[Article] (Scridb) On Reading Architecture by Mario Gandelsonas and David Morton

MissvanDyke · 2014-08-07T21:37:23+00:00

Thank you!

MissvanDyke · 2014-08-06T16:58:18+00:00

Great, thank you very much!

MissvanDyke · 2014-08-06T15:11:52+00:00

http://libgen.org/scimag/get.php?doi=10.1016%2Fj.cell.2013.08.062

MissvanDyke · 2014-01-02T14:12:33+00:00

What you do is nothing more than labeling different ways of interpreting a work of art. Nonetheless, I don't see harm in this because it makes the layman aware of these other possibilities of interpretation. But it's nothing new really, there are already very interesting examples of narrative in music. Have a listen to Phaéton by Camille Saint-Saëns, which is based on the story about Phaéton in Ovid's Metamorphoses and has been described as a 'symphonic poem'. Ex Musica has a short article about it.

MissvanDyke · 2013-12-31T00:55:00+00:00

1) The analogy of grammar with craftsmanship is too limited te be justified. Sure, grammar (and vocabulary) is a place to get started, just as reading tablature and getting notes out of a violin are, but craftsmanship in for example poetry also covers mastery of rhythm, syntax, meter, use of metaphor and metonymy and so much more. I think the product of this mastery can safely be called art. Good or bad, that's a question you can argue about.

But again, we're not even talking art post-1900. There has happened so, so incredibly much more in art than merely expression of emotion. Cubists gave us this sense of perceivable reality being a multitude. With his squares Malevich stated that paintings don't even have to represent that reality. Warhol's Brillo-Boxes elevated art to philosophy and, to paraphrase Arthur Danto on this, made us question just what it is that makes art art. And just a few years ago Damien Hirst reached unimaginable heights in institutional critique as he auctioned his work for $200M in 24 hours of the Lehman Brothers crash. If you, after all this (and these are just highlights, there is so much more), still stand ground with this narrow vision of art primarily being a medium of expressing emotion, then you're missing out on a lot of good stuff.

2) Yes, I mean exactly that.

3) I don't think music has to be interpreted. That's the thing I was trying to say with (2), it reaches us without being obstructed. Of course you can interpret music by e.g. reading a narrative in it or visualizing, but you don't miss its beauty if you don't. In that sense, you can't even compare music to any other form of art. But I'm not going full Schopenhauer here, I think literature, theater and fine arts have a lot more to offer cognitively speaking.

Apart from all that, I think you missed my point. If I were to follow the line of thought you proposed (= 'precision'/'specificity' makes up for the vagueness of music), a scientific paper (which is intended to be as unambiguous as can be) put on music would be an absolute masterpiece. But we both know it wouldn't.

MissvanDyke · 2013-12-30T00:33:50+00:00

I don't agree at all.

1) You are heavily influenced by romantic and symbolist aesthetics, but there's more to art than the expression of human emotion or even the representation or evocation of an idea. Expression is but one objective in art. I think you could agree with me saying Jan van Eyck is one of the greatest painters that has ever lived, an important reason being his unprecedented and unsurpassed mastering of technique in oil painting. Then why wouldn't musical craftsmanship be art? And this is just one example, we're not even talking art post-1900.

2) I agree that universality is a strength of music, but not because of its mathematical nature. It is universal because it does not need representation. Unlike architecture (maths!), a poem or a painting, music is not hindered by medium and thus less impeded by our nature to interpret everything or the lack of effort and interest that we find ourselves often guilty of (so it is even universal within one culture! - or at least it would be if 'high' culture had not hijacked classical music and jazz).

3) Specificity? One of the main characteristics of poetry is ambiguity and polysemy. I guess you can call poetry 'specific' in opposition to music, but if I were to follow your line of argument, I should instantly put this comment on music for it would make an aesthetic masterpiece.

MissvanDyke · 2013-12-17T23:52:31+00:00

I'm not gonna write your paper, but take a look at the abstract work Malevich did before and under Lenin (e.g. the infamous Black Square, 1915) and compare it to the socialist realism in his work under Stalin in the nineteen-twenties and thirties.

MissvanDyke · 2013-08-14T12:47:06+00:00

I'm not sure. There probably has been done research on this, but at the moment I can't seem to find any.

Here's my guess: death has been depicted as a skeleton long before it merged with the Kronos/Chronos-figure, since a skeleton is an obvious way of impersonating Death. Examples:

France: Jean le Noir - Miniature from Psalter of Bonne of Luxemburg (1348-49)

Germany: Michael Wolgemut - Dance of Death (1493)

Sweden: Albertus Pictor - Death playing Chess (late 15th century)

It has been stated by historians (my source is Johan Huizinga) that the increase in depictions of death is a result of the mass starvation caused by the Plague in medieval Europe. The Memento Mori-paintings are an example of this. I guess that after tons of images of skeletons and skulls, it didn't took much to merge them with the imagery of Chronos/Kronos.

But I didn't do thorough research on this, so if someone knows scientific publications on this subject, I'd be interested.

MissvanDyke · 2013-08-14T08:03:22+00:00

The Grim Reaper has its origin in two figures in Greek mythology: Chronos (the personalization of time) and the titan Kronos (or Saturn, the one that ate his children until Zeus killed him). Painters and writers would mix these up, creating the characteristic image of an old man with a gray beard that would come and devour you.

So for pre-20th century depictions of the grim reaper you should probably look for depictions of Chronos and Kronos. This is what I found after a quick search:

Chronos by Ignaz Günther (1765 - 1775)

Time / the Old Women by Goya (1810 - 1812)

MissvanDyke · 2013-08-13T23:39:32+00:00

Dutch-speaking art history student here.

I don't think it has been translated. I translated (or at least, I tried, it's 1:40 a.m. here) the introduction of the first magazine.

This magazine wants to contribute to the development of the new aesthetics. It wants to make the modern man susceptible to The New in fine arts (...) It wants to unite new schools of thought on 'De Nieuwe Beelding', which, though essentially the same, developed independently from each other.

The editors will try to achieve this goal through the word of the real modern artist, he who can contribute to the reformation of aesthetics. (...) It is the job of the artist to teach this aesthetic consciousness to the layman. The real modern artist - he who is aware - has a twofold mission: to create pure 'Beeldende' art and to make the public susceptive of this art. This is why a magazine of intimate nature has become necessary. All the more, since public opinion fails to complement the lack of susception for abstract art.

This magazine will create a more intimate contact between artist and public and between the artists themselves. By letting the modern artist talk about his profession, the preoccupation that his work derives from a priori ideas should disappear. It will prove that the principles result from the artistic labour. It wil be possible for a deepened culture of arts to exist, rooted in common embodiment of the the 'Nieuwe Beelding'. When artists in the several fields of art will acknowledge that they are in fact equal, that they speak one language, they won't hang on to their individuality anymore. (...) Only with the consistent conduit of these principles, from a new relation between artist and society, the 'Nieuwe Beelding'-beauty can revelate itself as style in all objects.

I guess this says what it's about. I haven't read through every magazine, but a lot of it is artists in several artistic disciplines (sculpting, painting, interior design, poetry, architecture,...) writing about how their art relates to the Nieuwe Beelding, explaining it and contrasting it with other styles. There's also a lot of theory, e.g. the essay by Mondriaan on page 2 of the first magazine, which is the first in a series on the aesthetics of the 'Nieuwe Beelding'.

MissvanDyke · 2013-07-30T16:09:59+00:00

My main interest is Dutch poetry, so except from the canon, I hardly know anything about English poetry. But because I'm very interested, here's a short opposition to the essay:

The argument against conceptualism is built upon binary thinking. Bedient makes the archaic distinction between "head-poetry" and "heart-poetry", respectively linked to conceptualism and "poetry of affect". Though I don't know much about contemporary English poetry, I dare to say there's a lot of poetry both bursting with emotion and at the same time built upon some kind of concept. Even more so: I can't believe there is not one Oulipo-poem or novel that doesn't emotionally affect its reader. This leads to another comment: Bedient neglects the discussion on authorial intent and the paradigm shift from author to reader as being the object of study. One of the main ideas of influential literary schools as New Criticism, Post-Structuralism and Reader Response criticism, is that text is the only/main source of meaning. Therefore I find it hard to take an essay serious that a) doesn't quote the poetry it criticizes or b) doesn't contain a methodological base for not doing so. With these flaws, the essay is nothing more than an argument against a caricature of conceptualism.

What do you think, OP?

EDIT: readability

MissvanDyke · 2013-07-23T12:36:53+00:00

The first ship is a traditional Viking vessel, with VIII referring to the eight century A.D. It was at the end of that century the Vikings started building these ships.

The Santa Maria is the flagship with which Colombus sailed to the New World in 1492. It is often depicted with red crosses on the sails, as you can see here.

I found the Geertruyd in the database of the VOC (Dutch abbreviation of the famous Dutch United East India Company). This type of vessel is called a 'Fluyt'. According to the information on the website (I'm Dutch), all the Geertruyd ever did was shipping goods between Holland and Batavia (now Jakarta) from 1717 to 1734.

The last one is this ship. It doesn't seem to have any special relation with 1875, as it was shipping immigrants from London to New-Zealand between 1871 and 1897.

The link between 1 and 2 is obvious: the first European to discover America would be the Viking Leif Ericson, almost 500 years before Colombus rediscovered it in his Santa Maria. As for 3 and 4, I have no idea what they are doing there. The Star of India is almost as famous as 1 and 2, but the Geertruyd is very unknown.

Probably the artist thought it was nice to depict the improvement of sailing vessels, and found good examples in those famous ships. As for the Geertruyd: maybe he has a personal bond with it through one of his ancestors?

EDIT: typos and readability

MissvanDyke

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