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  • Drew 7:48 pm on March 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    A Tale of Two Entendres 

    A passage from Charlotte Picard Dard’s account of the journey after her life-boat reached land:

    A short while after, every one awoke, and again took the route for arriving at Senegal at an early hour. Towards seven in the morning, having fallen a little behind the caravan, I saw several Moors coming towards me armed with lances. A young sailor boy, aged about twelve years, who sometimes walked with me, stopped and cried in great terror, “Ah! my God, lady, see the Moors are coming, and the caravan is already a great way before us; if they should carry us away?” I told him to fear nothing, although I was really more frightened than he was. These Arabs of the Desert soon came up to us. One of them advanced with a threatening air, and stopping my ass, addressed to me, in his barbarous language, some words which he pronounced with menacing gestures. My little ship-boy having made his escape, I began to weep; for the Moor always prevented my ass going forward, who was perhaps as well content at resting a little. However, from the gestures which he made, I supposed he wished to know whither I was going, and I cried as loud as I could, “Ndar! Ndar!” (Senegal! Senegal!) the only African words I then knew. At this the Moor let go the bridle of my ass, and also assisted me by making him feel the full weight of the pole of his lance, and then ran off to his companions, who were roaring and laughing. I was well content at being freed from my fears; and what with the word “ndar,” and the famous thump of his spear, which was doubtless intended for my ass, I soon rejoined the caravan. I told my parents of my adventure, who were ignorant of what had detained me; they reprimanded me as they ought, and I promised faithfully never again to quit them.

     

  • Drew 9:16 pm on March 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Painting Theater/Dramatizing Painting 

    According to theater historian Marvin Carlson, in Revolutionary France, certain patriotic plays would proudly stage tableaux vivants of well-known paintings of the French Revolution by Jacques-Louis David. This practice of adapting paintings to the stage, according to Carlson, is one that goes back centuries, even to classical tradition, perhaps. In the twentieth-century, the cinema joined the theater in capturing and dramatizing the medium of painting. A 1921 New York Times with the headline “Movies Based on Paintings” chronicles a discussion between art world types and Hollywood men about a silent picture, The Beggar Maid, based on Edward Burne-Jones’s 1886 painting King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid.

    Edwin H. Blashfield, President of the National Academy of Design, expressed relief over the elimination of the “short heads.”

    “‘Short heads’–what do you refer to?” asked a professional movie man.

    “I believe you call them close-ups,” said Mr. Blashfield. “This painting picture, I am glad to note, has very few close-ups.”

    Later, a trustee of MOMA declared optimistically:

    “By bringing the famous paintings of the world of art to life…the motion picture will do much for the study of art…. It should mean an increase in the attendance at galleries and art schools, for it will give an enlightened understanding to many thousands whose conception of our greatest paintings has heretofore been limited to inadequate reproductions.”

    About twenty years later, however, French film theorist André Bazin would write that “films about paintings… meet with an identical objection from painters and art critics alike.” Theorizing the problem of translating the frame of a painting to the frame of a movie screen, Bazin argues that “not only is the film a betrayal of the painter, it is also a betrayal of the painting and for this reason: the viewer, believing that he is seeing the picture as painted, is actually looking at it through the instrumentality of an art form that profoundly changes its nature.” The frame of a painting, Bazin concludes, is “centripetal” (directed inward), but the cinematic screen is “centrifugal” (directed outward). Bazin’s reproach to filmmakers who base their movies on paintings and their painters, however, has had little effect on the film industry.

    And now, a game/SAT prep for the gifted and talented! Match the painting to the work theater or cinema it was inspired by. Move your cursor over the image to see the answer. The winner with the highest score gets a prize.*

    1.

    a) Gosford Park

    b) Sunday in the Park with George

    c) Barefoot in the Park

    d) Psycho Beach Party

    2.

    a) Marat/Sade

    b) Danton’s Death

    c) Danton

    d) A Tale of Two Cities

    3.

    a) Rent Day

    b) The Broken Jug

    c) The Crucible

    d) Vautrin

    4.

    a) The Piano

    b) The Pianist

    c) The Piano Lesson

    d) The Piano Teacher

    5.

    a) White Christmas

    b) Thomas Kinkade’s The Christmas Cottage

    c) Murder at 1600

    d) WNEP’s The (edward) Hopper Project

    *Did you have fun? Now your prize! A link to the best place on the Internet.

     

  • Drew 9:37 pm on February 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    A Short Compendium of Raft Reproductions 

    Géricault’s Le Radeau de la Méduse (1819).

    The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s Raft of the Medusa.


    Joel-Peter Witkin’s The Raft of George W. Bush


    Adad Hannah’s The Raft of the Medusa (100 Mile House)

    From Albert Uderzo’s Asterix Legionnaire. ["Jericho"=Gericault]

    Album cover for Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash by The Pogues.

    For more versions of Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, check out this Dutch(!) website.

     

  • Drew 11:33 pm on February 15, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: The Wreck of the Medusa   

    The Gorgon Medusa 

    In 1816, a French frigate ran aground off the shore of Africa, resulting in the worst disaster in French naval history. Only a fraction of the original passengers survived; the rest perished from drowning, exposure, murder, or cannibalism. The fated ship was called the Medusa, named for the mythological Gorgon monster whose gaze could turn men to stone.

    Caravaggio's Medusa

    Almost every era in Western art has produced its share of Medusa representations. We have images of Medusa from as early as 660 B.C. on decorative vases. Caravaggio painted the Head of Medusa on a wooden shield that was given in 1601 to the Grand Duke of Tuscany as a gift. Since 1994, fashion designer Gianni Versace has used the Medusa head as his trademark. Philosophers and thinkers, too, have interpreted the Medusa myth differently. Freud conceived the “Medusa’s Head” as a figure threatening castration, and feminism re-appropriated the Medusa as a symbol of feminine fury.

    The prevailing image of Medusa in my mind comes from Ray Harryhausen’s 1981 stop-motion creature feature Clash of the Titans. In a highly memorable scene (which I caught on TV many, many Sunday afternoons ago), the hero Perseus (Harry Hamlin) avoids the Medusa’s deadly gaze by studying her reflection in the back of his metal shield. By never looking directly at her, he succeeds in getting close enough to the monster to slay her.

    Greg and Ian, the writers of The Wreck of the Medusa have been stalking their own Medusa. Dramatizing personal narratives, journalistic accounts, and courtroom testimonials, as well as re-staging Gericault’s painting The Wreck of Medusa and an obscure play by W.T. Moncrieff titled The Fatal Raft!, they have hunted the shipwreck by dramatizing its reflections and reproductions. The play is experienced as a historical fun-house of mirrors with a minotaur Medusa at the center.

    Harryhausen's Medusa

     

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