* * * *

"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself."

(Ludwig Wittgenstein: Culture and Value)

(Michael Sowa)

Shichinohe Masaru (*1959)

.

For more pictures by Shichinohe, see: http://www004.upp.so-net.ne.jp/maboroshi-cafe/index.htm

Daring voices in Stephen Crane's lines

Stripped bare of poetic ornaments, these skeltons of poetry require the reader to listen to  pungent dialogues and bitter soliloquies questioning the order of the universe, and to hark to reticence and silences of the quaintness of Stephen Crane's  cleverly rebellious lines. Pessimistic intellectual profanity worms its way through felicitous and biting satire (or vice versa?)... 

 

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, "Is it good, friend?"

"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered:

"But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart."

***

There was a man with tongue of wood

Who essayed to sing, 

And in truth it was lamentable.

But there was one who heard 

The clip-clapper of this tongue of wood

And knew what the man

Wished to sing,

And with that the singer was content.

***

I walked in a desert.

And I cried,

"Ah, God, take me from this place!"

A voice said, "It is no desert."

I cried, "Well, But --

The sand, the heat, the vacant

horizon."

A voice said, "It is no desert."

***

When the prophet, a complacent fat

man,

Arrived at the mountain-top,

He cried: "Woe to my knowledge!

I intended to see good white lands

And bad black lands,

But the scene is grey."

***

"A man said to the universe:

"Sir, I exist!"

"However," replied the universe, 

"The fact has not created in me

"A sense of obligation."

***

I heard thee laugh,

And in this merriment 

I defined the measure of my pain;

I knew that I was alone,

Alone with love,

Poor shivering love,

And he, little sprite, 

Came to watch with me,

And at midnight,

We were like two creatures by a dead

camp-

fire.

 

***

The Mathematics of M.C. Escher's Art

A Dutch graphic, tessellation-, print-, woodcut-, lithograph-, mezzotintmaker, Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898 - 1972), is known for his impeccably construed worlds of impossibility, infinity, and  visual paradoxes, which integrate mathematics into art. Exploring the shape and logic of space, and ultimately capturing hyperbolic space on a two dimensional plane, his works use both the mathematical perfection and distorition of some of the spatial and geometric relations. 

(Relativity)

Among other concepts, Escher employed and further developed H.S.M. Coxeter and Poincare's circle model, George Pólia's seventeen plane symmetry groups, and Roger Penrose's geometric tilings and figures. Furthermore, Escher was fascinated by the Moorish Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, where all symmetry patterns are present. On the other hand, his works inspired many others, such as J.F. Schouten, J.W. Wagenaar, or crystallographers concerned with polychromatic symmetry. Escher's tessellations usually feature sets of invariant tiles which interlock with copies of themselves; they represent either local or global regularity, and encompass orderly, algorythmic, self-similar repetition outside traditional symmetry groups. What is more, if colouring is employed, although it is compatible with symmetry, more often than not, there is no ballance with the four-fold rotation symmetry, or four colour theorem. 

(Lizzard Square)

Escher played with the perspective, used multiple points of view, applied shifting vanishing points, manipulated shadow and light, made background become figure and vice versa. He employed infinite loops (called strange loops by Hofstadter), stairs, reflective surfaces, windows, and geometric figures, and in order to create optical illusions, or visual paradoxes, he used different kinds of reflections and symmetries, colour and shape combinations, rotations, and translations. 

(Convex and Concave)

He employed and mixed different kinds and senses of symmetry. His best-known lithograph, Drawing Hands, for instance, does not represent a literal symmetry, but balance with respect to center point, and left and right. He used an absolute, as well a non-absolute, yet dynamic symmetry of halves, i.e. the application of a perfect point symmetry and a rotation by 180 degrees called anti-symmetry, counter-change, or half-turned symmetry. Not surprisingly, one of the most important features of Escher's works is duality, i.e. the counterbalance of two opposing notions in the broadest sense of a dualistic nature of entities: one defining the other, figure becoming ground, light dissolving into shadow, etc. 

(Day and Night)

Another aspect of Escher's art is his specific depiction of order and its disruption. His favourite shapes and figures were Penrose polygons (see for instance his use of Penrose triangle in Waterfall), Necker cube (e.g. in Belvedere), Möbius Strip (e.g. in Swans), and last but not least, polyhedra (see for instance a stellated dodecahedron used in Gravity or in Order and Chaos). 

(Order and Chaos)

To sum up, Escher's lithograph print, Raptiles, represents probably all types and senses of symmetry (many of them not explicitly mentioned in the present text) which Escher put to use. The print features symmetry as ballance, duality, order, regularity, invariance, compatibility, economy, and closure.  

(Raptiles)

For further information, see:

- a video lecture entitled Symmetry in the works of M.C. Escher given by Doris Schattschneider at Moravian College;

- an article by Doris Schattschneider entitled Escher: a mathematician in spite of himself based on a talk given in July 1986 at the Eugene Strens Memorial Conference on Intuitive and Recreational Mathematics held at the University of Calgary;

- Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (New York: Basic Books, 1979).

A Kiss as a Snapshot Photography Trope

A kiss has always been, though rather inconspicuously and sporadically, a recurrent theme of what might be labeled artistic snapshot photography. Some of the most famous photographs depicting a kiss follow.

Robert Doisneau is recognized as a witty, humorous, yet emphatic photographer of Parisian street life, and many of his photographs are viewed as the icons of French lifestyle. Although eventually revealed as posed [1], the photograph entitled Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville has come to be read as a story of boisterous love, lust, and spontaneity.

(Robert Doisneau: Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville)

(Robert Doisneau: Les amoureaux de Paris)

Henri Cartier-Breson is often pronounced the most capable street photographer. He believed in the time-stop, individual history preservative effect of photography, and with the patience of a fisherman, observed the surrounding him life in order to capture “les moments décisifs”.

(Henri Cartier-Breson: Café de Flore)

Alfred Eisenstaedt became famous by means of taking pictures of the famous (both in culture and politics), as well as by pioneering an available light photography. Nonetheless, the photograph for which he is known world-widely is a picture of a sailor passionately kissing a young woman on V-Day in Times Square. This snapshot not only became one of the symbols of the U.S. jubilant victory, but also one of the photographs that contributed to the definition of American photojournalism.

(Alfred Eisenstaedt: V-Day Kiss)

Eliot Erwitt is known for his candid look at the everyday city life, his portraits of people (often juxtaposed with some static objects), and (arguably) predominantly, for his witty photographs of dogs. His photograph California Kiss is considered one of the finest American snapshots from the 1950’s.

(Eliot Erwitt: California Kiss)

John Kimmich-Javier is a trained as an architect photographer who is rather unknown to wider public. His photograph, The Kiss, quite neatly documents Kimmich-Javier’s novel depiction of ancient buildings and their interiors.

(John Kimmich-Javier: The Kiss)

In 1968, Rocco Morabito, a former Jacksonville Journal photographer, was awarded Pulitzer Prize for Spot Photography for his photograph entitled The Kiss of Life. The picture captures an apprentice lineman, Champion, who is hanging unconscious having received a high voltage jolt, and another apprentice lineman, Thompson, who breathes life into Champion, and eventually rescues him.

(Rocco Morabito: The kiss of life)

Finally, Nan Goldin is an American photographer known for her documentary(-like) photographs of transsexual and gay communities, drug addicts, and people with AIDS. In spite of the fact that her pictures more often than not burst with the aggressive search for identity, violence in relationships, and rough sexuality; falling into the category of (memento) AIDS and gay photographs, the photograph entitled Gotscho Kissing Gilles affectionately represents a farewell kiss to a lover, a tender kiss of loss.

(Nan Goldin: Gotscho Kissing Gilles)

Chilly Chinese Contemporary Paintings

Chinese contemporary art is said to be one of the most exciting and diverse art scenes in the world. It ingeniously fuses expressionistic and realistic imagery with the grotesque, as well as it amalgamates collective, political, and personal statements, creating thereby uniquely turbulent worlds of the painted narratives... Cold Sweat?

(Zhang Xiaogang)

(Fang Li Jun)

(Zhao Bo)

(Li Li)

(Yue Minjun)

(Wang Ke)

For more Chinese contemporary artists, see: 

http://www.chinesecontemporary.com/

http://www.artscenechina.com/

http://www.newchineseart.com/

Poetics of the ParkeHarrisons

A multidisciplinary production process, comprising numerous photography techniques (such as darkroom, photomontage, collage, or varnishes), as well as painting, drama theatre (see staged scenes or fabricated props) and sculpture (see versized objects), has been applied in Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison's photographs in order to create photographs that, in spite of touching the surreal, attempt to picture a disturbing actual man-nature relation, primarily focusing on the human impact on nature, destruction and rehabilitation.

"I want to make images that have open, narrative qualities, enough to suggest ideas about human limits. I want there to be a combination of the past juxtaposed with the modern. I use nature to symbolize the search, saving a tree, watering the earth. In this fabricated world, strange clouds of smog float by, there are holes in the sky. These mythic images mirror our world, where nature is domesticated, controlled, and destroyed." Robert ParkeHarrison, The Architect's Brother (Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2000).

(Forestbed)

The ParkeHarrisons' work may be divided into two distinct periods: (1) the older works that might be distinguished by their monochrome (sepia or black-and-white) tonality, laboriously constructed sets of damaged or hollow landscapes, and the character of an "archetypal", black-suit-clad figure of "Everyman", who is patiently executing obscure, improbable and futile acts and rituals, and uses crude machines in attempt to communicate with the earth, to help it in its work, and to heal its wounds; and (2) the newer works, which are characterized by subdued colour palette; bare, grey walls or ground; blindingly white snow or contrejour (i.e. backlight); and by showing only parts of human body: there is no full man/woman portrayed.

(Cloud Burst)

(Pollination)

The photographs appear to me strangely poetic, and beautifully rendered ambiguous: they are witty and ironic, as well as unnerving and gloomy. In a highly organized fashion, they tell the story of chaos of a struggling (?), angry (?) and confused (?) existence.

(Grey Dawn)

(The Scribe)