Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Critique # 3

The Swing: A Critique
            Remember the swings, as a child?  How it always felt like you were flying and that you would never touch the ground? In Essence, that is what Fragonard captured in one of his masterpieces. In The Swing, Fragonard makes use of dramatic light, whimsical colors, and striking focal point to convey the feelings of child-like innocence and freedom.  The dramatic lighting of the sun and the playful colors of the entire painting emphasize the focal point of the striking woman in the piece.
            The dramatic lighting seems one of the most vital pieces to his composition.  For it is in one particular area, starting from the top left hand corner, going diagonal. It goes straight to the focal point, the woman on the swing and which adds to her emphasis. There also is the darkness surrounding the other figures, the men and in the trees. The lighting all together gives this surreal effect all together.
            What also add to the surreal effect would be the whimsical colors.  To some, it might seem just a lot of bright colors with some darkness. But notice how even the darkest areas, aren’t more tinted brown or black but rather more of a navy or deep sea green. The pale pink of the woman’s dress and the flowers underneath her tie the piece together.  All the playful colors add to the child like feel to it. Even though it’s clearly not a child’s perspective on the world, the colors bring the feel of innocence.
            Finally, the focal point is where everything boils down to, which would be the woman in the swing.  She is given a brighter, and more emphasized presence. Yet her position is casual with her expression care free and one shoe falling in the air. The lighting adds the almost ethereal feel to her, as if she is more at that point. This reflects what a child could perhaps feel or just going back to a place where things were simpler.
            This piece is clearly based in a reality.  Everything is possible or real. Yet the way he conveys such youth and innocence makes this piece more.  For it sort of could even be looked as a fantasy in a reality.   For what is to say that someone wouldn’t want to live in this sort of reality?  A reality where everything is real, but more.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Community Project


Reality and Fantasy are not preferable topics for this particular assignment. Yet, I decided to have a few students compose a free write based on a surrealist image. The very definition of surrealism is realistic images done in a fantastical or unrealistic way.  I chose a Rene Magritte image, and here our the compositions and the student are one heavily involved in arts and English classes.   I simply asked them to write whatever they wanted for however long they wanted but based upon the image.

"I think I've seen this image before but I'm not entirely sure. I enjoy illusions that take multiple glances to notice, like a lot of MC Esher pieces. The broken section of the horse in the center of the painting is the only spot that really seems to scream 'Hey, there's something wrong here!" I really love works like this" ( S.S)

"I've seen this picture before but I've never had to write about it. Its one of those impossible optical illusions because the layers are all messed up. I always see it in sections: a horse section, a sky section, a tree section, etc. Because the layer are impossible, the whole picture never adds up, even though you can tell what it should be: a man riding a horse in the forest." (D.G)

"The Violet Woman,
O My O My,
making her way through forest brush
on a horse of caramel color...

She is gone from sight,
Yet reappears all the same
On her steed she goes without rush
in her jacket of lavender...

Vanished, then here,
have I gone mad or am I tired?
She seems to be one with the forest Brush
on her horse of caramel colour.

With reigns in hands
She descends deeper in the wood,
only with a forest so dense and lush
does she travel on her stallion,
and they draw a certain allure

O my Oh my
She is gone again,
Riding with pride in the forest brush
on her brilliant mount of caramel color" (K.P)

Based on these response, I was surprised the responses I got were mostly literal. The poem though, was a bit more fantastical by actually creating a narrative. All of these make the image interesting in their own right.

Friday, May 13, 2011

20 Pieces of Literature

  1. Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, America {1949}
  2. White Rabbit, by Jefferson Airplane, America {1966}
  3. Julias Ceaser, by William Shakesphere, England {1599}
  4. The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne, America {1851}
  5. Reservation Blues, Sherman Alexie, America {1995}
  6. Ceremony, by leslie Marmon Silko, America{1946}
  7. Shelter From the Storm, Bob Dylan, America {1975}
  8. Persona, Blue Man Group, America (After 2000?}
  9. Shadows Part2, Blue Man Group, America {See above}
  10. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, England {1843}
  11. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, England {1843}
  12. Light In August, William Faulkner, America {1932}
  13. The Tempest, William Shakesphere, England {1610-11}
  14. Ceremony in Death, J.D Rob, America {1997}
  15. Midnight Bayou, Nora Roberts, America {2002}
  16. Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe, America {1842}
  17. The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe, America {1845}
  18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey, America {1962}
  19. Lord of the Flies, William Golding, England {1954}
  20. The Chaser, John Collier,  England. {1975}

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Five Excerpts of reality vs. Fantasy

1.  Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Caroll, England {1865}
"So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd-boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamor of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs." 

2. The  Wonderful Wizard of Oz,  L. Frank Baum, America {1900}
"She was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt. As it was, the jar made her catch her breath and wonder what had happened; and Toto put his cold little nose into her face and whined dismally. Dorothy sat up and noticed that the house was not moving; nor was it dark, for the bright sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. She sprang from her bed and with Toto at her heels ran and opened the door.
The little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw.
The cyclone had set the house down very gently--for a cyclone--in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies."

3. Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne, America, {1835}
"Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?
Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom."

4.  Macbeth, Shakesphere, England, {1606}
Act 5, Scene 1
Doctor:
You see her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman:
Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doctor
What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman
It is an accustomed action with her to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
Lady Macbeth
Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor
Hark! She speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
Lady Macbeth
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
 
5. Dear Mr. Fantasy, Traffic, America {1967}
Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn't have known you all these years

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Dialogue poem {an honest and heartfelt attempt}


Based on Don Giovanni by Alexander-Eariste Fragonard (1830-35)

He stared at the body
At first, alone and then;
He was not.
The presence was not deity
Nor was he quite certain what this was

He had thought he had been alone
Yet the being cried:
You are man
You wish not to face your actions

He pleaded in return:
I was in my own defense
I was swayed
My crime was not without reason

That is where you are wrong;
The other protested him,
You only give excuses for crime
And that is what makes accountable

You man, deserve no more
You kill each other and I go weary
The man tried again; but how
Can I only be represented by others?

Why do I not deserve a chance?
The being thought before looking
Only asking for one thing;
Then speak honest,

But if you lie, be warned man
That you shall know nothing but pain
So think of your reason well
What did you truly gain from his death?

The man thought long and hard
He finally said nothing
The being only shook its head
And the man was truly alone