Wanna see my bucket list? I think my love for art museums started the moment I stepped into the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. That love had been transformed into an almost-maniacal zeal.
Argh! The Royal Ontario Museum in Canada ranks 59! To think I was right there in front of that crystal pyramid door on a Monday, sulking over the fact that it was closed. I could have made it in for a brief half hour in between sightseeing and work the following day of course, but it wouldn't have done it justice.
Istanbul Museum ranks 82, but i'm quite sure there's no "Istanbul Museum" in Turkey - they must mean Topkapi, Hagia Sophia or the Istanbul Archaelogy Museum, all of which I had covered.
National Palace Museum in Taipei, check. The next one i'll really like to go is the British Museum - the Reading Room looks phenomenal.
The Enigma is on a quest to peel through the mysteries of Surrealism and the works of Salvador Dali for her Art course. because his melting clocks enrapture her imagination; from the first time she set her eyes on that monumental sculpture downtown one september night to almost 2 years later, as the same imagery encounters her again.
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I was pleasantly surprised to be reminded by the "melting clocks" in The Persistence of Memory that one cool night in 2006 I was roaming Orchard and peering at these sculptures, intrigued by the symbolism which remained thinly veiled to me; it stirred such a curiosity but i lacked the vocabulary to describe it, the language to organize my thoughts, the lens through which i could understand and interpret it as a piece of art. To finally recognize that I was in such close proximity to art that i now know the significance is such a serendipity.
Profile of Time
Alice in Wonderland
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Primarily a French movement in the 1920s, Surrealism is more than an art movement, but an entire philosophical movement; a way of feeling, a way of living, a way of loving. Like all movements, threads break off and branch out into different forms, into artists depicting fetishes and perversions, but the spirit of surrealism at its inception was more basic and less particular:
"Si vous aimez l'amour, vous amierez le surrealism." >- André Breton, 1924
Breton once said thatin love it was not happiness he sought, but love itself. It was a statement that expressed the combination of hope and despair that fuelled the movement's unwavering engagement with the theme of love.
“I think of nothing but love. The continual amusement I derive from intellectual pursuits, for which I am always being reproached as it it were a crime, finds its very justification in this singular and unceasing taste for love. For me there is no idea that is not eclipsed by love. It if were up to me, everything opposed to love would be abolished. That is roughly what I mean when I claimed to be an anarchist.”- Louis Aragon, 1924
I am still in the process of being acquitted with my new love. Surrealism. The name even leaves a satisfying aftertaste on my tongue. It seems to put into concrete being the inner world which i have resided in for most of my life, the way i see the world, the way i feel my dulating emotions, and finally now, the way i choose to live.
If Surrealism were a person, it would be a seeker of dreams, the one hopelessly afflicted with wanderlust, with his redeeming factor the courage to give in to his whims and leaving all else behind, pack his bags and go, leaving the constricting world which he knew all his life with his idealistic paradigm intact. Songs and poems to keep his spirit sweet in the lonely days, the fire against conventionality to keep him warm by night.
If Surrealism were to be represented by a single image, i would choose the "melting clock" for the instrumentality of a clock as a time-keeper in this image can only be contrasted with its more ethereal destiny to highlight the futility of time itself. What you thought was the resolute march of time and memory is more fluid and indecisive than you think.
If Surrealism were a song, it would be a lone piano piece by the moonlight, full of the languid sweetness of undying idealism in one movement, and bursting with the gallop of angst against the constricting "real" world it so deplores in another. The contradictions disrupt the synchronization, but it was meant to be 2 entities anyway.
If Surrealism were a lover, it would be one willing to open up his chest and show his pulsating heart to the doubting lover. Gory yes, but such is the unabashed dreaminess yet boldness of Surrealism.
Rembrandt, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
portraying an inner meaning
The idea of rhetoric is that an orator speaks in public to an audience, but with Rembrandt one does not sense that the painting is a highly public statement. When John Stuart Mill wrote in the early 19th century that "eloquence is to be heard, poetry is to be overheard", he might almost have had Rembrandt's paintings in mind. We seem to happen upon an event and eavesdrop a little, observing something private and confidential. The painting has long carried a title that identifies the bearded man in floppy hat with gold chain slung from shoulder to hip, as the Greek philosopher Artistotle, who greatly admired the blind poet Homer. The face on the medallion hanging from his chain is Alexander the Great, Aristotle most famous pupil.
excerpted from Baroque & Rococo, Vernon Hyde Minor
I was first drawn to this painting because of the mystical dialogue between the eyes of Aristotle and the un-seeing Homer. Not to mention the fact that the painting was wrong in every sense of the word, with Aristotle in an ostentatious outfit and gaudy gold chain around him. Undoubtedly, Rembrandt was projecting himself in the image of Aristotle; if Aristotle was the philosopher-teacher who lost the favour of Alexander the Great, Rembrandt was the artist who was estranged from his patrons and contemporaries by the time he painted this.
I've a friend who believes all films are just a selfish production of directors, but i believe the beauty of art laid in the very roots of self absorption in a private world projected to a larger existence, be it films, paintings, writings, sculptures. Art has always been a private love affair of the artist and his creation, and great works of art merely love affairs made public.If you watch a romantic movie and swoon, you are but a voyeur in the literal sense, caught up in the romance that is of someone else's concotion, but it is art, because it appeals to universal emotions that cut across time, space and era. And this painting does precisely that, except that the time, space and era has been laid out literally, so in-your-face that anyone who knows Aristotle, Homer and Alexander will be amused.
a lovely song. Went to search for it when i did a search on Van Gogh. what do u think of when you read of Van Gogh's life story? it seems to be such a heavy existence, to die without fulfilling all that he wants to do, to have his life ending in insanity. but i believe his existence is aptly represented by a country music piece such as Starry Starry Night. There is a solitary beauty in his works. a silent beauty that invites you to step in.
Here's an analysis from www.vangoghgallery.com.
Expressing Van Gogh's inspiration for the painting. However, one line says : "Look out on a summer's day." which is a false statement as Van Gogh was in an asylum at Saint-Remy, and was not able to paint picture from an actual view point, it is strictly from his mind.
Starry, starry night. Paint your palette blue and grey, Look out on a summer's day, With eyes that know the darkness in my soul. Shadows on the hills, Sketch the trees and the daffodils, Catch the breeze and the winter chills, In colors on the snowy linen land.
Starry, starry night. Flaming flowers that brightly blaze, Swirling clouds in violet haze, Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue. Colors changing hue, morning field of amber grain, Weathered faces lined in pain, Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.
This is Van Gogh's tragic Death. Even though he loved painting, his paintings could never love him back.
Van Gogh attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest, which ultimately led to his death two days later.
For they could not love you, But still your love was true. And when no hope was left in sight On that starry, starry night, You took your life, as lovers often do. But I could have told you, Vincent, This world was never meant for one As beautiful as you.
Van Gogh's artistic legacy is contained within his paintings, drawings and writings. They are everlasting and will never "forget" the style that created them. They are Van Gogh's eyes that watch the world. This is all metaphorically speaking though.
Starry, starry night. Portraits hung in empty halls, Frameless head on nameless walls, With eyes that watch the world and can't forget. Like the strangers that you've met, The ragged men in the ragged clothes, The silver thorn of bloody rose, Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
Finally we come to the conclusion of realizing Van Gogh's eternal struggle with insanity.
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me, How you suffered for your sanity, How you tried to set them free. They would not listen, they're not listening still. Perhaps they never will...
