I have no idea if this show existed outside my local PBS broadcast, but it's what exposed me to Outsider and Folk Art as a child. It's really great. Here's the video I was trying to find about Purvis Young. I know some other Outsider artists (Like Carlo Zinelli) that are important as well, but I'll do some harder thinking on the subject.
As a note, I do rate Henry Darger's (very hard to find even pictures of) Battle of Calverhine, 8/10, which is the only Outsider Art that has broken through.
I've been engulfed in Beethoven's 9th a lot this week. As with a work like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, it is quite difficult to describe the special honor, recognition and profoundly moving, overwhelming awe one can feel when a very thorough assimilation and connection to the work has been reached. It is a work at once familiar (of varying degrees) to practically everyone, but yet so unknown. It is very true that the more familiar and attentive one is with it the more revelation that seems to emerge, the more enigmatic and ambiguous it seems to become, the more multiplied its emotions and meaning, and the more astonishingly its depths are revealed.
In music, there is Beethoven's 9th and then there is everything else.
In further honor of Beethoven, and really all his masterpieces, but especially his 9th Symphony at this moment:
Leonard Bernstein: Let me put it this way. Many, many composers have been able to write heavenly tunes and respectable fugues. Some composers can orchestrate the C-major scale so that it sounds like a masterpiece, or fool with notes so that a harmonic novelty is achieved. But this is all mere dust- nothing compared to the magic ingredient sought by them all: the inexplicable ability to know what the next note has to be. Beethoven had this gift in a degree that leaves them all panting in the rear guard. When he really did it- as in the Funeral March of the Eroica– he produced an entity that always seems to me to have been previously written in Heaven, and then merely dictated to him. Not that the dictation was easily achieved. We know with what agonies he paid for listening to divine orders. But the reward is great. There is a special space carved out in the cosmos into which this movement just fits, predetermined and perfect.
LP: Now you’re igniting.
Leonard Bernstein: (Deaf to everything but his own voice): Form is only an empty word, a shell, without this gift of inevitability; a composer can write a string of perfectly molded sonata-allegro movements, with every rule obeyed, and still suffer from bad form. Beethoven broke all the rules , and turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness. Rightness- that’s the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds that last is is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context, then chances are you’re listening to Beethoven. Melodies, fugues, rhythms- leave them to the Chaikovskys and the Hindemiths and Ravels. Our boy has the real goods, the stuff from Heaven, the power to make you feel at the finish: Something is right in the world. There is something that checks throughout, that follows its own law consistently: something we can trust, that will never let us down.
LP: (Quietly): But that is almost a definition of God.
Leonard Bernstein: I meant it to be.
__________________________________
"As you go on, particularly the Ninth Symphony, it's inventing a new world. And it's so clear that you are then somewhere else that it goes way beyond Wagner." --Simon Rattle
___________________________________
"What is beautiful in science is the same thing that is beautiful in Beethoven. There’s a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It expresses a complex of human concerns that goes deeply to you, that connects things that were always in you that were never put together before." --Victor Weisskopf
FAMILIAR CLASSICAL WORKS - RE-RATED:
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor "Choral" - Ludwig van Beethoven (1824) 9.8/10 to 9.9/10
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor - Ludwig van Beethoven (1808) 9.3/10 to 9.2/10
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor - Johannes Brahms (1884) 9.3/10 to 9.2/10
String Quintet in C Major - Franz Schubert (1828) 9.1/10 to 9.2/10
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor "From the New World" - Antonin Dvorak (1893) 9.2/10 to 9.1/10
Violin Concerto in D Major - Johannes Brahms (1878) 9.1/10 to 9.0/10
FAMILIAR PAINTINGS/VISUAL ART - RE-RATED:
The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1500) 9.1/10 to 9.2/10 _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
I prefer Peasants' War Panorama over Sistine Chapel, but both are classy! I'm glad that Bob made the list of greatest artists. Btw, I dare you to read Ulysses
I prefer Peasants' War Panorama over Sistine Chapel, but both are classy! I'm glad that Bob made the list of greatest artists. Btw, I dare you to read Ulysses
I have actually read a bit of it (years ago) but...
Dare declined
For now...
No time to seriously dive into literature (without replacing time for all other fields of choice combined). Maybe someday
Someday I might have to make a new scale for The Sistine Chapel on its own. Every time I analyze it in detail its rating seems to increase past whatever scale I was using before. Its a hard knock life _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
I have actually read a bit of it (years ago) but...
Dare declined
For now...
No time to seriously dive into literature (without replacing time for all other fields of choice combined). Maybe someday
Someday I might have to make a new scale for The Sistine Chapel on its own. Every time I analyze it in detail its rating seems to increase past whatever scale I was using before. Its a hard knock life
Would like a description/analysis on Sistine Chapel though
I have actually read a bit of it (years ago) but...
Dare declined
For now...
No time to seriously dive into literature (without replacing time for all other fields of choice combined). Maybe someday
Someday I might have to make a new scale for The Sistine Chapel on its own. Every time I analyze it in detail its rating seems to increase past whatever scale I was using before. Its a hard knock life
Would like a description/analysis on Sistine Chapel though.
Can you also plz send me the link to your "Best Hip-Hop / Funk Albums" diary?
In further honor of Beethoven, and really all his masterpieces, but especially his 9th Symphony at this moment:
Leonard Bernstein: Let me put it this way. Many, many composers have been able to write heavenly tunes and respectable fugues. Some composers can orchestrate the C-major scale so that it sounds like a masterpiece, or fool with notes so that a harmonic novelty is achieved. But this is all mere dust- nothing compared to the magic ingredient sought by them all: the inexplicable ability to know what the next note has to be. Beethoven had this gift in a degree that leaves them all panting in the rear guard. When he really did it- as in the Funeral March of the Eroica– he produced an entity that always seems to me to have been previously written in Heaven, and then merely dictated to him. Not that the dictation was easily achieved. We know with what agonies he paid for listening to divine orders. But the reward is great. There is a special space carved out in the cosmos into which this movement just fits, predetermined and perfect.
LP: Now you’re igniting.
Leonard Bernstein: (Deaf to everything but his own voice): Form is only an empty word, a shell, without this gift of inevitability; a composer can write a string of perfectly molded sonata-allegro movements, with every rule obeyed, and still suffer from bad form. Beethoven broke all the rules , and turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness. Rightness- that’s the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds that last is is the only possible note that can rightly happen at that instant, in that context, then chances are you’re listening to Beethoven. Melodies, fugues, rhythms- leave them to the Chaikovskys and the Hindemiths and Ravels. Our boy has the real goods, the stuff from Heaven, the power to make you feel at the finish: Something is right in the world. There is something that checks throughout, that follows its own law consistently: something we can trust, that will never let us down.
LP: (Quietly): But that is almost a definition of God.
Leonard Bernstein: I meant it to be.
__________________________________
"As you go on, particularly the Ninth Symphony, it's inventing a new world. And it's so clear that you are then somewhere else that it goes way beyond Wagner." --Simon Rattle
___________________________________
"What is beautiful in science is the same thing that is beautiful in Beethoven. There’s a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It expresses a complex of human concerns that goes deeply to you, that connects things that were always in you that were never put together before." --Victor Weisskopf
___________________________________
What wonderfully illustrative (and appropriately reverent) quotes. Thanks for assembling them!
I have actually read a bit of it (years ago) but...
Dare declined
For now...
No time to seriously dive into literature (without replacing time for all other fields of choice combined). Maybe someday
Someday I might have to make a new scale for The Sistine Chapel on its own. Every time I analyze it in detail its rating seems to increase past whatever scale I was using before. Its a hard knock life
Would like a description/analysis on Sistine Chapel though
The following is not complete or particularly detailed (relative to the work) at all -- just a taste of some key points that would certainly lead one to more detail and discovery but not covering them point by point (which would be a massive undertaking). It was typed in haste mid a discussion with sethmadsen so its not meant to read as a professional review/analysis (unlike, say, my Citizen Kane or Nostalghia reviews/analyses). But it should give you a good idea...
Know that there is no way that I have the time to detail anything remotely approaching a full scale analysis right now... Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is perhaps the most influential work of art in the history of mankind and has had such a profound impact upon centuries of visual art history and the very ethos and ambition of future artists in other art forms that there is no way I have the time to detail all of this in order to demonstrate the full scope of its importance, creativity. But I will take some time to make some key points about it...
Again, this is very incomplete -- just some points to give you a good idea re: creativity/expressiveness...
With The Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo produced a revolutionary, visionary synthesis, combining the highest art of painting, of sculpture, of architecture and of poetry, a new form of visionary poetic theater, profound insights into philosophy and world religion, all into a unified, miraculous expressiveness, of endless depth and suggestive power.
The art of painting is elevated into that of a spiritual renaissance and profound religious experience by the subtlest choice of coloration, nuanced details, psychological depth, deft shading and the most inspired, compassionate and measured strokes of the brush, as if by divine hand. Applying a wash technique to his general colorizations, then revising them and meticulously adding texture, shading, more depth to physique and action, psychological details, gestures and nuances in character, with a variety of brushes. He employed all the technical innovations up to that time, combining them with a staggering variety of brushwork, nuanced stroke and sublime tone, and breadth of skill far exceeding the preeminence of masters of the period such as his teacher, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and within the scope of this one massive work, revolutionizing the art of painting into the next several decades. All figures are elevated to the divine, granted a serene, classically refined, sculpted and measured polish or glow, unveiling the spiritual essence, the divine elegance, compassion and inner psychology of the character as well as legend and ideology in the idealization and mythology of form, as if granted down by God's hand and lineage.
The art of sculpture erupts into a new art of painting and into the vivid prominence and resonance of three dimensions by figures that appear to have been shaped and carved out of an astonishing technique for the human form translated from Michelangelo’s unparalleled abilities as a sculpture artist -- but now applied to a new, stunning form of sculpted painting. And so the figures protrude in spectacularly assured elegance and prominence out from the Ceiling and from Last Judgement, statuesque and mythic, despite being painted on flat surfaces. "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."
Michelangelo's complete mastery of architecture of the High Renaissance is applied to the stunning organization of scenes on the ceiling, where all scenes are aligned geometrically and symmetrically in a colossal perfection of format, concept and conveyance in all directions. Where the stages of scenes flanked by further stages of scenes both support, structurally and thematically, and expound upon their central visions -- all aligned in terms of lineage and biblical history, forwards, backwards, left-to-right, top-to-bottom. It is further synthesized into the overall plan in that the scenes of the ceiling are framed by painted architecture (Yes, that's right. Those pillars/architecture are not actual building structure -- they are infact painted). Looking at the work, it seems all but impossible that these scenes and figures and framed architecture are infact flat (along the gradual ceiling curvature, making such even more difficult to accomplish). Furthermore, the scenes are layered by frames upon framed figures/angels so that the organization of bodies, scenes and frames not only works forwards, backwards, left-to-right, top-to-bottom, but also into the depth of the ceiling and back to the viewer looking up at it. All of this providing an incredible depth of scene, conceptual breadth and unification from all angles/directions, and the fundamental reason, along with the conviction in his work, that it is so immediately awe-inspiring, prominent and spectacular to behold. And with much added dimension, there is the sense of a space that has "come into being and dimension" by the sudden command of God -- as if, metaphorically and visually, the dimensions of the universe have come into being from the command of scripture or thought, sourcing from its center (aligning to the progression of Biblical themes; the creation of man and God's creation of the world). Furthermore, for the Last Judgement, Michelangelo applies a spiraling scaffolding of mythic bodies, collecting them into a "free-form", non-linear and circular freedom of organization that was completely revolutionary to art (which tended towards basic story-telling techniques to guide the viewer -- generally, left-to-right/upright and linear).
Michelangelo's mastery of poetry is turned into its own visualized art form, guiding the whole work from the Ceiling to The Last Judgement. Each figure and scene is not just its own overt pictorial details, but are actually profound, multi-faceted, visual metaphors. “The overt subject matter of the ceiling is the doctrine of humanity’s need for Salvation as offered by God through Jesus. It is a visual metaphor of Humankind’s need for a covenant with God”. The prominent, mythic, statuesque figures evoke an immense wisdom, contemplation and existential quandary, as well as masterful examples of psychological depth. On the Ceiling, they are interconnected to and between scenes, interconnected to and between the characters within, surrounding and framing the scenes. This massive collection of figures, through profoundly suggestive psychology and subtle theatrical gesture, form a figure-to-figure/scene-to-scene lineage and “tele-kinetic” symmetry of interconnected motifs that orchestrate a tapestry of suggestion and allusion to thought, action, and mergings of theme and story, all through visual metaphor. They align in a flowing format of visual poem, where the scenes and figures are amassed into a segue, as a sublime message of visual stanza that merges into, through and from one another, in a miraculous network of meaning. The movement from one to the next is reliant on this stunning synthesis of poetic allusion, symbolism, metaphor and theatrical gesture – its impetus and suggestion, as opposed to explaining all through a congestion of detailed actions. In The Last Judgement, Michelangelo has created an incredible free form poetry of visual gesture that is both violent and cataclysmic and overwhelmingly beautiful, both flowing and schism, the characters as mythic and human, godly metaphor and startling reality. The work is non-linear and circular, spiraling, told in all directions at once. The relay between actions and between characters is accomplished through an astonishing network of subtle and expressive gestures, ulterior meanings, motives, symbolism and ambiguous suggestion, including multi-faceted potentialities for the characters next actions and ultimate fate. It features a stunning array of bodies, over 300, all of them different, representing the various expressive facets of Man, as mythic and visual metaphor. The creates both a cataclysm and overwhelming theater of the existential paralysis of Man, each character a metaphor of decision, of different facets of psychology, the human experience and endeavor, both facilitated and befallen by the rebellion or devotion, by good and evil, and the many facets between, in a perpetual state of mediation or indecision between both sides. The work is centered by the “Apollinian” Jesus, all the surrounding characters, its progression and multi-faceted theater, their reactions, actions, expressions, points-of-view and angles, the scaffolding (rising and falling) of bodies, and their suggested fates, in ornamental coalescence to his decision and action. The Last Judgement revolutionized art into the next hundreds of years, heavily influencing the Mannerist and Baroque movements, where the idealized and mythic form, where gesture, movement and dramaturgy became major preoccupations, an attempt to develop from Michelangelo’s stunning apotheosis. None of them truly succeeded in supplanting it. Michelangelo’s gestures were complimented and granted extraordinary depth of feeling by his astonishing technique, through miraculous tone and body sculpting, but also by his profoundly poetic gestures and expressions which endowed the character with a sense of the eternal, turning their stillness into infinities of endowment and destiny with uncertain, but suggested fates, with no known finality, but states of perpetual emotion, psychology or action, in influx always suggested but never resolved. The interpretations endless, the sublime metaphor and poetry profoundly timeless.
Furthermore, with The Last Judgement, Michelangelo erected his collection of bodies in an incredible suggestion of fate, and a shocking statement of cataclysm, of incredible (potentially blasphemous) and courageous expressive force. All told, the collection of bodies makes up a massive face of Jesus. Standing back about halfway through the Chapel and looked at from enough distance, the (hued slightly red-tint) bodies take on the conception of this face collapsing in a bloodbath of skin-peeling, sacrificial pain and apocalypse. The violent death of humanity. The Last Judgement. This portends additional ambiguity and blasphemy in relation to the "Apollinian" Jesus in its center. It provides a whole new comment on the violience raging from within the Church at the time and Michelangelo's now raging and devastated, blasphemous outcry against its teachings and virtues, the face of Jesus now a face of the wide-scale death of humanity, the "Apollinian" Jesus replacing the traditional figure in his place to decide the fate of humanity. The painting represents a massive, enraged question of faith between faiths and consequences and reflects the horrible violence and cynicism of its age. It portends Michelangelo's fate by exhibiting his likeness being skinned alive (right-center), and expresses an enormous weight and distribution of balance between his beliefs and loyalties, life or death on a very personal level (the sides of its upward/downward spiral also a giant scale and weight of his own indecision).
Throughout the work, in a whole additional (several) layers of psychological depth, the multitudinous figures from The Ceiling to The Last Judgement can be analyzed closely and found to harness facets and conflicts of Michelangelo’s own psychology, personality crises, as a whole representing his own questions of religion, faith, his own morality and what his fate holds (much too detailed to go into here, but perhaps someday...).
I’ve run out of time for now. Hopefully that is enough to satisfy your question. But realize I didn’t even come close to detailing the full scope of its profundity, including (but not limited to) how it synthesizes multiple philosophies/religious texts and can be read in different directions to mean different things, and how Michelangelo hid (potentially blasphemous) anatomical images inside the larger scope of images ... how the life sized and larger than life sized scale of the figures suggests and immerses one's own reflection, one's own relation to it and pits one's own personality/existential place into the work … how every figure is a different likeness and in full representing a progression of both the rise and fall of Man much of it ambiguously suggested as to which is which against/in relation to the religious doctrine(s) being shown ... etc. A full analysis of the work would be much much longer and more detailed than what I have time for here, but I did my best in a very short time. Mostly typed from my phone, so apologies for any errors in spelling and so forth. I don’t have time at this moment to spell check any of my work.
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