reflection of the yellow lights of the cars on the road implies a dewiness to the highway, hinting at dawn or fresh rain. It is this play of light that also works to define the cars, which are made out by the combination of the shadows of their parts. The yellow reflections also hint at the shape of the indistinguishable road and the movement of the cars. This action is also seen in the simple realignment of words in Williams’ poem. The separation of basic words like “wheelbarrow” and rainwater” provide motion to a seemingly stagnant scene.
The details of the painting, however, are only seen after a closer look. Just as a greater tone of exists dependency exists within the simplicity of “The Red Wheelbarrow”, Sullivan’s work provides the observer with more at a second glance. Despite its original tone of simple ambiguity, at a second glance the details can be taken into consideration individually, and the piece then evokes a very different mood. The layering of colors is seen after a closer look. The transitioning color palette is in fact not just smears of blue, purple, and green, but an odd contradiction of the cool colors and their complements. The violets are layered over a bright pumpkin orange, and the yellow reflections rest on a blue road. Without this opposition, however, the lights would not be emphasized on the road and the movement of the cars would not be obvious to the observer. The frontal alignment of the leading car and the proximity of the following car suggest a hurried action. Although we sit as a sort of animal on the side of the highway we suddenly feel for the anonymous drivers behind the wheel of each car.
It is indeed the combination of these basic elements—the cars, the colors, the light, the strokes—reflected in the very words of Williams’ “Red Wheelbarrow, that give Sullivan’s work such an affect.
At the end of middle school Mrs. Rose Pickle presented us with a charcoal gray pencil and our final assignment: A self-portrait. Every year they were hung outside the auditorium and I had always marveled at those who were able to resemble their actual appearance or apply the shading just right. We had to make a presentable effort, and in most cases play up the mediocre picture we had of ourselves grinning through gritted, in most cases braced, teeth. For weeks we labored over gridding the paper and the picture, so we could place each crease, each individual eyelash in just the right spots on our faces. The task was daunting. Who really likes to look at themselves in that much detail anyway? The final products were 70 wide-eyed, smiling faces covering the walls as a sort of remembrance of a class that was being reluctantly nudged into high school.
If Egon Schiele’s self portrait were to be found pinned outside the auditorium he would most likely be forced to have a talk with the guidance counselor. In no way does he hold back from an expression of twisted anger and an evil aura. In no way does he dress up his features. He is starved, jagged, dirty. The curvature of his back suggests old age, and his left arm is interrupted by protruding bones at the joints of the shoulder and elbow. This facing arm appears an antiqued, almost jaundiced yellow, hanging stiff from his hunched shoulder. He peers over his craggy shoulder with puckered red lips. His chest sags over two bulging growths at his ribcage, as if his stomach caves in between them. Schiele ignores tedious grids, or where parts of his body are “supposed” to be placed. Although his elongated body stretches over the full length of the page, his crinkled face draws the most attention. Through narrowed eyes Schiele leads us into his life of suffering. He portrays a mesmerizing evilness with Rasputin-like eyes. His arm wraps around his head awkwardly, and his grimy hands seem to press his temple. Dark shadows creep under his eyes and in the creases of his sculpted face. An unabashed clump of armpit hair grows under his lifted arm.
It is as though Schiele has a dark past, which he recalls in his eyes. Bare and exposed, he leaves nothing to encourage the onlooker to smile. Hints of red and yellow are hidden by quick black strokes in all directions. Schiele’s view of himself reaches past layers of grade-school appearances into his shaded soul. It is just by looking that I feel I have overstepped my boundaries as an observer and become an intruder.
Pop quiz time! In class today we had half an hour to describe a drawing we had not previously seen by a local artist, Clare Coyle Taylor. We were given three works, little background on the artist and were told, "Write!". Taylor created abstract images as a sort of “emotional journal” following the death of her husband. Out of the three options, Taylor’s January 2 evoked the greatest connection and emotion as an observer. The image recalls the scribbled masterpieces of my kindergarten past, created by snatching all the colored pencils from a table, holding them together in the same hand, and pressing them furiously at the same time on the page. To many this process may seem childish. But shouldn't we recognize the direct expression of emotion on the page? The organic nature of it all? From far away the picture appears to converge into 2 black holes. A closer look confirms the tornado of colors, but the colors do not blend. In fact the medium itself (colored pencils) ensure that the colors do not fuse. Turquoise, olive green, and a Pepto-Bismol pink peek out from under a deep maroon layer and two black squares. An even closer look distinguishes a navy in the midst of the black squares, which lie vertically on top of one another in the center. The emotion that originally drew me to the painting (no pun intended) can be found in the chaotic turns of the seemingly unplanned lines, which refuse to recognize the border that attempts to enclose them. The boxes in the center repeat the scribble technique that surrounds them, but are more compact, forming distinct shapes. The boxes are Kandinsky-esque, in that they repeat a pattern of colors, navy and black. The bottom dark box encircles a sunset red square, which attracts the eye even at a distance. Clare Coyle Taylor colors a story. Although I would like to connect the dark emotion of the lines with her own struggles, her story is unclear. Off to Calculus!
movement that focused on fundamental geometric forms. Although famous for his “White on White”, Malevich gives us a little more detail to unearth here. Four men stand stiff, their bodies divided into quarters, with their legs split from the waist. Varying holiday colors are placed on the men’s clothing, and they appear with half-colored faces and mismatched shoes. Their turtlenecks peak out from their sweaters as they stand frontal and composed (in fact expressionless). Malevich depicts these men flaunting their Christmas sweaters boldly and without excuse as a lesson for those who wish to spread holiday cheer, no matter the detriment to their pride—don’t let the Christmas sweater wear you.
