The Uncanny - Luminists and Other 19th Century American Painters

I have to admit that I find the Luminists' paintings quite different. Even if they look somehow realistic, there's something about them that just doesn't fit completely... Those landscapes and scenarios actually familiar, there shouldn't be anything strange, but somehow they just don't look completely right (even in a fantasy)... they are uncanny!

Even though there's crackling in some works, the paintings have an exquisite brushwork, there are no brush marks or painting clumps on them and I really like that. In my own paintings, I prefer not to leave any brush marks at all, so I kind of feel comfortable with this painters.

"Boatmen on the Missouri"

Railroads

We often separate science and technology from art as if they never influenced on one another; maybe we keep forgetting that artists are humans who are also affected by such phenomena. We can get a clearer portrait of the influence of science and technology in art on films, I think that's when it comes obvious that something has changed, tut painters, poets, musicians, even dancers respond to what is happening in the world. A great example to explain this are the railroads: Soon after their success, painters like J.M.W Turner responded with beautiful paintings with the trains as their main character; poets like Jones Very and Emily Dickinson started writing about them; films started showing railroads on movies, even made them a crucial part of the story; even photographers were devoted them!

Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times is a great example on how the industrialization, science and technology affect arts too: 

One of my new favourite photographs

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson entered her room with Maggie, pretends to lock the door and says: "Maggie, here is freedom"

While reading Emily Dickinson's poems, I could only think about a miserable, lonely, weak woman... 'I felt a Funeral, in my  Brain' made me feel the saddest person in the world and that non-ending ending was just disturbing, exhausting, scary; this poem kept me thinking some minutes about life, my life, the life of everyone I love.

Loners can sometimes create the most sublime works of art. I take my hat off.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

What I like the most about Hopkins was his sensitivity to beauty. I find remarkable that in a period of industrialization, smog, and basically no care for beauty (the cities' landscapes were rather ugly back then), a man had took his time to write poetry about nature and the common place things -a leaf, a cloud, the rain- that he loved; he said that to value those little things is the beginning of wisdom.

It such a shame that his 'secret' poetry was ignored until his death. Society, just fearing for what is different, 'incorret' and experimental, just lost the opportunity of enjoying Hopkin's spiritual and beautiful poetry.

Ukiyo-e: The Floating World

"Japanese art - we all had that in common"

-Vincent Van Gogh

I have to admit I was surprised I could recognized some Ukiyo-e works because when I stated reading about this genre, I was pretty sure I had never seen any piece of art that belongs to it.

I like when art remembers the simple things in life: the beauty of nature, the movement of the sea, the people you're surrounded by, the most common street, that bridge you always to cross to get home... I think Ukiyo-e is one the best portraying these simple -and usually ignored- kind of things that complete everybody's life. Also, I think it is really interesting that such an important genre has its origins on the cheap and despised market of Japanese art; this genre comes from average people mass-producing a series of pretty images! No high class Japanese man or woman would have considered these prints high art, but they scaled to created an important genre not only in Japan or Asia, but in the whole world... just amazing!

My favourite Ukiyo-e piece

Laurence Sterne and Walt Whitman

"Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas"

-Laurence Sterne

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes"

-Walt Whitman

The reason I decided to join Laurence Sterne and Walt Whitman into a single post it's because I think they were both specially daring to their societies and corresponding times. Authors that mess too much with sexual issues have always problems with pubic opinion, but these two guys didn't care that much about that.

Laurence Sterne himself seems to me a weird literature treasure since he was higly influenced not only by the Rabelais, but by the great and unforgettable Cervantes... what a great mixture! Besides, what kind of weird  and naughty novel divided in 9 volumes introduces the main character and hero until the 3rd volumen?! Seems almost like a joke, a daring joke that just invites you to want to know more about him.

Walt Whitman is surely a man you can flatter as well. It's overwhelming how he can basically talk about everything: the earth, nature, cities, democracy, the human body, the human essence, love, sex, beauty and so on... Of course, he was pretty hated by some people, but sometimes to be great, you have to create controversy, and he certainly did a good job on that; I think he actually liked it and made it on purpose.

Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven

I personally have read several poems and stories by Edgar Allan Poe; his work has always attracted me even though it makes me feel uncomfortable, scared or irritated quite often. I have always found Allan Poe as one of the most original and thrilling authors on history. In a few words, he changed the way detective, criminal and terror stories are told.

When I read his writings, I can really feel the madness of the murderer in 'The Tell-Tale Heart', the desperation of the man in 'The Raven', or the cholera that the mad and alcoholic murderer feels when he sees that one-eyed animal on 'The Black Cat' (even when I love cats). I always get this no-stopping heart beat while reading his masterpieces.

This is one of my favourite short animation of all time combining several stories and poems of the old Allan Poe. Designed by Tim Burton and narrated by Vincent Prince, here is Vincent:

British Landscapes: Constable, Bonington and Turner

John Constable

If I had to describe Constable's painting in one word, I would just say anger. The skies and the water that are portrayed in his paintings are are not quite terrifying, but rather uncomfortable to look at: clouds are chaotic, threatening, violent, dark, and water looks to me suffocating and oppressive. John Constable sure has really beautiful paintings, but I would never like to visit those landscapes he painted.

Violent skies and water on Constable's paintings

Bonington's 'La Ferte'

Richard Parkes Bonington

It is clear that unlike the Luminists, Bonington didn't focused on delicate brushworks and painted not quite defined figures. When I saw those brush marks on Bonington's 'La Ferte' (Figure on the left), all I could think about is that it seems that he made such an imperfect brushwork that actually turns out to be perfect for his paintings. Those blurred and somehow sort of abstract figures on Bonington's paintings send the spectator to an atmosphere of loneliness and thoughtfulness that I-as a inexperienced painter- can say it's difficult to catch.

J.M.W Turner

As much as Constable, J.M.W Turner captures a quite violent atmosphere in his paintings. Whether he paints water in a peaceful shore or the turbulent ocean, Turner's landscapes provide a sort of dismal and catastrophic panorama. Even in his self-portrait, Turner expresses an angry and suspicious look... It is actually a really thrilling painting.

Our first class

I could write a whole essay about my reaction to the first class of our Contemporary Art & Literature course, but I just want to share the masterpiece that the eccentric Charles-Valentin Alkan reminded me of after hearing his famous 'Funeral March on the Death Parrot'; ladies and gentlemen, Monty Python's Death Parrot Sketch: