Mars Being Disarmed by Venus

Camille O'Leary
Jacques-Louis David, Mars Being Disarmed by Venus, 1824

At the end of his life, exiled to Brussels, the 73-year-old Jacques-Louis David painted his enigmatic final masterpiece, Mars Being Disarmed by Venus. Although the god of war has divested himself of helmet and shield and his modesty is protected only by a conveniently placed dove, the final outcome of Venus’s courtship is still in doubt. Mars holds back, with a diffident expression, from the proffered crown of roses (a symbol of submission), and Cupid has set aside his bow, having shot neither the gold arrow of love or the less famous lead arrow of disgust. The three Graces, Venus’s attendants, fuss about performing meaningless tasks in the background, looking frankly less than graceful. The overall effect is confusing and highly unusual, leaving scholars to puzzle out the meaning of the work.

David sent Mars Being Disarmed by Venus to a Parisian exhibition from his exile, as a response to the newly ascendant style of Romanticism. In that case, perhaps the aging David felt the grip of his Neoclassical style fading, and that the public was being seduced away from what he considered right and proper. Perhaps his detatchment from France and the feeling that he was cut off from the newest trends in art informed the coldly dispassionate affair in this painting. An early sketch for this painting shows Venus’s voluptuous body facing forward, so that the viewer could see her from the front. In the final work, she is much thinner, and turned away, showing not even a hint of chest. One dove clumsily censors Mars’s crotch, while the other drives a wedge between the two gods. They do not even touch, except for one thin hand on Mars’s thigh, which Venus is using to support herself more than anything else.

The story goes that Vulcan, Venus’s crippled husband and the blacksmith of the gods, found out about this affair and wove a fine mesh net to catch Venus and Mars in the act, then brought all the other Roman gods to point and laugh at them. Perhaps this explains the incongrouous touches of comedy in the painting. The Graces certainly seem to be laughing at something (maybe each other), and Cupid peers straight at the viewer with a cocky smile, inviting them to share in the joke.

Little has been written in analysis of this painting; scholarship focuses on his earlier, revolutionary works. In the end, really, the viewer must ask themselves a question: just what is that Grace doing with Mars’s helmet? Does she think there’s a shelf there for her to put it on, or is she just holding it up strangely? Surely that grip wouldn’t actually support anything?

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Surprise! and Life of Pi

1891
Henri Rousseau,  Surprise!, 1891



Either on a shipwreck or prowling across a field, tigers are dangerous.  In Surprise! by Henri Rousseau, we can see the darkness of the tiger's face. Contradictory to the movie's portrayal of tigers. Once Richard Parker, the tiger, and Pi Patel are on the life raft floating away we see the tiger's natural instinct: either kill or be killed. Richard Parker cannot fight these natural instincts and becomes violent. Rousseau's portrayal of a tiger, resembles that of Richard Parker in the beginning of the movie. Relying on his natural instincts to thrive. The tiger is in its natural habitat, and looks terrifying for a pedestrian who may encounter this tiger on his pursuit. I know I wouldn't want to interact with Rousseau's tiger.

However, Richard Parker seems more nice, like Raja from Aladdin. I just want to be sitting in a menagerie stroking its multicolored fur, and discussing life issues with him.  Or you want to be on a boat with hundreds of zoo animals in hope that one has a nonviolent attachment to you. Now  Life of Pi is only rated PG, so there couldn't possibly be a freakishly vicious tiger waiting to seek revenge, it needs to be a more humanistic with its facial features.  

These portrayals of tigers show both sides, their dark and predator side, and their nicer side. Each art form brings different feelings along.  Rousseau's is more scary than Life of Pi's (even though Richard Parker tries to consume Pi Patel). They bring awareness of how to react to these creatures as well. So if anyone is ever stuck on a boat with a hungry tiger, Pi Patel has guidelines for you.

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Lucifer and American Psycho

American Psycho

Jackson Pollock, Lucifer, 1947


I wanted to do American Psycho and a Jackson Pollock piece, because the two are tied together in my mind through the splatter, but they have very different meanings. That may seem and odd thing to say while talking about a painting entitled Lucifer, but I beg to differ. Jackson Pollock was an artist painting, per se, during the 1940s and 50s. He acted as a symbol for atomic anxiety after World War II, the very thing I see when I look at Lucifer. In essence, Pollock commended peace through his frenzied paintings rather than violence. It's supposed to be a juxtaposition when sitting next to a clip of Patrick Bateman smashing some jerk's brains in while listening to Huey Lewis and the News, but it isn't. There are more ties than I really want to acknowledge. The black, like cracks in a sidewalk, demand your attention. I can't stare at it for long without hyperventilating. By the way, not a fan of 80s pop. Everything about this, the painting, the scene, the music, is upbeat. Well, the painting and scene are more like an accelerating heartbeat rather than the song.

Patrick Bateman is the epitome of an 80s suit clad, business executive jerk. He even wears the stereotypical blue shirt with white collar, except the tie is red and not yellow. At least that's what I think of when someone says "80s Wall Street." Bateman struggles to stay alive in this back stabbing business, taking the pressure of business card showdowns off by attending spas and killing his coworkers. Let me play the devil's advocate for a minute and say that Paul Allen was a real...word-I-can't-say-in-this-blog. I constantly find myself on Bateman's side throughout the entire movie, even finding it painful to watch as others completely disregard and humiliate him. So, it's pretty satisfying when Bateman swings that hammer. But the question I keep asking myself about this movie is this: why make a serial killer so pitiable? I feel bad for him, but Bateman is a serial killer. Serial killers, in my mind, hold a certain kind of power in their work, and they must also hold power in the world around them. How else could they get away with killing more than one person? Also, the act of killing someone is a gain of power. I mean, you literally hold that persons life in your hands. That's power. At least, this is what I've learned from watching Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal religiously. Although the film was satirical the core truth emitted from Bateman's deterioration was depressing. Despite being an actual serial killer, in the end, Bateman was the most sane, morally correct person in the room.

  • 7:00 AM

Adventure Time and Mad Meg

Adventure Time
Bruegel Mad Meg, 1562




Bruegel's, Mad Meg tells the story of a woman from a Finnish proverb who is said to have the power to enter hell and return unharmed. She is painted with a group of followers who raid a house close behind. They are doing things their way and saying "enough" to duties and boundaries. Bruegel continues this trend of breaking rules with the armor he has placed on Meg as she runs from the mouth of hell, stolen goods in hand. This piece is out of control, and Meg and friends seem to really make a mess of things on their journey to Hell. Uncontrolled tempers, fearless behavior, and bad ass women can only remind me of one thing: The Flame Princess. The Flame Princess in Adventure Time, lives in the Fire Kingdom, already similar to the Mad Meg scene, but she also has quite the attitude. In this clip Finn and the Princess disagree as to how they should fight through the goose skulls and snap dragons.

Flame Princess tells Finn that she wants to do things her way and turns up the heat. She loses control as her powers take over...fire addict. Her behavior reminds me of Meg's, she breaks the rules by burning down the doors much like Bruegel paints Meg breaking out of classic women's roles. Meg throws herself in harm's way knowing her own strength to make it out, and the Flame Princess allows her strength to overcome her and turns into the evil shrewd-like woman that Meg represents. Both characters are powerful without question, and both have the capability to influence others with their strength.

Meg inspires the other women to join her pillage on hell, but the Flame Princess' powers of destruction impact Finn in a different way. She puts Finn in danger when her fire powers take over and she loses control. The beauty of Mad Meg is how Bruegel paints her in complete control of her actions, she knows how to get what she wants. The Flame Princess, in search for short cuts, loses this control and puts herself in danger.

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A Clockwork Orange and Rothko

1959
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1959




What happens to a deeply disturbed person? Do they retreat into their minds and suffer quietly, or make their pain known to the world? In A Clockwork Orange, Alex suffers for months, forced by scientists in an experimental psychological therapy to change his ways and forget his violent past. He must surrender his favorite thing in the world – music – in order to complete his therapy, and by the end he is unrecognizable to himself, barely a shred of what he used to be.

Mark Rothko, although less theatrical than Alex, suffered from day to day, quietly, in the privacy of his studio. The only evidence of his suffering is his vast, intense paintings. He wanted to consume viewers into his world, the real world, envelope them and make them feel small. Rothko wanted people to feel raw emotion when they saw his paintings. He wanted the paintings to spark something inside each person, something tragic or spiritual.

Maybe Alex should have just looked at a Rothko instead of subjecting himself to two months of incessant agony. A Clockwork Orange, although satirical, shows a shocking portrayal of society and psychological analysis. Violence, heinous actions, and sinister characters draw you into the void. Alex can’t escape, but you can turn off the television. Rothko had hoped that his paintings would leave a lasting impression on viewers, that they would uncover some repressed feeling, something that people couldn’t just walk away from. So will we live life revert back to our old ways, like Alex? Or will Rothko’s paintings inspire us somehow, changing us forever?

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Van Gogh Self Portrait and Anna Karenina

Arsam Yazdani
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889



I know when I get into a heated argument, my first urge is to cut off my ear and give it to a prostitute. But I hold back.Van Gogh, on the other hand, found that perfectly appropriate and really went with that urge. Gauguin exclaimed, “You crazy bastard! You have sliced off your ear!” and finished the argument with Van Gogh on top, one ear less than where he started. This self-destructive act to spite his competition and himself deeply moved his audience and shocked those around him. Looking at his Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear, the pain in his eyes is evident and unyielding. The cool, chaotic palate depicts Van Gogh’s inner turmoil as he stares blankly forward, colors spinning all around him.

The horse scene in Anna Karenina evokes these same chaotic emotions, from the tension of the race and the heartbreaking crash to Anna standing up and screaming for Vronsky, her wounded lover, in front of her husband and all of Russian high society. You want to scream with her, to stand and help her get to the man she risked everything for, but as a viewer you understand how self-destructive Anna is. She may not cut off her ear to spite anyone, but her entire life with Vronsky is in spite of her socially-acceptable life. Her end itself is self-destruction in its purest form, throwing herself under a train - the very thing that brought her to Vronsky in the first place.

Both of these examples show the peak of these real and fictional characters’ self-destructive tendencies, outside of their tragic ends. They may be destructive for different reasons, but both of their desperate acts in the heat of the moment are far too similar to the other. Anna’s terrified scream for the one she truly loves is the vocalized version of Van Gogh’s slicing off his ear to prove to Gauguin how much he meant to him in a desperate effort to get him not to go back to Paris. The piece shows the static aftermath of this act, while the scene from Anna Karenina is the exact tipping point into her downward spiral. Both are equally tense and foreboding. It makes me not want to know what happens to them, makes me want to save them from themselves… but I can’t.
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Dripped and Pollock

1949
Jackson Pollock, Number 8, 1949


Welcome to Jackson Pollock’s secret lifetime story. Early 1950s, New York City—Jack, consumed by the desire to absorb the brilliance of his favorite artists, decides to steal their paintings and eat them. When he finishes every painting in his apartment, he tries to create his own. However, his still life turns out to be utterly nauseous. Originality might be the magic behind his artistic adventures. The film also shows us how Pollock developed his famed “drip paintings:” out of frustration. 

Just as the animated character literally consumes famous paintings of different time periods, Jackson Pollock’s work brought together elements of Surrealism, Cubism and Impressionism. Pollock grew up with great masters such as Picasso and Dali, shown in the short film as Cubist art hangs all over the walls of Met. Pollock understood the essence of art as it developed over time. His artistic style has, to some extent, kept the radical and the simplicity of past periods, and transcended them all. His paintings drew attention from around the world to the U.S. and carried art movement forward to a brand new period. The film ends with visitors standing in front of a wall in Met, now hung with Pollock drip paintings. 

Pollock’s greatness lies in his unconventional approach to paintings. He preferred laying canvas on the floor and rarely used a brush or a plate. Rather, Pollock dripped paint from sticks and knives, flung and poured it to create coiled lines while he moved around the canvas. He said, “It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.” Pollock created art in action, which implies the actual application of paint is a form of art. He began to work in the air above the canvas, tracing the unwinding images in three-dimensional space. He merely started the process, the paint decided where it wanted to fall. Consequently, the painting we see now hanging in museums is just a part of the art, rather, the result of it. It extended to the application, when Pollock himself danced with his sticks and knives.
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Rothko and No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy
Mark Rothko,  No. 5 (Red, Black, and Brown), 1963



Chigurh is the inexorable push of death personified. The assassin, realized menacingly by Javier Bardem, stops at nothing in his frenzied quest to kill. In a way, his assassinations are driven by concepts of justice. He believes the people he kills deserve to die. This quality makes him so dangerous—he feels no pity as he does what he believes is simply his duty to the cosmos. In the scene above, we see him dressed once again in all black, pushing the limits of evil. He walks into a gas station, and after the clerk tries to make conversation with him, one of the most menacing scenes in movie history begins. It ends with a coin flip, a duality that resurfaces throughout McCarthy’s novel and the film. People say he considered murdering this man because the clerk noticed he had Dallas plates on his stolen automobile. If this were true, I think he would have killed the man without a second thought.  I think he considered taking this man’s life more because he could.


As Mark Rothko aged, he too began to feel this inexorability. Death, chaos, loss pressed down on him, seeping into every corner of his life. His nemesis may not have been consciously evil like Chigurh, but it must have felt much the same. Black swallows red. Looking at No. 5, one of the last before the total eclipse, I get a sensation of flooding. The red still pulses, hot to the touch, but it seems as though it’s not even there anymore. Black’s victory is inevitable. Red is just not in the cards. Chigurh and the black really represent the same thing. They are evil. They are the visible force that pervades and forms the world, that Rothko felt, that McCarthy feels. It doesn’t matter that Chigurh didn’t kill the pathetically unaware gas station clerk. It matters that he could have. He would have. Whether a character burned dimly or as bright as one of Chigurh’s greatest rivals, the assassin could kill at will. Black will always swallow red.

  • 7:00 AM

Horse in a Landscape and The Graduate

Franz Marc
Franz Marc, Horse in a Landscape, 1910

The last time I saw The Graduate was about this time last year in a hotel room at West Lafayette, Indiana. After several failed attempt to sleep, I felt some TV might help. I turned on the TV and there it was, a young Dustin Hoffman driving around town in his fancy, red roadster, with the placid voices of Simon &Garfunkel playing in the background. The Graduate, one of my all-time favorite midnight classics. The movie was great as always. But the college visit at Purdue with Lexi the next morning was all too fuzzy for me to recall. It's funny when I think about it today. It all seems just like yesterday when I was watching someone going through the process and coming to a point where she had to choose her own path of life. Only then had I not realized that I would be soon going through the same process and facing the same decisions. Time flies. And with no surprise, here I am, finishing the last part of the marathon.

I probably can never say I completely understand Ben. But over the years, I grow to empathize with him. The frustration, temptation, and feeling of being all confused and at a loss. Neither good grades, healthy family, nor a promised future prevents Ben from making mistakes. In the end, only he knows what he truly wants and how he's going to get it.

Franz Marc painted the Horse in a Landscape in search of the "absolute essence of art." He hoped to discover the beauty and purity inherited in the natural world. He managed to break away from the domain of naturalistic colors and lines. And by doing so, he made the recognizable things more abstract and expressive. Marc believed that pure colors had just as much symbolic potentials and subtexts as the real world. He came up with theories about colors and attributed particular qualities to the three primary colors. For him, blue represents the masculine part of the world, associated with austerity and intelligence. Yellow arouses feminine characteristics and sensuality. And red stands for the material world, relentless, brutal, and belligerent. In the painting, we see a horse halt his steps and hesitate about where he is going. He is strong, but somehow there is no clear path for him to dash, only a field of gentle yellow. "Mrs. Robinson you are trying to seduce me, aren't you?" Powerless and puzzled, Ben walks right into that field and losses his way there for a long time. It's only when he darts to the church and runs away with Elaine has he finally found a way to what he truly wants. However, on the bus, as smiles gradually fade away from their faces, we start to wonder, perhaps the characters too, is it really a good decision? Or did they just screw up their lives again? As the yellow bus drives farther into the horizon, a new round of loss and find begins. If this is the start of a new education, the education of life, then, when is the graduation?




  • 7:00 AM

The Breakfast Club and Les Amants

Emily Thompson
Rene Magritte, Les Amants, 1928



If I were to make a list of movies that should be required to watch as a teenager, The Breakfast Club would easily be at the top. The story is based around five very different high schoolers who form a unique bond while stuck in detention on a Saturday for their various indiscretions. Though the movie embodied the teen angst of the 80s, the themes remain extremely relatable today. Though I personally don't know anyone who's taped someone's butt cheeks together, or seen anyone dump Pixi-Sticks on a sandwich, the challenge of finding your identity has some grain of meaning to everyone that watches. Whether you knew it or not, by the end of the movie, you know that "in each one of us there's a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal."

Rene Magritte's Les Amants similarly expresses the theme of "don't judge a book by its cover." By the end of The Breakfast Club, two unlikely couples have formed, Allison and Andy (basket case and athlete) and Bender and Claire (criminal and princess). When I saw this painting, I couldn't help but think how much easier it would be for the two couples if that's what they looked like returning to school the next Monday. Appearance is everything, and Magritte shows how much easier love would be if appearance wasn't a factor. 

On the other hand, the painting also has a sense of emptiness. High school flies by, and all five members of the Breakfast Club struggle to find out what they want to accomplish in that time. The faceless figures seem to have an air of expandability, just one in a crowd. This insignificant feeling makes the ballad "Don't You Forget About Me" in the background all the more powerful.

The Breakfast Club teaches us that the world will "see us as [it] wants to see us," but that we should also learn be happy with who were are.

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