Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

24.2.19

Icarus Falls to his Death; a Cautionary Tale from Greek Mythology

"Icarus", Henri Matisse
How many stories exist about a father who loses his son? How many stories are there of a son who fell away from his father? How many stories are there about a father, a flawed father, whose ambition causes him to lose sight of what’s closest to him? Of a son whose first taste of freedom is so great, he cannot contain it?
Visualizing the Story of Icarus in Art
Image source: Icarus (from the Four Disgracers) Hendrick Goltzius, 1588.

The story of Daedalus and Icarus is one such story. It’s a cautionary tale that originates from the Grecian isle of Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Ovid and Apollodorus are the writers we have to thank for not allowing the tale to extinguish into non-existence. I prefer Ovid’s telling of the story. But both writers tell the basic plot. It’s not spoiling it to say that Icarus dies at the end. It’s the part of the story most mentioned and memorialized in commentary and in art.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, one can see Hendrick Goltzius’s engraving of the tale (from an ignominiously titled series “The Four Disgracers”). Goltzius’s Icarus depicts a monstrous-looking body plummeting to its death (which the viewer witnesses in a neat trick of visual toe-on perspective). This Icarus looks up at the sun, his hair blown wild, and his face a contorted mix of rage and regret. His body is massive, too much weight to bear in the air. His rage is palpable - directed towards the sun as if the sun is a villain. Yet looking closely at the details of the engraving, the viewer sees Icarus forever fixed in this position, as if he is similar to Sisyphus who rolls the rock to the mountaintop only for it to fall back down again. We see Sisyphus at the top, almost there, almost victorious, and we freeze the frame. Goltzius does the same. We can almost imagine Icarus is victorious in his flight. But there is a clue to the tragedy of the tale. Daedalus is drawn into the image, placed visibly far way, and the shape of his body shows that he remains in flight, while his son, too brazen, will be banished by the sun’s blazing glory.

In Célestin Nanteuil’s depiction, and perhaps many like it, Icarus is a stretched-out angel, his body perfect and unscathed, but his wings are broken. Icarus lies dead on the craggy rock. The setting of the scene is the sea and not the sky. Icarus’s body looks dainty as if he were never meant to fly. Nanteuil’s print reminds me of a video game incarnation of Icarus.

Kid Icarus from Nintendo

As a kid, before I knew anything substantial about Greek myths, or ancient gods and goddesses, my brothers and I played Kid Icarus, a 1986 Nintendo gaming system title that featured a boy angel named Pit; he had wings, but he couldn’t fly (or had lost the ability). He looked more like Cupid, the baby child of Aphrodite, the goddess of Love; than the tragic son of Daedalus, the ambitious inventor of Crete. In the video game, Pit had agency despite his clipped wings; he carried with him a bow and a plentiful armory of arrows. The game was a side-scrolling 2D affair; the player collected hearts and I believe, if my memory serves me correct, there was a princess. And the goal was to regain Pit’s ability to fly. I think. Yet. It’s funny because the game actually has no link to the original myth at all - except for the wings. And in the myth, unlike the game, Icarus has no agency. Like most children, he is limited by the agency of his parents. And, in fact, the myth of Icarus really is about the limitations of parenting, and the sometimes destructive relationships that can arise out of dysfunctional family dynamics.
The Origin Story of Daedalus Foreshadows the Fate of Icarus
Film still from Jim Henson's "Storyteller" version of the Icarus Myth
Some sources say that Daedalus, Icarus’s father, was born in Athens. He fled to Crete after accidentally killing his nephew (yet Apollodorus’s account of the story suggest foul play). In the Jim Henson Storyteller version of the myth, this event is connected with Icarus’s later death. Daedalus’s nephew was amenable to learning and generously caught on to the craft of possibly building a machine that could fly; this may have caused Daedalus to have envy and it is this envy that arose in Daedalus a moment of insanity when he lifted the boy up to fly at the top of the Acropolis and he tragically fell off the roof to his death.

In Crete, Daedalus starts a new life in Crete. It is during this time that Icarus is born (most likely the result of a relationship between Daedalus and a Cretan slave named Naucrate). After the events of the minotaur, Icarus is confined to a cave with his father, held there by the mighty king Minos, who, after Daedalus had constructed a miraculous maze to entrap his son, the half-man, half-bull Minotaur, kept him in Crete on indefinite retainer. Reading the original sources, the story of the Minotaur, of Theseus, the hero who slays the creature, Minos, the king, and Daedalus the inventor are very much tightly knit together. It is Icarus and Daedalus who lead Theseus out of the labyrinth, with Ariadne to freedom. Yet that’s another story (for another blog post). Myth has a tendency to radiate out into different spokes. But for this story, the story of Icarus and Daedalus, the central conflict is played out between father and son. Imagine Icarus grew up amazed and bewildered by his father’s inventions, but as he grew older, and approached adolescence, he grew cagey and restless. In the Jim Henson version (which I love) Icarus is portrayed as fragile and clumsy, almost incompetent and difficult to love. Icarus had lived his entire life constrained, so when his father drew up a plan to build him wings so they both could escape Minos’s grasp, the news must have felt like a dream and a relief. But if you grow up never experiencing even a little bit of freedom, once freedom is granted, it’s like how first-year, coddled college freshman feels after being raised by careful, plodding helicopter parents. You’re going to break bad fast. And that’s exactly what happened to Icarus. Tasting the salt in his mouth and feeling the tang of the ocean air, once he was aloft in the mechanical wings his father had constructed for him, the exhilaration was too intense. Icarus had tasted freedom, and like an addictive drug, he wanted more. Daedalus had warned him: “Fly too low to the sea and the saltwater will saturate your feathers weighing you back to the earth. Fly too high, close to the sun the warmth will melt the wax that keeps your wing enclosure intact. It will fall apart”. Icarus most likely replied, “Yes, father” and flew off. Teaching restraint to a teenage boy is like asking a child to not eat the chocolate ice cream or giving him an iPhone loaded with video games and telling him to do his homework.
What is the Moral Message of this Greek Myth?
Traditionally, the story ends with a cautionary warning that those who do well to refuse to listen carefully to their totally well-meaning father will find peril and destruction. He should have listened. Why didn’t he listen? To return to the Jim Henson version of the story (which I love!) the connection is made to the beginning when Daedalus killed Talos, which in turn killed something inside of Daedalus which was also unconsciously transmitted to his son. When Talos fell, so did Daedalus and Icarus fall. That’s some deep generational toxicity. Should the son pay the sins of the father? It reminds me of another ancient tale, of Abraham and Isaac. While Abraham doesn’t slay his own son, he is about to do it (when at the last moment the angel stays his hand). There is something electric in the concept of the “sins of the father” - of this idea that the father’s downfall sets the stage for the son’s eventual demise. Is there a way to break the chain? I think this why this story resonates so strongly. We want Icarus to fly and survive, to thrive. No one wishes, deep down, that Icarus dies. We want an alternative narrative. We want to see a story where Icarus and Daedalus live happily ever after. In this story, however, things would have had to have been different from the get-go. Icarus would not have grown up in the shadow of his father’s guilt. He would not have felt so constrained. What would this Icarus look like? It is a good question because so often I see the Icarus-effect. And as a son myself, I see how we as men are often tied up to our fathers (even when we do not consciously recognize it).
The Story of Icarus Resonates With Me Personally
Cultivating agency is the stuff of adulthood. To go away from Icarus and to become something different, something alive and thriving is hard. To fly away from the comfort of the nest. How does the expression go? He flew the coop. I do think of another story of fathers and sons - which comes from the Christian New Testament Greek writings. Jesus talks about a son who flies the coop; he leaves the nest and squanders his father’s inheritance; yet, he comes back poor and laid low. The father forgives him and takes him back. His sins are forgiven. At any stage of life, I feel like, one is between this prodigal son feeling and the need (and want) for redemption and the fear that I can be burnt up by the sun if I fly too far.

I say “I” because of the story of Icarus, of the Prodigal Son, and other stories of freeing oneself from the nest is a powerful one. I can relate to it and I am sure many can. I think about my own upbringing, and how I grew up; I learned from my parents how to live in the world, for better or for worst, and then at High School graduation I was thrust into the world. I had a second upbringing. Then I graduated from college; lived in a monastery for a while; then, I left and became a school teacher! I look at the successes of my adult life, my teaching, my career, projects I have completed and articles and stories I have written and I compare those things to how I was as a kid. Did one lead from another? Is it possible to trace who I am now from who I was then? The line is not continuous; there are broken lines; new lines drawn over old ones; and lines that are going in opposite directions. That’s probably why, as a teacher, I have gravitated to teaching this story a lot in my career. I have taught it to Sixth Graders, and to Ninth Graders. Kids like the story, and they are appalled by the tragedy. But they all say they would never fly too close to the sun. Or, they remind me, “Mr. Roselli, why didn’t Icarus just use better glue?!” Good point!
Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Higher Education, Adult Education, Homeschooler, Not Grade Specific - TeachersPayTeachers.com Teaching the Myth of Icarus to your Students in a Middle or High School Classroom
The story of Icarus and Daedalus is a powerful one. So, I put together a simple 3-day lesson plan that teachers can implement in their classroom with kids (preferably Middle or High School students). There are a ton of books that have reprinted the myth and there are a ton of artistic representations. I like using Edith Hamilton’s Mythology by the book Parallel Myths is my favorite. There is a gorgeous children’s book version of the Icarus myth that is fabulous because the illustrations are evocative. Use my lesson plan with any text of the story and guide your students through this remarkable tale.

11.8.17

Summer in Perdido Key: Belly Beach Parade

A beachgoer in Perdido Key, Florida Summer 2017
I'm addicted to this filter I used to take the above photograph. On my mobile phone - via the Facebook app - I upload random photos to "my story." My friends over at Snapchat were made famous with this kind of ephemera-generating technology - so I guess Facebook has jumped on the bandwagon to compete. And I think Instagram has a similar feature.

1.1.17

Photograph: Broken Pedestrian Crosswalk Signal (Near Chelsea Piers)

The author stumbles upon a broken upside-down traffic signal near Chelsea Piers in this post.
Broken pedestrian crosswalk signal near Chelsea Piers @nyc_dot.
Traffic Signal
Upside-down Traffic Signal Near Chelsea Piers — Image Credit: Greig Roselli

30.5.16

Icarus, the Sun, and Why June is a Nostalgic Time

Icarus, from the Four Disgracers, Hendrick Goltzius, 1588
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a drawing by Hendrick Goltzius that depicts the horror of Icarus's recklessness. The drawing reminds me of a story.

1.4.16

"Air" by Walter Hancock - Sculpture along the Schuylkill River Trail

The Backside of "Air"


A photograph of the backside of Walter Hancock's sculpture "Air".

28.10.14

Art Motif: "The Sitting Pose"

Homme noir nu assis recroquevillé (2007)
I think I fell in love with the nude sitting pose in art when first I saw Hypolite Flandrin's version at the Louvre.

Image Courtesy: Camille

27.7.14

Brooklyn Notebook: Leif Ericson Commemoration on Fourth Avenue in South Brooklyn

In this post, I take a stroll in South Brooklyn and stumble upon a plaque in a park. Ho, there, Leif Ericson!

According to @forgottenny, the ”Crown Prince Olav, later King, of Norway dedicated this replica of a Viking runestone in Tune, Norway on a 1939 visit. The stone stands on Leif Ericson Square just east of 4th Avenue. (Tune, southeast of Oslo near the Swedish border, southeast of Oslo near the Swedish border, was incorporated into the town of Sarpsborg in 1992)”. @nycparks.
Replica of a Viking Runestone, Brooklyn, New York — Photo Credit: Greig Roselli
PDF Copy for Printing

7.4.13

All Ready Made (Building #7), 2012-2013

View from the New Museum, The Bowery, New York City, 2013
Carrot Black
b. 2011 New York, NY

All ready-made (Building #7), 2012-2013
Brick, mortar, steel, concrete, sheetrock, living people, found objects

Art is meta. Looking out the window at the New Museum on Bowery the other day, the back wall of a building is in view affixed with a ginormous title card, the same style and font found in museums. I like how the title card makes me think of the wall it is affixed to as art - as if the card itself authorizes the wall as an art object, perhaps a swirling Rothko or a new experiment in Abstract Expressionism. Or maybe it's just a wall. Hmmmm. *scratching my chin*

21.2.13

Aesthetic Thursday: Surrealist Drawing

Toyen, Tir VI / The Shooting Gallery, 1939-1940

Toyen (née Marie Cerminova) is the name of a Czech artist. This drawing is on exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York City as part of a series of surrealist drawings.

This particular piece is notable for its juxtaposition of childlike imagery against a stark pointillist dessert.

The exhibit is open from January 25 through April 21, 2013.

24.1.13

Aesthetic Thursday: Eva Hesse at the Whitney Museum of Art

Eva Hesse, No Title, 1970
I like to go to the Whitney to experience one artist's work  and that is it. The Whitney does a good job of showcasing one work by one artist in a collection of works dedicated to several artists' work. Here is Eva Hesse's sculptural evocation   I call it an evocation of a sculpture because I am not sure if it is a sculpture or something else. Rope suspended from the ceiling in what appears to be haphazard, but on closer inspection, the organization of rope is purposeful, designed. Hanging rope. Hanging garden. Hanging. The feeling I get standing, hanging, hanging around, flapping my arms, my body, in space  this is how this piece makes me feel.
PDF Copy for Printing
Image: Whitney Museum of Art

13.8.12

"Discovering Columbus": New Nishi Art Installation Above Columbus Circle

Nishi's Design for the Living Room
Today in the New York Times there is an article about the art installation at Columbus Circle by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi. The project, entitled "Discovering Columbus" is sponsored by the Public Art Fund. The New York Times article is worth reading for it explains the various bureaucratic hoops projects like this must go through in order to get greenlit  a process, the article implies, made easier by Mayor Bloomberg's enthusiasm for public art displays.

Evidently, people will be able to enter a specially made structure built around the statue of Christopher Columbus, completely enclosing it inside of a living room complete with sofas and TV (no wifi).

Nishi had done something similar in Basel, Switzerland. He built a temporary apartment on top of the cathedral church in Basel enclosed around a bronze weather vane of an angel:
I am curious to see what the finished room built above the traffic of Columbus Circle will look like.

A similar idea is mentioned in the aforementioned article but I will repeat it: I think projects like this help us to see familiar things in an unfamiliar way. Is that not what art is?

2.1.12

What Happens When I Read Novels (Inspired by Reading and Proust and Freud)

When I read novels I do not see images when I read. 
I may see an image emerge in my mind’s eye after the reading has been done, but during the reading itself, I read in black and white without images. I've been reading selections from Proust's Swann's Way. What I conjure in my mind's eye of Marcel dipping a madeleine cake into a cup of tea anticipate images. Novels do not generate images. They anticipate.

Reading Novels is a Similar Cognitive Experience to What We do When Dream
What we do when we read novels is similar to what happens to us when we dream. Freud calls the dream image a rebus (p. 276); in this way, I think he is correct. If there is an image in the novel it is more akin to a rebus, a hallucination of loosely strung together spectral thoughts. 

Free Association of the Imagination When Reading Novels
We free associate when we read a novel; what comes before our mind’s eye are parts and pieces that do not form an entirely thought together whole. In the novel's image, like the dream, parts stand for wholes. Novels are constituted by their love for particularities. Epics and grand eloquent drama are the stuff of another art form; they form archetypical images. Novels are a unique art form in that they work similarly to the way our minds work. 

In the Novel-form the Individual is Privileged 
Novels arose as the predominant art form because they privilege individual experience over grand narrative; the mundane and the banal are championed in the novel over the hero trope and archetype. It is not the photographic image that is desired in the novel, but rather, what we see in the novel is the recognition that the mirror is broken; we see in the novel a skewed mirror and we call it real.

1.1.12

Proust, the Photograph, and Chance in Literature

Involuntary memory is a chance
happening precipitated by an object
Voluntary and Involuntary Memories
      For Proust, time stands still, ”As though there had been no time there but seven o'clock at night” (p. 59). A memory like this is not a memory of the intellect, for Proust, a voluntary memory  a memory likes this preserves nothing of the past. To capture an involuntary memory is a chance happening precipitated by an object. Proust likens it to reincarnation, of souls lost in some inferior being  does a touch, a taste bring them out to play? I think for Proust the soul is a prison yearning to reach out beyond its own limits -- this desire for transcendence is a desire of the human soul but the sheer will is not enough. 

Adoration of the Material World
Proust adores the material world; he has faith in the world because it offers a promise. The past is hidden beyond the realm of the intellect. The material world promises a portal to that hidden realm. But the key is not readily accessible. Proust's heaven is in the immanent reality of the material world. Proust's object is a material signifier  something like the effects of literature, “of which we have no inkling” (p. 60)  only chance. I come back to this passage: “it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves die" (v. 1, p. 61).  What Proust calls “chance” Barthes call the punctum. Art depends largely on chance  this is what Proust means by involuntary memory. Every photograph is an imprint of the world. But not every photograph evokes something akin to what the madeleine cake did for Marcel. Why? It is not the cup, the cake, the photograph itself that constitutes the structure of the involuntary memory  it is the self's response to the world, both hidden and open, governed by chance, in which we hope to light upon something called truth before we die. The experience of involuntary memory is an "unremembered state" (v.1, p. 61). Neither the novel nor the photograph holds the memory inside of itself; the memory is "unremembered" by a chance encounter. 

Comparing Barthes's Unary Image with Proust's Habituation
What Barthes calls the "unary" image," Proust would call habituation. What Barthes thinks of as the prick, the punctum, of the photograph is not far from how the Recherche confronts the problem of photography. Why does Swann prefer the daguerreotype of Odette? But Marcel disparages the Kodak snapshot? Why does Marcel study the photograph of Berma in bed, but is disconcerted by a photograph of Gilberte? Marcel cannot stand the vanity of his grandmother in wanting to have her likeness taken, but he concedes that his feelings are complicit with his own fantasy of a good night's kiss. The photograph promises a "supplementary prolonged encounter" (v. 3, p. 99). What is troubling about the photograph is the way it unsettles us.
A Cruel Trick of Chance
     In a "cruel trick of chance," Marcel sees his dead grandmother as a photograph (v. 3, pp.183-185). In this scene, the theme of the photograph is introduced without the actual presence of a photographic object. The grandmother appears "as a photograph." The grandmother is not there; she is absent, but Marcel perceives her similarly to a photograph, a spectral object, however, something akin to an hallucination or to a dream. The nodal point of the novel and the photographic image is the anticipation of an image not fully seen; for as Proust says, "We never see people dear to us except in the animated system, in the perpetual motion of our love for them, which, before allowing the images that faces present to reach us, seizes them in its vortex and flings them back upon the idea we have always had of them, makes them adhere to it, coincide with it" (v. 3, p. 183). What is striking here is that Marcel curses "the cruel trick of chance" that conjures up the image of his grandmother, as if his eyes were a photographic plate. Even in the moment that he sees his grandmother, a spectral image of her, sitting on the sofa  it lasts only a moment  he does not know her. "I who had never seen her save in my own soul, always in the same place in the past, through the transparency of contiguous and overlapping memories .... I saw [the spectral image of my dead grandmother] sitting on the sofa beneath the lamp, red-faced, heavy and vulgar, sick, day-dreaming ... an overburdened woman I did not know" (v. 3, p. 184).

29.7.11

Why I Write Better When I am Homeless

Writing is probably good for you.
Even with a due date.
When homeless I am uprooted. But I have money in my pocket.
Why do I write better? Because it is something to do to fill in the emptiness. When Maslow's needs are met I think we are less prone to be creative. It is the pang of hunger and thirst that spurs us on to aesthetic heights.

The hungry artist is the short-lived artist but his art is intense. I think Arthur Rimbaud was such an artist. He wrote until he exhausted himself. He wrote first then ate later. Even then it was not so much as a need but visceral. A part of creativity. His eating became his aesthetic.

I cannot be an Arthur Rimbaud. I enjoy creature comforts. Take-out. Lunch on a subway bench. A gin and tonic after work.
They do not make me more creative. I could say something pretentious like the life of the middle class intellectual deadens my creative sense. But that sounds wrong. I am a creator because I am a middle class intellectual. And I am not even sure if that label fits me. A lost boy is perhaps a better descriptor. A stranger in a strange land. A man who happens to have a degree who happens to teach Plato, Aristotle, Virginia Woolf and Camus to community college students in Brooklyn, New York.

I am a man who loves the color of apples. But I like stiletto heels as well. I like the religious ritual of going to the movie theater on a Thursday evening after work. I eat lightly buttered popcorn with the same laconic motivation of receiving the holy eucharist on my tongue. The darkened theater and the womb-like cavity of stadium seating  where there is always less people and more space feels like an experience of daily Mass.

Aesthetic Thursday: Max Beckmann, Beginning

"Beginning" Max Beckmann, 1949, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Triptychs
The piece "Beginning" is a triptych which means it is a single work composed of three panels. Triptychs were originally intended for religious art. Since the work is composed of three separate panels, once installed in a church or home, the priest could open or close the panel depending on the day of observance. Beckmann chooses the traditional triptych style, not for religious purposes but to depict pivotal events in a boy's adolescent development.

The Central Panel
The central panel depicts a boy on a white horse, a woman wearing blue stockings lying on a divan (smoking a hookah?), a cat hangs on the ceiling (reminds me of Puss in Boots).

Left Panel
An organ grinder, an angel, a boy with a crown.

Right Panel
Boys with laconic gazes, a teacher disciplines a pupil, a boy displays his pornographic magazine to other students.

23.6.11

Aesthetic Thursday: Alexander McQueen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this blog post, I write about the newest fashion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Alexander McQueen - Savage Beauty. 


The Dialectic of Beauty, Alexander McQueen Struggles with Deconstructive Aesthetics
    If you are in New York City between now and August 7, 2011, check out the "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Exhibit."
    The exhibit boasts an ample retrospective on the deceased fashion designer's life works, dating back from his seminal graduate student collection inspired by Jack the Ripper to his most recent posthumous collection.
    Jellyfish designs, a macabre mixture of duck feathers and leather masks, spray-on dresses, and kinky "bumster" design pants, the McQueen exhibit is a touching tribute to a man who certainly obsessed over dichotomies, divergences, and the question of the beautiful.

18.6.11

Will I Shine Among the Shades in Hades Like Tiresias?

Henry Fuseli, Tiresias appears to 
Ulysses during the sacrificing (1780-1785) 

Yesterday I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for my bi-monthly one hour visit. I go to the museum immediately after psychoanalysis. I'm sure there is a connection to that somehow. Reliving painful experience followed by the need to be absorbed by beauty seems like a rational explanation. Also: proximity. Dr. X's office is on the Upper East Side so it is not too far of a walk to attend a visit to one of the world's most voluminous holders of art. I checked in my bags. Bag attendant: "Do you have any electronic devices?" I answer a laconic "no." "Do you mind if we inspect your bag, sir?" I am secretly relieved my latest issue of Wet and Wild is absent. Just kidding. This is a kid-friendly blog. So I will say, "just kidding." Although I am sure there are a few number of kids who do read this blog. And if they do and they are scandalized then I am sure I can rightly join the ranks of Socrates's who was charged with "corruption of the youth." In fact, I just had a conversation about Socrates's trial in class last Thursday. Most students agree that Socrates is a cool cat. But, I wonder if they would have liked him if they had actually met him. I too think Socrates is a cool cat but I have a suspicion that I would not like him very much. I think it is the passage in the Meno that compares him to a stingray. Meno tells him that his frequent and accumulating questions without answers numb him like a sting ray's sting (or a jellyfish?). Why be so numbing Socrates? It goes against educational practice today. We are not supposed to overload our students with too many questions. Socrates asks Meno one question after another. Without answer. And more complicated. Can virtue be taught? He does not like Meno's answer so he asks him more questions. How can we get at the heart of virtue? Do we even know what virtue is in its essence? I don't think Socrates is satisfied that strength tells us anything about courage as a whole or that healthy bones tell us anything about health. Socrates wants to get at the heart of the matter. We don't know anything about the essence of a virtue. In fact we know nothing for certain about wholes in of themselves. We know via recollection. We remember knowledge. Since we existed before this life (our souls are immortal) we come into corporeal existences with the memory of our past existence buried deep within us. Knowledge is memory recall. The puzzle is the access to our soul's knowledge is not an open flood way. It is more like a dam with tiny holes allowing a minuscule of seepage to pass through. Damn transmigration of souls. How can I know anything if I do not even know that I must remember to know? That is the stingray part. At least for me. How do I access the treasure trove of knowledge from above? Do I look at beautiful things to stimulate my mind to recollect? Socrates suggests it is all by mere chance. So remember and some don't. The son of a wise man is not necessarily wise. The key is the tether. When you got it — hold it down. Don't let a morsel of knowledge get away and be able to distinguish the dross from the good stuff. I like how the Meno ends. Odysseus was able to identify Tiresias among the shades in Hell because Tiresias shone with a special light. He was a flitter of glory among shadows. In other words who knows when we will "get it"; maybe never, but the thing is, when we do in fact see it, we will know it.

16.6.11

Aesthetic Thursday: Boy in a Striped Sweater

Amedeo Modigliani, Boy in a Striped Sweater, 1918, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Visually Similar Images Generated by Google Image Search
Oil on canvas
H. 36, W. 21-1/2 inches (91.5 x 54.5 cm.)

9.6.11

Aesthetic Thursday: Donatello's Bronze David

Donatello's Bronze David is on display in Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence.
Donatello, "Bronze David," circa 1440  
Florence's Two Davids
Florence claims two famous David's: the one above is Donatello's bronze rendition, while Michelangelo's David is carved from marble. This "David" is remarkably younger in appearance and less muscular than Michelangelo; he displays an insouciance characteristic of a boy who has just brazenly done a misdeed and is gloating. He leans forward on his sword, pleased with knocking down the Philistine Goliath with a mere stone, then lopping off his head. I am sure the adrenaline seething through his body after such an act was powerful indeed.
Donatello's David is Presented "After the Act"
It is interesting that Donatello has chosen to depict his David post coitus. His stance is certainly not the preliminary "taking stock" embodied in Michelangelo's David nor is it the intense focus of a David in action with the slingshot; it seems obvious his victory is more akin to losing one's virginity or the discovery of masturbation. Donatello's David is a piece that glorifies the esteem begotten in accomplishing a deed rather than the energy and labor that go into completing one.
Pure Youth Energy
Not just any deed. But a deed done quickly and with fierce attention, and brazen courage, against all odds. Who would guess that a boy could topple a giant? Who would guess that after having made love for the first time that it would be so good? The trope evident here is of the victorious boy. He is a boy fully clad in the remnant clothing of a warrior, the helmet and the battle sandals. The rest is pure youth.

photo credit: timelines

23.5.11

On Thinking About Creativity: Are We Artists Or Not?

Creators come in different
shapes, colors, and sizes!
If you think you may be a writer, an illustrator, a photographer, a graphic designer, a sculptor, a songwriter, or a dancer, a filmmaker, a novelist, a poet, a dreamer, a baker, whatever, know a few things. Your art will fail you. The words will not come. The images will not appear. The lens will not capture a perfect reality. The story will not form. The movement will falter. The notes will not pluck. The cake will collapse.