Horner's Corner

Jaroslaw Miklasiewicz

Paintings of Jesters, Irony, Village Idiots

via ::: wood s lot ::: “the fitful tracing of a portal”.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction’s strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o’er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

PB Shelley

Full text: here

Keep the flame alive: never abandon hope that we can make a better world

Jean-Antoine Watteau The Surprise ca. 1718 private collection, courtesy of Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd. “Watteau, Music and Theater” Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Antoine Watteau The Pleasures of the Ball ca. 1716 Dulwich Picture Gallery, London “Watteau, Music and Theater” Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Antoine Watteau Love in the French Theater 1714 Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin “Watteau, Music and Theater” Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Antoine Watteau Island of Cythera ca. 1709-10 Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main “Watteau, Music and Theater” Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Antoine Watteau Italian Comedians ca. 1719 Art Institute of Chicago “Watteau, Music and Theater” Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Antoine Watteau Three Studies of a Seated Woman ca. 1717 Art Institute of Chicago “Watteau, Music and Theater” Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean-Antoine Watteau Woman Reclining on a Chaise Longue ca. 1718 Fondation Custodia, Paris “Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection” Frick Collection

Jean-Antoine Watteau Standing Man (Persian) 1715 Fondation Custodia, Paris “Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection” Frick Collection

Jean-Antoine Watteau A Member of the Persian Embassy n.d. The Thaw Collection Pierpont Morgan Library

Jean-Antoine Watteau Seated Young Woman ca. 1716 The Thaw Collection Pierpont Morgan Library

Francois Boucher Standing Woman Seen from Behind ca. 1742 Fondation Custodia, Paris “Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection” Frick Collection

Louis-Léopold Boilly Portraits of the Artist’s Family and Servants n.d. The Thaw Collection Pierpont Morgan Library

When was the last time you enjoyed a painting that was sexy, odd and hilarious all at once? Just visit the all-round wonderful show “Watteau, Music, and Theater” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sept. 21-Nov. 29, 2009, and look for The Surprise by the Rococo artist, Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721).

The elegant and witty game of love turns suddenly serious in this small oil painting on wood  from ca. 1718. A guitarist dressed as the commedia dell’arte character Mezzetin, splendidly attired in satin with a lace ruff, looks up from tuning his instrument to watch a couple whom he has been, or was about to begin, serenading. The swain has suddenly, violently embraced his lady, swiveling her body across his as he steals a passionate kiss. He grasps her left arm, which he attempts to place around his neck, while her other arm dangles passively, suggesting that at least for the moment she does not reciprocate his ardor.

The scene is pervaded by a sense of suspended animation. Will she respond with a kiss or a slap? Like most of Watteau’s paintings, several scenarios are possible, but here the ante has been upped by this unusual eruption of desire. Certainly, this is not the classic “fête galante.” That genre’s usual gentle, teasing and sometimes melancholy atmosphere is nowhere in sight.

(CH writes: Watteau is a favourite of mine; I love his strange, melancholy paintings. They are evoked in song and poetry too: see the poems of Verlaine and the music of Faure and Debussy for an evocation of how the 19th century thought the 18thcentury saw itself..)

Read more by Karlins at:

PARADISE ISLAND by N.F. Karlins.

Juno Temple, Agrigento – Caspar David Friedrich

 

The Bois Caiman, August 14th 1791: the gathering of the Haitian slaves at the ceremony that marked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.

Inspired by the tall figure of Boukman (a slave who could read? = bookman?) the slaves struck for freedom – and won, in the first great successful slave uprising. Armies sent against them were all defeated: when French troops were sent against them under Napoleon the Haitians sang La Marseillaise to tell their opponents that they were on the wrong side. The black slaves freed themselves under Toussaint L’Ouverture, and others – making the principles of revolutionary freedom truly universal as nothing else could.  Overthrowing Kings and Slave owners was only the start. Those principles amount to more than being ruled by elites, who deign sometimes to have their rule over us ceremonially reaffirmed in elections.  What came to be known as the  ‘Tennis Court Oath’ – when the ‘Third Estate’ (the commoners) swore an oath not to allow themselves to be dissolved until they had forged a free constitution for the French people – shares its world-historical importance with the uprising in Haiti. [1]

 

The Tennis Court Oath 1789: the assembly of the representatives of the French people refuse to be dissolved by the King.

What was  the true beginning of the French Revolution? for more on the events discussed here, see CLR James The Black Jacobins (the history of the Haitian revolution) and Susan Buck-Morss Hegel, Haiti and Universal History (for the philosophical significance). James’ book was a pioneering work of black history while Buck-Morss’ is a new (2009), erudite yet concise intervention.  It’s a significant book in that it draws together the kinds of ideas in implicit in this post, and takes the discussion onto a whole other level. I don’t agree with everything she says in the book but was very glad I’d read it. I’ll never think about slavery,  or the ‘Age of Revolution’ the same way again.

We must fight the tendency to think of events like the Haitian revolution as ‘off shoots’ or mere side effects of the real action in Europe or North America. The Haitian revolution had a powerful  impact on Europeans of the day (including Hegel: Buck-Morss argues  that he must have been aware of the events across the Atlantic, and that he developed his ‘master -slave’ dialectic  with that revolution in mind).

Haiti is a poor country, and it is one that has lately been pulverised by an earthquake. But it is more than the basket case of the metropolitan imaginary: it stands for something inspiring in the history of the struggle for human emancipation. Where Haiti led, others followed.

 [1] For more on the contemporary signficance of these issues, see Slavoj Zizek’s First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (2009)

On slavery as a -the?- source of US wealth see here

 

“To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything” – Goethe.

I’m off to Sicily soon. In common with thousands of other pink north Europeans I want sunshine and a sense of …what? a life lived for pleasure? A greater sense of physical and psychological well being that comes from sun sea and ..er..wine. Oh yeah – it’s called going on holiday. Here’s Goethe, poet, playwrite, statesman to the Weimar court who one day just chucked it in for a very long holiday in Italy – three years (see his Italian Journey – it’s a good read, or at least for dipping into when you want a taste of the warm south as experienced by a premier league culture hero ). I get just two weeks there.

Mignon

Do you know the land where the lemon-trees grow,
in darkened leaves the gold-oranges glow,
a soft wind blows from the pure blue sky,
the myrtle stands mute, and the bay-tree high?
Do you know it well?
It’s there I’d be gone,
to be there with you, O, my beloved one!

Do you know the house? It has columns and beams,
there are glittering rooms, the hallway gleams,
and figures of marble looking at me?
‘What have they done, child of misery?
Do you know it well?
It’s there I’d be gone,
to be there with you, O my true guardian!

Do you know the clouded mountain mass?
The mule picks its way through the misted pass,
and dragons in caves raise their ancient brood,
and the cliffs are polished smooth by the flood;
Do you know it well?
It’s there I would be gone!
It’s there our way leads! Father, we must go on!

Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen Blühn,
Im dunklen Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht,
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin,
Möcht ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn.

Kennst du das Haus? Auf Säulen ruht sein Dach,
Es glänzt der Saal, es schimmert das Gemach,
Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn mich an:
Was hat man dir, du armes Kind getan?
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Möcht ich mit dir, o mein Beschützer, ziehn!

Kennst du den Berg und seinen Wolkensteg?
Das Maultier sucht im Nebel seinen weg:
In Höhlen wohnt der Drachen alte Brut;
Es stürzt der Fels und über ihn die Flut,
Kennst du ihn wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Geht unser weg! o Vater, laß uns ziehn!

GoetheO for a beaker full of the warm south..       (Keats)

The look of the French Bourgeoisie in their great period and as they would like to have seen themselves was never better rendered than by Ingres. For other views of them see, e.g. Daumier & Nadar- here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson

Find out more about this man and why he is significant by reading The Black Jacobins by CLR James. See also The Bois Caiman and the Tennis Court Oath elswhere on this site.