Seurat

Georges Seurat used a technique called Pointilism; he created his works by using tiny little dots that make it difficult for the viewer to see the big picture until they step away from the work.  He once said of his work:  "They see poetry in what I have done.  No, I apply my method, and that is all there is to it."

Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte (1884-6)

Madness

Madness is an issue commonly addressed in literature, and my eleventh grade American Literature course spends time discussing ideas relating to madness, insanity, and how to define "normal" when we read Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Here are two paintings that deal with the topic of madness:  Theodore Gericault's Insane Woman (1822) and Edvard Munch's The Scream (1893).

The Golden Ticket!!

This is my beautiful ticket for Men's Gold Medal 10M Platform Diving on Saturday, August 11, at the Aquatic Centre in Olympic Park!

Frommer's Blog

Arthur Frommer, the man who started Frommer's travel guides, just finished the same type of course that I'll be taking at Oxford next week.  

Here is his interesting evaluation of the week, which makes me even more excited to go.  He makes a point of how intellectually stimulating it is to take a class from an Oxford don (professor).  Plus, I thought that we got to eat in the "Harry Potter" Dining Hall only once or twice; he said we eat there for every meal!

http://www.frommers.com/community/blogs/blog.cfm/arthur-frommer-online/arthurs-blog-am-respect-enjoying-fantasy-of-oxford-education-minus-black-cloak

Olympic Fun

 Here are some shots from the nightly Olympic parties we have at my house.  Every night, we have competitions where we can earn "Glory" points.  So far we have competed in an Olympic trivia contest, a timed hula hooping competition (gold medal time was 12 minutes and 22 seconds), and an Egg on a Spoon Race.  Last night my sister and brother-in-law screenprinted T-shirts for us with the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger). 

Tune in Tonight!

The Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics start tonight at 6:30pm Central time.  On the Today show yesterday, Danny Boyle, the Director of the Ceremonies, said that there would be touches of British literature, particularly children's literature (Peter Pan!  Alice in Wonderland!), incorporated into the show.  I'm excited to watch!

I also was offered the chance to buy a ticket for the Gold Medal Finals of Men's 10M Platform Diving on August 11th-- YESSSSSSSSSSSS!  The athletes aren't the only ones with dreams coming true!

Down to One

One day until the Olympics start!

One week until I leave for England!

Photo by Charlie Riedel of The Seattle Times

Cubism

Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912)

 French writer Guillaume Appollinaire explained the central ideas of Cubism like this:

"Authentic cubism is the art of depicting new wholes with formal elements borrowed not from the reality of vision, but from that of conception.  This tendency leads to a poetic kind of painting which stands outside the world of observation; for, even in a simple cubism, the geometrical surfaces of an object must be opened out in order to give a complete representation of it...Everyone must agree that a chair, from whichever side it is viewed, never ceases to have four legs, a seat, and a back, and that, if it is robbed of one of those elements, it is robbed of an important part." 

Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Australia: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2010. 697.


This style of painting does not really appeal to me aesthetically, but I think it is an interesting idea to break down objects and people to their most basic forms and shapes.  I think this breakdown can help my students to think about how poems are "formed."  I also think that looking at this style of painting when we read several Hemingway short stories and talk about the Lost Generation and the fragmentation in society following World War One.

Georges Braque's Violin and Candlestick (1910)

Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1910)

"Love Is Blindness"

If you haven't seen the trailer for the new movie version of The Great Gatsby, you must!  Here's the link to the clip on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqxmhJU4nk4


Also, pay attention to "Love Is Blindness," a cover by Jack White of a U2 song.

Metaphor

http://www.desicolours.com/leonardo-da-vinci-quotes-1280x1024-wallpapers/19/03/2011

Itinerary

Here are my plans while I'm in England:


Thursday, August 2nd:  I leave Milwaukee at 7:50pm, fly to Toronto and then on to London.

Friday, August 3rd:  I arrive in London at 11:25 am local time.  I then take a bus to get to Oxford; Oxford is 57 miles northwest of London.  I am staying at the White House View Guesthouse in Oxford until I move to campus.  I'm hoping to wander around Christ Church Meadow in the evening where longhorn cattle roam and picnickers gather.

David Tanner's Clouds Over Christ Church Meadow (2007)

Saturday, August 4th:  I am doing a tour of the Cotwolds from 10-5:30.

Marilyn Simandle's Bridge in Cotswold

Sunday, August 5th:  I move into the dorms at Christ Church (The University of Oxford is composed of over 30 different colleges; Christ Church is the college where I will be staying and taking a class).  I may try to sneak away to the Ashmoleon Museum or the Oxford Museum of Natural History in the afternoon.

Monday, August 6th:  Class begins!  I am taking a course called "Reading Twentieth Century Poetry" taught by Professor Andrew Blades.  Class meets from 9:15-10:45, then we have a tea and coffee break (my students and I need this back in the States!), and then we meet again from 11:15-12:45.  We have lunch on campus and then we are free to do an Oxford-organized activity or go exploring on our own.  Today's Oxford activity is taking a tour of Christ Church itself, which I plan to do.

Tuesday, August 7th:  Class in the morning.  I'm then going to do a Walking Tour of the city of Oxford.

Wednesday, August 8th:  Class in the morning.  The Oxford-organized activity is visiting Basildon Park.  I may do that or else try to take a bus to visit Blenheim Palace where Sir Winston Churchill was born.  The Palace is eight miles from Oxford.

Thursday, August 9th:  Class in the morning.  This is field trip day for classes at Oxford.   Our class is touring the Bodleian Library where we will get to meet with an archivist to see original works by famous British poets.

Kah Peng's Justice and Passions  [Bodleian Library]

Friday, August 10th:  Class in the morning.  Final formal dinner at night.

Saturday, August 11th:  I will be heading from Oxford back to London.  I found a hotel near Heathrow where I will be staying.  I'm going to stop there first to drop off my luggage and then head into the city to try to experience everything I can related to the Olympics.  I'll probably be headed to "The Mall" (area in front of Buckingham Palace) to see Women's 20K Race-Walking which has an area where you can watch for free.

Sunday, August 12th:  I leave London at noon and get back to Milwaukee at 7:20 pm Central time, in time to watch the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics with my family!

Self-Portraits

I'm interested in how painters represent themselves in self-portraits.  What expression and pose do they choose?  Do they look at or past the viewer? What colors stand out?  What is in the background?  How do styles change over time?

Here are some examples that are intriguing to me:

Leonardo Da Vinci (1512)

Judith Leyster (1630)

Rembrandt van Rijn (1661)

Eugene Delacroix (1837)

Claude Monet (1884)

VIncent Van Gogh (1889)

Pablo Picasso (1907)

Getting Ready...

It's time to get the flags in place for our Olympic Extravaganza starting this Friday!

Ophelia

Here are some examples of paintings being inspired by poetry, in this case lines describing the 
death of Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Gertrude:
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death. (IV.vii)

John Everett Millais's Ophelia (1852)

W.G. Simmonds, The Drowning of Ophelia (1910)

Eve Mero's Ophelia  (2001)

Five Days!

This is a picture of the official Olympic countdown that we have in our front window, plus two bonus pictures of my son having a great time playing with my American/British plug adaptors!

Tom Tower

Photo by DavidHRScott

Every evening that I am staying in the dorms at Christ Church at Oxford, I will hear the bell Great Tom ring 101 times at 9:05 pm.  The first hundred times represent the 100 original scholars at Oxford and the 101st ring was added in 1663 (perhaps to recognize the scholars that have come since?).  Originally, the bell signaled that it was time to lock the gates of Oxford.

Tom Tower was designed by British architect Christopher Wren and built in 1681-1682, and Great Tom was moved to its current position soon after.

What to Paint

"The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him.  If he does not see anything within him, he should give up painting what he sees before him." 

-- Caspar David Friedrich

Caspar David Friedrich's Abbey in the Oak Forest  (1808-1810)

"...painting and poetry fraternized..."

Critic and novelist Theophile Gautier reflected on the Romantic era, writing:  "In those days painting and poetry fraternized.  The artists read the poets, and the poets visited the artists.  We found Shakespeare, Dante, Lord Byron, and Walter Scott in the studio as well as the study.  There were as many splashed of color as there were blots of ink in the margins of those beautiful books which we endlessly perused.  Imagination, already excited, was further fired by reading those foreign works, so rich in color, so free and powerful in fantasy."

The following painting is by famous British poet William Blake.

William Blake's Ancient of Days (1794)

NEWS UPDATE: Art Was An Olympic Sport!

Today I was reading my two-year-old son a book for kids called Modern Olympic Games by Hadyn Middleton.  I was shocked to learn that ART had been an Olympic event from 1912-1948!  The book says that medals were awarded for works of art that had been inspired by sports and that medals were given in the following five categories: painting, sculpture, music, literature, and architecture!  I'm sad that the event was discontinued.

Some other events that have been discontinued in the Olympic Games are cricket, motorboating, lacrosse, and tug-of-war.  I think we should start a campaign to bring back Art and Tug-of-War!  Who's with me?

What are other events that you would like to see at the Games?

Baroque Era Optical Illusion

Fra Andrea Pozzo's Glorification of Saint Ignatius (1691-4)

Single Digits!

9 days until the Olympics begin!

Poems for Summer

George Dunlap Leslie (1879) The following poem was written by Oxford alum, mathematician, and author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.  For more poems set in the summer, visit http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20043 A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky
A boat, beneath a sunny sky Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July— Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear— Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die: Autumn frosts have slain July. Still she haunts me, phantomwise, Alice moving under skies Never seen by waking eyes. Children yet, the tale to hear, Eager eye and willing ear, Lovingly shall nestle near. In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream— Lingering in the golden gleam— Life, what is it but a dream? Photochrome print (1890-1900) Magdalen Tower from the river in Oxford

Georgia O'Keefe

American painter Georgia O'Keefe said:

"Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time."

Georgia O'Keeffe's Poppies (1950)

Olympic Paintings

I love the colors as well as the sense of action in Leroy Neiman's Olympic-themed paintings.






American painter LeRoy Neiman died in June at the age of 91; you can learn more about him and his work by visiting http://www.leroyneiman.com/leroy-neiman-biography.asp.