My Kid Could Paint That

Bruegel's genius is subtle. Then again, it's really not. The chaos in this picture is evident. Like so many of Bruegel's other paintings, the viewer becomes distracted by the chaos, thus the subject is lost to them (i.e. The Fall of Icarus where a man peacefully plows in the foreground and Icarus, unnoticed, drowns in the bottom right corner). In this particular painting, the focus is just as unclear, despite Bruegel giving it to us in the title. The spectrum is broader; the subject busy and chaotic.

But Bruegel doesn't take sides. He sits behind his paint brush and his wit, observing the utter chaos in front of him. He depicts the convergence of a religious contrast. On the right side, there is a church, religion and order, representing Lent, a time of solemnity and purity. Hunched over nuns walk about the street looking sickly and forlorn. On the left, an inn where the drunk and foolish stumble out.

It kind of boggles my mind to think that Bruegel never got in trouble for this painting. He depicts two different religious days as a mockery, ridiculous through every aspect. Despite all this, he was considered a pious man, but this only impresses me. Throughout all of history, Bruegel is one of the brains I would look to pick the most (right behind Oscar Wilde). To me, he's that guy at the back of the party that's just there, watching and observing the comedy in every day life

Sir Thomas Lawrence, an accomplished portraitist, painted Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton in 1794 when Sarah was eleven years old. Given the nickname Pinkie by her family (which I think is up there alongside Keith, Myrtle, and Bing on the list of horrible things to call your children), Lawrence played off of the nickname, giving his subject a soft, rosy complexion. Dressed in pink, young Sarah stands on the rocks poised, looking off among to the distance.

Pinkie and Thomas Gainsborough's more famous Blue Boy have been seen as a package deal before. In the 1960s, the two paintings were sold together as cheap home decor. Today, the two portraits hang beside one another at the Huntington Library in California. Although I’m not particularly fond of either painting, that feeling changes when you put them together. They complete each other. Lawrence clearly intended to juxtapose his painting with Blue Boy, seeing as how they were painted only fourteen years apart. Dubbed the “Romeo and Juliet of Rocco portraiture,” Pinkie and Blue Boy thrive together, but wilt when apart.

This could be either one of two people: Alcibiades or Alexander the Great.

Bust of Aclibiades as every Greek man

Although I don’t have any schools of thought to ramble about, I do have strategic geniuses who were actually pretty stupid in their free time. While history may try to glorify these two, let me assure you that I will expose them for the dudebros they are.

Alcibiades was basically anything but a philosopher. First, he worked for his native home of Athens, but evidently decided that Sparta looked so much cooler (that and he was charged with sacrilege). While in Sparta, he worked against his former ally of Athens, but he eventually made more powerful enemies in Sparta, and was forced to leave. He defected to Persia where he was the adviser for the satrap until his enemies demanded a recall. Yet, when he returned to Athens, he did not fall from power. On the contrary, Alcibiades became an Athenian General until (surprise, surprise) his enemies had him exiled. All in all, Alcibiades war tactician for not one, not two, but three different empires.

On the other hand, Alexander the Great spent his formative years in a pissing contest with his father that lasted for years after his death. For a brief time, 

Alexander was tutored by Aristotle beginning at the age of thirteen. In return, Alexander’s father Philip II, restored Aristotle's hometown, which he had formerly razed.

Super Alex: short, ginger, and angsty

What leads me to believe that Raphael stuck Alexander in there rather than Alcibiades was that, while Alexander may have been more jock than nerd, his contribution and intellectual legacy lives on through Alexandria. After Alexander founded the city, it became a wealth of knowledge. Of course, this didn't last for very long. It was soon destroyed by the growing Christian presence in the city.

At any rate, maybe Raphael should have just painted the city of Alexandria in there, but I digress.

Although probably best known as a sculptor, Verrocchio, at one point in his life, turned to painting. His painting Tobias and the Angel, is taken from the Book of Tobit. Raphael, the angel Tobias walks with, tells Tobias about a remedy that will cure his father's blindness. He tells Tobias to take the liver, heart, and gall for the remedy. Raphael carries the completed concoction in his hand. 

This painting wasn't completed by just Verrocchio. A respected teacher, many of his students worked on this painting. If you look close enough, it becomes visible; some areas of paint application are stronger than others. For example, the background looks fairly weak in comparison to the smaller details like the fish. It seems almost impossible to talk about Verrocchio without talking about Leonardo, but it becomes one of, if not the only, controversial topic that involves my artist. And since I don't wish to bore anyone who may be reading this to death, I choose to once again defend my artist against those hated Leonardo fans (similar to those who act like Shakespeare is God). 

Rumor has it that Leonardo was the model for Tobias, also painting the fish and the dog. I maintain my opinion that the dog really isn't even that great since it falls into the background (most likely not well-preserved), but the model part is what irks me the most. Verrocchio is his own artist without Leonardo. Even if his apprentice did paint the best part of the painting (a dog and a fish, congrats), this is still Verrocchio's work. Yet, I sit here frustrated that while I attempt to defend Verrocchio from those that would label him outshined by Da Vinci, I can't stop talking about the apprentice, instead of the master. 

Unfortunately, the best part of Verrocchio is Leonardo and the rumor that surrounds them.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about repetition. Such as: what good is it? What does it do? What's it's purpose? Most of all I've been asking myself why I have this odd affinity towards it. This could be, simply, that I'm a creature of habit in the truest sense of the phrase, but recently I've found that that answer doesn't satisfy me. I am currently, as I write this, a week into my senior year at Barstow. This is also my fifteenth year at this school. In essence, I have gone and spent my entire life here. Willingly? Only sometimes, but I have found myself returning again and again, making my yearly Mecca-like pilgrimage to the overly air-conditioned building. Repeatedly, I have sat in the same classes and walked down the same halls thousands of times. So, why is it that I find myself coming back?

Claude Monet must have asked himself this question everyday as he went out to paint the Cathedral Rouen. He found himself obsessed with the way the light would rest on the cathedral, but was never quite happy with the way he painted it. Well, that may be an understatement. Monet eventually became so obsessed with the cathedral and its light that he could never pin down that he began to have nightmares about it. Eventually, Monet found himself in a rut, haunted by his subject, and had to leave Paris for a while. This is one of my favorite art history stories, and I had previously mentioned it in my post about Pissaro's obsession with the Boulevard Montmartre. Pissaro's experience with his subject was much better. In fact, I deduced that Pissaro, instead, had more of a love affair with the boulevard. Monet may have loved the cathedral - I've never been sure - but something about drew him towards it and made him want to come back after each failure.

In this instance, I so empathize with Monet. Even after all of the failures and disappointments, Basrtow has been a second home to me where I have been fortunate to meet some fantastic people. This year, I am one of only two returning students in my Art History class, and I remember how nerve wracking my first blog post was. Now, after writing one analysis after another, I feel rather seasoned and sure of myself. I repeated the same actions over and over, but I have never found it boring. Repetition is comfort. It means that you are comfortable with something or love it enough to return. For me, that's Barstow.

Orphism, arguably a subsidiary of Cubism consisting of artists that would have been unfortunately forgotten otherwise, attempted to combine music and art into a singular experience. Prescribed by Guillame Apollinaire in 1913, Orphism's name stemmed from Orpheus, a legendary musician in the  Metamorphoses most known for attempting to retrieve his wife, Eurydice,  from the Underworld… and failing. A non-representational style of art, Orphism concentrated on color contrast and space. Many of the artists Apollinaire dubbed Orphists could better be catagorized as Cubists. In fact, Robert Delaunay, the most famous Orphist, would shy away from being labeled as such unless the connection to music was involved. Delaunay was heavily influenced by Michel-Eugene Chevreul's theory of simultaneous color contrasts. The theory tests the idea that, instead of seeing one color at a time, one is able to process multiple colors at one time. In correlation, Wassily Kandinsky, an expressionist, claimed to have synaesthesia: being able to see a color when listening to music. Apollinaire's direct definition of Orphism stated that it was, "an explanation of color and geometry that owed nothing to the actual forms of art."

Albert Gleizes, better known as a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism, painted Symphony in Violet in 1931, years after the Orphist movement had come and gone. Yet Gleizes' title links the core Orphist themes of music and color. His abstract shapes, primarily circular, are distinctly influenced by Delaunay. To really get the full effect, I'm listening to "Preludes, Les Filles Aux Cheveux" by Debussy. While I think that this painting is less of a Debussy and more of a Stravinsky, the only way to fully experience this painting is with music. This, I believe, is was that Orphists were trying to achieve: an experience. Often times paintings only use sight, you look at a painting, but do not touch, hear, smell, or taste it (disclaimer: please do not lick any paintings). Orphism demands that you use more. You have to hear the color and see the music, and owe nothing to the reality of art.

Spring is like a perhaps hand

by e. e. cummings

Spring is like a perhaps hand

(which comes carefully

out of Nowhere)arranging

a window,into which people look(while

people stare

arranging and changing placing

carefully there a strange

thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps

Hand in a window

(carefully to

and fro moving New and

Old things,while

people stare carefully

moving a perhaps

fraction of flower here placing

an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

Editor's Note: Students were asked to match a poem to a picture. They could do so with or without comment; they could be serious or playful, profound or goofy. We will leave it to our dear readers to make their own connections.

The Boulevard Montmartre, Morning, Grey Weather, 1897

In his later years, Pissarro suffered from a reoccurring eye infection that confined the previously en plein air painter indoors. Thus, Pissarro worked from the inside looking out -- or down, rather -- from hotel rooms in Paris, as well as London. This change in venue also made Pissarro change his subject matter from that of Millet-esque peasants and nature to city streets. A vast and difficult change for any painter, but that's what I appreciate about Pissarro. He has the innate ability to switch painting styles and subjects at the drop of a hat. I can't say that Pissarro has any set style, one that would uniquely define him as a painter. He switched from watercolors to Impressionist, to pointillism, to Impressionist again. Thus, the day begins with The Boulevard Montmartre, Morning, Grey Weather. I wish I could present this in the intended size (Wikipedia has a quality, zoom-in-able version of this painting. I would recommend looking it up). Although collectively grey, it's extremely colorful and lively. Overcast weather is usually portrayed as melancholy and dull, but the small flecks of color in the people and buildings bring vitality to the canvas. A hint of red, a blip of yellow; Pissarro manages to somehow breathe life into this painting with the small things.

The Boulevard Montmartre: Afternoon, in the Rain, 1897

The overcast skies have now given way to rain. The Parisians on the boulevard, made up of multicolored smudges and blobs, have their umbrellas out. This painting is slower than its predecessor. There's also a sort of buoyancy to this painting. The Boulevard Montmartre, Morning, Grey Weather is dense and heavy. The air seems thick and so does the paint. In The Boulevard Montmartre: Afternoon, in the Rain, it feels like a deep sigh, a weight has been lifted. The brushstrokes are smoother, blending together like water and dirt to make mud.

Part of me loves that fact that Pissarro painted the same boulevard fifteen times (that's not an exaggeration, it's an approximation), but it also drives me up the wall. The only difference to each painting is the the position of the people, the weather, and the trees. The man was obsessed. This always reminds me of Monet and his paintings of the Rouen Cathedral. He painted this same subject eight times (don't quote me on that), becoming obsessed with how the different times of day would light the cathedral walls. But he was never satisfied with his compositions, so much so that the cathedral haunted his dreams, giving him so many nightmares that he had to leave Paris. Did Pissarro ever dream of the Boulevard Montmartre? I'll come back to that thought.

Boulevard Montmartre, Sunset, 1897

In The Boulevard Montmartre at Night, I believe he finds that. My favorite of the Boulevard series, The Boulevard Montmartre at Night is so different from the other three paintings that it hardly looks like the same artist. Returning to this idea, I believe Pissarro had to have dreamed about his boulevard. Looking at the painting, it's too dreamlike from him to not have. Except, unlike Monet, it wasn't a nightmare. The sky is dark and starless. Pissarro, instead, brings that celestial quality to the ground. The streetlights, previously lost in the commotion of the day, have their own star-like quality. It's no longer about the people or carriages that crowded the street, it's about the Boulevard Montmartre itself. He shows his love for the Boulevard Montmartre through these paintings, like a love affair (objectively, of course). And I have to admit, I'm obsessed.

Mary Cassatt was born into a upper-middle class American family in Pennsylvania. She traveled often, living in France for most of her life, and was a well-educated and well-rounded individual. It was more than likely that Cassatt herself knew exactly how her subject felt. Painting, for women, the upper class especially, was intended as nothing more than a hobby to make them appear more attractive to suitors. It was something to be flaunted, just as this portrait would have been something the little girl's parents could flaunt. She almost seems swallowed up by the large, blue armchair, her existence synonymous with that of the furniture.

I always think of Anders Zorn, a mostly unknown Swedish painter, as the weird uncle version of John Singer Sargent. His brushstrokes are looser, his lighting less pronounced, and his subjects more nude than not. Where Sargent paints beautiful, elegant women, Zorn chooses to paint an inebriated prostitute. Zorn's subject leans against a tree, as if she is incapable of standing on her own. Her face is flushed and set in an unattractive expression. Although some could see this as Zorn mocking the dignified women Sargent paints, I view this piece as comical. Her dress, bright red as an indication towards her profession, is not revealing. In fact, she's rather well covered for a prostitute (disclaimer: I'm no expert on prostitute fashion, they could wear parkas and long johns for all I know). The exposed lacey hem of her underskirt is, perhaps, the most provocative aspect of her outfit.

Zorn creates tension in the painting via the background lighting. The cafe's lights are bright and intense, illuminating our "lady of the night," but they suddenly break off and become inky black. It took me a while to actually notice that there's a man in that darkness. All that can be seen is a vague profile of his face and clothing. To me, the painting seems rushed, especially the background. It's as if Zorn added in the background as an afterthought. The dark and the light push against each other, separated only by the scarlet woman. Zorn's brush strokes are hurried and blurred, as if the viewers own vision is hazy. That always leads me to imagine that when I look at this painting I immediately step into the role of her drinking buddy, stumbling home after last call. Where Sargent takes the viewer into the lives of the bourgeoisie, Zorn takes you to the streets and out for a drink with some rather rough customers.

Get ready. This is going to be geeky. Not only am I going to get to talk about one of my favorite parts of history and culture, but I also get to discuss video games. What video game, you ask? My absolute favorite video game on this Earth: Assassins Creed III. I'm still not exactly sure how I convinced my teacher to let me do this, but don't worry it all ties together, albeit eventually.

General James Wolfe fought for the British army against the French and Indians in, you guessed it, the French and Indian War. He would later come to be known in history as the "Hero of Quebec" and the main reason the English won the war. Historically, he died from four musketball wounds at the height of the battle depicted above. Benjamin West paints the British hero's final moments Pieta style, where General Wolfe's death mirrors that of Christ when he is taken off the cross and held by Mary. Surrounding him are various British officers, a doctor attempting to stem the bleeding from his wounds, and, most interestingly, a Native American. Here is what I find so interesting about this painting. The Iroquois Confederacy was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations that populated the northeastern coast of America, even extending up into Canada. Originally warring nations, they eventually united under an oral constitution known as the Great Law of Peace some time in between 1450 and 1600, maybe even earlier. During the French and Indian War, the Iroquois Confederacy sided with the French. This was because the Iroquois Confederacy had a growing concern about the English and their consumption of Indian lands. The English colonists and neighboring tribes had never had an amicable relationship, whereas the French and Indians did. In contrast to the English, the French were not interested in colonizing nor settling the New World. Their main priority was fur trade, which made interaction and good relationships with native tribes a necessity. So, it strikes me as odd that an Indian would be kneeling, seemingly in thought, across from the British General. As far as I know, no Native Americans sided with the British, and I see no reason why they would. Maybe Benjamin West just got his facts confused.

Last year, Assassins Creed, a video game series very near and dear to my heart, revealed that the setting for their third (technically fifth, but whatever) game would be in Revolutionary War America, and that the main character would be half Native American, Mohawk to be exact. Many of the events that occur in the game are historically accurate, but the game takes on an entirely different perspective of the war that everyone in America thinks they know. It showed the Native American point of view; how they saw the war and how they also struggled for independence. The protagonist, Ratonhnhakéton (pronounced ra-don-han-ge-don), but assumes the name Connor, comes into contact with the stars of the Revolution: Samuel Adams, General Putnam, Marquis de Lafayette, and even George Washington Fun Fact: the Mohawk people don't have generically used first names like European cultures do (i.e. John or Mary), nor do they have last names. Instead, each first name is individualistic and has meaning. Connor's name, Ratonhnhakéton, means "life that is scratched." He believes in the colonists cry for freedom, helping them to win battles and change the tide of the war. But while doing this, Connor finds that helping the colonists win may compromise the safety of his people and their lands. "My enemy is a notion, not a nation," Connor states. The view this game offers of the Revolutionary War is one that a textbook will never tell. Given, the game is manipulated to revolve around the history of Assassins and Templars, two warring secret societies, but the historical commentary is raw and unforgiving. By the end of the game, the only founding father I came away liking was Lafayette. Washington, while serving under General Braddock in the French and Indian War actually burned Indian villages (which is, spoiler alert, how Connor's mother dies). Surprising, right?

Coincidentally I stumbled upon this painting while recently replaying Assassin's Creed III. The house that Connor lives in, called the Davenport Homestead, collects 18th century paintings of various historical figures and events every time a certain mission is completed. While walking around the house, checking out the awesome items I had collected, I saw this painting and yelled, "Hey! I know that one!" I have always found Native American culture to be interesting. When I was in Kindergarten, I remember being distraught over the fact that I had been cast as a Pilgrim instead of an Indian for the Thanksgiving musical. So, to look at history through a Native Americans point of view rather than an English one was not only refreshing, but enlightening. To be blunt, the core ideologies of the Revolution, even the Revolution itself, were flawed. Men claimed that they fought for the everyone's rights, but it was only for white, land-owning men. What of the rights of enslaved Africans, women, and Native Americans? Those would have to wait. I would argue that the listed groups still don't posses all of the rights endowed to them, "inalienable Rights" as described by the Declaration of Independence. The saying history is written by the victors could not be more relevant. Perhaps everything would have been different for the Native Americans had the French won the war, but they didn't and there's not much use in contemplating hypotheticals. Of course, none of this, the American Revolution, the birth of a nation, and the mistreatment of the Native American peoples, could have been possible without General Wolfe, "Hero of Quebec."

As the floorboards recede away, dissolving into the black, I find myself asking where exactly do they go? Do they drop off into some crawl space abyss or do they lead on through some Nosferatu corridor? In fact, the longer I look, the more questions gurgle up like magma. What caused this? Would it be better to walk through the hole or turn the knob? Does the knob even work? And chiefly, where does the darkness lead? I think that's what makes Magritte's painting one of my favorites. Darkness has always been synonymous with fear, something to turn away from. The door itself reminds me a bit of something you would see in a horror movie, perhaps it's Norman Bates'.

But here, I find that shadow reaching towards me, beckoning me forward. I want to touch the darkness. I want to follow it. Perhaps if it were just a door, I would want to turn and run. The dark is what pulls you in, probes your curiosity. Like John Logan's depiction of Rothko states above, it's not nice. It's not pretty. The darkness reveals something, "feral and foul and primal and REAL," about oneself. A side of us that may not be as terrifying as we had previously imagined. In fact, it may be what we had been looking for after all. There, within the darkness, is your expected answer.