If I'm not mistaken, that piece of art was one of Degas's paintings. I remember wincing while I read that. While I will be the first to say that Degas was a bit of a womanizer. I would be hard pressed to say that all his work should be ignored.
Looking back now - how anyone allowed these people to tell us anything about the arts is beyond me.
I remember a piece written in The Way Magazine about his painting. It said the painting had homosexual influences because the violinist's wrist was limp. My daughter, her boyfriend, and my son's girlfriend are all straight, classically trained violinists. All of them hold their bowing wrist limp for dexterity; that's how its supposed to be held.
I'm amazed at the things TWI taught. Here's the painting.
EEk. My eyes are so dark you can't distinguish the pupil unless you shine a light in them. So were my father's, so are one of my kids. And here I always thought it was the non white blood( Indian/ Mexican) ancestry showing!
This isn't my area of expertise, but isn't this style of painting called Impressionist?
It's not about detail, right? But about a study of light..... It's not supposed to be viewed right up close, either.
Morons.
Good grief...
I love Degas, Van Gogh, and my favorite - Monet. (Monet's Rowen Cathedral at Dawn is my favorite painting!)
I've loved teaching my kids about art via the Baby Eienstein series of videos and books - they love it.
Yep, introduce them to those debbil spirits young, I say!
EEk. My eyes are so dark you can't distinguish the pupil unless you shine a light in them. So were my father's, so are one of my kids. And here I always thought it was the non white blood( Indian/ Mexican) ancestry showing!
I learn something new everyday.
I bet your eyes are georgous!
(This is coming from a very anglo looking gal with olive green eyes, who always wished she had dark sexy eyes! )
The composition is a variation of the classic triange base - where the dancers and the violinist form a semi-circle. Actually the flow of the painting brings the eye from the violinist to the dancers and back again - round and round.
So much spin, so little time....Sigh...
I could say that their legs all point away from him thus taking the emphasis away from his supposed "gayness." (That would be artistic psychobabble though. )
Seriously:
There is a repetition and tension between the three dancers and the three windows. The windows provide stability to the composition like "columns of light." ( Spiritualize that!)
I believe I heard someone complain that they were all backlit - thus their faces were in the shadows. Geez!
Also, there was some mention made about that leg coming from the right edge of the painting. Seems that was offensive because it was a body part with no face. In reality, Degas had become emamoured with photography and the way that photos could crop a scene differently than a painting.
If I wanted to I could write a commentary spinning this into the most edifying painting ever done. Deconstruction of the visual arts has been going on for years. (read a book titled The Painted Word, by Tom Wolfe.)
So we listened to a woman who's expertise was in writing and allowed her to speak critically about the visual arts.
Thanks Chas! I can do BS too if it's needed. I just prefer to give the facts and let the viewer make up their own minds as to whether or not the painting is edifying....(UGH! did I really just say that??)
Thanks Chas! I can do BS too if it's needed. I just prefer to give the facts and let the viewer make up their own minds as to whether or not the painting is edifying....(UGH! did I really just say that??)
This isn't aimed at you, Dooj.( you just triggered a thought)
But, where did they ever get the idea that something had to be "edifying" to have value?
Remember the movie in Drivers Ed. that shows a horrific crash scene?(movies are a form of art)
It's not meant to edify you. It's meant to shock your common sense out of a state of mental slumber.
Yet, if a new driver gives earnest consideration to the message, benefits are more likely to follow.
Art is like that sometimes.
It's not always meant to edify us; sometimes its supposed to sound alarms and send up warning flares.
It's supposed to affect us a base level that runs the gamut from good to bad.
For me, that's what music is about.
Sometime one musician can speak volumes with one single soulful note while another more technically polished musician can play flurry after flurry of intricate phrases and "say" virtually nothing.
I wish I could quote Shakespear. There is a line somewhere about an actor boxing with the air in an effort to convey the essense of a line to no avail because the essense was lost and consumed in concern over technique rather than meaning.
OK! Dinner's done and I got my wine glass full.... time to post.
For years I've jumped up and down and screamed about the pure unmitigated KRAP that gets sold in Christian bookstores as "Art."
Just HOW MANY pictures do we really need of the following/:
Jesus (isn't that close to a graven image anyway?)
Praying hands
Praying children
Praying angels
Praying cherubs (Which is the same as praying child angels)
Angels
oh and my favorite - NOT!:
Small "quaint" cottages with lights on in the windows - all made "Christian" because of a scripture added to the bottom.....
UGH! UGH! UGH!
It is my opinion that Christian artists have yet to explore their real power. There is the phrase,"A picture paints a thousand words." I tend to agree with that. Also, although VP said this I still find it to be true:
The Arts inspire emotion - ethics determines if that emotion should be inspired.
What about "Righteous anger?" That has yet to be explored because artists are too busy painting the easy stuff and preaching to the choir.
Give me some time to look up an article and I'll show you just what a painting can do....
Sometime one musician can speak volumes with one single soulful note while another more technically polished musician can play flurry after flurry of intricate phrases and "say" virtually nothing.
I wish I could quote Shakespear. There is a line somewhere about an actor boxing with the air in an effort to convey the essense of a line to no avail because the essense was lost and consumed in concern over technique rather than meaning.
This is one of my biggest problems with some writing - the authors get so caught up in using big expensive words that it takes forever to figure out what exactly they are trying to say - gets a little bit annoying.
R&E book was like that for me...
And eloquent phrases that mean nothing are the absolute worst... It's such an easy way of looking smart without saying anything (i.e. "God bless you abundantly in the powerful prevailing name of our living Lod and Savior Jesus Christ, I greet you with a holy kiss... blah blah blah... only really worked for epistles, not every damn document... especially greeting cards when a simple "happy birthday, we love you" would probably really make someone very happy.
What about "Righteous anger?" That has yet to be explored because artists are too busy painting the easy stuff and preaching to the choir.
Give me some time to look up an article and I'll show you just what a painting can do....
Breathe ....breathe.... breathe......
May you live to be a thousand years old, DOOJABLE!!
I also hate trite art. We used to call it back in college - artsy and vague... boring peices of art with no meaning behind them!
As for the righteous anger bit, that's the subject of one project I am in the midst of... it's become cathartic for me as I work to express this anger in the situations my characters find themselves in.
So, maybe, one day, you might get a glimpse of that righteous anger in a written form... I just need to finish the darn thing!
Chas - That's fine....Do we need the other ten thousand? ( That's leaving out the paintings by the Masters - I'm only referring to the schlock in the bookstores...)
If I live to be a thousand will someon please help me water my plants?
He is extremely talented and creative. He can draw like nobody's business, is good with his hands, very talented musically and has a powerful way with words. He was working on a book and had written quite a bit on it. It was awesome! I felt like I had stepped into a Stuart Woods novel or something. Really good stuff! Anyway, all of a sudden he gets this burr in his saddle about it not being "on the Word" or needing to have a "message" and quits writing because he's no longer inspired.
Somehow we lost the files of the book and I wish we'd have been able to find them. Maybe it would have been a healthy outlet for him. Anyway, he starts writing again, but this time, there's some "biblical" theme he wants to weave through the story - it's forced, it's obligatory in way to justify his wanting to write, I think. The story sucks - it doesn't make sense and there's no "life" in it.
I dunno if he does any thing in the art world anymore - I highly doubt it since he was at headquarters making peanuts last I heard. Such a sad, sad waste of talent and heart.
Similar thing with my ex - I had pretty much forgotten about it.
I remember he was excellent at drawing - but we'd been married for years before I ever got to see any of his work becuase he just put it last on things to do. I remember he produced some wonderful drawings and was good at capturing faces - something I've always struggled with - and I wanted him to work on drawing more. He had a gift!
But he's still in.... I bet he hasn't drawn in YEARS....
This work depicts Ruby Bridges, who was one of the first African American children involved in the initiation of school desegregation in the deep South during the early and middle 1960s. Ruby attended the Frantz School in New Orleans. Federal marshals were assigned to protect the six-year-old from the mob that assembled outside the school on a daily basis. For months she was the only student because of a total boycott of the school.
Here what I read in a book I have:
When initially interviewed, the one of therioters were spoke of why he was irate over the decision to ban segregation. He was\y angry because he felt that the decision was made by a "bunch of boys on the Hill" who would never have to live with their decision because their kids went to private schools.
Then the issue with this cover came out....
That same man we again interviewed and he said that he had softened his opinon. That the magazine cover had brought home to him that this was just a little girl.
Here a painting had the power to wake a man out of his anger. To help him see what a thousand words would never have shown him. That is why I teach drawing. That is why I paint. That is my mission.....
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chockfull
We still get Hoho cards - like I want to see their fugly mugs. Somehow mine got thrown out before I could realize the true Photoshop value encased therein. But that there is a good idea!!!!! Maybe
JavaJane
Just an update... I now own and run my own business which involves a lot of culinary creativity... AND I joined the choir at my church. Sang in the Advent Concert. And just finished singing in my
WordWolf
Whiteside's book (which I still have SOMEWHERE) was more about visual art than
about written compositions of any format, page for page.
Whiteside's book was also about how to evaluate art to make sure it lined up with twi theology.
That's why it included an example: a piece of art, and a critique of why it was considered
spiritually "off"-
the rigidity of the lines (the dancers' legs, and how they boxed in the violinist)
and the darkened eyes (the violinist's eyes were done in black)-
and how that makes a difference spiritually.
I believe I bought that in 1988.
======
That book, BTW,
was the apex of twi's foray into determining good and evil in art,
from an intellectual perspective. It all goes downhill from there.
For example, at ROA '89, after 4/5 of all twi members walked,
there was a twi seminar on "the Word and writing".
Was it an exposition on this very subject?
No-it was entirely about "how to submit articles for the way magazine."
Some people may consider it a complete coincidence that nearly the entire
research staff of twi had just left, and twi was now pushing for all literate
members to send in articles for printing. Some people may also consider
it a complete coincidence that the "gmir" articles (the actual study items)
had ended, and articles now had LOTS of BIG graphics and many pictures,
almost as if they needed to stretch out the articles to fill an issue.
Some of us would NOT consider those complete coincidences.
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doojable
If I'm not mistaken, that piece of art was one of Degas's paintings. I remember wincing while I read that. While I will be the first to say that Degas was a bit of a womanizer. I would be hard pressed to say that all his work should be ignored.
Looking back now - how anyone allowed these people to tell us anything about the arts is beyond me.
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JavaJane
That's scary, since I have relatives who's eyes are so dark they appear black... you can't even distinguish the pupils from the iris.
Could they be devil spirit possessed? Or just a different color?
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VeganXTC
I remember a piece written in The Way Magazine about his painting. It said the painting had homosexual influences because the violinist's wrist was limp. My daughter, her boyfriend, and my son's girlfriend are all straight, classically trained violinists. All of them hold their bowing wrist limp for dexterity; that's how its supposed to be held.
I'm amazed at the things TWI taught. Here's the painting.
Degas.bmp
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Bramble
EEk. My eyes are so dark you can't distinguish the pupil unless you shine a light in them. So were my father's, so are one of my kids. And here I always thought it was the non white blood( Indian/ Mexican) ancestry showing!
I learn something new everyday.
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JavaJane
Mexicans ROCK!!
:P
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ChasUFarley
This isn't my area of expertise, but isn't this style of painting called Impressionist?
It's not about detail, right? But about a study of light..... It's not supposed to be viewed right up close, either.
Morons.
Good grief...
I love Degas, Van Gogh, and my favorite - Monet. (Monet's Rowen Cathedral at Dawn is my favorite painting!)
I've loved teaching my kids about art via the Baby Eienstein series of videos and books - they love it.
Yep, introduce them to those debbil spirits young, I say!
I bet your eyes are georgous!
(This is coming from a very anglo looking gal with olive green eyes, who always wished she had dark sexy eyes!
)
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doojable
The composition is a variation of the classic triange base - where the dancers and the violinist form a semi-circle. Actually the flow of the painting brings the eye from the violinist to the dancers and back again - round and round.
So much spin, so little time....Sigh...
I could say that their legs all point away from him thus taking the emphasis away from his supposed "gayness." (That would be artistic psychobabble though.
)
Seriously:
There is a repetition and tension between the three dancers and the three windows. The windows provide stability to the composition like "columns of light." ( Spiritualize that!)
I believe I heard someone complain that they were all backlit - thus their faces were in the shadows. Geez!
Also, there was some mention made about that leg coming from the right edge of the painting. Seems that was offensive because it was a body part with no face. In reality, Degas had become emamoured with photography and the way that photos could crop a scene differently than a painting.
If I wanted to I could write a commentary spinning this into the most edifying painting ever done. Deconstruction of the visual arts has been going on for years. (read a book titled The Painted Word, by Tom Wolfe.)
So we listened to a woman who's expertise was in writing and allowed her to speak critically about the visual arts.
STUPID! STUPID! STUPID
:asdf: 
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ChasUFarley
Dooj - I'm not saying this to kiss your tushy but....
Dang, girl! You really know your stuff.... I learned more about that painting from you just now than I do from that nun on PBS!
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doojable
Thanks Chas! I can do BS too if it's needed.
I just prefer to give the facts and let the viewer make up their own minds as to whether or not the painting is edifying....(UGH! did I really just say that??)
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waysider
This isn't aimed at you, Dooj.( you just triggered a thought)
But, where did they ever get the idea that something had to be "edifying" to have value?
Remember the movie in Drivers Ed. that shows a horrific crash scene?(movies are a form of art)
It's not meant to edify you. It's meant to shock your common sense out of a state of mental slumber.
Yet, if a new driver gives earnest consideration to the message, benefits are more likely to follow.
Art is like that sometimes.
It's not always meant to edify us; sometimes its supposed to sound alarms and send up warning flares.
It's supposed to affect us a base level that runs the gamut from good to bad.
For me, that's what music is about.
Sometime one musician can speak volumes with one single soulful note while another more technically polished musician can play flurry after flurry of intricate phrases and "say" virtually nothing.
I wish I could quote Shakespear. There is a line somewhere about an actor boxing with the air in an effort to convey the essense of a line to no avail because the essense was lost and consumed in concern over technique rather than meaning.
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doojable
UH-oh! Now I'm gonna' have to assemble my thoughts on my pet peeves......
You ready for this....??
Gotta' go cook dinner - then I'll come back and post. BTW - Waysider, I agree with your post - but now that floodgate is open.....
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doojable
OK! Dinner's done and I got my wine glass full.... time to post.
For years I've jumped up and down and screamed about the pure unmitigated KRAP that gets sold in Christian bookstores as "Art."
Just HOW MANY pictures do we really need of the following/:
Jesus (isn't that close to a graven image anyway?)
Praying hands
Praying children
Praying angels
Praying cherubs (Which is the same as praying child angels)
Angels
oh and my favorite - NOT!:
Small "quaint" cottages with lights on in the windows - all made "Christian" because of a scripture added to the bottom.....
UGH! UGH! UGH!
It is my opinion that Christian artists have yet to explore their real power. There is the phrase,"A picture paints a thousand words." I tend to agree with that. Also, although VP said this I still find it to be true:
The Arts inspire emotion - ethics determines if that emotion should be inspired.
What about "Righteous anger?" That has yet to be explored because artists are too busy painting the easy stuff and preaching to the choir.
Give me some time to look up an article and I'll show you just what a painting can do....
Breathe ....breathe.... breathe......
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JavaJane
This is one of my biggest problems with some writing - the authors get so caught up in using big expensive words that it takes forever to figure out what exactly they are trying to say - gets a little bit annoying.
R&E book was like that for me...
And eloquent phrases that mean nothing are the absolute worst... It's such an easy way of looking smart without saying anything (i.e. "God bless you abundantly in the powerful prevailing name of our living Lod and Savior Jesus Christ, I greet you with a holy kiss... blah blah blah... only really worked for epistles, not every damn document... especially greeting cards when a simple "happy birthday, we love you" would probably really make someone very happy.
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ChasUFarley
Not to disagree with you, but there's one picture of Jesus that's out of the norm - and I love it!
(To be honest, it's the ONLY picture of Jesus I'd ever have in my house...) I think it's called "The Laughing Christ" or something like that...
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JavaJane
May you live to be a thousand years old, DOOJABLE!!
I also hate trite art. We used to call it back in college - artsy and vague... boring peices of art with no meaning behind them!
As for the righteous anger bit, that's the subject of one project I am in the midst of... it's become cathartic for me as I work to express this anger in the situations my characters find themselves in.
So, maybe, one day, you might get a glimpse of that righteous anger in a written form... I just need to finish the darn thing!
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doojable
Chas - That's fine....Do we need the other ten thousand? ( That's leaving out the paintings by the Masters - I'm only referring to the schlock in the bookstores...)
If I live to be a thousand will someon please help me water my plants?
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ChasUFarley
Guess I don't spend enough time in the Christian bookstores so that I could relate....
(I do cringe when I see those Liliput houses - does that count?)
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doojable
Bless you , my child...;)
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Belle
JJ, one of your posts reminded me of my ex.
He is extremely talented and creative. He can draw like nobody's business, is good with his hands, very talented musically and has a powerful way with words. He was working on a book and had written quite a bit on it. It was awesome! I felt like I had stepped into a Stuart Woods novel or something. Really good stuff! Anyway, all of a sudden he gets this burr in his saddle about it not being "on the Word" or needing to have a "message" and quits writing because he's no longer inspired.
Somehow we lost the files of the book and I wish we'd have been able to find them. Maybe it would have been a healthy outlet for him. Anyway, he starts writing again, but this time, there's some "biblical" theme he wants to weave through the story - it's forced, it's obligatory in way to justify his wanting to write, I think. The story sucks - it doesn't make sense and there's no "life" in it.
I dunno if he does any thing in the art world anymore - I highly doubt it since he was at headquarters making peanuts last I heard. Such a sad, sad waste of talent and heart.
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ChasUFarley
Belle - Wild you should bring that up...
Similar thing with my ex - I had pretty much forgotten about it.
I remember he was excellent at drawing - but we'd been married for years before I ever got to see any of his work becuase he just put it last on things to do. I remember he produced some wonderful drawings and was good at capturing faces - something I've always struggled with - and I wanted him to work on drawing more. He had a gift!
But he's still in.... I bet he hasn't drawn in YEARS....
More talent squandered.
How sad.
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JavaJane
It's amazing how much this place has inspired me to start on my creative endeavors again. I'm getting inspiration all over the place.
I aim to take some time in the next week and really work on some stuff. I'm actually excited!
I'll let you all know how it goes!
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doojable
Here's the piece that inspired me to find my voice again in the visual arts:
"The Problem We All Live With" by Norman Rockwell
Wikipedia Article
This work depicts Ruby Bridges, who was one of the first African American children involved in the initiation of school desegregation in the deep South during the early and middle 1960s. Ruby attended the Frantz School in New Orleans. Federal marshals were assigned to protect the six-year-old from the mob that assembled outside the school on a daily basis. For months she was the only student because of a total boycott of the school.
Here what I read in a book I have:
When initially interviewed, the one of therioters were spoke of why he was irate over the decision to ban segregation. He was\y angry because he felt that the decision was made by a "bunch of boys on the Hill" who would never have to live with their decision because their kids went to private schools.
Then the issue with this cover came out....
That same man we again interviewed and he said that he had softened his opinon. That the magazine cover had brought home to him that this was just a little girl.
Here a painting had the power to wake a man out of his anger. To help him see what a thousand words would never have shown him. That is why I teach drawing. That is why I paint. That is my mission.....
I will not be talked out of it again.
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ChasUFarley
Ruby Bridges spoke at my son's school this year - she was a speaker that the kids and teachers there will NEVER forget!
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