понедельник, 28 марта 2016
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Nikonov Apartment House
Apartment Buildings
Famed for its palaces and museums and thoroughly imbued with an air of past glories, St. Petersburg is, in broad historical terms, a very modern city. Its development coincided with the general European trend for urbanization and the adoption of the apartment as the main style of accommodation for city dwellers. By the mid-19th century, only a tiny percentage of the population at the very top of the social ladder could afford to live in private houses, and the vast majority of Petersburgers were moving to rented accommodation in apartment buildings.
The "dokhodny dom" (tenement building) was not only the easiest way to accommodate the city's rapidly growing population, it was also an attractive investment for St. Petersburg's wealthy merchants and industrialists, and even for many members of the aristocracy. Apartment buildings, usually of four or five stories and with a small inner courtyard, began to spring up throughout the historic centre, bearing the names of the prominent citizens who had commissioned them.
The owners would often have their commercial premises and their own apartments on the lower floors of the building, with the second floor traditionally occupied by the most luxurious living quarters, and apartments decreasing in size and splendor the higher the floor.
As for many owners the apartment building would be their own home as well as a business project, they were generally willing to spend lavishly on decoration and design. There are numerous masterpieces of eclectic, revival, Art Nouveau and Russian Neo-classical architecture among the St. Petersburg apartment buildings of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Sources of architects' inspiration ranged from classical temples to Venetian palaces and medieval castles, and in some cases the elaborate decorations became synonymous with the buildings themselves, so that names like "the house with towers" or "the house with owls" have an almost official status in local nomenclature.
The grand era of apartment houses in St. Petersburg came to an abrupt end with the October Revolution. With the honorable exception of a few ground-breaking constructivist housing projects of the late 1920s and a handful of neighborhoods that benefited from the Stalinist construction boom of the 1950s, the main Soviet solutions to the housing problem were to first slice up the palaces, mansions and grand lodgings of the pre-Revolutionary elite into cramped communal apartments, and later to throw up the endless rows of monotonous prefabricated blocks that comprise most of St. Petersburg's dormitory regions.
Nonetheless, it is the comparative lack of 20th century construction projects that has allowed St. Petersburg to retain the historic aspect of the city centre like a museum of the pre-Revolutionary era, a fact recognized by UNESCO's decision to designate the whole area a world heritage site in 1990. While many of St. Petersburg's historic buildings have been shockingly abused and neglected over the last century, the sense of living amongst the decaying grandeur of a past civilization has an insidious charm that seduces locals and visitors alike. In this respect, St. Petersburg truly is the "Venice of the North", and nowhere is the juxtaposition of modern living and the social order and design of the past more tangibly experienced than in the city's grand historic apartment buildings.
With the obvious and prominent exception of the Church of Our Saviour on the Spilled Blood, there are not many buildings in St. Petersburg in the Russian Revival style of the late 19th century, and most of them are churches in the outlying regions of the historic centre. A remarkable exception is the Nikonov Apartment House on Kolokoknaya Ulitsa, a few steps from the Church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.

Nikonov Apartment Building on Kolokolnaya Ulitsa
The owner and designer of the building, Nikolay Nikonov, was a leading proponent of the Russian Revival style, responsible for many notable churches and monasteries in Moscow, Tallinn, Poltava, New Athos (in Abkhazia), on the island of Valaam, and in St. Petersburg and its suburbs. Nikonov's most famous Petersburg work is the Convent of St. John of Rila on the Karpovka River Emankment on the Petrograd Side. Another excellent example of his work, the Church of the Holy Trinity, stood only a few minutes' walk from his apartment building on the corner of Ulitsa Marata and Stremyannaya Ulitsa, but was demolished in 1964 during the construction of Moskovskaya Metro Station.

Detail of facade decorations of the Nikonov Apartment Building
In 1899, Nikonov acquired the merchant Zimin's two-story house on Kolokolnaya Ulitsa and rebuilt it to reach five stories. In decorating his building, Nikonov gave free rein to his imagination. Using ceramics made at the renowned Nikolay Gogol School of Technical Art in Ukraine, Nikonov decorated almost every brick on the facade of his house. Windows, cornices, columns, and balconies were all decked out with colorful majolica decorations, mostly floral ornaments. A tent-like roof, "melon" columns, and "kokoshniki" (arch-like semi-circular decorations named after a traditional type of headgear) combined to make the building almost an encyclopedia of traditional Russian architecture.

Nikonov Apartment Building: Entrance to a fairy-tale house
Nikonov's decorative zeal extended to the interiors and courtyard of his building. Inside can be found stained-glass windows with floral patterns reminiscent of Art Deco, vaulted ceilings, and decorative plasterwork. Unlike many St. Petersburg houses, the courtyard's facades are decorated although more modestly than the main facade. In the courtyard, reached through a vaulted brick archway, a charming semi-circular tower houses one of the building's staircases.
After a fire in the building in 2009, the main facade has been fully restored.
Apartment Buildings
Famed for its palaces and museums and thoroughly imbued with an air of past glories, St. Petersburg is, in broad historical terms, a very modern city. Its development coincided with the general European trend for urbanization and the adoption of the apartment as the main style of accommodation for city dwellers. By the mid-19th century, only a tiny percentage of the population at the very top of the social ladder could afford to live in private houses, and the vast majority of Petersburgers were moving to rented accommodation in apartment buildings.
The "dokhodny dom" (tenement building) was not only the easiest way to accommodate the city's rapidly growing population, it was also an attractive investment for St. Petersburg's wealthy merchants and industrialists, and even for many members of the aristocracy. Apartment buildings, usually of four or five stories and with a small inner courtyard, began to spring up throughout the historic centre, bearing the names of the prominent citizens who had commissioned them.
The owners would often have their commercial premises and their own apartments on the lower floors of the building, with the second floor traditionally occupied by the most luxurious living quarters, and apartments decreasing in size and splendor the higher the floor.
As for many owners the apartment building would be their own home as well as a business project, they were generally willing to spend lavishly on decoration and design. There are numerous masterpieces of eclectic, revival, Art Nouveau and Russian Neo-classical architecture among the St. Petersburg apartment buildings of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Sources of architects' inspiration ranged from classical temples to Venetian palaces and medieval castles, and in some cases the elaborate decorations became synonymous with the buildings themselves, so that names like "the house with towers" or "the house with owls" have an almost official status in local nomenclature.
The grand era of apartment houses in St. Petersburg came to an abrupt end with the October Revolution. With the honorable exception of a few ground-breaking constructivist housing projects of the late 1920s and a handful of neighborhoods that benefited from the Stalinist construction boom of the 1950s, the main Soviet solutions to the housing problem were to first slice up the palaces, mansions and grand lodgings of the pre-Revolutionary elite into cramped communal apartments, and later to throw up the endless rows of monotonous prefabricated blocks that comprise most of St. Petersburg's dormitory regions.
Nonetheless, it is the comparative lack of 20th century construction projects that has allowed St. Petersburg to retain the historic aspect of the city centre like a museum of the pre-Revolutionary era, a fact recognized by UNESCO's decision to designate the whole area a world heritage site in 1990. While many of St. Petersburg's historic buildings have been shockingly abused and neglected over the last century, the sense of living amongst the decaying grandeur of a past civilization has an insidious charm that seduces locals and visitors alike. In this respect, St. Petersburg truly is the "Venice of the North", and nowhere is the juxtaposition of modern living and the social order and design of the past more tangibly experienced than in the city's grand historic apartment buildings.
With the obvious and prominent exception of the Church of Our Saviour on the Spilled Blood, there are not many buildings in St. Petersburg in the Russian Revival style of the late 19th century, and most of them are churches in the outlying regions of the historic centre. A remarkable exception is the Nikonov Apartment House on Kolokoknaya Ulitsa, a few steps from the Church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.

Nikonov Apartment Building on Kolokolnaya Ulitsa
The owner and designer of the building, Nikolay Nikonov, was a leading proponent of the Russian Revival style, responsible for many notable churches and monasteries in Moscow, Tallinn, Poltava, New Athos (in Abkhazia), on the island of Valaam, and in St. Petersburg and its suburbs. Nikonov's most famous Petersburg work is the Convent of St. John of Rila on the Karpovka River Emankment on the Petrograd Side. Another excellent example of his work, the Church of the Holy Trinity, stood only a few minutes' walk from his apartment building on the corner of Ulitsa Marata and Stremyannaya Ulitsa, but was demolished in 1964 during the construction of Moskovskaya Metro Station.

Detail of facade decorations of the Nikonov Apartment Building
In 1899, Nikonov acquired the merchant Zimin's two-story house on Kolokolnaya Ulitsa and rebuilt it to reach five stories. In decorating his building, Nikonov gave free rein to his imagination. Using ceramics made at the renowned Nikolay Gogol School of Technical Art in Ukraine, Nikonov decorated almost every brick on the facade of his house. Windows, cornices, columns, and balconies were all decked out with colorful majolica decorations, mostly floral ornaments. A tent-like roof, "melon" columns, and "kokoshniki" (arch-like semi-circular decorations named after a traditional type of headgear) combined to make the building almost an encyclopedia of traditional Russian architecture.

Nikonov Apartment Building: Entrance to a fairy-tale house
Nikonov's decorative zeal extended to the interiors and courtyard of his building. Inside can be found stained-glass windows with floral patterns reminiscent of Art Deco, vaulted ceilings, and decorative plasterwork. Unlike many St. Petersburg houses, the courtyard's facades are decorated although more modestly than the main facade. In the courtyard, reached through a vaulted brick archway, a charming semi-circular tower houses one of the building's staircases.
After a fire in the building in 2009, the main facade has been fully restored.
воскресенье, 27 марта 2016
В Найроби всё спокойно
Отражение евангельской истории Христа и Марии Магдалины в картинах Александра Иванова "Явление Христа Марии Магдалине после воскресения" (1934-35) и Альберта Эденфельта "Христос и Магдалина" (1890, княжество Финляндское)
Задачами работы являются:
изучить сюжет обоих произведений,
сопоставить изображения Христа и Марии Магдалины и картинах Иванова и Эденфельта
выделить роль пейзажа в этих произведениях
обратить внимание на эмоциональное состояние героев
Оба произведения относятся к жанру исторической картины на библейский сюжет, являются двухфигурными картинами, объединены сходным сюжетом.
Этот сюжет характерен для академической живописи первой половины XIX века, но гораздо реже встречается в конце XIX века, когда живопись, уже обратившаяся приемами реализма, значительно расширила свой тематический репертуар.
Двухфигурная композиция "Явление Христа Марии Магдалине после воскресения" (1934-35) написана как подготовительная картина к масштабному полотну "Явление Христа народу", которую художник считал главной работой своей жизни.
Для Иванова этот евангельский эпизод был точкой, где сталкивалось земное и небесное, где человек встречался лицом к лицу с чудом. Мария Магдалина пришла ранним утром с женами-мироносицами к гробу Христа, но не нашла Его там. В смятении идя обратно, она увидела воскресение Спасителя,но с первую минуту приняла его за садовника. Порывистое движение восМагдалины хищенной Марии Христос останавливает величественным жестом (..."не прикасайся ко Мне,ибо Я еще не восшел к Отцу Моему") Подобная композиционная завязка встречается в работах старых итальянских мастеров (картина написана во время обучения в Италии). Но Иванов сосредотачивает внимание на эмоциональной стороне происходящего. Перед зрителем открывается картина живого возрастного переживания физической утраты Учителя, близость которого была реальна, осязаема (но тленна) и духовного обретения (еще не до конца осознанного) воскресшего Христа. Острота кульминационного момента - в немом диалоге двух фигур, контрасте пластических форм. С одной стороны, потрясение Марии Магдалины, еще не осознавшей воскресение Иисуса, с другой - отрешенность от земных страстей Того, кто уже почти принадлежит миру небесному. Колористическим выражением этой встречи несовместимых миров стал контраст живого, пламенеющего красного цвета платья Марии и белого одеяния Христа с его прозрачными переливами холодных и теплых тонов.
Стремясь передать двойственное природу воскресение Христа, Иванов испытывал творческие трудности не находя нужного решения ни в произведениях великих мастеров, ни в реальных впечатлениях. Отправной точкой в поисках этого образа была скульптура Христа, над которой работал Торвальдсен и статуя Аполлона Бельведерского. Среди подготовительных рисунков Иванова есть также фрагменты композиций Джотто, Фоа Анджелико, Леонардо да Винчи, Фра Барталамео, Рафаэля, античная скульптура. В образе Христа, напоминающего греческого бога восплотилось представление художника об античной пластике. Восхищение Иванова венецианской живописью сказалось в чувственной и одухотверенной красоте Марии Магдалины, написанной с натуры, в темноте колорита с чистыми,мягкими оттенками локального цвета.
Картина стала пенсионерами отчетом художника и за нее Иванов был удостоен звания академика. Однако сам Иванов считал "Явление Христа Марии Магдалине" лишь "начатком понятия о чем-то порядочном", он мечтал о поездке в Палестину для работы над картиной "Явление Христа народу".
Несмотря на желание Иванова передать эмоции Магии Маргалины (сочетание восторга и слез), он все же остался в рамках классицистического стиля.
Иное решение мы наблюдаем в работе Альберта Асфальта "Христос и Магдолина". В отличие от произведения Иванова, картина Эденфельта написана в зрелой период его творчества. Для этого художника не характерный религиозные сюжеты, он считается мастером пейзажа.
Если Иванов изображает воскресшего Спасителя, у Эденфельта мы видим Христа в земной жизни. В отличии от лаконичной композиции русского живописца, где наше внимание сосредоточено на двух фигура и диалоге между ними, Эденфельт окружает своих персонажей естественной средой, пейзажем.
Мария Эденфельта - грешница, одержимая семью бесами. Она обращается к Христу в смятении чувств, ее взгляд рассеян и в то же время в нем чувствуется надежда на Спасение. Изображен момент принятия Сына Божьего, Магдолина понимает духовную власть Христа.
Взгляды Христа и Магдолины не встречаются, их объединяет движение руки Спасителя. Это естественный жест успокоения и поддержки. Христос что-то говорит женщине, его лицо выражает спокойную сосредоточенности и сочувствии к бедам Марии (в более широком смысле всего человечества). Похож в руке Иисуса пришел еще от раннехристианской иконографии Доброго Пастыря (редкой для реалистической живописи XIX века).
Влияние статистической живописи заключается в том, что в изображении Христа нет идеализации. В то же время его фигура почти нематериальна, кажется, что Иисус парит в воздухе. Темная голова Христа изображена на светлом фоне, кажется, что от нее идет едва заметное свечение. Светлая одежда Спасителя напротив контрастирует с темным фоном, фигура Магдалина же с этим фоном сливается. Контуры фигур и пейзажа чуть размытыми, что говорит об импрессионистическом влиянии.
Эденфельт вводит своих персонажей в осенний пейзаж. Золотая осень может вызвать ассоциации с золотофонностью византийских мозаик, о них же напоминает и варьируются манера живописи.
Кроме того осень символизирует переход к другой жизни Марии Магдолины, духовную зрелость и спокойствие Христа. Пейзаж нам напоминает об обители, удаленной от городской суеты.
Картину "Христос и Магдалина" вряд ли мог бы написать атеист. Она вызывает мысли об обращении к Христу человека в момент отчаяния и о всепрощении Спасителя. Произведение Эденфельда, свободное от рамок классицизма, кажется проще картины Иванова и за счет этого становится ближе зрителю. При этом обе картины достойны изучения и размышления о них, поскольку каждая из них принадлежит своему времени.
Задачами работы являются:
изучить сюжет обоих произведений,
сопоставить изображения Христа и Марии Магдалины и картинах Иванова и Эденфельта
выделить роль пейзажа в этих произведениях
обратить внимание на эмоциональное состояние героев
Оба произведения относятся к жанру исторической картины на библейский сюжет, являются двухфигурными картинами, объединены сходным сюжетом.
Этот сюжет характерен для академической живописи первой половины XIX века, но гораздо реже встречается в конце XIX века, когда живопись, уже обратившаяся приемами реализма, значительно расширила свой тематический репертуар.
Двухфигурная композиция "Явление Христа Марии Магдалине после воскресения" (1934-35) написана как подготовительная картина к масштабному полотну "Явление Христа народу", которую художник считал главной работой своей жизни.
Для Иванова этот евангельский эпизод был точкой, где сталкивалось земное и небесное, где человек встречался лицом к лицу с чудом. Мария Магдалина пришла ранним утром с женами-мироносицами к гробу Христа, но не нашла Его там. В смятении идя обратно, она увидела воскресение Спасителя,но с первую минуту приняла его за садовника. Порывистое движение восМагдалины хищенной Марии Христос останавливает величественным жестом (..."не прикасайся ко Мне,ибо Я еще не восшел к Отцу Моему") Подобная композиционная завязка встречается в работах старых итальянских мастеров (картина написана во время обучения в Италии). Но Иванов сосредотачивает внимание на эмоциональной стороне происходящего. Перед зрителем открывается картина живого возрастного переживания физической утраты Учителя, близость которого была реальна, осязаема (но тленна) и духовного обретения (еще не до конца осознанного) воскресшего Христа. Острота кульминационного момента - в немом диалоге двух фигур, контрасте пластических форм. С одной стороны, потрясение Марии Магдалины, еще не осознавшей воскресение Иисуса, с другой - отрешенность от земных страстей Того, кто уже почти принадлежит миру небесному. Колористическим выражением этой встречи несовместимых миров стал контраст живого, пламенеющего красного цвета платья Марии и белого одеяния Христа с его прозрачными переливами холодных и теплых тонов.
Стремясь передать двойственное природу воскресение Христа, Иванов испытывал творческие трудности не находя нужного решения ни в произведениях великих мастеров, ни в реальных впечатлениях. Отправной точкой в поисках этого образа была скульптура Христа, над которой работал Торвальдсен и статуя Аполлона Бельведерского. Среди подготовительных рисунков Иванова есть также фрагменты композиций Джотто, Фоа Анджелико, Леонардо да Винчи, Фра Барталамео, Рафаэля, античная скульптура. В образе Христа, напоминающего греческого бога восплотилось представление художника об античной пластике. Восхищение Иванова венецианской живописью сказалось в чувственной и одухотверенной красоте Марии Магдалины, написанной с натуры, в темноте колорита с чистыми,мягкими оттенками локального цвета.
Картина стала пенсионерами отчетом художника и за нее Иванов был удостоен звания академика. Однако сам Иванов считал "Явление Христа Марии Магдалине" лишь "начатком понятия о чем-то порядочном", он мечтал о поездке в Палестину для работы над картиной "Явление Христа народу".
Несмотря на желание Иванова передать эмоции Магии Маргалины (сочетание восторга и слез), он все же остался в рамках классицистического стиля.
Иное решение мы наблюдаем в работе Альберта Асфальта "Христос и Магдолина". В отличие от произведения Иванова, картина Эденфельта написана в зрелой период его творчества. Для этого художника не характерный религиозные сюжеты, он считается мастером пейзажа.
Если Иванов изображает воскресшего Спасителя, у Эденфельта мы видим Христа в земной жизни. В отличии от лаконичной композиции русского живописца, где наше внимание сосредоточено на двух фигура и диалоге между ними, Эденфельт окружает своих персонажей естественной средой, пейзажем.
Мария Эденфельта - грешница, одержимая семью бесами. Она обращается к Христу в смятении чувств, ее взгляд рассеян и в то же время в нем чувствуется надежда на Спасение. Изображен момент принятия Сына Божьего, Магдолина понимает духовную власть Христа.
Взгляды Христа и Магдолины не встречаются, их объединяет движение руки Спасителя. Это естественный жест успокоения и поддержки. Христос что-то говорит женщине, его лицо выражает спокойную сосредоточенности и сочувствии к бедам Марии (в более широком смысле всего человечества). Похож в руке Иисуса пришел еще от раннехристианской иконографии Доброго Пастыря (редкой для реалистической живописи XIX века).
Влияние статистической живописи заключается в том, что в изображении Христа нет идеализации. В то же время его фигура почти нематериальна, кажется, что Иисус парит в воздухе. Темная голова Христа изображена на светлом фоне, кажется, что от нее идет едва заметное свечение. Светлая одежда Спасителя напротив контрастирует с темным фоном, фигура Магдалина же с этим фоном сливается. Контуры фигур и пейзажа чуть размытыми, что говорит об импрессионистическом влиянии.
Эденфельт вводит своих персонажей в осенний пейзаж. Золотая осень может вызвать ассоциации с золотофонностью византийских мозаик, о них же напоминает и варьируются манера живописи.
Кроме того осень символизирует переход к другой жизни Марии Магдолины, духовную зрелость и спокойствие Христа. Пейзаж нам напоминает об обители, удаленной от городской суеты.
Картину "Христос и Магдалина" вряд ли мог бы написать атеист. Она вызывает мысли об обращении к Христу человека в момент отчаяния и о всепрощении Спасителя. Произведение Эденфельда, свободное от рамок классицизма, кажется проще картины Иванова и за счет этого становится ближе зрителю. При этом обе картины достойны изучения и размышления о них, поскольку каждая из них принадлежит своему времени.
четверг, 17 марта 2016
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Exposition au musée Félicien Rops
28/01/2012 - 6/05/2012
Kröller-Müller Museum, The Netherlands
26/05/12 - 02/09/2012

William Degouve de Nuncques (1867-1935) est l’un des artistes majeurs du symbolisme belge. Toute sa vie, il traitera le paysage, jouant avec les nuances de couleurs, depuis les impressions urbaines nocturnes aux ambiances claires de plateaux enneigés. En 1936, le critique d’art Arnold Goffin écrivait à propos de l’artiste : « Le nom et l’œuvre de ce maître sont chers depuis longtemps aux délicats. Mais il sont fort loin d’avoir acquis, en Belgique, tout au moins, la renommée qui leur est légitimement due ». La présente exposition, réalisée en collaboration avec le Kröller-Müller Museum (Pays-Bas), regroupe un ensemble d’œuvres de Degouve de Nuncques organisé autour de la palette de couleurs de l’artiste.
Après une brève instruction académique, le jeune Degouve de Nuncques décide de se consacrer à l’art et partage un atelier avec Henri de Groux, forte personnalité dont l’instabilité scelle à jamais leur amitié. Assez nanti que pour voyager et vivre de son art, Degouve fréquente les cercles d’avant-garde belges, multiplie les expositions à l’étranger et sillonne l’Europe en compagnie de sa jeune épouse, Juliette Massin, belle-sœur d’Emile Verhaeren : Espagne, France, Italie, Pays-Bas, Allemagne. Le couple exposera d’ailleurs à plusieurs reprises ensemble. A cette période, son œuvre est caractérisée par la représentation d’une nature, nocturne et silencieuse, où l’éclairage lunaire donne naissance à un sentiment d’inquiétante étrangeté.
Durant les années 1890, Bruges et Venise bénéficient d’une forte attractivité au sein du milieu symboliste. Degouve interprète lui aussi ces villes aquatiques, lieux de toutes les projections : arrêt du temps, souvenir d’un âge d’or, atmosphère brumeuse enveloppée d’un voile mystérieux.
À l’extrême fin du 19e siècle, Degouve de Nuncques redéfinit son rapport à la peinture en délaissant les effets nocturnes pour gagner une clarté qui le conduira progressivement à la blancheur de la neige. Cette transition des sombres quais deBruges-la-Morte à la lumière passe par un séjour que l’artiste effectue en Espagne entre 1899 et 1902, lui ouvrant la voie d’une sensibilité désormais gagnée aux effets de lumière. Se retirant loin des villes, Degouve peint des toiles aux Îles Baléares, dans la campagne brabançonne et, enfin, dans les Ardennes belges, s’inscrivant dans le contexte plus général du retrait de nombreux artistes dans une nature non déflorée par l’industrialisation.
Degouve de Nuncques, maître du mystère regroupe une soixantaine de peintures, dessins, carnets, documents issus du Kröller-Müller Museum, de nombreux musées européens et de collections privées. Les recherches menées dans le cadre de cette exposition ont permis de réactualiser la biographie de l’artiste. Ces informations sont reprises dans le catalogue (version française et néerlandaise) : Degouve de Nuncques, maître du mystère, sous la direction scientifique de Denis Laoureux, Fonds Mercator, 140p, 140 illustrations. Prix : 29,90 euros.
28/01/2012 - 6/05/2012
Kröller-Müller Museum, The Netherlands
26/05/12 - 02/09/2012

William Degouve de Nuncques (1867-1935) est l’un des artistes majeurs du symbolisme belge. Toute sa vie, il traitera le paysage, jouant avec les nuances de couleurs, depuis les impressions urbaines nocturnes aux ambiances claires de plateaux enneigés. En 1936, le critique d’art Arnold Goffin écrivait à propos de l’artiste : « Le nom et l’œuvre de ce maître sont chers depuis longtemps aux délicats. Mais il sont fort loin d’avoir acquis, en Belgique, tout au moins, la renommée qui leur est légitimement due ». La présente exposition, réalisée en collaboration avec le Kröller-Müller Museum (Pays-Bas), regroupe un ensemble d’œuvres de Degouve de Nuncques organisé autour de la palette de couleurs de l’artiste.
Après une brève instruction académique, le jeune Degouve de Nuncques décide de se consacrer à l’art et partage un atelier avec Henri de Groux, forte personnalité dont l’instabilité scelle à jamais leur amitié. Assez nanti que pour voyager et vivre de son art, Degouve fréquente les cercles d’avant-garde belges, multiplie les expositions à l’étranger et sillonne l’Europe en compagnie de sa jeune épouse, Juliette Massin, belle-sœur d’Emile Verhaeren : Espagne, France, Italie, Pays-Bas, Allemagne. Le couple exposera d’ailleurs à plusieurs reprises ensemble. A cette période, son œuvre est caractérisée par la représentation d’une nature, nocturne et silencieuse, où l’éclairage lunaire donne naissance à un sentiment d’inquiétante étrangeté.
Durant les années 1890, Bruges et Venise bénéficient d’une forte attractivité au sein du milieu symboliste. Degouve interprète lui aussi ces villes aquatiques, lieux de toutes les projections : arrêt du temps, souvenir d’un âge d’or, atmosphère brumeuse enveloppée d’un voile mystérieux.
À l’extrême fin du 19e siècle, Degouve de Nuncques redéfinit son rapport à la peinture en délaissant les effets nocturnes pour gagner une clarté qui le conduira progressivement à la blancheur de la neige. Cette transition des sombres quais deBruges-la-Morte à la lumière passe par un séjour que l’artiste effectue en Espagne entre 1899 et 1902, lui ouvrant la voie d’une sensibilité désormais gagnée aux effets de lumière. Se retirant loin des villes, Degouve peint des toiles aux Îles Baléares, dans la campagne brabançonne et, enfin, dans les Ardennes belges, s’inscrivant dans le contexte plus général du retrait de nombreux artistes dans une nature non déflorée par l’industrialisation.
Degouve de Nuncques, maître du mystère regroupe une soixantaine de peintures, dessins, carnets, documents issus du Kröller-Müller Museum, de nombreux musées européens et de collections privées. Les recherches menées dans le cadre de cette exposition ont permis de réactualiser la biographie de l’artiste. Ces informations sont reprises dans le catalogue (version française et néerlandaise) : Degouve de Nuncques, maître du mystère, sous la direction scientifique de Denis Laoureux, Fonds Mercator, 140p, 140 illustrations. Prix : 29,90 euros.
понедельник, 14 марта 2016
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The Calumny of Apelles was a scene that dated back to classical antiquity. Apelles was a Hellenistic painter that was falsely accused of conspiracy against Ptolemy IV, the leader of Egypt, by a rival painter of the name Antiphilos. Even though Apelles had never met his supposed fellow conspirator, nor been to the location of their rendezvous, Ptolemy arrested him. Upon hearing a testimony to Apelles innocence by a current prisoner of the conspiracy, Ptolemy released Apelles and offered him Antiphilos as a slave and a large amount of gold. Apelles decided to act a more allegorical retribution, and created a painting of the scene that portrayed the king adorned with the ass’s ears of Midas.
Although the original description of the work did not survive, Lucian described it in his On Calumny. It goes,
“On the right of it sits a man with very large ears, almost like those of Midas, extending his hand to Slander while she is still at some distance from him. Near him, on one side, stand two women—Ignorance and Suspicion. On the other side, Slander is coming up, a woman beautiful beyond measure, but full of malignant passion and excitement, evincing as she does fury and wrath by carrying in her left hand a blazing torch and with the other dragging by the hair a young man who stretches out his hands to heaven and calls the gods to witness his innocence. She is conducted by a pale ugly man who has piercing eye and looks as if he had wasted away in long illness; he represents envy. There are two women in attendance to Slander, one is Fraud and the other Conspiracy. They are followed by a woman dressed in deep mourning, with black clothes all in tatters—she is Repentance. At all events, she is turning back with tears in her eyes and casting a stealthy glance, full of shame, at Truth, who is slowly approaching.”
As well, Leon Baptista Alberti described the scene in his On Painting, which was likely read by Sandro during his time as a young artist. In the final work, there is evidence that reflects both Lucian and Alberti as inspirations of Sandro’s painting.
It is a small, highly detailed painting. The amount of detail makes it possible that the painting was intended for minute observation. Every detail, the drapery, the attitude, and the coloring of each figure were expressly chosen to convey a profound sense of emotional expression. The dark colors of envy and remorse are purposefully chosen to contrast the light colors of fraud and conspiracy; it was likely that this was a commentary on the nature of these sins. All of the clothed characters are in contrast to the stark nudity of truth and upward motion of truth. This movement is similar to that of Plato in Raphael’s masterpiece, and conveyed the same message of idealized, heavenly thought as his Plato.
A judge is hearing a case. Two advisors, Ignorance and Suspicion, fondle his donkey ears.
Envy steps forth to make his case, leading the beautiful Calumny (Slander)
Intrigue and Fraud retouch her exquisite coiffure.
She drags in the naked Victim (the Slandered Man) by his hair. Frowning in misery and incomprehension, he turns to heaven for consolation.
Grim Penitence stalks before him and turns to give an annoyed look at Truth, who stands at the end of the queue, hidden from the judge.
You don’t need to be a Renaissance artist to commiserate with this victim. Everyone knows about these characters and has seen them perform.
Botticelli, the artist, was slandered. Perhaps he was a slanderer too. His biographer, Vasari, says he accused a friend of heresy “for a joke”. Vasari tells the mean story also just for fun—the fun of printing the friend’s reply to the tribunal. Botticelli had told people he believed the soul died with the body. “Oh, I can believe that as far as HE is concerned,” said the friend. “Because he’s not a human—he’s a brute.” And for further kicks, Vasari throws in the friend’s next dart: “And anyway, Botticelli barely knows how to read or write and he goes and does a commentary on Dante, which is taking [the great man’s] name in vain.”
Too little is known about Botticelli, which is a shame because he was one of the greatest artists. Most of what we do know comes from Giorgio Vasari, who didn’t like him. He tells cattish stories like the one above and gives the impression when he does praise Botticelli’s work that he is struggling to be fair, no more.
“He was one of the followers of Savonarola [the Dominican friar who preached hellfire and brimstone],” says Vasari, “…and he remained an obstinate member of the sect, becoming one of thesnivellers, as they were called then, and abandoning his work.” See how unstable he was? Unstable and irresponsible. Who was going to take care of him once he stopped working? “As an old man he found himself so poor that if Lorenzo de’ Medici…and then his friends and other worthy men who loved him for his talent had not come to his assistance, he would almost have died of hunger.”
As an artist, Botticelli was on the wrong side of history. He painted in a style that Michelangelo made obsolete even before Botticelli was old. The frescoes by both in the Sistine Chapel are the most graphic example. Botticelli’s look as though he had painted them with one foot in the Middle Ages, though in fact he finished them only twenty-five years before Michelangelo set to work there.
Although the original description of the work did not survive, Lucian described it in his On Calumny. It goes,
“On the right of it sits a man with very large ears, almost like those of Midas, extending his hand to Slander while she is still at some distance from him. Near him, on one side, stand two women—Ignorance and Suspicion. On the other side, Slander is coming up, a woman beautiful beyond measure, but full of malignant passion and excitement, evincing as she does fury and wrath by carrying in her left hand a blazing torch and with the other dragging by the hair a young man who stretches out his hands to heaven and calls the gods to witness his innocence. She is conducted by a pale ugly man who has piercing eye and looks as if he had wasted away in long illness; he represents envy. There are two women in attendance to Slander, one is Fraud and the other Conspiracy. They are followed by a woman dressed in deep mourning, with black clothes all in tatters—she is Repentance. At all events, she is turning back with tears in her eyes and casting a stealthy glance, full of shame, at Truth, who is slowly approaching.”
As well, Leon Baptista Alberti described the scene in his On Painting, which was likely read by Sandro during his time as a young artist. In the final work, there is evidence that reflects both Lucian and Alberti as inspirations of Sandro’s painting.
It is a small, highly detailed painting. The amount of detail makes it possible that the painting was intended for minute observation. Every detail, the drapery, the attitude, and the coloring of each figure were expressly chosen to convey a profound sense of emotional expression. The dark colors of envy and remorse are purposefully chosen to contrast the light colors of fraud and conspiracy; it was likely that this was a commentary on the nature of these sins. All of the clothed characters are in contrast to the stark nudity of truth and upward motion of truth. This movement is similar to that of Plato in Raphael’s masterpiece, and conveyed the same message of idealized, heavenly thought as his Plato.
A judge is hearing a case. Two advisors, Ignorance and Suspicion, fondle his donkey ears.
Envy steps forth to make his case, leading the beautiful Calumny (Slander)
Intrigue and Fraud retouch her exquisite coiffure.
She drags in the naked Victim (the Slandered Man) by his hair. Frowning in misery and incomprehension, he turns to heaven for consolation.
Grim Penitence stalks before him and turns to give an annoyed look at Truth, who stands at the end of the queue, hidden from the judge.
You don’t need to be a Renaissance artist to commiserate with this victim. Everyone knows about these characters and has seen them perform.
Botticelli, the artist, was slandered. Perhaps he was a slanderer too. His biographer, Vasari, says he accused a friend of heresy “for a joke”. Vasari tells the mean story also just for fun—the fun of printing the friend’s reply to the tribunal. Botticelli had told people he believed the soul died with the body. “Oh, I can believe that as far as HE is concerned,” said the friend. “Because he’s not a human—he’s a brute.” And for further kicks, Vasari throws in the friend’s next dart: “And anyway, Botticelli barely knows how to read or write and he goes and does a commentary on Dante, which is taking [the great man’s] name in vain.”
Too little is known about Botticelli, which is a shame because he was one of the greatest artists. Most of what we do know comes from Giorgio Vasari, who didn’t like him. He tells cattish stories like the one above and gives the impression when he does praise Botticelli’s work that he is struggling to be fair, no more.
“He was one of the followers of Savonarola [the Dominican friar who preached hellfire and brimstone],” says Vasari, “…and he remained an obstinate member of the sect, becoming one of thesnivellers, as they were called then, and abandoning his work.” See how unstable he was? Unstable and irresponsible. Who was going to take care of him once he stopped working? “As an old man he found himself so poor that if Lorenzo de’ Medici…and then his friends and other worthy men who loved him for his talent had not come to his assistance, he would almost have died of hunger.”
As an artist, Botticelli was on the wrong side of history. He painted in a style that Michelangelo made obsolete even before Botticelli was old. The frescoes by both in the Sistine Chapel are the most graphic example. Botticelli’s look as though he had painted them with one foot in the Middle Ages, though in fact he finished them only twenty-five years before Michelangelo set to work there.
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Объясните мне кто-нибудь, почему человеку, который чуть что начинает пищать "Вы жестокие, негуманные, не думаете о людях и блаблабла!"
безумно нравятся
1) песни русской революции и гражданской войны
2)песни испанской гражданской войны
3) песни войны Севера и Юга
4) невинно убиенные кенийцы. Убиенные в массовых масштабах и с особой жестокостью, ага.
Я вообще ничего не понимаю в своем внутреннем мире XD
безумно нравятся
1) песни русской революции и гражданской войны
2)песни испанской гражданской войны
3) песни войны Севера и Юга
4) невинно убиенные кенийцы. Убиенные в массовых масштабах и с особой жестокостью, ага.
Я вообще ничего не понимаю в своем внутреннем мире XD
суббота, 12 марта 2016
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Dominion of Light also known as Empire of Light (L'Empire des lumieres) 1949 signed 'Magritte' (upper left), gouache on paper, 11 5/8 x 9¼ in. (29.5 x 23.5 cm.) First painted in 1949
Magritte had already experimented with a similar theme in his 1948 God's Salon. The painting depicts a night scene with a house brightly lit up by daylight. Clearly this experiment didn't work as well.
"After I had painted 'The Dominion of Light'," Magritte told a friend, "I got the idea that night and day exist together, that they are one. This is reasonable or at least it's in keeping with our knowledge; in the world night always exists the same time as day." Letter to Felix Frabrizio 1966
Magritte also explained the origin of the image in a radio interview in 1956, stating: "What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eye, it is the thing or the things that had to be thought of. Thus, what is represented in the picture [L'Empire des lumières] are the things I thought of, to be precise, a nocturnal landscape and a skyscape such as can be seen in broad daylight. The landscape suggests night and the skyscape day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power: poetry" (quoted in D. Sylvester, op cit., p. 145).
According to Roisin (and I agree) the painting L'empire des lumières (the empire of the lights, figure.8) was inspired in Magritte by a poem of Lewis Carroll:
"... the sun on the sea was shining/ it shone with all its forces/ it did its best to reflect the sparkling and calm waves/ and it was very odd, you see, because/ it was in the middle of the night."
Carroll was favorite of the surrealists and Magritte had already named one of his paintings "Alice in Wonderland." Magritte didn't like telling soem of his secrets and especially of giving credit for his inventions to other sources.
The first Empire of Lights completed in 1949, which became Magritte's most popular painting, was sought after by collectors. It was acquired by Nelson Rockefeller in January of 1950 who was a 1939 MoMA director. [In 1939 the 30-year old Nelson Rockefeller became MoMA's President, overseeing the museum's acquisitions policy and expansion into new headquarters.] It ended up in the Alice Lawrence collection and set a new world record for a work on paper by the artist, a whopping $3.55 million. The following notes are from Christie's November 2008 auction:
Provenance: Private collection, Belgium; Galerie Cazeau Béraudière, Paris; Acquired from the above by the late owner, September 2000.
Notes: Between 1949 and 1964, Magritte made seventeen oils and ten gouache versions of L'Empire des lumières, one of his most famous and sought-after themes, each of which displays some variation on a dimly lit nocturnal street scene with an eerily shuttered house and glowing lamppost below a sunlit blue sky with puffy white clouds. Magritte explained the origin of the image in a radio interview in 1956, stating: "What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eye, it is the thing or the things that had to be thought of. Thus, what is represented in the picture [L'Empire des lumières] are the things I thought of, to be precise, a nocturnal landscape and a skyscape such as can be seen in broad daylight. The landscape suggests night and the skyscape day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power: poetry" (quoted in D. Sylvester, op cit., p. 145). The first painting from this series (Sylvester, no. 709) depicts a somewhat urban street with a couple of houses and an off-center streetlight. This composition was immediately popular with Magritte's collectors, and was purchased by Nelson Rockefeller in January of 1950. Although Magritte initially preserved this format (fig. 1), by 1951, he had switched this scene to a more rural setting (Sylvester, no 768), depicting a manor house lit from within and introducing the enormous conical tree that also dwarfs the large house in the present work.
The major gouache seen here is similar to versions in oil that Magritte executed in 1954 (fig. 2; Sylvester, nos. 804, 809-810), when collectors were clamoring for further interpretations of this image. The painter increased the size of these works, and selected a vertical format, thus focusing attention on a single dollhouse-like residence whose tightly shuttered first floor is illuminated by lamplight. The glowing second floor windows are obscured by the lowest branches of the tall tree that stretches into the daytime sky. The markedly increased psychological tension of these works from the mid 1950s illustrates Siegfried Gohr's conviction that, by repeating and reinterpreting successful themes, Magritte was "arranging and rearranging visual elements until they produced a shock like a blow from a boxer's glove--whose force, however, remained purely visual and mental" (in Magritte, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2000, p.17). Indeed, this version of L'Empire des lumières best instantiates the uncomfortable if not threatening idea of domesticity that can be found in works by his contemporary Louise Bourgeois (fig. 3). Magritte's mysterious house was also fundamental to the development of early works by Vija Clemins such as House #1 (fig. 4), a house-shaped box that opens to reveal fiery orange tufts of fur.
Magritte's friend, the Belgian poet and philosopher Paul Noug (1895-1967) suggested the title for this image, playing on the double meaning of l'empire ('dominion') as 'territory' and 'dominance.' Noug was undoubtedly sensitive to Magritte's conviction that his paintings never expressed a singular idea, but rather were a form of stimulus that created new thoughts in the mind of the viewer. "Titles play an important part in Magritte's paintings," stated the poet, "but it is not the part one might be tempted to imagine. The title isn't a program to be carried out. It comes after the picture. It's as if it were its confirmation, and it often constitutes an exemplary manifestation of the efficacy of the image. This is why it doesn't matter whether the title occurs to the painter himself afterwards, or is found by someone else who has an understanding of his painting. I am quite well placed to know that it is almost never Magritte who invents the titles of his pictures. His paintings could do without titles, and that is why it has sometimes been said that on the whole the title is no more than a conversational gambit" (quoted in Sarah Whitfield, Magritte, exh. cat. The South Bank Centre, London, 1992, p. 39). Indeed, when Paul Colinet, one of Magritte's closest friends, ventured a definitive explanation for the imagery of L'Empire des lumières, Magritte confided to another friend, "The attempt at an explanation (which is no more than an attempt) is unfortunate: I am supposed to be a great mystic, someone who brings comfort (because of the luminous sky) for unpleasant things (the dark houses and trees in the landscape). It was well intentioned, no doubt, but it leaves us on the level of pathetic humanity" (quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte, Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, n.p.).
By including day and night, two normally irreconcilable conditions, within a spatially continuous scene, Magritte disrupts the viewer's sense of time. "After I had painted L'empire des lumières," he recalled to a friend in 1966, "I got the idea that night and day exist together, that they are one. This is reasonable, or at the very least it's in keeping with our knowledge: in the world night always exists at the same time as day. (Just as sadness always exists in some people at the same time as happiness in others.) But such ideas are not poetic. What is poetic is the visible image of the picture" (quoted in ibid.). André Breton also recognized in this work the unconventional reconciliation of opposites that the Surrealists prized, stating: "To [Magritte], inevitably, fell the task of separating the 'subtle' from the 'dense,' without which effort no transmutation is possible. To attack this problem called for all his audacity--to extract simultaneously what is light from the shadow and what is shadow from the light (l'empire des lumières). In this work the violence done to accepted ideas and conventions is such (I have this from Magritte) that most of those who go by quickly think they saw the stars in the daytime sky. In Magritte's entire performance there is present to a high degree what Apollinaire called "genuine good sense, which is, of course, that of the great poets" (A. Breton, "The Breadth of Rene Magritte" in Magritte, exh. cat., Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, 1964, n.p.).
This painting is surely the inspiration of Magritte's various Empire of Light paintings. At first glace Degouve de Nuncques' painting looks to be quite normal but if you look at the house the exterior is magically lit up as if in daylight
Magritte had already experimented with a similar theme in his 1948 God's Salon. The painting depicts a night scene with a house brightly lit up by daylight. Clearly this experiment didn't work as well.
"After I had painted 'The Dominion of Light'," Magritte told a friend, "I got the idea that night and day exist together, that they are one. This is reasonable or at least it's in keeping with our knowledge; in the world night always exists the same time as day." Letter to Felix Frabrizio 1966
Magritte also explained the origin of the image in a radio interview in 1956, stating: "What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eye, it is the thing or the things that had to be thought of. Thus, what is represented in the picture [L'Empire des lumières] are the things I thought of, to be precise, a nocturnal landscape and a skyscape such as can be seen in broad daylight. The landscape suggests night and the skyscape day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power: poetry" (quoted in D. Sylvester, op cit., p. 145).
According to Roisin (and I agree) the painting L'empire des lumières (the empire of the lights, figure.8) was inspired in Magritte by a poem of Lewis Carroll:
"... the sun on the sea was shining/ it shone with all its forces/ it did its best to reflect the sparkling and calm waves/ and it was very odd, you see, because/ it was in the middle of the night."
Carroll was favorite of the surrealists and Magritte had already named one of his paintings "Alice in Wonderland." Magritte didn't like telling soem of his secrets and especially of giving credit for his inventions to other sources.
The first Empire of Lights completed in 1949, which became Magritte's most popular painting, was sought after by collectors. It was acquired by Nelson Rockefeller in January of 1950 who was a 1939 MoMA director. [In 1939 the 30-year old Nelson Rockefeller became MoMA's President, overseeing the museum's acquisitions policy and expansion into new headquarters.] It ended up in the Alice Lawrence collection and set a new world record for a work on paper by the artist, a whopping $3.55 million. The following notes are from Christie's November 2008 auction:
Provenance: Private collection, Belgium; Galerie Cazeau Béraudière, Paris; Acquired from the above by the late owner, September 2000.
Notes: Between 1949 and 1964, Magritte made seventeen oils and ten gouache versions of L'Empire des lumières, one of his most famous and sought-after themes, each of which displays some variation on a dimly lit nocturnal street scene with an eerily shuttered house and glowing lamppost below a sunlit blue sky with puffy white clouds. Magritte explained the origin of the image in a radio interview in 1956, stating: "What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eye, it is the thing or the things that had to be thought of. Thus, what is represented in the picture [L'Empire des lumières] are the things I thought of, to be precise, a nocturnal landscape and a skyscape such as can be seen in broad daylight. The landscape suggests night and the skyscape day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power: poetry" (quoted in D. Sylvester, op cit., p. 145). The first painting from this series (Sylvester, no. 709) depicts a somewhat urban street with a couple of houses and an off-center streetlight. This composition was immediately popular with Magritte's collectors, and was purchased by Nelson Rockefeller in January of 1950. Although Magritte initially preserved this format (fig. 1), by 1951, he had switched this scene to a more rural setting (Sylvester, no 768), depicting a manor house lit from within and introducing the enormous conical tree that also dwarfs the large house in the present work.
The major gouache seen here is similar to versions in oil that Magritte executed in 1954 (fig. 2; Sylvester, nos. 804, 809-810), when collectors were clamoring for further interpretations of this image. The painter increased the size of these works, and selected a vertical format, thus focusing attention on a single dollhouse-like residence whose tightly shuttered first floor is illuminated by lamplight. The glowing second floor windows are obscured by the lowest branches of the tall tree that stretches into the daytime sky. The markedly increased psychological tension of these works from the mid 1950s illustrates Siegfried Gohr's conviction that, by repeating and reinterpreting successful themes, Magritte was "arranging and rearranging visual elements until they produced a shock like a blow from a boxer's glove--whose force, however, remained purely visual and mental" (in Magritte, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2000, p.17). Indeed, this version of L'Empire des lumières best instantiates the uncomfortable if not threatening idea of domesticity that can be found in works by his contemporary Louise Bourgeois (fig. 3). Magritte's mysterious house was also fundamental to the development of early works by Vija Clemins such as House #1 (fig. 4), a house-shaped box that opens to reveal fiery orange tufts of fur.
Magritte's friend, the Belgian poet and philosopher Paul Noug (1895-1967) suggested the title for this image, playing on the double meaning of l'empire ('dominion') as 'territory' and 'dominance.' Noug was undoubtedly sensitive to Magritte's conviction that his paintings never expressed a singular idea, but rather were a form of stimulus that created new thoughts in the mind of the viewer. "Titles play an important part in Magritte's paintings," stated the poet, "but it is not the part one might be tempted to imagine. The title isn't a program to be carried out. It comes after the picture. It's as if it were its confirmation, and it often constitutes an exemplary manifestation of the efficacy of the image. This is why it doesn't matter whether the title occurs to the painter himself afterwards, or is found by someone else who has an understanding of his painting. I am quite well placed to know that it is almost never Magritte who invents the titles of his pictures. His paintings could do without titles, and that is why it has sometimes been said that on the whole the title is no more than a conversational gambit" (quoted in Sarah Whitfield, Magritte, exh. cat. The South Bank Centre, London, 1992, p. 39). Indeed, when Paul Colinet, one of Magritte's closest friends, ventured a definitive explanation for the imagery of L'Empire des lumières, Magritte confided to another friend, "The attempt at an explanation (which is no more than an attempt) is unfortunate: I am supposed to be a great mystic, someone who brings comfort (because of the luminous sky) for unpleasant things (the dark houses and trees in the landscape). It was well intentioned, no doubt, but it leaves us on the level of pathetic humanity" (quoted in H. Torczyner, Magritte, Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, n.p.).
By including day and night, two normally irreconcilable conditions, within a spatially continuous scene, Magritte disrupts the viewer's sense of time. "After I had painted L'empire des lumières," he recalled to a friend in 1966, "I got the idea that night and day exist together, that they are one. This is reasonable, or at the very least it's in keeping with our knowledge: in the world night always exists at the same time as day. (Just as sadness always exists in some people at the same time as happiness in others.) But such ideas are not poetic. What is poetic is the visible image of the picture" (quoted in ibid.). André Breton also recognized in this work the unconventional reconciliation of opposites that the Surrealists prized, stating: "To [Magritte], inevitably, fell the task of separating the 'subtle' from the 'dense,' without which effort no transmutation is possible. To attack this problem called for all his audacity--to extract simultaneously what is light from the shadow and what is shadow from the light (l'empire des lumières). In this work the violence done to accepted ideas and conventions is such (I have this from Magritte) that most of those who go by quickly think they saw the stars in the daytime sky. In Magritte's entire performance there is present to a high degree what Apollinaire called "genuine good sense, which is, of course, that of the great poets" (A. Breton, "The Breadth of Rene Magritte" in Magritte, exh. cat., Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, 1964, n.p.).
This painting is surely the inspiration of Magritte's various Empire of Light paintings. At first glace Degouve de Nuncques' painting looks to be quite normal but if you look at the house the exterior is magically lit up as if in daylight
понедельник, 07 марта 2016
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octurne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket
Whistler made this “artistic impression” based on an actual scene of fireworks (or “rockets”) exploding over London’s Cremorne Gardens at night. At the time, the public considered the fleeting display a questionable subject for a painting. For Whistler, it made a perfect theme for a Nocturne; as an urban, ephemeral, indescribable spectacle, fireworks were beautiful but meaningless. For American artists, the subject was intrinsically modern. As one critic observed, Whistler’s notorious Nocturne vindicated “the abstract appeal of painting, divorced as far as possible from any idea conveyable in words. Whistler never intended for the painting to be a realistic depiction of the lights over the gardens. Rather, he wanted it to convey the atmosphere and his memory of the place.
The British critic John Ruskin offered the following scathing review of the painting in July 1877: “For Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas [210 British pounds] for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.”
Because Ruskin was such an influential voice and the criticism was read by a wide British public, Whistler sued for libel. He used his pretrial interviews, as well as the trial, as a platform in defense of his ideas about art.
From the trial transcripts:
Attorney General: Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?
Whistler: Oh, I “knock one off” possibly in a couple of days—(laughter)—one day to do the work and another to finish it…
Attorney General: The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?
Whistler: No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime. (Applause)
Whistler won the suit but only symbolically; the judge awarded him damages of one farthing, the equivalent of a few pennies. The artist later felt redeemed, however, when an American collector bought the painting, without hesitation, for 800 guineas. Whistler gloated, eager to share the news publicly that “the Pot of paint flung in the face of the British Public for two hundred guineas has sold for four pots of paint, and that Ruskin has lived to see it!”
As a result of losing the lawsuit, Ruskin resigned his professorship from Oxford, feeling that the legal system denied his rights as an art critic. Shortly after the trial, due in part to stress in his personal life as well as that from the trial, he began to show signs of the mental illness that would plague him until his death in 1900.
Nocturne in Black and Gold and the ensuing controversy it caused exemplify Whistler’s enormous efforts to have his art taken seriously. His very public defense of his art and groundbreaking ideas influenced generations of artists to explore new paths and experiment with their own artistic visions.
Whistler made this “artistic impression” based on an actual scene of fireworks (or “rockets”) exploding over London’s Cremorne Gardens at night. At the time, the public considered the fleeting display a questionable subject for a painting. For Whistler, it made a perfect theme for a Nocturne; as an urban, ephemeral, indescribable spectacle, fireworks were beautiful but meaningless. For American artists, the subject was intrinsically modern. As one critic observed, Whistler’s notorious Nocturne vindicated “the abstract appeal of painting, divorced as far as possible from any idea conveyable in words. Whistler never intended for the painting to be a realistic depiction of the lights over the gardens. Rather, he wanted it to convey the atmosphere and his memory of the place.
The British critic John Ruskin offered the following scathing review of the painting in July 1877: “For Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas [210 British pounds] for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.”
Because Ruskin was such an influential voice and the criticism was read by a wide British public, Whistler sued for libel. He used his pretrial interviews, as well as the trial, as a platform in defense of his ideas about art.
From the trial transcripts:
Attorney General: Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?
Whistler: Oh, I “knock one off” possibly in a couple of days—(laughter)—one day to do the work and another to finish it…
Attorney General: The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?
Whistler: No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime. (Applause)
Whistler won the suit but only symbolically; the judge awarded him damages of one farthing, the equivalent of a few pennies. The artist later felt redeemed, however, when an American collector bought the painting, without hesitation, for 800 guineas. Whistler gloated, eager to share the news publicly that “the Pot of paint flung in the face of the British Public for two hundred guineas has sold for four pots of paint, and that Ruskin has lived to see it!”
As a result of losing the lawsuit, Ruskin resigned his professorship from Oxford, feeling that the legal system denied his rights as an art critic. Shortly after the trial, due in part to stress in his personal life as well as that from the trial, he began to show signs of the mental illness that would plague him until his death in 1900.
Nocturne in Black and Gold and the ensuing controversy it caused exemplify Whistler’s enormous efforts to have his art taken seriously. His very public defense of his art and groundbreaking ideas influenced generations of artists to explore new paths and experiment with their own artistic visions.
суббота, 05 марта 2016
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Symbolism (from Greek symbolon – “sign”) – was a movement that originally emerged in French literature and then expanded to fine arts (all, except architecture), music and theatre in 1870s – 1880s. As it becomes obvious from its name, this movement put symbol as an artistic method in the foreground. . It reached its highest point in 1890s-1900s, first of all in France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, Norway and other countries.
Historical background of symbolism
Talking about symbolism, it’s important to remember that it wasn’t merely the invention of the 19th cent. Symbol was an essential element of most of the religious arts. Therefore, some features of symbolism were present in culture for thousands of years, particularly in the art of Ancient East with its veneration of the dead. Christian symbols were applied in ecclesiastic architecture, sculpture, fresco and miniature painting. The art of Renaissance and baroque is also symbolical.
An important source of ideas and images for symbolists were painting of romanticism with its sometimes strange, obscure atmosphere. These two cultural phenomenons were on the common ground, when it came to such their specific traits like escapism from every-day banality, desire to bring back the purity of art of the past epochs A significant influence was caused by German romanticism with its mystical, fairy motifs. Especially legacy of the Nazarens and Caspar David Friedrich. Francisco Goya was also the one, who doubtlessly inspired symbolists.
But anyway in all this epochs, symbols didn’t serve as an end in itself. It was only in the end of the 19th cent., when symbolism appeared as opposition to bourgeois realism and impressionism. This movement reflected the fear of then-contemporary world with its industrialization and technical achievements that overshadowed spiritual ideals. Through art symbolists rejected bourgeois culture and expressed their grief for inner freedom. Some specialists consider they had a presentiment of the approaching social and historical upheavals.
The term “symbolism” itself was introduced by Greek poet Jean Moreas in the manifest of the same name “Le Symbolisme”, published on the 18th of September, 1866, in “Le Figaro” newspaper. The text proclaimed symbolism as a movement, extraneous to the plain meanings, declarations, insincere sentimentality and matter-of-facts descriptions.
Symbolism and Decadence
Symbolism is closely associated with such cultural occurrence as decadence (from latin decadentia – decline). It’s a general definition for the crisis condition in European mentality in the second half of the 19th – beginning of the 20th cent., marked by desperate frame of mind, aversion to the reality and individualism. It’s complexity and contradictoriness was conditioned by the dismay of the artists towards antagonism of their actuality. They rejected political and civic subjects as considered it an indispensable condition of artistic freedom. Attention to problems of non-existence and death, interest in eternal questions of existence – all that make symbolism and decadence related.
However, these two conceptions should be differed, as symbolism is a particular movement, which formatted on the base of decadent mentality. And some other artists styles and movements (like post-impressionism or art nouveau). Besides, symbolism wasn’t necessarily decadent by its mood.
Aesthetic of symbolism
As it was already said, ideas of symbolism were first formulated in French literature, namely by poet Charles Baudelaire. In his essays on art he expressed a thought that that visual means of painting (color, line etc.) were symbols that reflected a soul of an artists. Actually, it’s hard to find another period in history of arts, when poets, writers and artists were so closely connected. Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Maurice Maeterlinck, Oscar Wilde and other prominent for the history of the world literature names contributed into shaping up aesthetic of symbolism.
Reality in this movement is opposed to the world of dreams and reveries. Symbol was considered a unique instrument for deepening into mysteries of existence and individual consciousness. They believed its poetic nature allowed them to represent the beyond, hidden from our eyes and intellect, sense of things. Artist was considered a medium between true and pretersensual dimensions ‑ they mentioned “signs” of the universal harmony and approaching future everywhere. And the only way of unmasking the illusionistic world of commonness was the insight during the creative act.
It comes as no surprise, that symbolists denied realism and thought painting had to represent life of every soul, full of emotions, vague moods, delicate feelings, fleeting impressions. It didn’t have merely to fix objects or facts, but rather express thoughts and ideas. Nevertheless, it’s important to underline that symbolists didn’t favor abstract subjects – they always depicted their perception of real people, real event of occurrences in metaphorical way, which suggested some personal reflection.
Among themes scenes of Evangelistic history, half-mythological – half-historical stories of Medieval Ages, antique myths were most wide-spread. Roughly speaking, symbolists were interested in everything with theological or mythological implication. There was a not-manifested “codex of creation”: it combined mystical, philosophical and artistic attitude that stimulated artists to muse on everlasting antitheses of Good and Evil, Chaos and Cosmos (from Greek – order), Beauty and Ugliness. Multiple meanings, play of metaphors and associations were main instruments in the tool-set of Symbolism.
Development of symbolism. Artists and groups.
Symbolism was noticeably dissimilar and diverse. Having no particularly shaped stylistic, it was ideological, conceptual movement that attracted various masters with different manners. A multiplicity of social and cultural trends inside Symbolism led to quick origin and decay of groups and even polarization in artistic methods.
Unlike in impressionism, the first generation of symbolists in 1870s didn’t consist of young and revolutionary disposed artists, but mature ones. Among them, the most outstanding ones were Gustave Moreau, Eugene Carriere, Odilon Redon, Arnold Böcklin and Puvis de Chavannes. The latter specified preferences of symbolists for simplified modeling of forms, broad strokes and accent on coloring. In fifty years these ideas would transform into abstract painting and not accidently, as symbolism saw in shapes, color and forms a specific mean of communicating, endowing them with a special, metaphysical sense.
Cafes, cabarets and salons were the places, where new notions, concepts were born and exchanged. “Le Chat Noire” (Black cat) was a famous meeting spot, attended by such symbolistic groups as the Hydropathes and the Zutistes. Writer “Sâr” Joseph Péladan organized the Salon de la Rose + Croix, where such prominent painters Ferdinand Hodler, recognized for his epic canvases, and Fernand Khnopff, who gained popularity with his quite pessimistic visionary images.
Some artists, like Emile Bernard (one of the major theoreticians of the movement) and Paul Gaugin, who participated in the exhibitions of Symbolists, distanced from them within certain time and turned to Post-impressionism, concerned more with the issues of visual language. The group, that was transitional between symbolism and postimpressionism, was the Nabis (from Hebrew “prophet”). Works of its members were defined by primacy of coloring, delicate musical rhythmicity and flat stylization of folk art, Japanese engraving or Italian primitivisms. One of its central representatives was Pierre Bonnard.
In Russian Symbolism spread a little bit later, then in European countries and was promoted in 1900s by the group “Mir iskusstva” (“World of art” in russian). It followed general direction of the movement and published a magazine of the similar name. Artists, associated with the group were Leon Bakst, Victor Borisov-Musatov and Mikhail Vrubel.
In symbolistic sculpture two main personalities were Aristide Maillol and August Rodin.
Symbolism and Art Nouveau
Having a close look at the epoch of fin de siècle, analyzing history of the first decades of the 20th cent., it’s seems curious, how symbolism interflowed with Art Nouveau tendencies. It became even more evident, when in 1893 Brussels group “Les XX” that was prescribed to have no more than 20 members, rearranged into “La Libre Esthétique” (French for “The Free Aesthetics”). It consisted mainly of Symbolist painters, including James Ensor and Jean Toorop and often invited non-Belgian artists, like Cézanne and Paul Gauguin to participate in their exhibitions. Lawyer and critic Octave Maus encouraged its participants to work in the sphere of decorative art, producing ceramics, tapestries, furniture. By the end of 1890s Brussel turned into one of European centers of Art Nouveau.
The thing Art nouveau and Symbolism had definitely in common was love to floral motifs. In both cases they were rendered unnaturalistically, highly stylized. The adherent of French Symbolism, Theodore de Wyzewa once wrote in 1887 – “Universe is the creation of our souls”. So both symbolists and art nouveau masters aimed to create the artistic counterpart of reality without imitating it. High detalization in canvases of symbolists, accent on ornament in “New art” – all served for the affirmation of everything unrealistic and unusual.
However, it would be more correct to distinguish this two movements and say that they developed in parallel. Art nouveau painters demonstrated some (though rather literal) symbolism, and symbolists sometimes applied art nouveau decorativeness and exquisiteness, but on the large scale they had different targets, as the first orientated on the “eye-pleasing” effect, whether second strived for affecting viewer’s heart and mind.
Being absorbed by the artists of many countries, symbolism had a large influence on the world history of art and prepared a ground for the formation of Surrealism. Experimentations of symbolists, innovations and their cosmopolitism made them one of the sources of avant-garde and contemporary art.
- See more at: bestarts.org/symbolism/#sthash.NLhwvYDv.dpuf
Historical background of symbolism
Talking about symbolism, it’s important to remember that it wasn’t merely the invention of the 19th cent. Symbol was an essential element of most of the religious arts. Therefore, some features of symbolism were present in culture for thousands of years, particularly in the art of Ancient East with its veneration of the dead. Christian symbols were applied in ecclesiastic architecture, sculpture, fresco and miniature painting. The art of Renaissance and baroque is also symbolical.
An important source of ideas and images for symbolists were painting of romanticism with its sometimes strange, obscure atmosphere. These two cultural phenomenons were on the common ground, when it came to such their specific traits like escapism from every-day banality, desire to bring back the purity of art of the past epochs A significant influence was caused by German romanticism with its mystical, fairy motifs. Especially legacy of the Nazarens and Caspar David Friedrich. Francisco Goya was also the one, who doubtlessly inspired symbolists.
But anyway in all this epochs, symbols didn’t serve as an end in itself. It was only in the end of the 19th cent., when symbolism appeared as opposition to bourgeois realism and impressionism. This movement reflected the fear of then-contemporary world with its industrialization and technical achievements that overshadowed spiritual ideals. Through art symbolists rejected bourgeois culture and expressed their grief for inner freedom. Some specialists consider they had a presentiment of the approaching social and historical upheavals.
The term “symbolism” itself was introduced by Greek poet Jean Moreas in the manifest of the same name “Le Symbolisme”, published on the 18th of September, 1866, in “Le Figaro” newspaper. The text proclaimed symbolism as a movement, extraneous to the plain meanings, declarations, insincere sentimentality and matter-of-facts descriptions.
Symbolism and Decadence
Symbolism is closely associated with such cultural occurrence as decadence (from latin decadentia – decline). It’s a general definition for the crisis condition in European mentality in the second half of the 19th – beginning of the 20th cent., marked by desperate frame of mind, aversion to the reality and individualism. It’s complexity and contradictoriness was conditioned by the dismay of the artists towards antagonism of their actuality. They rejected political and civic subjects as considered it an indispensable condition of artistic freedom. Attention to problems of non-existence and death, interest in eternal questions of existence – all that make symbolism and decadence related.
However, these two conceptions should be differed, as symbolism is a particular movement, which formatted on the base of decadent mentality. And some other artists styles and movements (like post-impressionism or art nouveau). Besides, symbolism wasn’t necessarily decadent by its mood.
Aesthetic of symbolism
As it was already said, ideas of symbolism were first formulated in French literature, namely by poet Charles Baudelaire. In his essays on art he expressed a thought that that visual means of painting (color, line etc.) were symbols that reflected a soul of an artists. Actually, it’s hard to find another period in history of arts, when poets, writers and artists were so closely connected. Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Maurice Maeterlinck, Oscar Wilde and other prominent for the history of the world literature names contributed into shaping up aesthetic of symbolism.
Reality in this movement is opposed to the world of dreams and reveries. Symbol was considered a unique instrument for deepening into mysteries of existence and individual consciousness. They believed its poetic nature allowed them to represent the beyond, hidden from our eyes and intellect, sense of things. Artist was considered a medium between true and pretersensual dimensions ‑ they mentioned “signs” of the universal harmony and approaching future everywhere. And the only way of unmasking the illusionistic world of commonness was the insight during the creative act.
It comes as no surprise, that symbolists denied realism and thought painting had to represent life of every soul, full of emotions, vague moods, delicate feelings, fleeting impressions. It didn’t have merely to fix objects or facts, but rather express thoughts and ideas. Nevertheless, it’s important to underline that symbolists didn’t favor abstract subjects – they always depicted their perception of real people, real event of occurrences in metaphorical way, which suggested some personal reflection.
Among themes scenes of Evangelistic history, half-mythological – half-historical stories of Medieval Ages, antique myths were most wide-spread. Roughly speaking, symbolists were interested in everything with theological or mythological implication. There was a not-manifested “codex of creation”: it combined mystical, philosophical and artistic attitude that stimulated artists to muse on everlasting antitheses of Good and Evil, Chaos and Cosmos (from Greek – order), Beauty and Ugliness. Multiple meanings, play of metaphors and associations were main instruments in the tool-set of Symbolism.
Development of symbolism. Artists and groups.
Symbolism was noticeably dissimilar and diverse. Having no particularly shaped stylistic, it was ideological, conceptual movement that attracted various masters with different manners. A multiplicity of social and cultural trends inside Symbolism led to quick origin and decay of groups and even polarization in artistic methods.
Unlike in impressionism, the first generation of symbolists in 1870s didn’t consist of young and revolutionary disposed artists, but mature ones. Among them, the most outstanding ones were Gustave Moreau, Eugene Carriere, Odilon Redon, Arnold Böcklin and Puvis de Chavannes. The latter specified preferences of symbolists for simplified modeling of forms, broad strokes and accent on coloring. In fifty years these ideas would transform into abstract painting and not accidently, as symbolism saw in shapes, color and forms a specific mean of communicating, endowing them with a special, metaphysical sense.
Cafes, cabarets and salons were the places, where new notions, concepts were born and exchanged. “Le Chat Noire” (Black cat) was a famous meeting spot, attended by such symbolistic groups as the Hydropathes and the Zutistes. Writer “Sâr” Joseph Péladan organized the Salon de la Rose + Croix, where such prominent painters Ferdinand Hodler, recognized for his epic canvases, and Fernand Khnopff, who gained popularity with his quite pessimistic visionary images.
Some artists, like Emile Bernard (one of the major theoreticians of the movement) and Paul Gaugin, who participated in the exhibitions of Symbolists, distanced from them within certain time and turned to Post-impressionism, concerned more with the issues of visual language. The group, that was transitional between symbolism and postimpressionism, was the Nabis (from Hebrew “prophet”). Works of its members were defined by primacy of coloring, delicate musical rhythmicity and flat stylization of folk art, Japanese engraving or Italian primitivisms. One of its central representatives was Pierre Bonnard.
In Russian Symbolism spread a little bit later, then in European countries and was promoted in 1900s by the group “Mir iskusstva” (“World of art” in russian). It followed general direction of the movement and published a magazine of the similar name. Artists, associated with the group were Leon Bakst, Victor Borisov-Musatov and Mikhail Vrubel.
In symbolistic sculpture two main personalities were Aristide Maillol and August Rodin.
Symbolism and Art Nouveau
Having a close look at the epoch of fin de siècle, analyzing history of the first decades of the 20th cent., it’s seems curious, how symbolism interflowed with Art Nouveau tendencies. It became even more evident, when in 1893 Brussels group “Les XX” that was prescribed to have no more than 20 members, rearranged into “La Libre Esthétique” (French for “The Free Aesthetics”). It consisted mainly of Symbolist painters, including James Ensor and Jean Toorop and often invited non-Belgian artists, like Cézanne and Paul Gauguin to participate in their exhibitions. Lawyer and critic Octave Maus encouraged its participants to work in the sphere of decorative art, producing ceramics, tapestries, furniture. By the end of 1890s Brussel turned into one of European centers of Art Nouveau.
The thing Art nouveau and Symbolism had definitely in common was love to floral motifs. In both cases they were rendered unnaturalistically, highly stylized. The adherent of French Symbolism, Theodore de Wyzewa once wrote in 1887 – “Universe is the creation of our souls”. So both symbolists and art nouveau masters aimed to create the artistic counterpart of reality without imitating it. High detalization in canvases of symbolists, accent on ornament in “New art” – all served for the affirmation of everything unrealistic and unusual.
However, it would be more correct to distinguish this two movements and say that they developed in parallel. Art nouveau painters demonstrated some (though rather literal) symbolism, and symbolists sometimes applied art nouveau decorativeness and exquisiteness, but on the large scale they had different targets, as the first orientated on the “eye-pleasing” effect, whether second strived for affecting viewer’s heart and mind.
Being absorbed by the artists of many countries, symbolism had a large influence on the world history of art and prepared a ground for the formation of Surrealism. Experimentations of symbolists, innovations and their cosmopolitism made them one of the sources of avant-garde and contemporary art.
- See more at: bestarts.org/symbolism/#sthash.NLhwvYDv.dpuf
среда, 02 марта 2016
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Late Hours: William Degouve de Nuncques
"Without the Belgians, the French would have been second rate symbolists." - Arthur Rimbaud
“Everything they don’t understand is mythology. There’s a lot of that.” - Charles Baudelaire on the Belgians
Surrealism started here, in the imagined world of a little known Belgian painter, William Degouve de Nuncques. Without La Maison Aveugle (The Blind House). there would have been no Rene Magritte, no Empire of Light. Its English title, The Pink House, while descriptive explains nothing. The first thing the viewer notices is a house glowing with strange light, as though it were midday. But it is nighttime, and a sprinkling of stars dot the sky. What could explain the relation between the pink, apparently inhabited part of the house, and the shadowed rear part, its broken window panes revealed by a solitary light?
Magritte the Belgian was an artist who knew and honored his sources. In 1955, he created his own version of Fernand Khnopff's At Fosset Under the Fir Trees (1894), including an outsized squirrel picking at the pine cones.
Another Belgian, the poet Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) claimed that both La Maison Aveugle andThe Canal had been inspired by stories of Edgar Allen Poe. Also, in what may have been a case of symbolist hyperbole, Verhaeren described Degouve's landscapes as "obscure dreams of a morbid climate." In favor of his interpretation, Verhaeren was Degouve's brother-in-law, married to the artist Marthe Massin in 1891. Three years later Degouve married Juliette Massin, Marthe's sister and also a painter. Degouve himself broke silence in 1911, writing that he had intended the lighted windows to represent "life immobilized."
Degouve used lines to frame fleeting intuitions of the invisible, an experience Maeterlinck characterized as."the individual face to face with the universe." His geometrically structured spaces contain mysterious depths, Camille Lemmonier, a member of the older generationof Belgian artists, was the first to note that Degouve's paintings contained a "motionless undulation." This is a symbolism largely devoid of human figures. Another temperament would have searched for answers in metaphysical realm
In The Canal even the hour is obscure and the bare trees offer no conclusive evidence of the season. The deserted building appears subject to some peculiar trick of the light. Broken window panes again punctuate the facade. Degouve's use of a broad horizontal canvas, severely compressed, creates a claustrophobic feeling seen in landscapes by his contemporary Fernand Khnopff.
Belgium in the late 19th century was in the forefront of industrialization, with its attendant urban upheavals and dislocations. At the same time there were cities like Bruges and Ghent, remnants of the long gone Burgundian court, preserved in a decayed state like insects embalmed in amber. Against this background, the recurring motif of immobility, the frustration with the explanatory uses of the visible world, make sense. Maeterlinck, who received the Nobel Prize for literatire in 1911, even discerned intimations of this in the Greek classic. "It is no longer a violent, exceptional moment of life that passes before our eyes—it is life itself. Thousands and thousands of laws there are, mightier and more venerable than those of passion; but these laws are silent, and discreet, and slow-moving; and hence it is only in the twilight that they can be seen and heard, in the meditation that comes to us at the tranquil moments of life."
In the insubstantial powder of pastels Degouve found a medium fit for the moist, heavy night air. In such an atmosphere, the gas lamps of the royal park in Brussels illuminate the symmetrical layout as though it were the otherworldly work of a phantom gardener. In its particulars, the image could not be more accurate if it were a photograph. But Degouve has chosen to depict the garden's rectangular pattern from an oblique angle, taking the straightforward and turning it into something slightly strange. Now you begin to feel the thrill of recognition the surrealists felt.
A master of static drama (notquite an oxymoron) was Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), the central figure of Belgian literary symbolism. He was well-suited to understand the melancholy Degouve. Born into a well-to-do family in the torpid city of Ghent, de facto capitol of Flemish-speaking Belgium, Maeterlinck became the leader of a movement carried out largely in French. A childhood divided between winters in an urban townhouse and summers in the country was similar to the one that Fernand Khnopff experienced, shuttled between Bruges and the forests of the Ardennes. Like the aristocratic Khnopffs, Maeterlinck's family could trace is roots back to the 14th century chronicler Froissart.
His play Les Aveugles (known in English as The Blind or The Sightless), premiered in 1890, was just as influential at the time as The Bluebird or Pelleas and Melisande In Les Aveugles, Maeterlinck created a group of characters guided by an old priest, who dies, leaving them alone with their fears. None of the characters is drawn realistically. They are depersonalized, outlines within which the actors and the audience invent their interior worlds. Not a bad description for the tree roots foregrounded in The Leprous Forest from 1898, one of Degouve's most openly morbid works. Gnarled and twisted tree roots searching (blindly?) for light express the artist's intuition of sadness permeating the natural world. In the art of Degouve de Nuncques, we share the surrealist thrill at seeing the unseen.
"A hothouse deep in the woods,
doors forever sealed. Analogies:
everything under that glass dome,
everything under my soul.
Thoughts of a starving princess,
a sailor marooned in the desert,
fanfares at hospital windows.
Seek out the warmest corners!
Think of a woman fainting on harvest-day;
postillions ride into the hospital courtyard;
a soldier passes, he is a sick-nurse now.
Look at it all by moonlight
(nothing is where it belongs).
Think of a madwoman haled before judges,
a man-of-war in full sail on the canal,
nightbirds perched among the lilies,
a knell at noon
(out there under those glass bell-jars),
cripples halted in the fields
on a day of sunshine, the smell of ether.
My God, when will the rain come,
and the snow, and the wind, to this glass house!" -
- Hothouses by Maurice Maeterlinck (1889), translated from the French by Richard Howard, Princeton University Press: 2003
"Without the Belgians, the French would have been second rate symbolists." - Arthur Rimbaud
“Everything they don’t understand is mythology. There’s a lot of that.” - Charles Baudelaire on the Belgians
Surrealism started here, in the imagined world of a little known Belgian painter, William Degouve de Nuncques. Without La Maison Aveugle (The Blind House). there would have been no Rene Magritte, no Empire of Light. Its English title, The Pink House, while descriptive explains nothing. The first thing the viewer notices is a house glowing with strange light, as though it were midday. But it is nighttime, and a sprinkling of stars dot the sky. What could explain the relation between the pink, apparently inhabited part of the house, and the shadowed rear part, its broken window panes revealed by a solitary light?
Magritte the Belgian was an artist who knew and honored his sources. In 1955, he created his own version of Fernand Khnopff's At Fosset Under the Fir Trees (1894), including an outsized squirrel picking at the pine cones.
Another Belgian, the poet Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) claimed that both La Maison Aveugle andThe Canal had been inspired by stories of Edgar Allen Poe. Also, in what may have been a case of symbolist hyperbole, Verhaeren described Degouve's landscapes as "obscure dreams of a morbid climate." In favor of his interpretation, Verhaeren was Degouve's brother-in-law, married to the artist Marthe Massin in 1891. Three years later Degouve married Juliette Massin, Marthe's sister and also a painter. Degouve himself broke silence in 1911, writing that he had intended the lighted windows to represent "life immobilized."
Degouve used lines to frame fleeting intuitions of the invisible, an experience Maeterlinck characterized as."the individual face to face with the universe." His geometrically structured spaces contain mysterious depths, Camille Lemmonier, a member of the older generationof Belgian artists, was the first to note that Degouve's paintings contained a "motionless undulation." This is a symbolism largely devoid of human figures. Another temperament would have searched for answers in metaphysical realm
In The Canal even the hour is obscure and the bare trees offer no conclusive evidence of the season. The deserted building appears subject to some peculiar trick of the light. Broken window panes again punctuate the facade. Degouve's use of a broad horizontal canvas, severely compressed, creates a claustrophobic feeling seen in landscapes by his contemporary Fernand Khnopff.
Belgium in the late 19th century was in the forefront of industrialization, with its attendant urban upheavals and dislocations. At the same time there were cities like Bruges and Ghent, remnants of the long gone Burgundian court, preserved in a decayed state like insects embalmed in amber. Against this background, the recurring motif of immobility, the frustration with the explanatory uses of the visible world, make sense. Maeterlinck, who received the Nobel Prize for literatire in 1911, even discerned intimations of this in the Greek classic. "It is no longer a violent, exceptional moment of life that passes before our eyes—it is life itself. Thousands and thousands of laws there are, mightier and more venerable than those of passion; but these laws are silent, and discreet, and slow-moving; and hence it is only in the twilight that they can be seen and heard, in the meditation that comes to us at the tranquil moments of life."
In the insubstantial powder of pastels Degouve found a medium fit for the moist, heavy night air. In such an atmosphere, the gas lamps of the royal park in Brussels illuminate the symmetrical layout as though it were the otherworldly work of a phantom gardener. In its particulars, the image could not be more accurate if it were a photograph. But Degouve has chosen to depict the garden's rectangular pattern from an oblique angle, taking the straightforward and turning it into something slightly strange. Now you begin to feel the thrill of recognition the surrealists felt.
A master of static drama (notquite an oxymoron) was Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), the central figure of Belgian literary symbolism. He was well-suited to understand the melancholy Degouve. Born into a well-to-do family in the torpid city of Ghent, de facto capitol of Flemish-speaking Belgium, Maeterlinck became the leader of a movement carried out largely in French. A childhood divided between winters in an urban townhouse and summers in the country was similar to the one that Fernand Khnopff experienced, shuttled between Bruges and the forests of the Ardennes. Like the aristocratic Khnopffs, Maeterlinck's family could trace is roots back to the 14th century chronicler Froissart.
His play Les Aveugles (known in English as The Blind or The Sightless), premiered in 1890, was just as influential at the time as The Bluebird or Pelleas and Melisande In Les Aveugles, Maeterlinck created a group of characters guided by an old priest, who dies, leaving them alone with their fears. None of the characters is drawn realistically. They are depersonalized, outlines within which the actors and the audience invent their interior worlds. Not a bad description for the tree roots foregrounded in The Leprous Forest from 1898, one of Degouve's most openly morbid works. Gnarled and twisted tree roots searching (blindly?) for light express the artist's intuition of sadness permeating the natural world. In the art of Degouve de Nuncques, we share the surrealist thrill at seeing the unseen.
"A hothouse deep in the woods,
doors forever sealed. Analogies:
everything under that glass dome,
everything under my soul.
Thoughts of a starving princess,
a sailor marooned in the desert,
fanfares at hospital windows.
Seek out the warmest corners!
Think of a woman fainting on harvest-day;
postillions ride into the hospital courtyard;
a soldier passes, he is a sick-nurse now.
Look at it all by moonlight
(nothing is where it belongs).
Think of a madwoman haled before judges,
a man-of-war in full sail on the canal,
nightbirds perched among the lilies,
a knell at noon
(out there under those glass bell-jars),
cripples halted in the fields
on a day of sunshine, the smell of ether.
My God, when will the rain come,
and the snow, and the wind, to this glass house!" -
- Hothouses by Maurice Maeterlinck (1889), translated from the French by Richard Howard, Princeton University Press: 2003
суббота, 27 февраля 2016
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суббота, 20 февраля 2016
06:51
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И все же я не согласна с Кристофером - папой Антона, который в общем-то очень повлиял на мое мировоззрение. Потрясающий человек.
Но... Мне будет одинакого херово, что от смерти кенийца, что от смерти мульти- миллионера. Насильственной, понятно, в обоих случаях. Все мы люди, даже угнетатели человечества, как называет Кристофер миллионеров. И... такого не должно быть.
Но... Мне будет одинакого херово, что от смерти кенийца, что от смерти мульти- миллионера. Насильственной, понятно, в обоих случаях. Все мы люди, даже угнетатели человечества, как называет Кристофер миллионеров. И... такого не должно быть.
четверг, 14 января 2016
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Одногруппница Тоши Ану, как ее называет Элиза, красавица, спортсменка, комсомолка, на самом деле молодая демократка, вознамерилась почитать Маркса, "Капитал". Приходит она к Элизе и говорит, вы же вот в СССР жили, нет ли у вас "Капитала"?
Правильно, Ану! - говорит Кристофер, - тру-советский человек приезжает в Америку не иначе как с "Капиталом" под подмышкой, дабы просвещать наших рабочих об их печальной доле...Очень печальной. Поэтому в отличии от Элизы у меня "Капитал" есть.
Я тут подумала, что может вместо того чтобы слушать "Есть у революции начало, нет у революции конца", лучше почитать первоисточник? Мои родители всегда говорили, что он скучен как смертный грех и малопонятен, но они-то насильственным образом читали его в школе и в институте. А мне вот библиотека Маяковского такой возможности не дала: на полке марксистско-ленинской философии нет "Капитала", зато есть многие книжки на тему "Критика Маркса и Ленина". И там доходчиво объясняется, что идеи-то всеобщего равенства хороши, вот еще от христианства пошли, но Маркс и Ленин просто не знали, что такое демократия, и что она, несомненно, спасет мир. Демократия. Равенство. А вы уверены, что эти два понятия связаны, по крайней мере в наших великих державах?..
Пользуясь случаем хочу рассказать о прекрасном сайте darudar.org, где можно дарить и получать любые вещи и услуги запростотак. Сайты, где обменивают вещи нравятся мне меньше, поскольку это все-таки коммерческое предприятие. А тут помощь людям и альтруизм в чистом виде, к чему я так стремлюсь в жизни. И, о да, то истинное Единение.
Правильно, Ану! - говорит Кристофер, - тру-советский человек приезжает в Америку не иначе как с "Капиталом" под подмышкой, дабы просвещать наших рабочих об их печальной доле...Очень печальной. Поэтому в отличии от Элизы у меня "Капитал" есть.
Я тут подумала, что может вместо того чтобы слушать "Есть у революции начало, нет у революции конца", лучше почитать первоисточник? Мои родители всегда говорили, что он скучен как смертный грех и малопонятен, но они-то насильственным образом читали его в школе и в институте. А мне вот библиотека Маяковского такой возможности не дала: на полке марксистско-ленинской философии нет "Капитала", зато есть многие книжки на тему "Критика Маркса и Ленина". И там доходчиво объясняется, что идеи-то всеобщего равенства хороши, вот еще от христианства пошли, но Маркс и Ленин просто не знали, что такое демократия, и что она, несомненно, спасет мир. Демократия. Равенство. А вы уверены, что эти два понятия связаны, по крайней мере в наших великих державах?..
Пользуясь случаем хочу рассказать о прекрасном сайте darudar.org, где можно дарить и получать любые вещи и услуги запростотак. Сайты, где обменивают вещи нравятся мне меньше, поскольку это все-таки коммерческое предприятие. А тут помощь людям и альтруизм в чистом виде, к чему я так стремлюсь в жизни. И, о да, то истинное Единение.
четверг, 31 декабря 2015
07:25
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вторник, 15 декабря 2015
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пятница, 11 декабря 2015
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четверг, 03 декабря 2015
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Все-таки с возрастом реагируешь на вещи как-то... спокойнее. Вот ко мне сегодня приставал преподаватель, на словах, конечно, из серии "Ты всегда ходишь такая серьезная!" Я с интересом слушаю это, представляя, как буду пересказывать все маме и Тоше, а потом - как можно обыграть всю ситуацию в моей повести. Ненаписанной, правда, повести, ибо диплом.
А еще я читаю и внезапно классику. Сначало был Тургенев "Дворянское гнездо", а теперь на ту же примерно тему "Хижина дяди Тома". Первые 5 страниц я была в шоке от того, что друзей Тоши, с которыми мы каждый день переписываемся в фб и иногда говорим по скайпу, в том мире продавали и покупали. Просто одно дело, когда ты знаешь факт истории, и совсем другое - когда эта история так близка и страшна.
Зато именно в "Хижине" я нашла цитату, которая идеально характеризует меня. Про женщину, которая боялась даже соседского индюка, но если видела человеческую жестокость - ее гнев был страшен. У меня такое постоянно, и увы, я редко этот гнев выражаю. Ведь глупо будет орать на одногруппницу, которая приходит в институт в меховом жакетике, несмотря на то, что у нас очень жарко или на другую девушку, которая позволяет себе раситские шутки. Наверное, я гораздо более слабая, чем эта миссис Берг, и это очень грустно.
Если у тебя есть принципы, их ведь нужно отстаивать, так? А у меня получается далеко не всегда.
А еще я читаю и внезапно классику. Сначало был Тургенев "Дворянское гнездо", а теперь на ту же примерно тему "Хижина дяди Тома". Первые 5 страниц я была в шоке от того, что друзей Тоши, с которыми мы каждый день переписываемся в фб и иногда говорим по скайпу, в том мире продавали и покупали. Просто одно дело, когда ты знаешь факт истории, и совсем другое - когда эта история так близка и страшна.
Зато именно в "Хижине" я нашла цитату, которая идеально характеризует меня. Про женщину, которая боялась даже соседского индюка, но если видела человеческую жестокость - ее гнев был страшен. У меня такое постоянно, и увы, я редко этот гнев выражаю. Ведь глупо будет орать на одногруппницу, которая приходит в институт в меховом жакетике, несмотря на то, что у нас очень жарко или на другую девушку, которая позволяет себе раситские шутки. Наверное, я гораздо более слабая, чем эта миссис Берг, и это очень грустно.
Если у тебя есть принципы, их ведь нужно отстаивать, так? А у меня получается далеко не всегда.
среда, 18 ноября 2015
14:07
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воскресенье, 04 октября 2015
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Все-таки не тем я занимаюсь в этой жизни. Это про институт. А самое главное я понимаю, чем заниматься хочу. А именно - социологией. Может, если бы я изучала ее не по книжкам о субкультурах, Фромму и компании, а в институте, она бы разочаровала меня. Но теперь уже не понять.
Самое главное, что законы развития общества увлекали меня всегда, с детства. Кто вообще в 14 лет читал эпилог "Войны и мира"? А там главная мысль, что историческими событиями управляет народ, а не отдельные личности. И честно говоря, эти 20 страниц рассуждений произвели на меня гораздо большее впечатления, чем сам сюжет. Я читала и думала: "Это гениально!"
Но пару дней назад я, кажется, придумала тему для своего диплома, если бы я училась на социолога. Про музыку и общество, о тех песнях, которые больше всего влияли на сознание людей в какой-то конкретный период. Гимн эпохи, гимн протеста или наоборот официальной идеологии.
Вообще гимнов разных стран у меня в плеере очень много, началось все с "Хатиквы" в прошлом году - гимна Израиля. А последнее - Тошка скинул мне "Наш Советский Союз покоряет весь мир", в исполнении хора Сан-Франциско, он тоже прекрасен.
Ну а "Марсельезу" я со школы люблю, когда мы ее хором пели на уроках французского.
Но непризнанные гимны эпохи - куда круче. Вот есть певица Pink, а у нее есть песня "Dear Mr President", такая, что правительство Джоржа Буша за эту песенку посадило Pink в наркоклинику.
И я послушала лив-версию, как люди реагируют. Вначале взрывы смеха в ответ на какие-то шутки (передразнивания?), а после песни совершенно дикие овации, таких я еще ни разу в своей жизни не слышала. И ты сидишь в автобусе совершенно офигевший и понимаешь "да... это эпоха".
....
Я бы еще много написала о социологии и песнях, но, увы, меня ждут водяные знаки. So... Как-нибудь в другой раз.
Самое главное, что законы развития общества увлекали меня всегда, с детства. Кто вообще в 14 лет читал эпилог "Войны и мира"? А там главная мысль, что историческими событиями управляет народ, а не отдельные личности. И честно говоря, эти 20 страниц рассуждений произвели на меня гораздо большее впечатления, чем сам сюжет. Я читала и думала: "Это гениально!"
Но пару дней назад я, кажется, придумала тему для своего диплома, если бы я училась на социолога. Про музыку и общество, о тех песнях, которые больше всего влияли на сознание людей в какой-то конкретный период. Гимн эпохи, гимн протеста или наоборот официальной идеологии.
Вообще гимнов разных стран у меня в плеере очень много, началось все с "Хатиквы" в прошлом году - гимна Израиля. А последнее - Тошка скинул мне "Наш Советский Союз покоряет весь мир", в исполнении хора Сан-Франциско, он тоже прекрасен.
Ну а "Марсельезу" я со школы люблю, когда мы ее хором пели на уроках французского.
Но непризнанные гимны эпохи - куда круче. Вот есть певица Pink, а у нее есть песня "Dear Mr President", такая, что правительство Джоржа Буша за эту песенку посадило Pink в наркоклинику.
И я послушала лив-версию, как люди реагируют. Вначале взрывы смеха в ответ на какие-то шутки (передразнивания?), а после песни совершенно дикие овации, таких я еще ни разу в своей жизни не слышала. И ты сидишь в автобусе совершенно офигевший и понимаешь "да... это эпоха".
....
Я бы еще много написала о социологии и песнях, но, увы, меня ждут водяные знаки. So... Как-нибудь в другой раз.
воскресенье, 30 августа 2015
20:50
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