The Mind’s Third Eye

"The Three Musicians," by Pablo Picasso









The concept of perception, and how it relates to art, has opened up a totally new artistic dimension for me that I never knew existed. Perception allows each artist or viewer to relate to the art in his or her own particular way. Examinations of eye movement by camera have shown that “the eyes do not form a complete, static picture of the target. Instead, they pick up a group of 'identification points', which help the recognition process (Vakkari).” The tests show that there are naturally great variations in the way different people look at an image. An understanding of perception, through art, came to me in a flash, but explaining perception in words for me is like trying to explain how the brain works in 1500 words or less. Explaining perception through a work of Picasso makes the seemingly impossible at least a possibility.

It’s appropriate to say that “The Three Musicians” is unrealistic representation, but, at first glance, my mind was able to understand that it was an image of three musicians using their clarinet, guitar, and sheet of music. My conclusion of what the three musicians were doing leads me to believe that our minds’ perception is more of an interaction with what our eyes see, than a recording of a photographic image. The image we perceive is a live vibrant representation, viewed from different angles and in different colors that is uniquely our own. We can imagine ourselves in any part of the picture, viewing it from the opposite side, the top, or the bottom. We can imagine objects in full view even if another object is in the way. When an object is in the dark, we can imagine it in the light. These are the individual features of each of our perceptions that Picasso captures with cubism, which makes explaining perception through “The Three Musicians” possible because the painting is Picasso’s radically individual view.

The rectangular object that touches all three musicians, I believe, is a shadow. Picasso painted the shadow the same color because his mind imagined it as an object like the guitar, table, or musician. This is different from classical shading because the shadow has the same depth across the painting. I refer to it as a shadow instead of shading because our minds can see a shadow as an object. It is fascinating how he used the shadow of the left musician to create the face of the middle musician without changing the depth. Picasso used the shadow again to create depth by painting the right leg of the table in complete shadow.

The music sheet is a great example of how Picasso played on our mind’s ability to perceive an object from any angle or point of view. My guess is that the right musician is reading a sheet of music shielded from the audience’s view. Picasso imagined how the paper that the musician was reading would look if he was holding it in his hand, just as our own minds can do. Picasso painted the sheet of music as though he took it from the musician and turned it around for the audience to read. Picasso painted the sheet of music this way because, in his exclusively individual perception, this is how he saw the sheet of music. Imagine a sheet of music, don’t you see the notes?

Picasso painted the table from different viewpoints to represent our mind’s ability to perceive an object from different angles. Picasso saw the table straight on and from the top. He was able to imagine the table from both angles at once and expresses this by painting the table from both angles. The left side of the table was painted as though the viewer is seeing it straight on, so you can see the left musician sitting with his legs under the table. Picasso also painted the top of the table to show the guitarist’s elbow and the white, black, and brown object the on the table. Picasso expressed the movement of the table in his mind by painting the table from different angles.

The clarinet of the left musician was painted as an expression of how our minds can see an object even if another object is in the way. If the left musician is sitting at the table, then the audience should not be able to see the whole clarinet because the table would be in the way. Even if the table is in the way, our minds do not need to see the entire object in order to realize what it is. Picasso painted the whole clarinet because his mind could see the clarinet, even though it was blocked by the table.

Our mind imagines the color of an object to different degrees. An object’s color, in our mind, can change depending on how much detail we want to imagine. We can imagine a red ball, or we can imagine a ball with different shades of red arising from the texture, scratches, dirt, or surface imperfections. Picasso painted the musicians’ clothes in simple colors like the red ball. The details, like the wrinkles and the texture of the musicians’ clothes, are not important to Picasso’s perception, so he left them out. The simple one-color tones were enough to get his ideas across.

The colors of the musicians’ clothes are seen as though they are in direct light. For example, Picasso painted the middle musician in light, even though I imagine him playing in a dark bar. He painted the clothes bright colors because his mind perceived the color of the clothes in clear light. Picasso is playing on our minds ability to ignore both the shading and the light on an object to see it in one color.

I love how he simplified the beards of the two musicians. The guitarist’s beard is obviously short and stubbly, while the right musician’s beard is long and wavy. Through the simple strokes of his brush, Picasso allows our minds to create the different textures of the beards. With his long wavy strokes our mind is able to identify a long detailed gray beard, and then Picasso used simple crosshatching to create the guitarist’s short beard. Picasso used elementary techniques that allow our minds to create a detailed picture.

The construction of the musicians’ faces with simple geometric shapes is, yet again, Picasso allowing our minds to add detail. Picasso used empty circles for eyes and a geometric hourglass shape between them to represent the nose. He placed these shapes on a larger shape to represent the face, and then added triangular, circular, and trapezoidal shapes for the musicians’ hats and cloak. Picasso’s construction of the musicians’ heads amazes me because our minds are able to turn these strategically placed geometric shapes into a unique face. <>My next idea about how Picasso’s painting enables our perception, again will take some imagination. The dog was purposely painted under the table with its head in a shadow. Picasso painted the dog the same brown color as the walls to blend in with the background. He was exploring our brain’s ability to ignore background details unless our mind wants to focus on them. Picasso acknowledged the presence of the dog, but painted it into the background because it was not a main focus in his perception of the three musicians. Instead the dog’s presence was a feeling that made the scene unique.

Each one of the ideas that I have presented should show how Picasso painted the representations of the different images he perceived in his mind. His use of solid shading, simple coloring, geometric shapes, and objects twisted from different viewpoints create this unique painting that reflects Picasso’s individual perception of the scene. His simple techniques allow our minds to create the details that are missing in the painting. Picasso’s painting is not an exact representation, but instead the pieces of his mind’s perception that made the image of the three musicians his own. With our minds ability to change the viewpoint and see objects in different colors, “art is not merely the representation of the objects of the outer world into a world of the painter's pigments and lines,” but the unique perception of the artist (Railing). Picasso’s “Three Musicians” is an expression of his mind’s ability to perceive a totally individual image.

Works Cited

Railing, Patricia. “The Cognitive Line in Russian Avant-Garde Art.” Leonardo: v. 31 no1 (1999) p. 67-73.

Vakkari, Johanna. “Giovanni Morelli's "scientific" method of attribution and its reinterpretations from the 1960's until the 1990's.” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift: v. 70 no. 1/2 (2001) p. 46-54.

"I'm different...no really I am"

When the art form Cubism is described, the first name that comes to mind is Picasso. Cubism is a form of art where the artist takes natural objects and splits them into geometric shapes creating an abstract form of art. If the key figures of cubism were like the seven dwarfs in snow white, Juan Gris, would be Doc, the seventh dwarf most people tend to forget. Why is this? Juan Gris is not a well known figure in cubism because he was nicknamed the demon of logic and more importantly, because his to the untrained eye his art work is too similar to the work of the more famous cubists, causing him to be overlooked.

The light-hearted art critic, Guillaume Apollinaire, is credited with coming up with the word surrealism. Surrealism is the cultural, artistic, and intellectual movement oriented toward the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative faculties of the unconscious mind. (Surrealism) He helped give identity to this art form. Unfortunately his choice of names for people were not always as nice. Apollinaire was responsible for Juan Gris being nicknamed the “demon of Logic”. It sounds a little harsh to call someone a demon because demons are almost always associated with evil or darkness. I interpreted his nickname as meaning that he was not a true cubist because he was too logical in this methodology.

In an article written for the New York Times, Michael Peppiatt gives a review of the book, Juan Gris, written by Christopher Green. Green’s argument is that we have a misconception of Juan Gris as the demon of logic manipulating the more abstract cubist works of Picasso and Braque into a more logical art. This conception of Juan Gris as the demon of logic, falsely represents Gris as changing or detracting from the cubist movement. However, more than change the movement, he often just emulated what was already occurring in cubism.

I’ll be honest; it took me quite a while to really understand what was meant by the nickname demon of logic. I think the only reason why I was curious, is because I wanted to know exactly how he could be both a demon and a brilliant artist at the same time. I also wanted to know how being deemed the demon of logic effected his artistic career. It was kind of like seeing a car crash or pile up on the side of the road, you are tempted to slow down and take a closer look, to see if anyone is hurt. Similarly I wanted to take a closer look at Gris’ nickname to see if it in anyway caused him less fame and money. Although there is no specific evidence, I believe it did. In a sense this nickname implied that Gris would be drastically different than those more abstract cubist, when in actuality I was quite disappointed with how similar to the other cubists his work was. The nickname demon of logic carries with a certain expectation of opposition; he failed to live up to this expectation. In other words because Gris did not live up the expectation of something new and contrary to what already exsisted in cubism, he was probably seen as just another cubist which would lead to him having less fame and being overshadowed by giants like Picasso.

Although there are several differences between he and the other cubist artists, his similarities far outnumber his differences. Juan Gris is considered part of the tetrarch of the cubist movement, the other three being Picasso, Leger and Braque; unlike Picasso, Leger and Braque, Gris lived a short, dull and depressing life. He was poor, exciled from Spain and enjoyed little to no fame, from his artwork. More than just his life, the themes he painted in his artwork were completely different. “Gris painted still-lifes predominantly, only occasionally figures or landscapes. He sacrificed content in a monk-like dedication to his craft” (Kaufman). Gris painted more concrete subject matter, ordinary everyday things you might find laying around the house such as music, guitars, women, blinds, and flowers. Unlike Leger who almost never repeated the same subject, Gris often painted his wife Josette, flowers and guitars.

The other cubists painted still life objects as well. However; they manner in which they painted these are different. Picasso is often viewed as the quintessential machismo Spaniard most importantly because of his paintings of nude women. Gris never painted nudes to avoid the eroticism he felt haunted the cubist art form. His "Portrait of Josette Gris", 1916: although it is a portrait of a woman has a completely different tone and affect than Picasso’s "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (1907). Unlike Gris’ piece, Picasso’s piece has a more sexual nature. Gris and Picasso are painting the same subject matter, but they appear completely different because of the affect and tone they produce. However, the difference in these paintings are so subtle, that too often people generalize both painters, Picasso and Gris, as having painted women, giving little or no measure to the manner in which the painted the women. Also because the Gris was painted in 1916 almost 8 years after the Picasso, it is seen as an extension of a technique and subject matter Picasso had already mastered and become famous.

Likewise Juan Gris is similar to Georges Braque. If you were to actually analyze the pictures they seem very different, in terms of their style and color choices. For example comparing and contrasting Braque’s “ Man with Guitar” with Gris’ “La mirada sabia de Juan Gris” Braque’s painting has more grey tones, where as Gris uses acrid tones such as burnt oranges. Gris also uses more curves and swooping lines, but Braque uses classic cubist angles and straight lines. I’ll admit these two paintings are drastically different, but if I were to break the paintings down to their core, I’d find that they are both just paintings of guitars.

With all the comparing and contrasting of the art work between Gris and Picasso, Leger, and Braque it is clear how connected and similar each artist is, especially in terms of subject matter. Not painting nudes and using brighter colors helped Juan Gris avoid being an exact replication of Picasso and Braque enhanced his status as a free thinking individual artistl. Simple color and subject matter are not enough to completely separate Gris from the other cubist artist, a radical change in methodology or style would have done so.

At the core the cubist artists are extremely similar, especially when it comes to defining what cubism is and their ideologies. In a letter to his art dealer, Gris wrote, "Those who believe in abstract painting seem to me like weavers who think they can produce a material with threads running in one direction only and nothing to hold them together. When you have no plastic intention [i.e., a visual aesthetic] how can you control and make sense of your representational liberties? And when you are not concerned with reality how can you control and make sense of your plastic liberties?" (Kaufman)

Okay, so this all seems like jib jab artist talk. What does it mean? I interpreted the phrase plastic liberties as meaning anything outside of reality. He’s saying if we don’t really understand the real world, how can we possibly understand imaginary or non-real things. It’s like, reality is the foundation upon which we can base abstraction. If we have no foundation then the our imaginary images are like houses with nothing to hold them up, or in the words of Gris, threads running with nothing to hold them together.

Gris started with a mental image of something concrete in his mind, then moved to make it appear to be somewhat abstract through cubist techniques. Collector Douglas Cooper, one of the artist's greatest defenders. "He found it 'more natural to make subject "x" coincide with the picture that [he had] in mind than to make picture "x" correspond with a given subject.'" ( Kaufman). For example he would paint a guitar using a grid method to divide up different sections of the guitar into vertical strips only to combine these strips and different sections into an abstract cubist image of a guitar. Gris’ methods or painting and ideologies about cubism may be different than those of Picasso, Braque or other cubists. But the final result of the art work is a painting similar just cubism. I would be similar to racing a sibling to the kitchen for dinner. You may take the straight path down the hall, and you sibling may go through the living room first, but in the end you both end up in the kitchen. It’s the same with say Picasso and Gris, they would take different routes to compose the painting, but once completed, both are just cubist paintings.

I consider myself to be among the commoners or the general public when it comes to art. I would much rather just look and appreciate art for what it is, rather than have to analyze it or critic it. After cashing in for some endurance and patience I finally figured out something about art, it’s all connected. Artists are influenced by an array of things, from a mistresses, politics or even other artists. These influences and overlap between artists help us to delineate periods in art history. A prime example of this overlap is the cubist movement. Although each artist is brilliant in his own individual right, it would be ignorant to say that one particular artist was completely contrary to a specific artistic movement; as is the case with Juan Gris and Cubisim. Juan Gris’ nickname the demon of logic is simply put, illogical. Juan Gris was not anti-cubism, nor was he a completely different sect or genre of art apart from the cubist movement. When the expectations of the name demon of logic was combined with the striking similarities with other artists, Juan Gris became just another cubist and as a result he was overlooked and not nearly as famous as other cubists such as Picasso.

Our Eyes Do More Than See

"The City," by Walt Kuhn

Art is becoming more and more engaging as I gain a greater appreciation of perspective. Perspective is the way that our brains process a two-dimensional picture into a 3-D image. My original impression of good art was how well something was painted or sculpted to look exactly as it would in real life. As I have come to appreciate perspective, I have been able to see more than just the 2-D image my eyes present. My brain fills in holes and makes more unconscious connections than I realized. I have been able to allow art to play on my brain’s unconscious visual power, especially abstract art.

Of all the different types of art, abstract art is the one type of art that completely baffled me. I had no idea why people felt it was so extraordinary. I remember an assignment for an art class my senior year of high school, in which, we were supposed to create an abstract drawing. I picked Neo-Plasticism which is an art form that allows only basic colored rectangles drawn by horizontal and vertical lines. I thought the art was simple and failed to respect its full power. Now that I appreciate that my brain can gather more information from my eyes than simple 2-D images, I go back to the neo-plastic paintings and wonder what the artists were trying to express with their paintings.

I am now any type of abstract art fascinates me. The more abstract the art, the more it fascinates me, because I now let my eyes take in the whole work and allow my brain to wonder. I find it so amazing how our brain can turn blobs of paint into a flower, a leg, or a ribbon. Abstract art allows me to observe how my brain works and to truly understand perspective.

While looking through the Ackland Art Museum gallery, I came upon a painting called “The City,” by Walt Kuhn. The City grabbed my attention with the artist’s attempt to draw a lady. Knowing that the artist could have painted a picture perfect replica of what he saw in front of him, I was pulled into deeper thought to wonder why the artist decided not to paint a realistic representation. What other effect or emotion was he hoping to express?

The first thing I noticed was the lady. She is a white woman with a pile of makeup on her face. She is wearing skintight stockings and a blouse that reveals much of her shoulders and chest. The blouse has four straps, but she only uses one to hold it on her body. This and the dark and grungy background led me to believe that she was a prostitute. It amazes me how these small details in my perspective can lead my brain to see this lady in this way.

Still mesmerized, I gazed at the painting and the parts other than the lady. I noticed the table, the flower, and the shoes. I wondered what type of shoes they could be, and then somehow my brain put it together; they were dancing shoes. Kuhn also painted her in a dance move with her legs crossed and an arm on one hip, like she is ready to dance a jig. It could have been the stockings, the shoes, or her pose, but I could now see this lady as a dancer in a dressing room.

I expected the title of the piece to hint at a dancer, but instead it is called “The City.” A summary of the piece suggests that she is indeed a showgirl in a dressing room, but suggests that the woman is a symbol of the city as a whole. This made me wonder what Kuhn was trying to say about the city with a painting of this showgirl.

My first thought of this lady was that she was a prostitute. Kuhn paints the picture with mainly dark greens, blues, and browns. These colors remind me of me of grime or garbage. With these colors, Kuhn suggests that the city is a dark and dirty place, at least where this showgirl works.

Kuhn wanted to express something deeper than a trashy city. The images of her red flower, her makeup, her falling straps, and her shoeless feet suggest something about beauty and effort. The showgirl is painted to look tired; to show the hard work that must be put forth to run a show, or a city. He must have painted these images to show that behind the bright lights and flashy beauty of this city is a dark side. The flower and makeup are things that represent the beauty of the city, but are lost in the grimy dressing room. Kuhn painted her with her shoes off and straps falling to show a showgirl with her costume off. Kuhn is painting the realities of a city, where beauty is lost to reality.

Kuhn painted a deep and thought-provoking piece, one that I could not have appreciated without an understanding of perspective. I would have looked at this picture and seen a poorly painted woman, but now my brain is able to make the connections that I have expressed in this post. I am even able to imagine what the artist was trying to suggest through the piece. I am able to feel what the artist is trying to convey and enjoy it. This is allowing me to experience the artistic world in a different way.

Is that a Face?

Salvador Dali, the self promoting and acclaimed surrealist painter, is one of the most famous modern era painters. Dali was one of the most known and recognized surrealist painters with some of the most recognizable work. With his pursuits to portray the unconscious mind, Dali juxtaposed random, yet normal objects into one fantastic landscape, confusing our minds as the objects flow into other ones, not fulfilling the picture we are used to, or expect to see.

Dali was apart of the art movement called Surrealism which took place during the 1920’s up to the 1950’s. Surrealism was art where artists tried to attain the state of different than “real”, or truer, more than real, or surreal. The unconscious mind was a major influence of the movement, to try and evoke the imagination that lies within the unconscious.

The unconscious mind deviates from Freud’s theory of the different stages of consciousness. The third and last stage in this theory is the unconscious. The unconscious mind refers to the thoughts and memories spiraling around in your mind that you do not actively or consciously think about. It is interesting that this became intertwined with the art world and the Surrealism Movement.

In Dali’s art I believe that he does capture and almost portrays the jumble of imaginary and creative images that rest in our mind. I believe that he compiles the many different factors that most likely make up the unconscious and mixes them together in his paintings. He uses normal objects, people and places, and mixes them into totally impossible scenes. It’s as though he mixes normal thoughts, memories, knowledge, imagination, creativity, and dreams all into one complex and intriguing picture.

Dali’s style of painting is also so neat and easy to look at, so to speak. The ability to recognize and distinguish all the different elements he uses in his paintings helps further the notion that he accurately has portrayed the unconscious mind.

Dali’s most famous painting “The Persistence of Memory”, 1931, portrays the unconscious and surreal as many of his painting do, but does not utilize the extreme juxtaposition that some of his other works do. One that particularly evokes this contrast is the painting “Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach”, 1938, where many things are not what they seem.

In the previous post, perception was the topic of discussion, and perception plays a part in identifying the interesting connections of this painting and in Dali’s work. At first glance, disregarding the title, because I did not know it when I first saw the painting, the painting appears to simply have an elevated dish containing various fruits. One would expect to next notice perhaps other things on a table with a light colored table cloth. Instead you realize that the dish actually somehow depicts a face with the fruit at the top resembling the hair on the top of the face’s head, and that the dish is not on a table at all, but right in the middle of a landscape. Actually, the dish is partly making up the landscape. The landscape is actually part of a table though, as the table edge is evident on one side and the other side resembles a beach, with cliffs and a bridge over water or perhaps even sky. The cliffs turn out to be the heads of dogs and the bridge a collar of one of them. The dog with the bridge-collar has a tunnel going through the part of the cliff where his eye is. The snout of this same dog is white, where its head is brown, and wrinkles into the form of the surf hitting the beach. I mean this juxtaposition is unbelievable, a dog and a cliff? Only in the depths of unconscious could such a connection be made, but Dali has illustrated it here nonetheless.

To further mystify our minds, away from the “cliffs” and beach, the sea melts directly into the sky, with no clear difference where one ends and the other begins. The only indication that there is sky is the moon far off in the distance. The juxtaposition of these two things however is not as unusual as the other depictions in the painting. Below the cliffs and between the “table cloth”, there appears to be valleys with many different things. There is a brick wall that makes up one side of a cliff that further illustrates Dali’s connecting two things that we do not expect to connect. Many interesting characters of varying, disproportional sizes litter these valleys. One character that appears to be lying down makes up one of the eyes of the face that appears to be morphing through the picture. Another random object makes up the other eye.

In noticing all these strange connections that Dali has exercised in this work, I have come to a realization of how he might have decided to paint in such a way. It is as though he has taken several scenes that he has pictured in his mind, and painted them all into one perplexing image. There is the overall depiction of the beach landscape that your eyes want or expect to see, but they cannot due to the mixing of the other effects, especially the face/dish phenomenon protruding in the center of the image on top of a table. After accepting these individual subjects, since these jump out first and are the most obvious, the dog heads become noticeable and the fact that they are being utilized as the cliffs of the apparent landscape. The bridge is then acknowledged as a dog collar and more details are evident that the picture is not possible. What is interesting is that some may see the dogs before they notice the landscape, which exposes how perception plays a part in this work.

An article analyzing Dali’s writings contains some information on what certain elements in his paintings are called. The dogs and cliffs for instance, where on page 62 he explains double images, which mean that “the representation of an object that is also, without the slightest physical or anatomical change, the representation of another, entirely different object.” He also discusses how he tries to “systematize confusion” which shows why he relates objects that are totally unrelated in his paintings. Another article analyzes three major surrealist themes, those being dream, desire, and love, and expresses some background on the basis for surrealist works.
In his works, something that has distinguished itself through my eyes is the fact that no matter the variance of random items or places in his paintings, there is commonly some kind of human form portrayed in his surrealist type paintings. One would think that in order to portray the unconscious mind, human shapes would not be included, but I assume that anything can be depicted when trying to represent the surreal. The strange thing about the humans in his art is that they are represented in so many different ways. Sometimes there will be a basically normal image of a person who just happens to be in the middle of a bizarre, dreamlike landscape; whereas other times the person or people will be one with the landscape itself. They will either be visible within the different items, meshing within, or the different objects will be made to create certain aspects of human form.

It has just occurred to me how his interconnecting of different objects renders his ability to evoke the dream state. In dreams, the ones that can be remembered at least, scenes move from one place to another very unexpectedly, and he has obviously expressed this transition in this work. Dali painted this work with these strange effects in order to create the images and thoughts that mix around under our conscious thoughts. In incorporating the transitions of dreams, and the interconnecting of the unrelated things, he juxtaposed the unthinkable; creating what one would think would be what the unconscious resembles.

“This Painting’s Got a Kick to It”

"The Tragedy," by Pablo Picasso

I love this piece of art because it is so powerful in its simplicity. The piece is called “The Tragedy,” by Pablo Picasso. This painting is one of my favorites, because the longer I look at it the more thought provoking it becomes. I began to focus on the figures in the painting, wondering what they are feeling, and how they are interacting with each other. I also wondered what Picasso was thinking and feeling while he painted. What was he trying to express with the figures, colors, and textures in the painting? The painting exudes emotion. The painting is not a perfect representation, but its abstract qualities communicate the scene’s emotion more effectively than a perfect representation.

At first glance, you know that something is wrong from the negative feelings that the painting exudes. Picasso purposely makes this a sad and depressing painting, with his use of blue as the main color. Blue is a cool color that can express sorrow and coldness. The figures in the painting appear cold because of the long clothes they are wearing. Coldness is harsh and can take a toll on people. Picasso knows this and is expressing the hardship that these people are experiencing. The family is barefoot, which adds to the sense of coldness. Both parents crossed their arms just to stay warm. Each figure is pale, either from the cold or from the tragedy in their lives. Picasso purposely chooses these colors to effectively express the emotion of the painting.

Picasso shows that the figures have fallen on hard times by adding details that reflect back on a better time. The mother’s posture, earrings, and full, thick hair expose her natural beauty and class. She is standing tall and strong through this tough time, instead of sitting and crying. Her earrings represent wealth and her hair is pulled back as not to get in the way. Her pulled back hair represents strength and hard work, as apposed to long flowing hair which would represent elegance and pampering. Picasso presents the father in the same way. The father is a powerful man with muscles that show through his shirt, but he looks old and tired from his gray unshaven beard. The parents’ past signs of youth, wealth, and ease add to the power of their downfall and their present hardships.

Picasso adds sadness to the figures with their positioning and body language. The mother, father, and child are all looking down which expresses depression, disappointment, and weakness. There is nothing warm or welcoming about the painting. Not one figure is looking at the audience, and the mother even has her back turned. The father has his arms crossed, usually a sign to be left alone because of negative feelings, and the opposite of open, welcoming arms.

The way that Picasso has painted the child into the scene adds to the emotion of the painting. The parents appear freezing cold and must keep their arms crossed to stay warm or, because of the tragedy, to close themselves off from others. The child, on the other hand, is grabbing for his father with his arms open searching for parental support, but the parents are too cold or distraught to reach out to their child. The tragedy that this family is feeling must be powerful, if the parents cannot reach out to comfort their bothered child.

I also wonder if the mother is hiding the tragedy in her arms. It looks as though the mother, the father, and the child are looking at something that the mother is carrying. If the mother is carrying something, it is surely connected to death, because of the emotion that the painting radiates. I could imagine this family at a funeral burying someone or something, but no other concrete details support this idea.<>

Each aspect of the painting adds to its powerful emotion. The abstract color scheme, the details of past life, and the calculated body language give the painting a powerful emotional punch. The way that Picasso weaves together all the aspects of the painting reminds me of death. Shear coldness and self-absorption radiate from the painting in a way that expresses the tragedy that has gripped this family. Picasso successfully packed “The Tragedy” with as much emotion as any real image.

The Dutchman by Moyo Okediji

Fairly modern, The Dutchman by Moyo Okediji dates to 1995, and was inspired by the Robert Hayden’s poem about the slave trade and the mid-Atlantic. One can see from the colors used in this painting that it depicts a traumatic journey across the Atlantic, with African American portrayed naked, or with little coverings, and disheveled. This is a correct assumption; captured natives were brought aboard ships, usually branded and given little to no clothing for a journey in which many drowned. The center figure in the painting is a woman, one can tell from her breast shown, with white chains around her arms. These white chains could signify the white powers that took over her life and made her a slave. What seems to be snakes in the picture have long dark purple bodies in a circular shape with white diamond accents on what appears to be their backs. These snakes may have been what lived in the captured slaves’ ships quarters or could also represent part of the African area they were taken. This painting is impregnated with dual meanings and deeper emotions, dealing with the rawness of slavery as a practice and how it affected those it ripped away from their lives in far off lands.

What drew me to this painting was the wild use of colors and lines. A cubist work in itself, with forms and geographical shapes like circles, triangles and rectangles present throughout the painting, it displays many different themes in one jointly united work. The dark colors present on the body of the bald woman seen “diving” towards the bottom of the painting is in bright teals, purples and shades of salmon and orange used through the painting. The color scheme seems to grow in itself, with a darker shade of the same colors used, in the case with the blue and teal, the orange and salmon, and in the dark purple and the lilac color as well. The bright colors can’t mask the solemn acts being portrayed in this art piece. With years of slavery’s history to consider, one can imagine what an African from Nigeria must feel knowing some of his fellow countrymen’s’ ancestor’s reside in this nation instead of the one he calls home.

This piece of art is so deeply imbedded with the history of slavery in this country; one can feel the pain and angst caused by years of oppression and segregation as well. The beautiful colors remind me of the tropical colors one would find in the African jungles, and remind me that although it is history, slavery is anything but long forgotten.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Pablo Picasso’s work as a cubist painter has taken on much of a following. Fans travel worldwide to galleries when his paintings are displayed. With separate periods, his work progressed from blue tinted somber paintings to the first collages used in fine art. A young man from a life of paintings, with a father as an artist and a mother to encourage his work and creativity, he died a wealthy and well known artist throughout the world, pioneering genres and creating works of art whose legacy long lasts after his death. However, there are hidden messages within his work that show his true feelings of the world around him. Although he adamantly stated that he did not take a “side” in the war, his paintings tell a different story, depicting monstrosities that occurred during both World Wars. Along the same lines, he paints those without vision to symbolize the great gift of sight that man has; this is almost paradoxical to painting the blind since they will never see the art work they help, in a way, create.

Paintings from his first wave of creativity were known as the “Blue period”, marked by blue tinted paintings that are somber in most all aspects. This period of almost depressing paintings was inspired partly by a trip through Spain and partly by the suicide death of a close friend. Seen reflected in the solemn characters depicted; prostitutes, beggars, and harlequins, one can feel the angst and sorrow that fills these subjects lives collide with the blue tones, showing the depressed state of mind Picasso was in during this time. It is my understanding that blue tones are generally associated with sadness and depression, hence the term “feeling blue”. Despair and sadness were the themes meant to be carried out by the blue tones by artists that preceded Picasso, with many believing that these painting represent all the negative aspects of his life during this period.

In one of Picasso’s painting from his “Blue period”, The Old Guitarist, we see an image and automatically one feels sorry for the subject depicted in it. The elongated fingers of the guitarist are in typical fashion of Picasso’s “Blue period”, making the decrepit people portrayed seem like they live long, miserable lives. With light and dark blue tints that even make the man in this painting seem to originate from a “blue” background, one cannot help but feel glum after viewing this painting. Perhaps it is the skeletal figure of an elderly man that looks famished and emaciated that also creates a glum feeling. However, the old man is holding a guitar in pristine condition. With a ripped tunic that serves as his only clothing and grey hair, it seems that the only thing keeping this man alive is his love for the music he is playing. The blue tones through out the painting are in stark contrast to the brown guitar that lives up the dreary blue. This man lives for his guitar and his guitar alone, the face painted appears to be so deeply immersed in his music that nothing, his protruding bones, ripped shirt or old demeanor seem to upset his creative genius. With eyes closed and hands firmly pressed on the guitar strings, this man seems to feel the music flowing through his frail body without any remorse or shame in his life. Perhaps it is just me that sees the painting this way; I don’t see any shame in this man yet he is half naked on what seems like a street corner playing a guitar. Yet one can’t help but feel pity for this man. If I saw someone like this on the street corner I would bring them back a cup of soup and worry about them on the P2P ride home, hoping the summer heat or cold winter wouldn’t be the end of their being.

Picasso draws ones attention to the guitarists’ eye by darkening it with added shadows as is typical in his “Blue period”. With his use of the closed eyes in this painting it adds another layer of meaning to his work, one that portrays blindness. Although it is done in a subtle manner, Picasso has been known to depict characters that are blind in his “Blue period”. With other paintings, such as La Celestine and The Blind Man's Meal, portraying the life of the blind, his “Blue period” is laden with depictions of those living a difficult life never experiencing or viewing the portraits painted of them. Although his use of blindness is subtle in The Old Guitarist, with shading used to emphasize the blindness, in La Celestine, blindness is a theme that is anything but subtle. Portraying an older woman with what seems to be a missing eye exemplifies Picasso’s use of blindness as a theme during his “Blue period”. Picasso, as an artist, could have portrayed blind people so those with sight could more appreciate their gift of seeing.
Picassos “Blue period” is marked by relatively glum, dark and depressing paintings. One that embodies all these qualities is his piece, The Tragedy. In this piece we see a man, a woman and a child all gathered at the beach. This is anything but a fun family portrait from the beach, it has dark colors, and the subjects are fully dressed and barefoot on the blue sand. We only see the woman’s back and a profile of her face; she is draped with a dark blue cloth of some kind, as if hiding whatever is being held in her hands. The man appears to be hugging himself as if warmth was needed, with the young boy touching the leg of the older man. However, in ones mind it is easy to draw the conclusion that this is a family together on the beach on a cold, windy day. With its very dark, drab blue colors present through out every aspect of this painting, the elongated faces, fingers and feet, it is the epitome of Picasso’s “Blue period”.

Articles such as this one believe that it was a maturation process for Picasso to go through so many different stages in his artistic lifeline. From his early days of “Blue period” to his later “Rose period” one notices a subtle difference yet one that shows a more developed and skilled painter. His first timeline of paintings that were put together as a group was his “Blue period”. After that, from 1904-1935 he went to create ten separate collages of work, each having a different theme throughout. These pieces of work each reflected what was occurring in his life and during the time period. This is exemplified during the war years, 1937-1945. Picasso’s paintings during war times did have deeper meanings and showed a more mature side of Picasso than is seen in his novice “Blue period”. More mature themes drown out the vagabonds and whores that were first portrayed, with sophisticated and deep meanings in paintings such as Guernica, which shows the damages bombs caused to a town in Spain. The Charnel House also shows Picassos learned maturity in portraying the monstrosities that took place in Hitler’s concentration camps in World War 2. Although he chose to remain neutral during the war years, it is easy to see through his painting what feelings and emotions were going through his mind during those times.

As a painter, Picasso is far from my favorite. I prefer the whimsical, gay, brightly colored paintings by Dufy. However, I do recognize that as an artist he brought together styles to create Cubism, a form of art that encompasses shapes and colors to try and form deeper meanings than just paint on canvas. Perhaps some of my dislike as Picasso as a painter comes from my dislike of him as a person, Picasso having many scandalous affairs and fathering children with women that weren’t his wife at the time of conception, mainly it comes from me disliking cubism in general. His claim of neutral ness during wars is a false one, his paintings speaking much louder than his words. Also, his use of blindness in his art spoke to people to appreciate their vision and make the best of it.

Willem de Kooning and His Women

Willem de Kooning was a renowned painter in the 40’s and 50’s, whose compositions were known for their spastic, scratchy textures and bold, intense colors. He was a leader of the abstract expressionists in New York, and along with fellow artist Jackson Pollack helped define the technique “action painting.” De Kooning made a name for himself painting abstract compositions; however it is his “Women” series he painted in the early 50’s that most intrigue me (Carrier). They are, like the abstract paintings, full of life and energy, but also an expression of the sexual frustration of man. The women depicted in the series are created using scratchy, expressive lines, conveying de Kooning’s aggravation in a bestial, almost childlike manner. These emotive, angry strokes are reinforced by a haphazard use of color, where olive greens, realistic flesh tones, and bright splashes of red all coexist not-so-peacefully. The nude women themselves are a far cry from the goddesses painted in the Renaissance (de Kooning’s woman is no Virgin Mary), their gnarly, buxom, saber-toothed bodies nearing abstraction. De Kooning reveals the ugliness of our subconscious sex drive, as theorized by Sigmund Freud, through violent brush strokes, unpredictable color, and disfigured female forms.

Freud is often criticized for his emphasis on sexuality. Many of his ideas extended from the notion that all human motivations, good or bad, derive from the embrace or repression of the sex drive. He also discussed with great expansion the subconscious. It is here, according to Freud, where ancient, primal instincts lie, where sexual desire is strongest and basest, and where artists receive their inspiration (Boeree). With these conjunctures in mind, de Kooning’s visual treatment of women is no longer a twisted examination of portrait, but an expression of the part of our consciousness that we constantly, undeniably repress. It is an identification of the bestial side of man. The thing that puts criminals in jail; the thing that gets women raped; the thing that makes men go to war. All of this repression of desire explodes onto the canvas in a moment represented by color, line, and distortion, a language so passionate it can only be met by a feeling of repulsion. This is the genius of de Kooning.

In de Kooning’s paintings, the physical appearance of the women serves as an identification with man’s repressed sexual desires. The women are heavy-set with broad shoulders, wide hips, and large breasts, exaggerating the specific female aspects of the figure. De Kooning did not paint a series of goddesses. Rather, he made the women seem more like animals, enlarging their gnarled teeth and eyes and cutting off their hair. He is playing with the traditional depiction of women, demonstrating the ugly, inhuman motivations behind such obsessions with the female body. Freud suggested these subconscious desires are repressed to meet societal standards, but have made their way to the surface through such means as art. De Kooning has recognized that, and embraces it through his canvases. He created an image that is both repulsive and identifiable at the same time.

The violence in de Kooning’s brush strokes is vital to his expression of man’s inherent sexual longings. It is these linear elements that distort and abstract the woman form. Like a child scratching with crayons on a primed wall, de Kooning’s hand scratches the arms, legs, breasts, and faces of heavy women into the canvas. The forms are created using broad black lines, angular and curved. Depth is not the goal of this technique. Instead, the figures look flat and drawn, eliminating any kind of attempt at illusion. The effect of de Kooning’s hefty, spastic, sketchy brushwork is the abstraction of the female figure to the point of making her appear almost inhuman. It is a devolution to the point where he can connect to our basest, most suppressed desires. This way a connection is made between de Kooning’s “Women” and the theories of Sigmund Freud.

The colors in de Kooning’s paintings create a sense of tension akin to the struggle between man’s subconscious desires and his moral obligations. Freud extensively discussed the fight between man’s carnal impulses and his ability to reason. It was a struggle between what he called the Id and the Ego, and it was this struggle that dictated all of our actions. De Kooning relates to this by painting dissonant colors. The colors do not live together peacefully. There are no spectral, gradated washes gracefully easing the eye into the subject. Instead, olive greens, fleshy reds, and dirty yellows all mix and fight for dominance, while white and black washes provide the chaotic structure of the paintings. Most of the colors are at full value, further flattening the surface of the painting. Working together with the violent brushwork, the colors create a tension on the canvas that is hard to look at.

In regard to the forms of the female figure, de Kooning refuses to use the conventional method of shading and modeling to convey a sense of volume and weight. Instead, he fills shapes with solid color, relying on our subconscious understanding of the shapes to sense the weight of the women. This idea is exemplified in Woman I, the most recognized painting of the series. The size of the shoulders and the stockiness of the torso, feet, and ankles all play to our understanding of a heavy, busty, working woman. This way, the figure feels weighty and bound to earth, further emphasizing the carnal, earthly desires that de Kooning is referring to in his depiction of the female form.

When it was first displayed, de Kooning’s “Women” series was met with disgust and controversy. It was said to be degrading to women and impossible to understand. This is exactly the response de Kooning wanted, and the reason he is considered one of the masters in art history.

Works Cited
Boeree, Dr. C. George, “Sigmund Freud.” Personality Theories. 23 April 2006. .
Carrier, D. “Unmastering de Kooning.” ArtUS. no. 7, March 2005. p.50-1.
Wilkin, K. “De Kooning declined.” The New Criterion. v. 23 no. 6, February 2005.
p.64-7.

Slow Down Freight Train...

Many of my favorite artists are African Americans from the 40’s (Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence to name a few), and there’s some intangible quality inherent in their artwork that always stirs up emotions and memories deep down in my gut. They use materials in ways that are raw and emotive, creating a sensation that feels truly human, and Rose Piper’s Slow Down Freight Train is no different. The rich, high valued colors feel primitive and sophisticated at the same time. She creates a strikingly emotional posture of a man using various vantage points, both demonstrating her understanding of Cubist ideas. A visual rhythm structured around line and color echoes the blues tradition that inspired her. These elements play with the way colors and postures connote emotions, conveying an inescapable sense of helplessness and longing.

Piper uses a Cubist understanding of the way we perceive forms in space. This is demonstrated mostly in the figure of the man. She has painted the man so that we see him from more than one point of reference. Notice how his left arm is painted like we’re looking at him straight on, but his neck and head are painted as if we are positioned below him. Also, we are looking at the tops of his shoulders, as if we are above him. This way, the man is postured in a way that is physically unnatural, but emotionally powerful.

In addition to painting from several vantage points, Piper used planes of color rather than altering values, another Cubist technique. The only gradation of value is in the man’s neck, while the rest of his body is painted using flat color. This technique causes the viewer to overlook the fact that the man’s neck, arm, and leg are all out of proportion if you are looking at him straight on. It also makes it believable that the man’s head is turned around at an almost impossible angle. However, this distortion appeals to the viewer’s emotional perception of body language, conveying a strong sense of longing and despair. You can nearly hear the man crying out, akin to a howling wolf, as he sadly gazes over his shoulder to the world passing by outside the boxcar.

The colors in Slow Down Freight Train are simple, yet commanding. Fields of red, yellow, green, white, and black (colors you would find in a box of crayons) interact in a way that creates movement and rhythm. The black and white elements anchor the composition in place, with the two walls, the man’s leg, and the floorboards acting like a blank sheet of music across which notes of color dance. The notes – red, yellow, and green – cause the eye to bounce across the canvas, each field of color working with and against the other.

Singing in harmony with the shapes of color are the linear elements of the painting. Most notable are the lines created by the floorboards of the boxcar. They loosely follow the guidelines of one-point perspective, all directing toward a single point in space, creating the sensation of movement in and out of space. The sloping line of the hill outside the boxcar emphasizes the spatial movement of the floorboards. Also the man’s posture, looking backwards, sends the viewer’s eye back into space, reinforcing the forward movement of the train. There is a play between the inside and outside world, the boxcar and the green land. The man longs for the freedom outside, but is trapped inside the moving boxcar, where the lines of the floorboards act like prison bars.

I’ve never been forced to leave home. I’ve never lived in poverty. I can’t even really remember a time where I felt unloved. But somehow this painting and others like it brings me to a place where I can connect with the emotions of the struggles it represents, and I don’t really understand why. Maybe it’s some kind of universal form of empathy. Or maybe it’s just a subconscious understanding of posture and color. Whatever it is, Rose Piper has touched upon something that’s truly human, and that’s quite an achievement.

Or so I thought

Through studying the neurology and psychology of the brain, perception and art became involved. Perception is the way a person sees a certain thing, and can be different for every individual. One does not necessarily have a choice of how they initially perceive something, but they do have the ability to see it in different ways. This is a brain behavior and connects all that I am saying together. Art is one of the biggest perception dominated examples. Many great or controversial artists’ paintings are perceived in different ways and were most likely done that way purposely by the artist.

One painting that tested my perceptual abilities is located at the Ackland Art Museum on the campus here at UNC. The painting, by Hans Hoffman, is called “Undulating Expanse”, and was painted in 1955. Initially I saw the painting and did not really give it a second thought, thinking how it was just another painting with random color blotches that somehow was famous. To me I just saw shapes with the primary and secondary colors, lots of red and orange along with some blue, yellow and green. There were some triangles, circles, and this big flowing mass as well. It looked like something I could have done when I was seven, especially since it appeared that it was almost done hastily; the shapes weren’t completely filled in with color and the color that was there seemed to be thrown on simply to give it some. From my apparent rant above, you can probably tell that I am not one big on art and trying to understand it. Sometimes though you just have to try and deal with it.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that as I looked closer at the painting I realized that it was some sort of scene, it was a landscape. To my surprise the painting actually made a little since, it was not just some colors and lines slapped onto the canvas. The orange triangles were indeed mountains with a giant circular red sun behind them. The big flowing mass happened to be a long cloud front flowing over the top of the sun and mountains. The scene is perhaps at sunset, or even sunrise, as the sun is red and very low, and the sky all around it is light red, maybe even pink.

After realizing it was actually a unique and interesting picture, I thought how wrong I was to perceive it as something unworthy of recognition. Maybe it was done simply for a specific reason. Hoffman is quoted in wikipedia as saying, “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” To me this explains his purpose for painting the picture in this way. Perhaps he is simply painting the bare essentials of a landscape such as this, to point out how we need to take notice of beautiful scenes of nature again such as a sunset. Instead of living life in the “fast lane” or being occupied with measly social problems, or being caught up in one’s job, people should just sit back and appreciate the simplicities of the natural world.

Now I don’t think there were too many multiple lane highways in the 1950’s, but even so, the association of life in the fast lane is still pertinent to explaining what Hoffman was trying to get across in painting his landscape in such little detail. His coloring of the “undulating” cloud form in blues shows that he is maybe putting emphasis on watching the clouds, considering the rest of the picture is painted with colors of a fire, red, orange, and yellow. The behavior of a cloud again links the portrayal of how our lives should slow down and just float along, or go-with-the flow.

Although I initially perceived this painting as nothing out of the ordinary, looking deeper into the work before criticizing it is a much better strategy. No matter your initial perceptions of art, or anything for that matter, look further, or at the bigger picture before your mind is made up.

"Strange Fruit" and "Design for Death"

Civil Rights leaders were not the only one’s to speak out against the social injustices and racism in America. Instead of using political routes for social change, artists such as Romare Bearden, writers such as Langston Hughes and musicians like Duke Ellignton used culture and art to help fight for equality and civil rights. The Harlem Renaissance, a period of social and cultural change in the Black community. A good example of this is the 1946 Billie Holiday recorded the song “Strange Fruit” in protest to the lynchings that were happening in the south. Here are some of the lyrics:
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
(words and music by Lewis Allen, 1946)

Gertrude Abercrombie used her paintings to do a fight for civil rights as well. It is believed that her painting originally named “Design for Death” then later renamed “Charlie Parker’s Favorite Painting” is in response to the song “Strange Fruit”. After learning the details and history behind this piece and the song, “strange fruit” it is easy to see how connected they are. On the surface both the song and the painting are about lynchings. This is obvious in the lyrics and in the painting of the tree with the noose. They also share the emotional affect they create in audiences. The power of Billie Holiday’s voice as she sings these lyrics soulfully and almost mournfully is gripping. Similarly the shadowing, brush strokes, and dark color choice is griping to the viewer of the painting as well.

The amount of this painting creates is astonishing. The overall tone of the piece is dismal. This is because of the darkness of the sky and of the one singular cloud. In person the darkness jumps off the canvas because many layers of darkness can be seen. The noose leaves the viewer wondering if someone has already died there, and if they are moving on to the next lynching. The noose is almost dead center of the painting and the lines of the ladder also guide the view to the noose. The glove on the ladder and on the ground makes me speculate that those doing the lynchings had little regard for people and their personal possessions, but mainly absolutely hates black people.

The most gripping part of this painting is the tree. Up close it seems as if the tree just pops off of the canvas. It is a rich deep brown. More than the color, the shape of the tree is essential to the mood of the painting. It is striking how the lynching and the barren tree are both symbols of death. In the winter most trees loose all of their foliage and many plants die. It looks as if this tree has died and its only purpose is to be used to hang blacks. It appears that a lynching has occurred because of the noose and the garments that have been left behind on the ground and in the ladder. Also it seems that there will be another lynching because the set up has remained in position. All of this makes me think that the purpose of this tree is lynching. So the noose and the tree represent death, but so do the surrounding and background of the painting. The land surrounding the tree is completely barren and desolate, lifeless and dead.

There is an eerie calm about this picture. At the museum I sparked a conversation with the security guard about this piece and a few others in the same area. We talked about Jazz music and about his life growing up as a black man in the South during the heat of racism. We also debated for like 5 minutes about the black blob on the in the background of the right side of the painting. He kept trying to convince me that the black blob was the only opening in the clouds. His thought the entire sky was covered with clouds to represent the death that had just taken place. I was more inclinded to believe that the black splotch is a cloud, not an opening. With this in mind, I almost feel an eerie sort of calm about the piece, because there is only one cloud in the sky, which would suggest that a storm is not brewing or that it won’t rain for a while, and because the moon is surprisingly clear. I also thought of it as like the eye of a hurricane, calm in a creepy way, right before the second wave comes through and completely devastates everyone. Of course the storm would be the lynchings or any other hate crimes committed.

So after going through so many, “well if u look at it this way, it could be…”type conversations it finally hit me. Abercrombie is mostly defined as a surrealist; meaning, the part of the purpose of this painting is to take reality, twist it and bend it in a way that leaves the audience guessing and that allows for interpretation by each individual. So although the security guard and I didn’t quite agree on every aspect of the painting, we agreed that it was great surrealist artwork. I suddenly came to the conclusion, that it’s not necessarily the actual colors or brush strokes that evoke emotions, but rather the story the artist inspires me to create in my head when viewing the artwork.

"Happy Little Trees"

Perusing the internet for artwork, I unexpectedly remembered the old Bob Ross TV show on PBS. It was a thirty minute show titled “The Joy of Painting”, consisting of the artist Bob Ross showing the viewers how easy painting is, usually with landscapes. I very much enjoyed this show but especially the paintings. In a matter of minutes Mr. Ross could create an almost pictorial view of a lake, mountain, forest or landscape with simple brush techniques. Perhaps the fact that I could watch the painting come alive on the canvas in front of me drew me that much more to his artwork.

I looked through many of his works, but they were all so good it was hard for me to choose a specific one. I finally decided on the piece titled “Mountain Cabin” that presents a tiny cabin on a stream bank with a striking mountain peak in the background. What drew me to this particular one was the fact that it was the most peaceful of settings. I can’t imagine a more appealing place to go and just get away from everything. I believe this is what he envisioned when he painted this piece. I think he was painting the perfect dwelling place where only living life mattered.

What amazes me about this painting as well as his others is how he can paint this image straight out of his mind. Besides the somewhat obviousness that it is a painting, it is still unbelievable how real the scene is. You can actually picture this place even though it is not a photograph. Being able to consciously paint a perfect scene of nature off of the top of one’s head is pretty impressive.

Another thing about this painting is that all the colors used are natural. I use natural because the colors are not too bright and they are not too dull. The colors and shading are bright though in terms of the mood of the painting. It is very tranquil, no dark or unpleasant parts about it. The smoothness and stillness of the stream water further depicts the calm of this place, and perhaps how he was feeling, consciously or unconsciously.

Many of the things I have described so far are what I believe were going through his unconscious mind during the formulation of this picture. Unconsciously, peace and tranquility, along with several landscapes were circling throughout his latent thoughts and memories. Nature seems to be a big part of his thoughts as well, and whether he is consciously thinking about nature or not, it has to always be in the depths of his mind. Vacation or a nice place to think or paint could also have been some of his unconscious thoughts during the painting of this picture, thus producing the idea of the cabin. Maybe this is his ideal place to live or to paint. To be honest, with his ability to whip up a landscape image in no time, there is no way that his unconscious thoughts don’t carry several full panoramas at all times.

According to the all-knowing wikipedia database, Ross spent twenty years in Alaska with the US Air Force. This may explain where his landscape and mountain peak interests developed from. Whatever it was, his ability to illustrate scenes of this nature with such simple painting techniques continues to intrigue me. It also mentioned how Ross introduced the wet-on-wet brush technique where he continued to apply the next layer before the previous one had dried. This in turn helped him to be able to paint his scenes so quickly.

Whether it was painted quickly or not, “Mountain Cabin” is a wonderful painting that pays tribute to Bob Ross and his kind personality. His peaceful unconscious and conscious thoughts and his love for nature are exposed through the scene in this painting. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch a rerun of his show on T.V. sometime soon.

Feeder 3.1

La Vie en Rose

Raoul Dufy is an incredible French artist with many amazing works of art in his portfolio. Picking just one of his pieces as my favorite was hard for me to say the least. With his works of art consisting of outside scenes, it is rather rare for Dufy to paint something inside; this painting with its whimsical pink color scheme has always been a favorite of mine.

His stenographic style incorporates using swift brush strokes atop of skeletal structures with a light wash of coloring. This distinctive approach is seen well in this painting, where the inside of a room is shown almost out of the corner of ones eye, with just the corner of a room shown. By taking this approach, Dufy shows a specific corner, and that corner is shown not in its entirety as if one had studied the corner and looked it up and down, it is shown as if one looked at a brief section of it, absorbing what one could in the brief time. The painted room is furnished quite simply, with a vase with a few roses atop a simple wooden table in the corner. However, the décor of the room is anything but simple. Both visible walls have a floral pattern on them, with one having only part of the floral pattern as a border to an interior checked pattern with a large portrait of flowers in a vase. The business of the décor is complemented by the simplicity of the furniture in the room, a table that is seen from an aerial view. This table is modestly decorated with a vase holding a few red and white roses with some greenery. Traditionally Dufys style, the roses are drawn in a black, skeletal outline and added to by layers of simple shapes and shades of reds for the red roses and white and creams for the white roses.

The dualism of the simplicity and the complete chaos that occurs in this painting reminds me of life in general. It also makes me think that perhaps since Dufy painted this certain picture over a thirty year span; (hence the two names, La Vie en Rose and Thirty years) that the changes that occurred in the world were depicted in the wall and the simple, steady things in the world were depicted in the table with the vase. The walls are a metaphor for all that is crazy, unstable and quite unexpected occurrences of life while the wooden table and the vase stand for the stable and more steadfast things that are always constant in ones time. Considering the history occurring during the thirty year span this painting took place, Dufy witnessed World War 1 ravage the city where he first studied art, Paris, France; saw his fellow countrymen fight a war for four years and saw the damages caused to people of surrounding nations. Perhaps this inspired Dufy to paint such an obscure painting; walls with busy patterns alongside a simple round table painted in many different shades of red and pink. The history fiend inside me feels that many paintings are relevant to the events which happen around their specific time periods, it is hard not to let the outside world in on ones creative mind.

What is amazing to me in dealing with this painting is that it took a span of thirty years to complete, beginning in 1901 and not finishing until 1931. During this time he still continued painting, producing some of his most famous paintings, Interior with an Open Window, The Races at Ascot and Fenetra ouverte a Saint-Jeannet. In 1901 Dufy had just started his formal art training in Paris and was a novice painter, if that. He had not yet established himself as a credited painter; yet when he eventually completed this work he has a well known and well respected artist. Yet there is no like of demarcation between his earlier work on the painting and when the piece was finally completed; there is a flow that is unbroken by what period it was worked on. The bright and rosy colored painting reflects a “come to happiness with ones life” painting that does show the chaos one experiences in life alongside the neutral and least complex areas.

JAZZY!!

In a quest for my favorite piece of artwork, I was struck with the question, “well what is art?” and “how can I choose a favorite?” I had absolutely no clue what my favorite painting was or where to even begin searching for it. I’ll be honest and admit that although I studied and enjoyed tons of art history in my high school history course, I barely remember any of the artists and painting that I learned. Since my forgetful nature has made finding my favorite piece harder than it should be, I came up with the idea of adding to this search a form of art that I adore. I love music. I am a Jazz musician at heart. I believe it is the most creative and most natively American art form there is. I am in the UNC Jazz Band and I love every moment I spend in rehearsal, practicing or simply listening to Jazz.

Like Jazz, Visual art is very personal. Each individual person decides what they think is beautiful and why. I think the hardest part about choosing my favorite work of art, was coming to the realization that I am always changing. My perception of beauty fluctuates as my mood, environment and other aspects of my life change. It is entirely possible that I once had a favorite piece of art, but it no longer appeals to me because I have changed so much; or I just simply forgot what my favorite piece of art was.

So how did I incorporate my love of music into this assignment? It’s simple I did a google search. I google random things when I am bored on the computer; countless times I have even googled my own name. So this time I googled “Jazz Art”. I decided that my new favorite piece of art is a painting entitled “Other dimensional improvisations..." a drawing by Robin Jensen. The artist describes this as depicting the oneness of two or more artists. This is perfectly Jazz Art. Jazz is an art form based at its core on individual improvisation, on the spot composition of melodies. However, in order to make music, the improvisers must also work together as a unit to produce melodies and harmonies that fit together like a musical puzzle. This drawing captures the essence of Jazz.

If the viewer looks at the painting closely ignoring the colored curvy lines all across the page and looking solely at the darker lines, several musicians can be uncovered. I can pick out a pianist and a saxophonist improvising on their given instrument. This is the individual aspect of improvisation in Jazz. I interpreted the colors across the canvas as the musical melody, harmony, and rhythm. If the colors are the aspects of music, then the squiggly lines represent the music as a whole. The music surrounds the players just as the squiggly lines surround the images of the players. It is the music that connects what each player is doing to the group as a whole. Not only are the players as individuals connected by they music, but they are also surrounded by the music.

I also interpreted the colors and squiggles as not only surrounding the players, but engulfing them also. The musicians are the darker squiggles, but each individual and their instrument may be hard to extrapolate because the other colors and squiggles are s covering. In a sense the musicians are getting lost in the music. They are so caught up in the moment and joy of the music that it is no longer a picture about a person or how well a person can play, but rather about the music, how it unites people, covers them, surrounds them, and makes them for a moment in time, loose themselves and become secondary to the music.

This work, “Other dimensional improvisation” incorporates both visual art and my favorite type of performing art, Jazz. I find this piece captivating, and beautiful.

Titian was the MAN

It is tough for me to try and nail down a favorite piece of art. I’ve always loved the emotional intensity of the impressionists and the colors of the Fauvists, but if I had to pick a favorite piece of art at the moment, it would have to be The Pastoral Concert by Titian. I love Titian’s loose brushwork, his compositional genius, and the beautiful way he renders his figures. He is by far my favorite Renaissance painter, and right now this piece is really doing it for me.

The subject of the painting seems a bit unusual really. There are four main figures, two of which are nude females, leisurely enjoying a cloudy afternoon on a hill overlooking a small house and forest. The two males are adorned in extravagant clothes, loosely fit and representative of the Italian upper class. One of the women is off to the side by herself, pouring what looks like water into a basin. The other woman is with the two men, holding a recorder-like instrument in her hand. All of the figures have rather stoic expression on their faces, like they’re participating in a serious, intellectually elevated kind of activity. It’s funny how the men are talking, and the women are off in their own worlds, the left one focused on pouring and the right one gazing at the horizon. Neither of them seems to notice that they are nude either. It’s a little odd from our 21st century perspective, but it speaks quite clearly to the status of women in the time of the Renaissance.

One of the things I love most about this painting, and Titian in general, is the way he arranges objects in space. In this painting in particular, the nudes are especially beautiful as they echo each other in their poses. If you look closely, each of the women is configured so that there is one straight, diagonal line, coupled with a curved line swooping around it. For example, the woman with the flute is sitting so that there is a straight line made from her head, through her flute, down her arm, and down her leg to her foot. Then, there is a curved line created by her back, the piece of cloth she’s sitting on, and her foot. This form is repeated in the other woman on the left and really brings a lot of compositional balance to the painting. Also, in a purely emotive sense, I think that it’s just wonderful.

Distance in this painting is not conveyed by one-point perspective like it is in a lot of the Renaissance paintings. Titian instead uses the strong diagonal of the hill the figures are sitting on and a blurring of the background instead. The line that creates the diagonal of the hill is by far the most defined line in the whole painting. There is also a strong contrast between the dark green of the front hill and the lighter, tan color of the field behind it. This contrast sends the tan field back in space, creating the illusion of depth. In order to further develop this impression, Titian blurred the details in the background, which makes the depth seem natural since we can’t physically see small details a long distance away.

To top everything off, Titian was revolutionary with his brushwork. He was one of the first painters to ever loosen his brush strokes, blurring the lines between values and shapes and figures. You can tell when you look at the edges of the figures, how Titian does not paint solid lines to define the shapes of the figures. This is very interesting, because it marks one of the first times that an artist models his figures without using sharply defined shapes and lines.

More than anything, Titian taught me how to appreciate Renaissance art, and if an artist can make a painting of four people sitting out on a hill chillin’ remain interesting and relevant more than 500 years later, than I approve.

Oh, How We Love Our Names

As you know from my previous post, “How to Change Behavior,” I conducted an experiment on my behavior during spring break. My experiment collected data about whether or not I said a person’s name during conversation. I choose this experiment because I grew up hearing the importance of saying a person’s name. My dad talked about Dale Carnegie, the famous human relations expert and his methods of dealing with people. I knew that one of Carnegie’s most important principles in his book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” was to say a person’s name. The experiment served its purpose in influencing my behavior and it also taught me the importance of the name.

“How to Win Friends and Influence People,” has sold over 16 million copies and was a New York Times best seller for ten straight years. The book is for people who want to change their behavior in dealing with people. The book gives proven strategies, tips, and techniques for effectively communicating with people, winning people to your way of thinking, and becoming a leader. The principles that Dale Carnegie taught are as simple as smiling, being a good listener, and making the other person feel important.

To truly understand the importance of saying a person’s name we must first understand the importance of the name. Carnegie wants us to “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Carnegie gives an example about a woman who made sandwiches at a General Motors Cafeteria. She had been making sandwiches for two hours when a certain employee approached her. His sandwich was just another sandwich she had to make. She weighed out the ham, gave him one piece of lettuce, and a few potato chips. The next time this certain employee was in the sandwich line he noticed the woman’s name tag and said “Hello Eunice.” On this sandwich she piled on the ham, gave him three pieces of lettuce, and all the potato chips that would fit.

This story shows the power of the name. Carnegie says that, “We should be aware of the magic contained in a name and realize that this single item is wholly and completely owned by the person with whom we are dealing… and nobody else. The name sets the individual apart; it makes him or her unique among others.” Even after being raised on the importance of the name it wasn’t until I had read this passage that I truly understood the magic of a name. With my experiment I wanted increase the percent of times I called people by their names and find out what factors caused this because it would help my professional and social relationships.

Over the six days that I conducted the experiment I greeted 75 people (counting greeting the same person multiple times), out of which I said a person’s name 41 times and failed to say a person’s name 34 times. I categorized the people I greeted as being family, friend, friend’s friend, worker, and friend’s parent. I greeted family members 24 times and said their name 12 times. Looking over the data the only family member that I called by name almost every time was my mom (4 out of 5). For my other family members saying each of their names was about equal.

I went home to Charlotte for spring break so I saw mostly friends and family. The conversations were comfortable for me because nearly all of the people that I greeted I had known for years. I have a hard time saying a person’s name I have not known for more than a year because I am sometimes uncomfortable. I only said the name of five of the17 people I had not known for more than a year.

Out of the 42 times I greeted my friends, I said their names 24 times. I said my friends’ names that I have known for more than a year 25 out of 28 times I greeted them. This is an impressive number to me, but it was easy to say my friends’ names because I was so happy to see them. These are the friends that I have known the longest and saying a person’s name solidifies lasting relationships.

The percent of the times that I call my friends by their names jumps out at me because it is so much higher than the percent of times that I call my family by their names. I think we take our family relationships for granted. I talk to my family nearly every day, but I have become lazy calling them by their name and working on our relationships. Now that I realize the magic of a name and my lack of use, I need to start calling my family members by their names. My family should enjoy the uniqueness that their name brings them as much as my friends do.

I also kept data about what type of mood I was in while I greeted each person. It is difficult to compare moods and their effects on my behavior because I did not use similar language. I did notice that when I was tired I struggled to say a person’s name, which I believe does not make it a natural habit. Each morning when I woke up I would stumble out of bed to eat a bowl of cereal and watch TV. During this time I did not say anyone’s name, whether it was my dad, brother, or friend. I communicated just enough to get whatever message I wanted across: milk, remote, pillow.

I also noticed I had an easier time saying a person’s name when I was happy and remembered the importance of a name. My stepsister, Cameron, had friends over one night. I was in a happy mood and ready to talk. In order to get Cameron or her friends’ attention I would say their names so that they knew I was talking to them. Calling Cameron or her friends’ names seemed most natural because I was in a happy mood.

I also wrote a short description of each conversation over spring break to find what factors, other than my relationship with the person and my mood, affected when I said a person’s name. I will use the conversations that I had with my friend, John, to illustrate three factors that affected when I said a person’s name. First, if the person was not looking at me or looking the other way I probably didn’t say his or her name. One time I went to the driving range and set down my bag of balls behind where John was hitting. He was turned the other way so I didn’t say his name even though I wanted him to know that I was there. It wasn’t until he said, “What up Culp?” that we had a conversation. Second, if the person was looking at me, smiling, and happy to see me then it was extremely easy to say their name. The first time I saw John during spring break he was smiling and I immediately said, “JOHN!” John made saying his name easy because I felt that he was glad to see me and that I was genuinely important to him. This is what Dale Carnegie talks about and it was working on me first hand. Third, I said a person’s name if I wanted someone to be happy to see me or like me. Another time I talked with John, I wanted him to play golf with me. So the first thing I did as I walked up to him smiling was to say, “Hey John,” and it worked. Without even thinking about it I used Dale Carnegie’s principles for influencing people.

I found a fourth factor from reading the short descriptions that did not come up in my conversations with John. From my conversations with my grandfather, my mom, a golf professional, and an older man I admire, I found that, if I wanted to show someone respect, I said their name. On the other hand I failed every time to say a person’s name who was working. Ben, my favorite waiter at a restaurant I like came up to see me, saying my name, and asking about school. I was genuinely glad to see him and answer his questions, but I failed to say his name. After discovering the fact that I show someone respect by saying his or her name, I realized that I was not showing equal respect to Ben if I did not say his name. This shows my ignorance of the power of the name.

Now that I have conducted the experiment I would have done some things differently. I would keep data about the amount of times that I said a person’s name during a conversation because I feel that it could have brought out even more information about when I say a person’s name. Dale Carnegie thinks that saying a person’s name multiple times is more effective than saying it once. I did not see improvement over the six days in saying a person’s name during a conversation, but I have improved my focus on saying a person’s name. I believe that I did not see an improvement because my rewards and punishments were too inconsequential to cause an effective change and the time period was too short. The experiment, however, taught me two important facts. The first is that people like to hear their names, and the second is that people like to be liked. In addition to this I have started additional research into human relationships by beginning to read Dale Carnegie’s book.

Or Don't Watch Your Language

So my experiment was to try and restrain myself and swear less. Spring Break was perhaps a bad time to try and force myself to do anything. Regardless, I tracked my language over the whole week of break but I will be using the data spanning the eight days of Saturday through the next Sunday. The experiment focused on four different ways that would cause me to cure including anger, pain, sports, and habitually (for no obvious reason).

Luckily during the break I did not induce any injury or pain, but I did get sunburned to a crisp on my back and shoulders while down in Charleston for a couple days. The sunburn started bothering me the day after, but it varied from pain to itchiness and aggravation for a few days thereafter. This overexposure caused me to partake in spontaneous swearing outbursts due to the sudden pain or itchiness, or someone accidentally touching the burn.

Besides the few days down in Charleston, I basically just stayed at my house over break because not many people were home because only a couple of other schools were on break the same week. I therefore did not really interact with anyone but my family, and not that other people would have made me angry, but I just did not really have any reasons to get mad when I was just sitting at home all day. Hence there were only a few things that angered me enough to swear. The first being when I was driving back up to Chapel Hill to watch my High School team play in the state Championship basketball game and I almost missed an exit and had to swerve across traffic. The only other thing was when two days in a row my sister decided to accidentally pick up the keys to my car and leave me stranded at home. The second time I was much angrier because I was supposed to pick up my other younger sister from middle school that day.

It seems car or driving related causes were my main sources of anger. On my way back from Charleston I got lost in downtown for around and hour because for some reason they do not believe in signs. Once finally getting out, two of the three interstate lanes were closed so I plodded along slowly before traffic finally let up. Throughout this hour and a half episode quite a load of swearing went down.

Now I feel that sports-related cursing goes hand-in-hand with the anger and pain laden kinds because emotion seems to be the basis of these types. More specifically, over break marked the beginning of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. I, along with the millions of other basketball fans, filled out several tournament brackets and was in a few tournament pools. Anytime one of my picks would lose, especially on a buzzer-beater or last second basket then some swearing was inevitable due to a combination of anger and just no other way to express the loss. Not only did some of my picks lose though, I have to say this was a down year in terms of my luck, and picking-the-winner ability. Also, UNC lost in the second round to a team seeded much lower to them in George Mason. Actually watching a game, especially one with your team in it, elicits a lot of cuss words from your mouth because you care more about your own team than your bracket picks. Which is why I did not restrain myself at the High School State Championship game either, where my Alma Mader lost by four.

Besides the large percentage of my overall swearing caused by the pinnacle of college basketball in March Madness, there was still one other time. Since there were not many people home I spent some time at the Sports Center Athletic Club where I just shot basketball. After not playing for a while, it was quite annoying when I would continue to miss more and more consecutive shots. My restrain was poor here as well, but when I started to make some shots then this was not too much of an issue. It is a good thing there was no one there to play a pick-up game though because if I did not play well, swearing would be how I would have expressed my frustrations on the court.

Now, the last type of cursing that I categorized my data is more or less what caused me to want to attempt this experiment. This kind is the habitual kind that usually takes place when interacting with buddies and friends. And it may just be a guy thing. Whatever it was, after not being with any friends for a good portion of the week, the trip to Charleston with four other guys brought out the best of my vocabulary. Maybe being with your friends and cussing are just like one in the same. It was almost impossible for me not too; it was so natural and easy. Jokes, picking on each other, just the usual friendship slang, there was no restraint or regret whatsoever. When with friends it’s like the only way to describe or explain something is by inserting a random swear word for better effect.

As I said in the beginning, perhaps Spring Break was a bad time to try and force myself to change some behavior when this is the only time I don’t have to worry about doing any sort of work. What I found though is that sports related cussing is something that is really hard to stop. Whether watching or actually playing, emotion takes precedent in this type of situation. Anger and pain induced cursing are very similar to sports related, and whether controlling your temper or not, swearing makes one feel so much better. Swearing enables one to vent their frustrations and release stress. Trying to restrain from cursing would only hold in the anger or frustration and would eventually just get let loose and directed at something or someone else. I found out that the main type of cursing for me though is the habit, friend related kind. This kind was not emotionally stimulated therefore this is the type that should have been corrected. But the NCAA tournament seriously destroyed any “rhythm” I had going because it kept me swearing and therefore the habit did not subside at all.

So as I am sure you have guessed, my experiment turned out ultimately unsuccessful. My punishment-for-swearing calf raises were fulfilled every other day, always accounting for the day skipped. My reward for restraining was supposed to be scoops of ice cream. This would have been an excellent reward except for two reasons: one, I hardly restrained myself, and considering the lack of motivation I seemed to have in trying, I felt I deserved no ice cream even with a restraint. Number two, I had no ice cream. But overall my behavior changed probably for the worst. Due to the NCAA tournament I think my swearing became worse over the week.

What is funny is that originally, in my preceding post I hypothesized that I would have no trouble in curbing my swearing ways and improving my behavior. I also had predicted that if I did swear it would make me think about it, consequently making me more conscious about it and therefore, holding back. Well it did get me thinking about it every time I did but I had to urge to change my ways.

I was obviously completely wrong in my predictions and about my own “sleeping motivation”. Although, I really should have thought ahead and remembered that the Tournament started over the break. That tournament is the sole reason that I was no doubt a complete failure. I think because I felt no regret or wrong by swearing after a loss, and since it happened so often, (go ahead and laugh), that I just became accustomed to basically not even worrying about what I was trying to do. The tournament was like a catalyst just to get me going, and it never ceased.

Despite the results of my failure, I am glad that I thought about changing my behavior. Whether my swearing habit has changed or not I have become a little more aware of it and think about it more before I do, even if it’s just around friends. I still think my motivation is a sleeper and will awaken once again, but Spring Break was probably just a bad time to test it. Yet, I will continue to try and revamp my drive and commitment.