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ROMANIAN ARTWORKS

Paint me moonstruck-depicting madness as an act of poignant creativity

7/20/2015

1 Comment

 
          The story of painting, elaborate and meaningful, comprises several stages of self-discovery and complementary, penetrating inner voices. Each and every step, taken carefully or, on the contrary, in a flutter, marks the milestones of human emotions. Depth and shallowness merge in time, within the boundaries of space, but are scarcely meant to lay eyes on each other. Therefore, the painter has but to explore every crumbled bit  of the artistic bread and taste the ever-changing flavours that arise along the way.

          Long due, the present piece of writing desires to deal with the darker corners of the human mind, haunted by insanity and disorder, flawed by destructive impulses as much as by harmful inspiration. Therefore, I have chosen five works of art painted by well-known artists, in the hope that the following lines will simplify your journey through their intricate streets and alleys.  My hope is that, at the end of the article,  I will have managed to  awaken the curiosity of the reader  for this specific topic due to my modest offering of crumbs, because there's a long way till the  entire loaf of bread is gone.

            Self-harm  and the natural disorder of  troubled art-Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear  (1889)
Picture
           It was 1889 and Vincent Van Gogh,  the  misunderstood artist, was painting  a face for his mental problems in a possible attempt to integrate  psychosis into the process of creation.  Mentally macerated by  his bipolar disorder, alongside with severe episodes of depression   and,  supposedly, schizophrenia, Van Gogh's suicide at the age of 37 put an end to the painter's artistic vision in a dark and abrupt manner.  Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear  presents Van Gogh in an attitude of  indifference towards  the outside world.  The emptiness in his eyes foretells  the painful future that lays ahead, where hope and  artistic satisfaction reside no more. 
           Refusing to face the viewer and, at the same time, refusing to face himself,  Van Gogh  stares at the disguised void floating around, enshrouded in a cloak bearing the resemblance of a room,  intangible  and impersonal. The large bandage  on the right side of his head acts like a constant reminder of the unseen intruder  able to take control over a man's  volition.  The  painting speaks of countless struggles to conquer the artistic world, of  unfulfilled desires and rough paths to self-discovery, all in  vain when it comes to surrendering in front of mental troubles. The artist is defeated by his own self and against his own will. 

          The  horn of plentiful  madness:  Netherlandish Proverbs (1559)

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          Pieter Bruegel the  Elder  imagined a  fantastic world of  nonsense.  Upside-down, engulfed in sheer insanity  and utter lack of  meaning, this world  is more than meets the eye. The abundance of details  makes it hard to  follow the line of the story as told by the painter, and the effect is grotesque.  The melee, comprised of human beings, objects taken out of the context  and  animals,  actually depicts  proverbs  and fables which belong  to the Dutch culture, but not solely to it.  Pieter Bruegel the Elder brought to life a world full of complex possibilities, where everything is normal depending on the eye that judges the vista. Everything painted on the wooden panel is taken from day-to-day experiences one can encounter. 
          So, what is topsy-turvy, after all? The detail that strikes the eye, though, is the  shared expression on  the people's visage.  The twisted countenance turns the human heads into simple shells for madness, where folly is queen and  its subjects  take  part in a  tragicomic play.  The element which caught my attention when I first saw  the painting  was the  globe with the upside-down cross. Therefore, we  have been warned: there's nothing  depicted in the painting which follows the norm.  I have also found the image to be  good food for thought and  analysis, apart from the element of  disturbing grotesque, and one  can easily engage  in a game of guess-the-proverb.

           Cannibalism  in a nutshell: Saturn Devouring his Son  (1819–1823)

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          Francisco de Goya  painted a dark  scene of extreme violence taken from mythology in a vivid attempt to  embody  several of the human flaws in a single person. Saturn,  the  Titan  possessed by  extreme lust for power, gradually eliminates his competitors  as soon as they are born. Having previously overthrown his own father, Saturn now fears that history might repeat itself.  Thus, he eats his own  newborn children in a futile  race against the  ultimate failure.  
          Goya'a painting  does not represent the mere illustration of a myth.  Compared to other depictions,  this one shows  Saturn on the brink of despair mingled with madness. Wide-eyed with apparent fear, he takes large bites  in order to bring the abominable act to an end.  There is  a look of absence on his countenance with respect to the outside world, as he lives  in his own sealed box, haunted by insecurities and  devoid of empathy. We know that Goya wanted to be more than the illustrator of a myth and therefore his  painting speaks of the  horrors  encountered at wartime, where people are killed  for absurd reasons.

          Ersatz insanity and the quest for  nothingness:  Cutting the Stone (c. 1494)

Picture
          When it comes to  painting grotesque  instances of nonsense,  Hieronymus Bosch is  one of the most representative artists.  I have previously written about him  in Lo's Corner,  and you can give the article a read  for more information. But now, let's take a look at  the panel bearing the inscription of what would be translated in modern day English as  'Master, cut away the stone/ My name is Lubbert Das'. Apparently, the character in question is taken from the  Dutch literature and  his  behaviour labels him as foolish and  risible. Hence, the doctor is curing the  ailment in a very technical way, but useless without fail.
          The question to arise is 'Who is the madman here?' The doctor, who wears a funnel as a hat and  definitely has no skills for operating on a  patient which, by all means, does not need surgery because there is nothing to be cured?  Or, perhaps, the two 'assistants', the foolish side of religion and doctrine?  The ludic side  of the painting  is, perhaps, aimed at mocking  useless customs  along the line of the Latin  proverb Castigat ridendo mores (Laughing corrects  morals).

          Murder as a consequence of  mental  instability:  Ivan the Terrible and His Son   Ivan: November 16, 1581 (1885)
Picture
          For this painting, Ilya Repin browsed through the  bloody events staining the  Russian history,  more specifically the death of young Ivan  at the hands of his own father, Ivan the Terrible, in what seems to be the outburst of a troubled mind. I personally find this painting to be  fascinatingly  expressive due to the  complexity of emotions  adorning the  countenance of the two characters.  Though a murderer, the pain of the father is striking as  his eyes  speak for the unheard voice  he must have possessed  after  the  moment of impact.  Young Ivan's eyes, in turn,  express a plethora of  physical sensations, feelings and thoughts. Too late for him, though, for life  is already midway between his body and the void.
          The bloodstained figures, rising like  two ghosts from an untold war,  are clasped together for one more time, in a macabre embrace. Both father and son used to be extremely well-read but cruel, and  Repin's painting  erases  any differences there  might have existed between the two,  mingling  all ranges of emotions in  two bodies that finally look like one.
1 Comment
dannell link
7/26/2015 18:59:13

Not much else, but perhaps art sheds light in many places.

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