Posted on 04/07/2018 10:41:02 AM PDT by mairdie
Some of his figures are so awkwardly together - especially his one of the man and woman embracing. He towers over her and she seems not to be enjoying his embrace but is wanting to get out of that embrace. I don’t see love there - I see a woman who doesn’t want to be where she is. I could also be projecting - given my own history.
Your history might make you observe, but you’re seeing straight and clear. I never saw that, but you’re quite right. So besides not connecting with the viewer, they’re also not connecting with each other - all except for the fuzzy, romantic one in the long, narrow painting. So emotional connections aren’t what Klimt’s after. Which leaves pattern - an intellectual abstraction. Fascinating. Good eye.
Yes, the lack of emotional connection... many of these women are distant, maybe symbolic rather than all too human. There is also the picture with the huge ape (King Kong?) looking at the stylized women. There is almost a befuddled look in his eyes. But Kong fell for natural beauty (fell literally too from atop the Empire State). The rise of the rich women to be enshrined as some cold transcendental doesn’t comport with our animal being and maybe that is what Klimt is saying.
It’s interesting that the eye dominates — it could have been the other way where the focus is on the music with some attendant pictures. Maybe we are so use to hearing music in the supporting role as a soundtrack and not in its own right.
Yes, art class. I had taken a course on aesthetics back in the 70s and it’s now like ancient history to me. But I do like seeing this kind of stuff, to see what thoughts rear up and present themselves. It is fun!
I love group analysis. I learn so much more when topics are tossed around and massaged.
On the issue of the eye dominating, I’m doing that. I could do it the other way and force you to the music, but that’s not what I’m after. For 34 years I’ve been making these and I think it’s the fact that I’m working with the beat and am choosing visuals based on the sound that keeps you in the visual over the music. I’m telling a story, and you’re paying attention to the story. The music sets the mood for the story. I was actually taught to hear the stories by a nun in high school, though I’m sure she had no idea how I’d eventually use her teaching.
My mother was an art major at U of Chicago before I went there, and she had a total recall of the jokes her professors told. She was my hero. So I tend to think of knowledge as flowing smoothly through the years, always there when you need it. I was a physics major for 3 1/2 years, then took Shroedinger Equations and ran screaming down the street. Mother insisted I stay in school and wanted me to switch to her major, but I didn’t have her talent so went for Art History and took an extra year to graduate. They wouldn’t take my Russian, so had to take a year of French. I have NO ear for human languages, so the teachers always cringed when I recited. Thank goodness Chicago was a research school and they really just wanted you to read. It’s just wonderful to be rolling over in the topic again.
Yeah, I think story is key. I am a retired rock musician with a background in history and philosophy from the U of T. I’ve also just graduated with a Masters in Theology — so I’m all over the map. I appreciate good stories and have tried to combine story with music. I wrote a mini musical/opera called “Judas Iscariot.” Here’s a quick synopsis: Jesus dies a horrible death on the Cross, goes to Hell (Apostles Creed) and can’t remember who he is. He meets Judas in Hell who helps him remember that he is not just a man but the Messiah, the Savoir. Judas is actually a good guy who betrayed Jesus — not for the money – but because he loved Mary Magdalene. Mary only had eyes for Jesus... so it’s a love triangle. There are flashbacks to the earth and Jesus eventually regains his memory with Judas’ help. Jesus forgives Judas and they both ascend from Hell (a happy ending).
So far I haven’t been successful getting the musical off the ground but it is still a worthwhile accomplishment. The visual in this musical would be a spectacle. I can’t think of any opera or musical with Hell as the setting. A set designer would have a field day.
Speaking of Chicago, I actually went there to see the U of C campus after reading Allan Bloom’s book “The Closing of the American Mind.” He studied with Leo Strauss and was quite taken with the Gothic architecture. The campus is also close to a Buddy Guy’s blues club “Legends,” but the area is run down and dangerous. What a visual contrast!
What a marvelous project! It’s wonderfully original and clever and sounds like it would be another great Jesus Christ, Superstar. Oh, I so hope it becomes real. I agree on the set decoration. It would be spectacular. There is precedent. Damnation of Faust by Berlioz. Yours sounds more accessible.
Closest I ever got to anything like that was when someone sent me the script for an opera they were doing on Henry Livingston and wanted me to vet the dialog my character would be singing. AWK! Now THAT’s a project that REALLY won’t get off the ground!
I loved the U of C campus. Mother met father in the same temporary building where I had my Humanities class. There was a Gargoyle’s Graveyard for the sculptures that fell off the buildings. Botony Pond was my favorite area, with the covered walkway and a magnificent tree that bloomed a delicate purple in the spring. There are murals all over Ida Noyes Hall of girls dancing in chiffon on the midway, as mother did in her class.
“Dr. Livingston, I presume.” I bet everybody would be waiting to hear that line.
I have to check out the Damnation of Faust. I’m not a big Berlioz’s fan, to be honest... don’t know his work. I had the idea that Hell should be like Egypt with pyramids because God drowned the Egyptian army that chased Moses across the Red Sea. I also think they should sing with an stutter to indicate some kind of disorder — usually dissonant music indicates disorder but that has been done too often. I also think Hell should be stylized, maybe an Egyptian/Hell’s Angels look. If you have any ideas let me know.
The music is written and here’s an example of my overture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6uMJClSV6s
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