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Saturday Music: Mungo Jerry – In the Summertime

In our hemisphere temperature’s rising, so it’s just the right time to start thinking about summer. Thus here comes Mungo Jerry! This song I first heard on an audio cassette my Dad brought to me around 1997. It wasn’t until some 10 years later that I saw the curly mane of the band’s leader.

More songs in Music.

Van Gogh Goes Hipster: What Messages Photoshopped Art Sends Us

Mona Lisa used to be a makeover darling for many an artist. I was caught off guard by postcards of La Gioconda in sunglasses, with punk make-up on a stand opposite the Louvres in Paris. They looked weird because a stone-throw away was the real Gioconda. However, the image and all surrounding mysteries were so well-known that have become a commonplace, a household name, so some kind of rebellion against such omnipresence was almost welcome, also giving a fresh perspective.

Recently I’ve rediscovered Pinterest, and there I came across a few images that suggest that Vincent Van Gogh, the troubled Impressionist painter known for his haunting Sunflowers and self-mutilation, is the new Mona Lisa. In one photo he’s partying with Frida Kahlo and the famous Girl with the Pearl Earring. In another, La Gioconda consoles him. And in others he’s paired with the mentioned Vermeer’s model. Admittedly, they make a good couple: one cannot help remembering paparazzi images of Johnny Depp and Kate Moss.

Mona Lisa and Vincent
Vincent Van Gogh partying with Vermeer’s Girl and Frida Cahlo

What I always wonder about, thinking of these images, is their purpose. With Mona Lisa it was quite obvious: she was SO famous one couldn’t help trying to bring her down. Different, especially satirical takes on La Gioconda were the acts of rebellion against classical art, the Old Masters, as well as against the popular fascination thereof. It was so easy to love and copy the classics without ever asking what makes them good, important, etc. So, the funny images of Mona Lisa served the purpose of shaking the pedestal beneath the Old Masters. In this, they continued the tradition of revolts against classical art that started in the 19th century.

Mona Lisa takes to the streets with Vincent

Hence, the hipster images of Van Gogh seemingly run in the same vein. Except for one thing: it’s not the modernity that alters the portrait of the artist. We see something different: an artist’s head leaves the body and takes to the modern-day streets. Whereas we instantly recognise Mona Lisa, whatever the makeover, the gingerhaired dude is likely to be familiar only to those who know his art. To others, he’s a guy-next-door, evidently a regular at all the city bars, sporting the fashionable five-o-clock beard and wearing an ethereal girlfriend on his arm.

I’m prompted to see these images as an attempt of contemporary artists to show how difficult it’s become to embed oneself in history. Perhaps, they don’t regard their work as such, but their opinion doesn’t change the fact: if you do something publicly, you want it to be noticed. And there’s a lot to be noticed and contemplated. For instance, why precisely it is Van Gogh who’s become the new Raphael and his art is both famous and yet common. Monet’s Waterlilies are too simple yet pretentious for today’s interiors, Degas is too complex, Picasso and Dali are too famous, and Vincent’s contemporary, the ravishing Gauguin, is probably too daring for the otherwise tolerant society.

Or, why it is Van Gogh who’s been chosen by the new generation of “creative people” who’ve got the misfortune of living in the shadow of both the classics and the better known contemporaries, when self-mutilation suddenly becomes a publicity act to illustrate the artist’s impotence. Not to mention his mental state, the work of Van Gogh lacked the languid tenderness of Monet or Gauguin’s exotic vitality. Van Gogh is halfway between these two emotions, and again this may be what makes him so popular today. Artists and the public want to enjoy the steady bourgeois life but the thirst for change and the ennui (as a by-product of that very steadiness) push them far and wide. They settle on Van Gogh as a troubled soul with peculiar landscape paintings, starry skies, potato-eaters, sunflowers and irises, who’s quite exotic and simple and thus doesn’t challenge the status quo. So contemporary art doesn’t challenge the capitalist status quo. There seems to be a truce between capitalism and art today: art can criticise capitalism as long as it doesn’t attempt to erode its basis. Van Gogh serves better purpose here, as he’s never left the capitalist, bourgeois setting, unlike Gauguin.

Finally, as a society we’re still fascinated with the troubled genii who didn’t live to see the fame that befell their work. And this is again where Van Gogh fits so well. This fame and success thing belongs to the same class of unattainable values, as, say, money. It is argued that money is everywhere, yet why so few people get comfortably well-off? There are many reasons, from poor thinking to some objective factors, like the time and place of living, yet ultimately they all serve the purpose to explain why you’ve not got money now AND give you hope that one day you may be a rich man, too. Today artists are subjected to such fierce competition that you’ve got to be inspired by someone who remained faithful to his path and eventually received his delayed gratification. Van Gogh is an excellent example: not too notorious, not too political, a typical shy genius.

So when Vincent takes to the streets in those images there are several messages we receive. This may be a homage the contemporary art and indeed life itself pay the bygone times by bringing them into the 21st century. I mean, do you see similar takes on the work of David, Ingres, Degas, Gauguin? Nothing instantly springs to mind, which means that incorporating Van Gogh into modern-day discourse is a sign that he belongs here and now.

This may be an attempt of contemporary art to trace itself back to some period in Art History with which it’d like to be associated. Regardless of artistic value of Van Gogh’s work (which I don’t dispute), the reason contemporary artists may wish to be close to Van Gogh is a peculiar combination of avant-garde and mainstream in his work, which is neither too challenging, nor boring.

Finally, contemporary life itself wants to find a historical setting to which it belongs — or, alternatively, to destroy the value of any historical tradition. Lost in between capitalism and socialism, today’s “young adults” are very much like the troubled Vincent. They need to know that there’s hope, that the past has preserved the images of people both similar and familiar to them. Van Gogh lived at the time when the notion of art was only beginning to undergo revision. I guess he’d be completely lost today when your local graffiti, a dead shark and Leonardo are all considered “art”. So his hipster images are a link between the fin-de-siecle and the first half of the 21st century. And it’s kind of good, except for the sinister side. Van Gogh serves to justify the artistic impotence, the second-hand artistic practice and spending life in a fleeting hope for fame and success. Nobody cares for his mental state nor views on art. His distorted face is placed in all sorts of settings, from bars to film posters, to make him as common as Mona Lisa has become. This devaluation works very cleverly, equalling a great artist to his unfortunate paragons and further distorting the notion of art, which in the end isn’t about Beauty but about Labour of Love for Beauty.

Things We Miss The Most

I visited Britain for the first time 15 years ago, spending a month there, from early July till early August. In November I visited again, and in September 2003 I flew into what had become my seven-year period of life in England.

When I was returning home in 2010, my mother wondered if I missed any food. I craved some very special dairy products, but that was that.

I missed sunsets and some Moscow districts most.

Sunsets have always been spellbinding where I live. My grandma and I used to sit on our balcony on the 5th floor, enjoying the dramatic changes of colour and its intensity. Watching the horizont melting in subliminal gold or erupting in passionate union of red and purple couldn’t possibly have left my imagination untouched by the divine revelation. It took me years to admit that I was a believer, and sunsets were a reference point for my nascent faith in the 2000s.

What about you? What do you miss when you are away or alone?

To give you an idea of what I’m waxing lyrical about, here are some sunset photos from my neighbourhood.



Image credit: Julia Shuvalova

Changing, It Rests

Notwithstanding the well-known statement by Plato that one cannot step into the same river, it appears that Heraclytus did mean that the river had to flow to remain a river, hence we could step into it again, even though its waters could have changed over time.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that in the past two years I was silent here. I lost access to my hosting account, and thus to this blog and other projects… only to realise it could be a blessing in disguise. So I took time to review many things, prompted, as strange as it may seem, by the events in my country. My friends list underwent some clearing, and I concentrated on teaching and writing.

So, two years later I’ve finally published a book (in English!), a lot of my articles appeared in print, I began to perform as a singer and discovered almost magic teaching abilities: some of my students passed exams in flying colours even though at the start of our lessons they could barely read in English!

And now I’ve decided to get back to blogging here. I really missed LCJ these past 6 months, and this was an indication that my river was waiting for me again.

The Ways of Love: Organ and Harp Concert

The visitors and residents of Moscow who love classical music are welcome to listen to music pieces for organ and harp. The concert is taking place on May 14th at Peter and Paul Lutheran Cathedral Church in Starosadsky Lane (Kitay-Gorod metro station). In the programme: the works of C. Debussy, M. Grangjani, G. Banschikov, B. Tischenko and others.

Date and time: May 14, 2017, 19:00.

Tickets: https://vk.cc/6AfcLx

K0vGzG_0OLY

Da Vinci – 565!

Дмитрий Мережковский – Леонардо да Винчи

О, Винчи, ты во всем — единый:
Ты победил старинный плен.
Какою мудростью змеиной
Твой страшный лик запечатлен!

Уже, как мы, разнообразный,
Сомненьем дерзким ты велик,
Ты в глубочайшие соблазны
Всего, что двойственно, проник.

И у тебя во мгле иконы
С улыбкой Сфинкса смотрят вдаль
Полуязыческие жены,—
И не безгрешна их печаль.

Пророк, иль демон, иль кудесник,
Загадку вечную храня,
О, Леонардо, ты — предвестник
Еще неведомого дня.

Смотрите вы, больные дети
Больных и сумрачных веков
Во мраке будущих столетий
Он, непонятен и суров,—

Ко всем земным страстям бесстрастный,
Таким останется навек —
Богов презревший, самовластный,
Богоподобный человек.

error: Sorry, no copying !!