Was watching the movie, American Splendor, and heard Harvey Pekar mention this poem.
If you would keep your soul
From spotted sight or sound,
Live like the velvet mole:
Go burrow underground.
And there hold intercourse
With roots of trees and stones,
With rivers at their source,
And disembodied bones.
– from Elinor Wiley’s poem, The Eagle and the Mole
Which made me think of this famous Pink Floyd song.
Run, rabbit run
Dig that hole, forget the sun
And when at last the work is done
Don’t sit down
It’s time to dig another one
For long you live and high you fly
But only if you ride the tide
And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave
Painting: The Table (Still Life with Rabbit) by Joan Miró, 1920
It isnt for want
of something to say--
something to tell you--
something you should know--
but to detain you--
keep you from going--
feeling myself here
as long as you are--
as long as you are.
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“There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Five Orange Pips
But first some lines today from a John Ashbery’s poem, Hotel Lautréamont
Working as a team, they didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
we see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well,”
or, on a more modern note, in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
the world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé,
or in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again.
The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé.
In any case the ruling was long overdue.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again,
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure.
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Jean Sibelius – The Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47
Violin : Maxim Vengerov
Conductor : Daniel Barenboim
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO)
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Man with a Violin is a great example of Analytic Cubism, the approach developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
Between 1907 and 1914 Picasso’s art evolved as if it were a secret language being invented in private conversation with his close collaborator Georges Braque. Man with a Violin reflects the state of their nearly day-to-day interchange in 1912, a time when their styles became almost indistinguishable, based on a shared vocabulary of gridlike scaffolding, overlapping planes, and a palette of ocher, white, and gray. As Braque and Picasso gauged how their paintings evolved, and sometimes even jockeyed competitively to innovate new methods, the two never veered from the rigorously disciplined but intuitive approach that led them to create such focused series of works.
Man with a Violin dates from the spring or summer of 1912, a period in the evolution of Cubism often described as hermetic, as the connection between what appears in Braque’s and Picasso’s paintings and objects recognizable in nature is almost completely severed. This picture cannot be compared to the outward appearance of anything already known or seen, but instead creates a reality according to its own logic of seeing and reading. Immediately eye-catching and absorbing, its interwoven, shimmering facets and semitransparent planes juxtapose a skeletal, linear structure and transform the receding grid of perspectival space into a flat pattern. A monumental pyramidal form evokes a human presence, while other clues suggest strands of hair, a moustache, and ears. Two F-shaped sound holes are the only signs of a violin, and scroll-like shapes at the bottom left suggest the arm of a chair. Paintings such as Man with a Violin paved the way for much abstract art to come, but Picasso’s persistent inclusion of abbreviated signs for human physiognomy and objects shows what all his subsequent work confirms: he was more interested in dissecting and reinventing representation than in pursuing pure abstraction. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2000), p. 26.
John Cage (1912-1992): Thirteen Harmonies, for violin and keyboard (1985).
Annelie Gahl, violino
Klaus Lang, pianoforte elettrico (Fender Rhodes).
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“The arts of Zen are not intended for utilitarian purposes, or for purely aesthetic enjoyment, but are meant to train the mind, indeed, to bring it into contact with ultimate reality.” – D. T. Suzuki
“Most enso paintings have words written alongside them that gives the viewer a “hint” regarding the ultimate meaning of a particular Zen circle. In art terms, when there is no inscription, a circle is classified as a “mirror enso” where interpretation and reaction are left up to the viewer. When only a signature is added to an enso, some say that it is the artist’s way of sharing a self-portrait. This is one of the many possible ways of understanding the term “mirror enso.” Another way is to spend time with the enso while looking into the nature of the mind. With time, one may come to see that an enso circle is a mirror of the viewer’s mind at the moment that the circle is viewed. When people look into an enso mirror, they see their true nature. It is for this reason that the enso circle is enigmatic and a powerful tool, fresh in each new moment.” – http://www.janineibbotson.com/category/enso-circles/
Particular image below is from this post:
Enso Circle (2014); 12 x 16″; watercolor and sumi ink on paper by Janine Ibbotson
Like I wrote yesterday, I have recently started reading a book – Cubism by Neil Cox (Phaidon, 2000) about this very important art movement that took the art of the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Symbolists of the latter part of the 19th century in new directions, heretofore unimagined in art and painting.
The book provides some interesting insights into the history of Cubism – good entry-level introduction for someone like me – and broadly about the art at the turn of the (20th) century – in Paris, for example. I don’t want to try to summarize what I am reading here but here is a short excerpt from the book – as it relates to the painting I decided to share here today.
Luxe, Calme et Volupté is an oil painting by the French artist Henri Matisse. It was painted in 1904, after a summer spent working in St. Tropez on the French Riviera alongside the neo-Impressionist painters Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross.
The painting is currently at the MOMA in NYC, and their blurb for this painting has this to add about the painting:
Matisse favored discrete strokes of color that emphasized the painted surface rather than a realistic scene. He also used a palette of pure, high-pitched primary colors (blue, green, yellow, and orange) to render the landscape, and then outlined the figures in blue. The painting takes its title, which means “Richness, calm, and pleasure,” from a line by the 19th-century poet Charles Baudelaire, and it shares the poem’s subject: escape to an imaginary, tranquil refuge.
Not quite Pointillism nor quite the broad brush strokes of the Impressionists… maybe now I understand what Post-Impressionism means … similar quite a bit to some of van Gogh’s later paintings, especially some of his self-portraits come to mind.
In the last week I’ve started reading a book on Cubism and art at the turn of the (20th) century and so I expect I’ll be posting some art from that period soon – cubist art but also other avante-garde movements from the 20th century leading up to such post-modern adventures such as abstract expressionism that I don’t quite understand. But for now here’s something that is an interesting mix of the old classicism (through this angelic looking female portrait) and the new.
It is a painting titled Spring and was painted in 1896 by a painter I have not heard of before – Alphonse Maria Mucha, a Czech painter and decorative artist, “most well known for his images of women. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements and designs.” The painting below is from a series about The Seasons.
The style, per wikipainting categorization, is Art Nouveau. Per wikipedia:
The style was the first major artistic stylistic movement in which mass-produced graphics (as opposed to traditional forms of printmaking, which were not very important for the style) played a key role, often techniques of colour printing developed relatively recently. A key influence was the Paris-based Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, who produced a lithographed poster, which appeared on 1 January 1895 in the streets of Paris as an advertisement for the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou, featuring Sarah Bernhardt. It popularised the new artistic style and its creator to the citizens of Paris. Initially named Style Mucha, (Mucha Style), his style soon became known as Art Nouveau.
Two-dimensional Art Nouveau pieces were painted, drawn, and printed in popular forms such as advertisements, posters, labels, magazines, and the like. Japanese wood-block prints, with their curved lines, patterned surfaces, contrasting voids, and flatness of visual plane, also inspired Art Nouveau. Some line and curve patterns became graphic clichés that were later found in works of artists from many parts of the world.
Still in flowery mode and still with Renoir today too but a double dose of Impressionist paintings from the master today – two paintings of some lovely anemones.
Both are titled Anemones, and are both by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
I mentioned the still life painting of Heem couple days ago but since some of the earliest examples of still life were paintings by Dutch and Flemish painters, I thought I’ll explore that a little bit more for today. But I’m moving on from fruits today (;-) and become a bit more flowery 😉
Bouquet, by Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1599
Currently at Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
via wikipedia, a brief blurb about the painter:
Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568 – 1625) was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed “Velvet” Brueghel, “Flower” Brueghel, and “Paradise” Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from his floral still lifes which were his favored subjects, while the former may refer to the velveteen sheen of his colors or to his habit of wearing velvet.
Until recently, when I thought of fruits and still life, I thought of Paul Cezanne and even now when I think of Cezanne, I think of his many still life paintings first.
Paul Cézanne, The Basket of Apples, 1893 Currently at the Art Institute of Chicago
I got the image via Wikipainting, a great resource… which had this blurb about the painting.
This painting is most notable for the disjointment of perspective, as if the two sides of the painting were completed using two different points of view. The right side of the table is not in the same plane as the left side of the table, which was a stylized method used by Cezanne to incorporate the differences of viewpoint into an impressionistic still life. It was this technique that made it possible to bridge the gap between impressionists and cubism, which employed varying perspective and varying angles to depict subjects. As such, this still life is an example of the way in which Cezanne tried to deal with the complexities of visual perception.
And for today, turning the clock back a few centuries from Cubism and the 20th century…. and taking a look at how fruit dishes looked back then! 😉
Cornelis de Heem is not a painter known to me but this painting might be (have to verify for sure*) the inspiration for one of my favorite books of all time – by Mark Doty; read about that here, if interested though otherpeople have done a much better job of reviewing the book than my amateur fawning!
Still-Life with Oysters, Lemons and Grapes, Cornelis de Heem
* Update: It might not be Cornelis but his father Jan Davidsz de Heem’s “Still Life with Oysters and Lemon”, which is a similar painting, that Mark Doty focuses on in the aforementioned book.
Cornelis de Heem (1631-1695) was a still-life painter associated with both Flemish Baroque and Dutch Golden Age painting. He was a member of a large family of still-life specialists, of which his father, Jan Davidszoon de Heem, was the most significant. [wikipedia]
Recently, in reading about Cubism, I heard of Juan Gris (born: José Victoriano (Carmelo Carlos) González-Pérez). He was also closely related to Picasso and Braque and though from Madrid, he spent much of his creative energies in Paris with Picasso, Braque, Matisse, and Fernand Léger (another new name for me; I’ve only recently started getting into 20th century art. I’ve seen a few Legers and Gris already in real life at museums I’ve been to in the last year but do not know much about them and so exploring their art and reading online about them is an ongoing process.)
Newspaper and Fruit Dish, 1916, Yale University Art Gallery
Picasso yesterday, Braque today, who along with Pablo Picasso pretty much invented Cubism…… the biggest “revolution” in art since the Renaissance — changing the way we view the world.
The so-called two month hiatus has became almost a year long but I’m still not motivated to restart this blog. I do not have the time nor inclination to find the music-art-poetry combinations again and again although I still think it was an interesting idea and well worth pursuing again some day perhaps.
But at least for the month of May, I thought of restarting this blog and taking it in a different direction. The one thing I realized in my posts last year was that I didn’t really know much about art and various paintings of the great masters. There’s the general trivia kind of knowledge of course of famous paintings but not much beyond that. I do read about art a little bit lately but nowhere enough to be able to tell you confidently about various art movements, the particular details of how some artist innovated or used creativity to present things in a new form, etc. However, appreciating interesting paintings I find online happens all the time and so I thought I will post one art piece every day during the month of May.
A disclaimer before I even start: My thought process today is that I’ll focus on paintings made in the 20th century but this may change. Also, knowing myself, I expect that I’ll falter some days but since all I plan to do is to put up 1 jpg with a caption, it should be easy ( Famous last words!) to put up 31 posts in 31 days, I imagine?
Let me start then with a lovely painting that I ran into just now at the Lapham’s Quarterly. If someone had just shown me this painting, I don’t think I would have guessed that Pablo Picasso made it!
“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. ” ― Pablo Picasso, Metamorphoses of the Human Form : Graphic Works, 1895-1972
"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence." - George Eliot, Middlemarch
Random Walk
Read a a random post from the archives. Refresh/Reload and read a different randomly selected one. Enjoy!
The Other Side of Silence 