Green Splendor

Georgia O'Keeffe, An Orchid, 1941

This painting is so unique.  It has elements of abstract art in the use of lines and a form that could be many things, and the color (although relatively calm).  This painting is so zoomed in that you cannot quite tell what it is.  We know it is a flower because of the title of the painting but it also looks a lot like a sea anemone, but it can take on any form the observer wants to see.  That is one of the most amazing concepts of abstract art, the value and the image relies almost completely on the observer.
The lines in this particular painting are very interesting.  The focus of the painting is in the center but the lines make the focus seem a little off on the right.  The darkest color is in the center and it fades as it follows the lines out to the edge of the page giving the orchid the appearance of the sun.

Jazz, the Music of Life

Jazz music is one of the most interesting types of music of all time.  Most music came to be out of religious zeal and was never really accessible to the common man or the poor.  Jazz music may be the first genre that was specifically created by the poor and for the poor.  It is known for playing with the rhythm and exploring every possible variation that could possibly be done.  It is amazing how true Jazz musicians can start playing with other musicians without ever seeing each other before.  Jazz is a music that lives and breathes together and the players must be so in tune with each other so that together they can make the music live.
 Louis Armstrong was no exception.  A child of the slums who bought his first trumpet for about $5 became one of the most prominent and best known trumpet players as well as jazz singers of all time.  Many people today are still familiar with his music.  Some of his most famous and well known pieces he has played are “West End Blues” and “What a Wonderful World.”  There is a short story I once read about how the jazz music makes people feel colors and takes people on an incredible journey throughout the surreal which is perhaps the reason why jazz music continues to speak to people of all ages and from all different backgrounds.

West End Blues- Louis Armstrong

What a Wonderful World- Louis Armstrong

Heart of Darkness to Hope

Douglas, Aaron.  Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery through Reconstruction, 1934

This painting is extremely interesting.  This painting is a timeline of African American experiences over a long period of time.  On the left slavery has been depicted and then all the way on the right we have the introduction of Jazz and a couple dancing the Charleston.  In the center of the painting is a man preaching to a crowd, most likely a representation of the abolitionist movement.  To the right and left of the man faded into the yellow background there are army troops.  The faded troops is perhaps a commentary of the ineffectiveness of the Civil War.  When this painting came out slavery had been abolished for nearly 70 years yet most African Americans did not have the rights of American citizens.  Even with the disappointing lack of rights after slavery was abolished  at the end of the Civil War the couple on the right playing the trumpet and dancing convey the high spirits many were able to keep.

Real vs. Symbolic

Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello pg. 17

"THE FATHER.  But don’t you see that the whole trouble lies here.  In words, words.  Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world.  And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself.  We think we understand each other, but we never really do."

This quote exhibits the romantic time period ideals.  The romantic time period was characterized by expressing feeling within the piece of work, but rather than putting words to it, just feeling that feeling.  Jacques Lacan, a French psychoanalyst says that there are two different worlds.  The Real world is associated with mothers and nature and emotions/feeling whereas the Symbolic world is associated with fathers, language development, and labeling.  For the most part we live in the Symbolic world and try to put words to feelings, we label everything and there is no returning to the Real world.  During the romantic period (and still today) artists and musicians and authors constantly tried to escape the Symbolic world and penetrate the Real world just as the Father in the play is doing.  The Father is trying to live in the moment and feel the emotions of the moment without trying to give it meaning because as soon as he gives it meaning he leaves the Real world and finds himself once again in the Symbolic world.  The Father also alludes to the idea that the Real world is different for each person.  What is the point for him to put his world into intelligible terms that make sense in the Symbolic world when everyone else has already placed their own words and meanings there?

Introspection Before the Journey

Friedrich, Caspar David- Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818

During the Romantic time period there were an increasing number of artists who turned to landscapes for inspiration, especially in America.  This particular painting is one of my favorites because of the contrast of the landscape and the person standing in the center of everything (quite literally the center of the painting.  I feel like the artist is trying to give the observer a glimpse into the mind of the man on the rocks.  An idea that was becoming increasingly popular during the romantic time period is trying to get back to the ‘Real’ world where only emotion exists.  In this particular painting the artist achieves this by having the man gaze down into the fog as he reflects on his own thoughts and life and rather than communicating what the man is thinking via words he expresses it with a picture.  The fog perhaps representing everything that makes life difficult and hides the end goal, but if he were to look up he would be able to see the mountain or his end destination looming above the fog and hardships of life.  The rocks and hills before him perhaps represent what will be a difficult journey in which it is hard to see through the fog, but the destination is in sight if you dare to look above the fog. 

Opera- One Story, 500 Plays

Throughout my life I have watched a few different operas and they all have something in common.  They are all predictable and as Friedrich says in Little Women in response to the question of what will happen, "the inevitable."  Operas often tell a classic story of love gone wrong or forbidden love along with a vast amount of miscommunications and dramatic irony.  Take La Traviata and Moulin Rouge (not actually an opera, but a play set to music) for example.  True, Moulin Rouge is partially based on La Traviata (it is hard not to see the parallels) as well as a few others, but other operas have very similar stories (Otello could have easily been another example).

Now we all know that it is not usually the story that makes us go to or enjoy the opera, but it is the music (often sung in a language we do not understand anyway) that draws us in, for only the best can be in an opera.  All of the arias and songs that the vocalists get to show off during are absolutely spectacular.  The musicality and the blending of voices is not something that is heard from an amateur performer.  In the clip from Little Women the two characters (Jo and Friedrich) are watching an opera as he translates the lyrics for her.  In the opera the music heard from the couple singing on stage is absolutely beautiful and full of feeling and emotion (opera was meant as a way to express emotion in its highest forms) and takes the listener into their fabulous world, the purpose of the performance fulfilled.


La Traviata:  1:14:15-1:22:05

Moulin Rouge

Little Women:  0:41-3:03
the inevitable, the predictable, the same every time

The music of Joseph Haydn

The music of Haydn in this particular piece is very playful and takes baroque characteristics and plays with them so as to express a greater range of emotion.  Haydn's music is fairly well known and his musical influence can even be seen in music composed recently.  Compare the first minute (especially the last ten seconds) of Haydn's sonata in D major to the music of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice opening song from about 0:51 to about 2:10 and see if you can hear the similarities.  During both parts you can hear the play on the rhythm of the pieces.  Although Haydn's pieces leans more to the baroque era and the music from pride and prejudice leans more towards the music of the romantic era you can hear that both are playing with music and trying to express a fullness of emotion throughout the pieces.

Now in contrast to the first comparison let's look at the music performed by the piano guys.  This particular piece is based off some of Vivaldi's (just in case you couldn't tell from the title ;D), a baroque composer.  You can hear the extreme staccato that characterizes a lot of baroque music that Haydn was playing with in his Sonata in D major in the rhythmic sections of the piece.  In contrast to the beginning of Bourne Vivaldi in the middle section from about 3:00 to 3:52 you can hear the cello and possibly a violin in the background  tying all of the notes together in a style (legato) that is perhaps more easier to relate to the smoothness of the music in the Pride and Prejudice piece.

Music is such a universal topic that connects many different time eras that makes the world seem timeless.  Haydn's as well as many composers of the past's influence can be seen in virtually all pieces of music composed today.  People just create new ways to look at the picture, or new ways to play with the rhythm, but there is no escaping the influence of the past.

Haydn Sonata in D major

Pride and Prejudice: Dawn

And in contrast we have Bourne Vivaldi by The Piano Guys

A Paradoxical Painting

Shortly After the Marriage, William Hogarth, 1745




I love the detail in this painting.  If you look at all the portraits in the background it gives a completely different perspective not of what their lives are like, but what their lives should be like.  You have dignified portraits of all the Lords and Ladies of the house in direct contrast to the state of affairs in the front room between the fallen chair and the open book of music next to the violin and the state of dress the young couple is in.  A paradoxical picture.

A theme that has present throughout all times in history.  This painting actually reminds me of the movie Amadeus and a scene of Mozart after he comes home from a night of partying and there is a young lady there that has been given a job as a maid to clean up after the young, partying couple.  It is eventually said that it would be nice to have someone to clean up after them.  Throughout the movie there are scenes just like this in which young mozart is up after a night of parties and he is continually drinking as he attempts to write his music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfuM2Ka7Lxc
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This particular painting as I have mentioned earlier is a motif that extends through time.  Perhaps the games and the style of dress has changed but the atmosphere and attitude are all the same.  1700s to present.

Poet or historian?

Don Quixote, Cervantes, pg. 505

'That's true,' Sanson replied, 'but it's one thing to write as a a poet and quite another to write as a historian: the poet can narrate or sing events not as they were but as they should have been, and the historian must record them not as they should have been but as they were, without adding anything to the truth or taking anything away from it.'

I thought this quote was really interesting and it made me think of a couple of things.  This first clip is a song from the play Wicked and talks about history being the point of view of whoever is telling it.  I think the historian and the poet are really one and the same.  Sure, the poet can definitely add more embellishments and tweak things to tell a story as will be demonstrated in the second clip, but as the song below says (from 2:53-3:13) it's all in which label is able to persist.  Could what we call the Crusaders actually be ruthless invaders?  Absolutely, from one perspective they were great men, but from the other perspective they were ruthless invaders.  Whoever is writing the history is choosing how it is going to be remembered.


Wicked
2:53-3:13

In the second clip from the movie Atonement Briony is telling her sister's final story.  She tells the story as it happened and how a young girl (herself) perceived it and how the meaning of everything changed as she came to a greater understanding with age and then at a particular point in time she takes the liberty of a poet as Don Quixote calls it and tells the story as she thought it should have unfolded rather than the way it did.  During the process the actual truth is told but another beautiful story unfolds.

Atonement