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Month: September 2009

The Masters We Choose: Turner vs. Old Masters

The Guardian and Tate have today initiated a discussion – half based on Twitter – about Turner vs. the Old Masters. David Solkin, the curator at Tate, walked a Guardian journalist through the exhibition that pitches Turner’s paintings against those that inspired them. Turner’s works are shown next to Willem Van de Velde the Younger’s, Rembrandt’s, and Poussin’s.

According to Solkin, it’s 2:1 to Turner. Suppose this is so. But would one really organise such exhibition to let Turner lose? Especially at the gallery that boasts an impressive Turner collection? I don’t think so.

Copying and/or remaking the masters’ works is an exercise that arguably every artist out there undertakes at some point in their lives. Consider Francis Bacon’s study after the Portait of Pope Innocent X by Diego Velazquez (left). Or the copies of the work by Jean François Millet made by Vincent van Gogh: van Gogh’s own understanding was that he was more repainting Millet’s works rather than simply copying them. Or Duchamp’s well-known mockery of Mona Lisa (right).

Speaking of Turner, here are three Deluges: one by Leonardo, another by Poussin, the third by Turner. Who should, and why?

The problem I always have with this kind of juxtapositions in art is the point of reference. Poussin’s Deluge is likely to delude the viewer (I couldn’t resist the pun), so sober it is. Poussin deftly pushes the tragedy into the background of the painting. By comparison, Turner makes the viewer confront the tragic subject. Based on this, one may think that Poussin is more mature an artist because of the way he chooses the draw our attention to the subject. Another may say that Turner is braver and more ambitious, throwing us straight into the deluge. If Turner’s Deluge should be compared, it is best compared to Leonardo’s: not only the force of techniques, but the very intents are more similar.

Another statement that I would disagree with concerns Turner’s Pilate Washing His Hands, that it is “the bravest picture of the 19th c.“. I won’t question why it is compared to Rembrandt’s Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery: to me, the subjects are infinitely different, and so are the approaches to depicting them.

But let’s ignore this. Turner chose a grand subject, no doubt about it. In the larger context (that is, outside the Art world), this painting potentially preannounced the entire 20th c. with all its great wars with thousands, if not millions, of losses, off which many a Pilate washed their hands. But is that the context in which Solkin sees it? The Guardian doesn’t tell us.

What if the context is limited by the artistic pondering on themes of the New Testament? If this is the case, then Pilate Washing His Hands is no more ground-breaking than Millais’s Christ in the House of His Parents (right) that provoked outrage and was harshly criticised by Dickens.

And if the context is defined by the act of depicting a sensitive subject, then Eugene Delacroix’s Massacre of Chios (left) was considered both ground-breaking and outrageous and could possibly be seen as preempting the now familiar media reports from the “conflict regions”. But in the early 19th c. the Parisian society was not ready to spoil their day out at the gallery with the sight of exhausted Greek bodies. A century later Henry Miller noted the similar kind of displeasure of the cinema visitors who didn’t want to see the atrocities in the French Indochina. However brave Turner or Delacroix were, it doesn’t look like their works have had much impact either on contemporaries, or on posterity.

“Who wins” still stands, of course. And maybe it’s best not to try to give an answer, as the query is a rather fanciful one. Can we imagine Turner without the Titans of Renaissance? Or the Titans of Renaissance without Giotto or Duccio? Or the 20th c. art without the centuries that preceded it? We have the advantage that the contemporaries of Giotto, Leonardo or Turner didn’t have: we can see them in the context of their predecessors, contemporaries and followers – something they could never afford, at least as far as followers are concerned. But we should not use this advantage too much. In another 50 years, we will be seen in context, too.

As for me, when it comes to “winning artists”, I look at Picasso’s Guernica.

Image credits: Wikipedia, The Guardian, Aiwaz, Olga’s Gallery, and Matt Kirkland.

Special thanks to @Tate and @asiantees for discussing Turner and the Old Masters (especially Rembrandt).

P.S. I couldn’t resist re-sharing the photo I took in Waterstone’s in Manchester. As we can see, the good old Turner certainly ignites people’s creativity.

Memorably Robed

Memorably Robed , originally uploaded by loscuadernosdejulia.

I am reading Sigmund Freud’s Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. And the first literary example Freud uses, which was popular at the time of his research, is an extract from Heinrich Heine’s Reisebilder. In this extract, Hirsch-Hyacinth, the Hamburg lottery agent and curer of corns, tells Heine about his acquaintance with the rich Baron Rotschild: “And as true as I pray that the Lord may grant me all good things I sat next to Solomon Rotschild, who treated me just as if I were his equal, quite famillionaire“.

The title of this post is a faint attempt to take a mickey out of a typo I saw recently as I was walking past Habitat shop in Manchester. As you know, I’ve recently noticed a lot of curious typos and coincidences in the use of language. It happens both in the English and Russian languages, and I genuinely cannot help it. But this is the proof that I am good with words, after all.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VF0FaKW5KhgC&lpg=PA92&ots=U0m6T2hI7h&dq=freud%20wit%20heine&pg=PA15&output=embed

Slow-mo or Fly-mo: A Matter of Choice?


First of all, I want to assure those who found it hard to get by without any posts on this blog that I will make sure that I don’t leave you with nothing to read for a week again. My Internet seems to be back up, a brand monitoring project that I was working on during the day for over a month is practically finished, and the future looks bright. Or, to put it differently, I will make it bright.

The curious thing is that I’ve recently heard a plenty of things that collectively just make me wanna go and do it… There’re a few things I’ve wanted to do, and somehow they all seem possible to be accomplished within a short period of time. After which there will be a plenty of time and opportunities to do more.

Almost in Mrs Dalloway fashion did I leave my flat this morning. I wasn’t going to buy flowers; I needed eggs and bread. But I didn’t buy these in the end. I walked around Manchester city centre, turning the pages of my own personal book in my head which pages are filled with dreams, achievements, errors, and failures. I know that the last two are instrumental for success of any kind in any field, and there are a few achivements under my belt. But I need to put more into my dreams. There is a lot of energy in me but not enough space to express it.

And just as I came home and went online I found one blog story. This is coincidental, surely, but I tend to think that on such occasions the extraterrestrial forces are at play. This week I wrote a text that I needed to write. I needed to write it to understand how much I’ve done so far, and why the last couple of years feel like not going anywhere. I needed to blurt it out. I knew I kind of followed Pablo Picasso’s saying ‘I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it‘. But recently I realised that I had the great results whenever I followed this phrase from W. Somerset Maugham’s work: ‘If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it‘.

Maugham was referring to life. The funny thing about my life so far is that I actually followed this adage, and all results and achievements prove just that. But I wasn’t always doing this consciously, let alone did I always act with this adage in mind. The reason? It’s not fear of rejection; it’s circumstances. Some of those circumstances had to do with upbringing, and some with money. The good thing is that I can change it, and I have undergone massive changes in the last 5-6 years. The hard thing is that, no matter how much support I can get, it’s still only me who is capable of making any changes.

So, I found this article on John Carlton’s blog, Life Lessons from Burning Man. The idea is that you have this “rule of 3” whereby you get better as you progress. You don’t put pressure on yourself, you don’t make yourself nail it the first time round… I cannot fault John or those who chose to agree. We all have our own upbringing, circumstances, whatever. And, as we know, to succeed we need to ‘fail, fail again, fail better’. But if one makes “the rule of 3” their motto, they’ll forever be just good enough. Because there will always be someone who takes the scene by storm the first time round and stays there because they are too good to take time or to wait in line. “The rule of 3” is for those who think either too much or not at all. If you don’t think at all, you don’t learn. If you think too much, you lose spontaneity and inspiration.

I started writing a comment on John’s blog, then I thought I’d spell it out here. Culturally, today we are torn between instant successes followed by quick and painful demises and a slow-mo build up at ant’s speed to the point when we are comfortable enough with what we have achieved and can “grow old graciously” (this is the phrase I’ve heard very often about women who keep using makeup after their turned 65). We are urged to have ambitions; then we’re told that ambitious project fail. We are reminded that Rome wasn’t built in a day; and then we applaud Susan Boyle who’s taken the world by storm. Then, of course, we go on stomping on her efforts to make herself pretty because she should “grow old graciously”.
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This is one of the disfunctional traits of contemporary culture and society. It has been there for a while, and it continues to wreck people’s lives. I cannot tell you how tired I am of this “take it slow” way of thinking. Or another one: “what if…?”

The thing about “what if” is that it’s very often a thing in your head. As if a natural fear of doing something new wasn’t enough, we build upon it by imagining what happens if we fail. The funny thing is that all those monstrous pictures our imagination paints for us usually never come to life.

The problem I had with “the rule of 3” is not only because I’ve hardly ever lived by it. Indeed, I got to the top Russian university the first time round; I went to the BBC, taking no long routes, despite having no prior experience in radio journalism. This is not the full list of things that I accomplished at the first go, but it will suffice. The problem is you may get one chance, maybe two… but what if the third chance doesn’t happen?

Ultimately, posts like the one by John Carlton just make me understand a few things about me. I’m not afraid of anything, nor am I really concerned about the “bad” opinion. There are things I refuse to do because I physically can’t do them, but what I can do I do the best I can. Not because I’m a perfectionist but because I don’t see the point of settling down for “good” result when you have all the reasons to have the “excellent” one. And this phrase – “know that you’re probably not going to ace it this first time out… ” – is just not for me. It depends, of course, on how good one knows themselves and how much one believes in themselves. But if one doesn’t believe in themselves, they’d rather start doing so… now, not after three attempts.

When you live by the “rule of 3” you are concerned – however consciously – about what other people think of you, how they may criticise you. You secretly want to excel, to be the ace, but you’re afraid that you don’t do that very well. I don’t want to advise, but for myself I keep two points in mind. You and others are different entities, with different abilities and goals. Some will likely not appreciate if you choose to do something they have not thought of doing. Some will not like you doing anything that disturbs their routine or makes them feel inferior. But whose life is it, anyway? You cannot please everyone. And if you are concerned about what they will make of your failure, then think about this: you may never fail; but if you think too much about it, you will never achieve.

P.S. Now that I’ve written this I realise there’s a fundamental difference between the intents of John’s and my posts. He’s written his to advise people who have difficulty (for whatever reason) to confront the novelty and change. I’ve been surrounded by novelty and change since 1997 and even more so since 2004. I didn’t resist it, although change and novelty profoundly affected not only my career but my private life, and I am aware that a lot of people would not undergo any changes if those threatened their personal way of being. But I know, both rationally and emotionally, that those changes were for the better. I didn’t always have time to think whether or not I wanted those changes in my life. In hindsight, good or bad, I needed them all.

However cautious all my experiences make me on occasion I realise that the only way to live one’s life is to live it to the full every day. This post is for those who do the same – or are thinking of doing the same.

Les Anges Musiciens – Musical Angels

Manchester Cathedral - Musical Angels 4My photo of one of the musical angels in Manchester Cathedral has just been invited to the group Anges Musiciens (‘musical angels’ in French). I thought I’d point to it those who love art, especially Medieval. Someone was asking if Devil was a musical angel, and if angels could sing. Clearly, if there is an expression ‘angelic voice’, it originated for a reason. Here is the post, if you want to read for yourself. Incidentally, the decor of the altar screen in Manchester Cathedral portraits the singing angels. And on the right is how Edward Burne-Jones depicted a musical angel in 1878-1880 (credit to ArtMagick).

Manchester Cathedral - Singing Angels

Social Tools, Internet, and Future Culture

I wrote previously that I went to Futuresonic 2009. There will be another Futuresonic related announcement here in the next day or two; also Futuresonic now arrives rebranded as Future Everything, and they have a nice event attached to the reborn festival.

The text below has appeared previously elsewhere (orig. published on May 27, 2009). After all the pleasant events of the last week and looking at the number of bloggers who follow this blog now (and the subjects of their blogs) I thought useful to transfer the post here and see where we all stand re: blogs and how the Internet has influenced our culture, values, etc.

The talk is 45 mins long, which is why the text below is really a skimmed version of what you will hear if you listen to the audio. It is hardly a commentary, so whoever wants to get the ball rolling and say where they agree or disagree, and especially how they experience the changing impact the web has had on them, please be my guest. As I am in the process of paying visits to all friendly blogs, Twitter accounts, and blog introductions, here is a post by Lethe Bashar, Is the Internet Killing Culture?

Stowe Boyd, the leading authority on social applications and their impact on society, media and business and a self-confessed “presentist”, was speaking about how social tools have been shaping our culture at Futuresonic 2009. Boyd coined the term “social tools” back in 1999. He spelt out the idea in the last newsletter he sent out before he turned to blogging. Considering the number of articles that hailed 2009 as the year of Social Media, it is interesting to see how long it has taken the world to wake up to the call of the social web. This also confirms that Social Media is by no means new.

Social tools were defined by Boyd as “a new category of software intended to augment social systems; the social tools are intended to shape culture”. The distinction was drawn between the culture-shaping tools and the social tools that were improving communication. The web resembles the global village where everything is pushed together, and in this context the most important thing about the web is not the latent data, or servers, etc., but how people interact with each other, talk to each other, and how they are being changed by these conversations and connections. The web is the prime artefact of our civilisation, and for this reason social tools and their impact on people as individuals are near and dear to Stowe Boyd’s heart. Web stands out because it’s not primarily physical. The impact is also uncertain: it will emerge at a later stage, as we are shaped by the culture that we build. Right not, however, the cost of investment in making of this culture – let alone the value of culture itself – remains largely unexamined.
A couple of points are of the biggest interest, as far as the impact of social tools on our personal and business communications is concerned. Social tools are social insofar as they are primarily designed to support social relations, and as such their estimation is based on connectiveness rather than efficiency. The prime example here is a simple Instant Messanger (IM) that can serve as the indicator of presence or availability of a person we are trying to connect with. If people are connected on Skype or MSN, then they are likely to check the status of their correspondent before they make a phone call or write an email. This doesn’t stop here, as people may be seeking help or advice, and hence they are likely to ask a question via the IM, the hassle of using an email client is reduced. Through this, Boyd stresses, occurs a shift in work ethics and workplace behaviour. One of the traits is manifested in people’s willingness to trade off some personal productivity for connectedness – a kind of new social cohesion.
The above results in unintended consequences of shifting from one mode of communication to another, from email through IM to Twitter; or, to use the same Gabriel Garcia Marquez quote uttered by Boyd in his Futuresonic talk, from secret life through private life to public life. Arguably, we have already seen this with blogging, or generally with sharing information about ourselves online. Yet however instantaneous blogging may be, it is not as real-time as posting short messages via Twitter or FriendFeed. As a result, our understanding and response to the notion of privacy is constantly challenged, and continuously evolves. What comes to mind is the phrase I came across on someone’s blog a while ago: the person said they were sharing the public side of their private life. I found this expression fascinating, and what the rise of Twitter demonstrates is that this public side of our private lives may in fact be bigger than we think – or would like to think.

Twitter has currently got the kind of monopoly similar to what AOL had had with its IM product. Microblogging appears to be the future of communications not only due to its convenience and proliferation, but also due to how it helps to further change the tempo and efficiency of communications. The opennes is the key, and Boyd illustrated the importance of this on the example of JP Rangaswami‘s experiment at Dresdner Bank when he forced the usage of an open email on his colleagues. The impact was that his employees were very interested in what responses he sent to people. Graded by privacy and protection levels, emails are very private; chats and IMs are usually guarded by a chat owners who decide whether or not to block or restrict a user’s access. Twitter is the most egalitarian, which we recently saw in the influx of celebrities to the platform: it is possible to be in the same space as Stephen Fry, although it still doesn’t mean that he will automatically follow you back.
And some straight-forward points from the talk:

Edglings are people who spend large amounts of their time being connected to other people. This is a new way of defect from mass identity, and increasingly – the use of a new social identity shaped by the use of social tools, to connect with others. “I” is the sum of my connections.
“Democratisation of media” only means that it’s now cheap to go online, connect, publish, interact – but it’s not democratic. It’s more like a return to a pre-industrial social scale. The Internet is egalitarian in the sense that anyone can relate/speak to anyone – but it doesn’t support equality or levelling. Inequality still strongly manifests itself through a user’s reputation or authority.

The rise of the edglings is directly responsible for the collapse of traditional media. The media doesn’t paint the correct picture, when reflecting on this fact, instead presenting the situation in such way as if the media tastes have somehow dramatically changed. But in truth there is a power shift occurring. People begin to decide to themselves to whom and how they relate, and where they outsource the information that is interesting or important to them. This will only accelerate, since the process is now irreversible.

Social equals “me” first – for some people this sounded selfish. But it’s not selfish to realise that a person is the centre of their own universe. The shift occurs from mass information to friend information. We’re thus moving into a new kind of tribalism. People’s understanding of the world will shift to a more granulated identity, and mass identification will become less important.

“Web is amazingly conservative” – shall this serve as the best illumination of the fact that it’s all about people, and that if we want to bring about any change, then we will have to start with ourselves, instead of investing hopes into an idea, institute, or tool?

The world will be becoming more partial, and manifestantly subjective, to the point when we choose who to work with. Neotribalism is going to step in place a traditional, “industrial” family, although this is likely to be the change that will take the longest to arrive. Even the current web media is still not particularly social, although the social television possibly has the biggest potential. The most troublesome area is the environment.

What people are trying to do on the web isn’t really about people they’re interacting with, and it’s not the things that are being discussed – it’s about self-discovery. And on the religious level, we may move towards the new mysticism.

The core issue is that we’re moving towards a re-identification of ourselves.

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