Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.
Charles deGaulle
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Hello Linda
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"Watchman, tell us of the night."
The night is hard to see.
---------------------------------"
The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see."
Those who are given the opportunity and freedom to follow a line of study as far as it can take them are blessed with the possibility of discovering areas of unrevealed knowledge and understanding, places no one has ever encountered before, where no one has ever been. Mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, those practicing on the esoteric edges of science, anthropologists, architects, composers of music and, yes, also poets, when engaged to their utmost, may reach the end of the traveled path, step into an unknown territory of discovery, put down a marker for the future and try to describe what they find.
I don't know much about science, but I know something about art. Every time I see "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse I am taken gently by the hand and led into a world of painting I know next to nothing about. That is even more true of Van Gogh's "Starry Night."
I have heard Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue" for string quartet many times and it is still a mystery. What was it that Beethoven saw in his deafness and what was he trying to tell us about it? In what far off land was Schoenberg when he composed "Verklarte Nacht"?
On what obscure mountain top was Shakespeare when he wrote "The mightiest space in fortune nature brings to join like likes and kiss like native things."? And what was he saying when he wrote to lead us there "Impossible be strange attempts to those who weight their pains in sense and do suppose what hath been cannot be." ?
Do not make the mistake of thinking that life hasn't equipped you with the right and obligation to venture into your own sacred areas of discovery. There is no way of knowing how far the path leads or how important it will be to others of what you find there. But it's your adventure to have and it's your discovery to make, and if you don't make it who will?
The air is thin and hard to breathe, the way is treacherous and the terrain frustratingly difficult to describe but though we may be standing on the shoulders of the great ones who went before us the experience of our own genius can only be won by moving off of the shoulders and placing a foot carefully but steadily down onto a step we cannot see.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
Showing posts with label Schoenberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schoenberg. Show all posts
Monday, July 30, 2012
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Quality Questions 9/04/09
A work of art is a creature which beckons, points and leads the way. But if we see it as merely a thing in itself we are still lost.
DB - The Vagabond
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Climb aboard.
____________________________
A CEO of a major American oil company was quoted as saying that he had never given a dollar to any cultural cause in his life, that he never would and he was proud of it. That man is truly lost.
Probably nothing and no group of people suffer from as much criticism, prejudice, misunderstanding, misinterpretation and maligning as art and artists do. I know I have written about the inane habit many people have of not being able to separate the actor from the role he plays. The man who plays the clarinet does not go around all day with a clarinet in his hands. Why should a man who plays a villain go around all day with villainy in his heart? It makes no sense.
Books have been burned or banned from library shelves, paintings have been taken off the walls, statues have been destroyed or covered up, not because of what they are but because of what an ignorant person or group of people think they are.
A work of art can be pleasing and enjoyable on a very simple level, but, yes, sometimes it can be dangerous. But the danger is primarily in its prophetic abilities.
When Pierre Beaumarchais wrote his trilogy of plays about Figaro in the 1770s the hero was a barber, a common man. The aristocrats came and laughed. They were so amused at the idea of a commoner being able to control a nobleman and his family, something they knew would never happen. But within a short time there were revolutions, and near revolutions, in which the common people took over the reins from the oppressive, conservative, aristocratic governments all over Europe and America. Did Beaumarchais' plays cause those revolutions? No. They pointed to them.
Plato says somewhere that when the modes of society change the modes of music always change first. When Arnold Schoenberg developed the twelve tone theory of music compostion in the 1920s in which equal importance was given to each tone of the scale it erased the traditional method of keys with their inner harmonic relationships. There were plenty of polemics about Schoenberg's music but was he preaching Socialism or predicting it?
In the 1940s New York City became the center of the art world with the rise of AbstractExpressionsism and artists such Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline and Hans Hoffman. And what was it telling us? The world had just been torn to shreds by the second world war, culminating in the massive destruction of two civilizations by atomic bombs. Life would never be the same. Painting became nonpolitical and nonobjective. A work of art no longer had to be about something. It became the reality of the artists' emotional and subconscious lives. It was a completely personal revolution, a modern version of the rise of the common man, his thoughts, feelings and experiences. It was now a true communication, as it had always been, but without the limitations of tradition, a communication from the artist to the viewer, one on one.
That revolution made it's way into poetry, theatre, music and dance. And I think that's where the finger was pointing. Freedom. Freedom of expression. Freedom of speech. Freedom from boundaries and limitations. You don't have to paint abstract art or compose twelve tone music. But you can if you want to. It's personal. Your choice. The revolution is still going on (but don't tell the aristocrats or that CEO).
Now there is electronics: computer graphics, electronic music or electronically altered traditional music (rock bands) and massive and complicated special effects in films. What is that pointing to?
The best way to view a work of art is to ask what it is saying to you. Don't make assumptions. Take time and let its message speak. Congratulate yourself. The artist is talking to you. YOU.
DB - The Vagabond
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I enjoy your hugs.
________________________
SUMMER QUIZ
This is not a contest.
A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.
Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?
You have all summer to answer if you wish.
20 responses so far.
DB
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
Climb aboard.
____________________________
A CEO of a major American oil company was quoted as saying that he had never given a dollar to any cultural cause in his life, that he never would and he was proud of it. That man is truly lost.
Probably nothing and no group of people suffer from as much criticism, prejudice, misunderstanding, misinterpretation and maligning as art and artists do. I know I have written about the inane habit many people have of not being able to separate the actor from the role he plays. The man who plays the clarinet does not go around all day with a clarinet in his hands. Why should a man who plays a villain go around all day with villainy in his heart? It makes no sense.
Books have been burned or banned from library shelves, paintings have been taken off the walls, statues have been destroyed or covered up, not because of what they are but because of what an ignorant person or group of people think they are.
A work of art can be pleasing and enjoyable on a very simple level, but, yes, sometimes it can be dangerous. But the danger is primarily in its prophetic abilities.
When Pierre Beaumarchais wrote his trilogy of plays about Figaro in the 1770s the hero was a barber, a common man. The aristocrats came and laughed. They were so amused at the idea of a commoner being able to control a nobleman and his family, something they knew would never happen. But within a short time there were revolutions, and near revolutions, in which the common people took over the reins from the oppressive, conservative, aristocratic governments all over Europe and America. Did Beaumarchais' plays cause those revolutions? No. They pointed to them.
Plato says somewhere that when the modes of society change the modes of music always change first. When Arnold Schoenberg developed the twelve tone theory of music compostion in the 1920s in which equal importance was given to each tone of the scale it erased the traditional method of keys with their inner harmonic relationships. There were plenty of polemics about Schoenberg's music but was he preaching Socialism or predicting it?
In the 1940s New York City became the center of the art world with the rise of AbstractExpressionsism and artists such Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline and Hans Hoffman. And what was it telling us? The world had just been torn to shreds by the second world war, culminating in the massive destruction of two civilizations by atomic bombs. Life would never be the same. Painting became nonpolitical and nonobjective. A work of art no longer had to be about something. It became the reality of the artists' emotional and subconscious lives. It was a completely personal revolution, a modern version of the rise of the common man, his thoughts, feelings and experiences. It was now a true communication, as it had always been, but without the limitations of tradition, a communication from the artist to the viewer, one on one.
That revolution made it's way into poetry, theatre, music and dance. And I think that's where the finger was pointing. Freedom. Freedom of expression. Freedom of speech. Freedom from boundaries and limitations. You don't have to paint abstract art or compose twelve tone music. But you can if you want to. It's personal. Your choice. The revolution is still going on (but don't tell the aristocrats or that CEO).
Now there is electronics: computer graphics, electronic music or electronically altered traditional music (rock bands) and massive and complicated special effects in films. What is that pointing to?
The best way to view a work of art is to ask what it is saying to you. Don't make assumptions. Take time and let its message speak. Congratulate yourself. The artist is talking to you. YOU.
DB - The Vagabond
******************
I enjoy your hugs.
________________________
SUMMER QUIZ
This is not a contest.
A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.
Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?
You have all summer to answer if you wish.
20 responses so far.
DB
Monday, March 16, 2009
Garnered Genius 3/16/09
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
Paul Gaugin
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Here again are you? Good.
----------------------------------------
I was a member of the Art Students League of New York City. When I first started life drawing, I was terrible at it. Some of my drawings were embarrassingly bad. There was a woman in the class whose drawings were excellent. Not only did she have a near flawless rendering of the figure but she also managed to capture a sense of life in each piece she did. I would get to the class early, wait until she chose a seat and then sit next to her. I copied. I plagiarized. Out of the corner of my eye I watched to see how she started a drawing and how she continued it, to try to learn from her how to approach the whole problem of drawing the human figure. Thanks to her and my persistence at learning how, I eventually got very good at it, in my own style and manner. Then I noticed that some of the younger students were always sitting next to me and watching me. Okay. It was pay back time.
Artists have always used other artists ideas, all through the centuries. If you listen to 17th Century music you will hear a lot of composers trying to sound like Bach. In the 18th Century there were Mozart copiers. And so on. Today, how many rock bands play in the style of some other band?
But every now and then someone breaks through the tradition. Arnold Schoenberg was well trained in the tradition of Late Romantic German music but one day he decided that all twelve tones were of equal importance. He set aside the tradition of harmonic and intervalic progression and made what became known as twelve tone music, The dancer Isadore Duncan came out on stage, threw herself on the floor and gradually rose up. Something happened then that finally got called Modern Dance. Pablo Picasso drew a portrait one day that showed the face looking front and sideways at the same time. Jackson Pollock took his brush and dripped paint on his canvas. Andy Warhol painted a picture of a soup can. Samuel Beckett wrote a plotless play and some poet, I don't know who, let go of strict meter and let the words dance around themselves.
Each time those things happened there was a massive, silent crack in the sky which almost no one noticed. The world would never be the same. Revolutions had taken place. Right at this moment, somewhere in the world, it is about to happen again.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
--------------------------
Get your taxes done. Then celebrate.
Paul Gaugin
******************************
Here again are you? Good.
----------------------------------------
I was a member of the Art Students League of New York City. When I first started life drawing, I was terrible at it. Some of my drawings were embarrassingly bad. There was a woman in the class whose drawings were excellent. Not only did she have a near flawless rendering of the figure but she also managed to capture a sense of life in each piece she did. I would get to the class early, wait until she chose a seat and then sit next to her. I copied. I plagiarized. Out of the corner of my eye I watched to see how she started a drawing and how she continued it, to try to learn from her how to approach the whole problem of drawing the human figure. Thanks to her and my persistence at learning how, I eventually got very good at it, in my own style and manner. Then I noticed that some of the younger students were always sitting next to me and watching me. Okay. It was pay back time.
Artists have always used other artists ideas, all through the centuries. If you listen to 17th Century music you will hear a lot of composers trying to sound like Bach. In the 18th Century there were Mozart copiers. And so on. Today, how many rock bands play in the style of some other band?
But every now and then someone breaks through the tradition. Arnold Schoenberg was well trained in the tradition of Late Romantic German music but one day he decided that all twelve tones were of equal importance. He set aside the tradition of harmonic and intervalic progression and made what became known as twelve tone music, The dancer Isadore Duncan came out on stage, threw herself on the floor and gradually rose up. Something happened then that finally got called Modern Dance. Pablo Picasso drew a portrait one day that showed the face looking front and sideways at the same time. Jackson Pollock took his brush and dripped paint on his canvas. Andy Warhol painted a picture of a soup can. Samuel Beckett wrote a plotless play and some poet, I don't know who, let go of strict meter and let the words dance around themselves.
Each time those things happened there was a massive, silent crack in the sky which almost no one noticed. The world would never be the same. Revolutions had taken place. Right at this moment, somewhere in the world, it is about to happen again.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
--------------------------
Get your taxes done. Then celebrate.
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