Thursday, January 29, 2009

Bosch and Me




I am a tree

lost in a lost land of lossness

stuck into a boat

floating

growing

living

from the world below me

people reap my benefits

they climb me

they sit on my brother

his branches wilt

they take us with them


I'm tied all to everything

a web of rope leaping out from me

people and things all attached along them

a man tears me apart


at my base

a lady, a monk and several seamen

sing gentle songs

to a hanging bob

sitting neatly on the end of

one of my ropes

they push a table against me

perhaps they'll lower the bob down to it

eat it

sing of its taste

feed it to the

peoplefish

that swim along the hull of the boat


row along

searching for something

perhaps a place to stow 

the seaman

that another lady

prepares to beat


the ocean becomes grass

in the distance

a mountain looks down at us

it doesn't mind our

plight

only observes

Monday, January 26, 2009

Bellini and Moms

1.
According to Kristeva, Bellini came from a family of painters.

Which would likely have a great impact upon himself as a painter. Having grown up with it as a part of his life, it likely grew to be a part of his identity.

His work benefitted and innovated the developing use of oil painting.

As Kristeva says, it gave Bellini's work a certain extra "luminous density of color" that "introduced volume into the body and into the painting."

He was the official painter for the Ducal Palace.

It gave him honor, I suppose.

I would imagine that the most shaping event in his life were the deaths of his wife and son.

It likely shifted his perspective on life quite drastically. To lose your closest loved ones, is an unimaginable experience. Perhaps his work before and after differs slightly because of this.

3.
Kristeva supposes quite a bit about DaVinci. Though she instills many facts about his life, it is still her interpretation of a man who lived hundreds of years earlier. I find her argument sound, but it still cannot be taken entirely as truth because it is based entirely upon the inference of what could have possibly maybe been the case. Nonetheless it is a very interesting perspective.

In her explanation of the Leonardo's Madonna and Child, she finds that the child seems to the purpose for the mother. She exists because he does. Chronologically (in terms of birth), this is flawed if to be taken literally. But it obviously is a more metaphorical thing than that. Her whole body turned toward the child, the real focus of the image. The baby is her goal, her superobjective. The mouth of the Madonna is also identical to that of the Mona Lisa, implying a sense of masculinity.

4.
Bellini never had a real mother or at least a female figure to fill in for that void. DaVinci had his wife, but Bellini never grew close enough to his step mother to think of her in a maternal way.

This explains the reason for the distance between the mother and child in his paintings of the Madonna.

DaVinci always has the mother completely attentive to the child, always looking and holding and pushing close to him.




But Bellini's Madonna's are less attentive to the child. They often look away to some other point of interest. They are distant to the child.



This image is strange. The Madonna looks at Jesus as if she's afraid of him, as if she is disgusted by him. She holds him as if she were a man and he were a purse. It's just incredibly awkward. It seems as though that is Bellini's idea of a mother. Distant, foreign and awkward.

6.
Kristeva asserts that the reason that the Nativity and the Crucifixion are shown so often together is their inherent connection through the mother. That the mother gave birth to Christ only so that he could die. But then is that not the case with all of us? Kristeva seems to connect that cycle of death and life as if it were a terrible thing, as if the nature of existence was wrong. Perhaps it is because Christ, as a man, is glorified in death, whereas Mary, a woman, is only glorified for her use as a vessel for the son of God. Perhaps.

8.
Between 1485 and 1499, Bellini's wife and son died. This led to a shift in his style. It becomes full of "controlled hostility or disappointment." It seems that his fatherhood is necessary "in order to relive the archaic impact of the maternal body on man." Paternity allowed Bellini to admit the threat of the maternal body as well as the separation from it. It was his fatherhood that allowed him to innovate his artwork, to grow as an artist, rather than fall victim to stagnation in his work.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Presidential Power

In this day and age, the Presidency has changed. In Washington's time, the President did as he see fit to shape and change the nation (within his power of course), rather than one who followed the will of the people. Now, the President must be an icon, a pop hero.



President George Washington


President Barack Obama.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Einstein's Genius

We perceive great artists as being above us, being an idea rather than a person. As such, their exploits are not simply stories, but mythologies that build the artist into something greater than a man (or woman). Their specific ability to interpret the natural world and make beauty from it makes them extremely desirable for the common man to immortalize.

I understand Albert Einstein as an artist. His work in shaping our understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe innovated the very basis of modern science. His ideas created question and searched for answers.

The key to his genius is the thought experiment. Most notably is his thought experiment of chasing a beam of light. As he chased the beam and gained more and more speed until he finally was traveling at the speed of light, the beam of light should appear to slow down until it stopped. This, both then and now, was considered an impossibility of the physical properties of light. As he thought more and more about this apparent contradiction of idea and law, Einstein eventually postulated the theory of special relativity in which the speed of light appears constant no matter the frame of reference. One of the most important scientific moments of the twentieth century.
He was 16 when he first had the thought experiment.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Miracle of the Lactation of St. Bernard

According to art-breastfeeding.com here There are two versions of the miracle of the Lactation of St. Bernard. The first being that Mary appeared in a prayer to St. Bernard and sprinkled some milk from her breast on his lips. This showed him that she was his mother and would help his prayers be answered by her son (Jesus). The second version is that St. Bernard fell asleep during a prayer and Mary comes to him and feeds him milk from her breast to give him the wisdom of God. So, in pictoral form.

The First Version:

Saint Bernard


was praying


when Mary



appeared


and sprinkled on his lips


some milk
from her breast


to let him know she's his mother



and that she'll help

his prayers


get to her son

Second Version:

Saint Bernard


was praying


when he fell asleep


when Mary



appeared


and started to feed him


some milk
from her breast


giving him the wisdom

of God.

So, there you have it. The miraculous lactation of St. Bernard through pictures. Hooray.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

San Marco

Last winter I had the opportunity to visit Italy with my family. While we were there, we visited San Marco in Venice. It was terribly awe inspiring. The only other cathedral that we saw of greater magnitude was Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Imagining the sight of this cathedral at its worshipping prime, it must have been a humbling thing to see. I would imagine that entering the place would have been particularly incredible. To look up, seemingly to the sky,  and see shafts of light falling down from the high dome. When all else is significantly less extravagant, it's easy to understand the power of the church. Such massiveness and incredible magnitude would have been placed not only upon the doorstep of the physical cathedral, but of the entire Church hierarchy as well. Thus the Church gained power not only as "the gateway to God" but also through the dominance that their cathedrals had over the entire architecture of a city or town. Even in today's world, it was a very humbling thing to see. It elicited respect, even when there are buildings far larger than it everywhere else in the world. It's grandeur was and still is its power.