A Painting a Day: van Gogh's Room in Arles (1889)

A painting for the day to remind us what happens when we lose arts funding, education, and programs that inspire a new generation of artists and thinkers. Are the arts necessary, or just window dressing? You be the judge...

Today we have one of van Gogh's many portraits of his room--the Room in Arles (1889), painted at the very end of his life as he was trying to recover at the hospital in Saint-Remy. Naturally, his entire world, once almost boundless, shrank to encompass a single room (and sometimes, the hospital grounds). Like Monet's paintings of a single cathedral at various times of day, this painting reflects one of van Gogh's many attempts to capture the mood and personality of his room. And quite clearly, he did something more, too--he captured his own mental state and perspective each time he contemplated the objects in his room.

He told his brother that the subject of the painting was "color alone," and that's the first thing you see here--the vibrant colors, intense and jarring, like a fruit which is so tart that it's almost overwhelming. The sickly looking green of the window (which reminds me of the color of absinthe advertisements from the 19th century) seems out of sync with the rich, sky-blue of the walls--yet of course they complement one another at the same time. These greens, also seen in the cloth hanging from the wall, and in the paintings, seem to reflect his sickness, or uneasiness at this sedentary existence. The blue seems to be the hospital's attempt to ease his mind and assure him that everything will be all right, that convalescence is right around the corner. And yet, the room is full of motion and unease: the chairs seem to be moving, or even floating, above the floor (the perspective is slightly off, the one near the bed appearing to be tipping over). The bed, however, is the most alarming object: it towers over the viewer like a castle, less a bed than an edifice--even a battering ram. Even the paintings on the wall seem to be swaying in the breeze, including van Gogh's own self-portrait (the one with the red hair), a subtle reminder that the occupant was taking the cure, but it wasn't "taking" to him.

In Peter Gartner's book on the Musee d'Orsay (where this painting hangs), he notes that "The painter has no fixed viewpoint in relation to the room; it varies from object to object as the viewer surveys the picture. A subjective experience of space is a feature of van Gogh's composition, and, together with a use of color aiming to achieve heightened symbolism, is typical of his style, which van Gogh wanted to be seen as "grand style" (281). I love the idea that a single room, however modest, can be grand--an entire world, an entire universe of feeling and personality. Every object here seems buzzing with life, from the brush to the floor itself. It reminds us, as William Wordsworth once wrote, that the "To me the meanest flower that blows can give/Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

A Painting a Day: Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors (1533)

A painting for the day to remind us what happens when we lose arts funding, education, and programs that inspire a new generation of artists and thinkers. Are the arts necessary, or just window dressing? You be the judge...

This is Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors (1533), a double portrait of Jean de Dinteville (left) and George de Selve (right). Dinteville was the ambassador between the French king, Francis I, and the infamous Henry VIII. Negotiations did not go well, and Dinteville found himself in an impossible position trying to placate both monarchs. Though he asked to be recalled, the French instead offered him a companion, his friend de Selve, to assist him. Both were great men of learning (though Dinteville didn't mind burning a few heretics if the need arose--this was the age of the Inquisition, after all), and upon completing their mission, Dinteville wanted to commemorate his 'triumph' with a grand portrait by the great master himself, Hans Holbein. Holbein set to work immediately and created not only a masterpiece, but a work that is pregnant with meaning--and requires days and months and years of careful snooping to figure it all out.

The most obvious details are the men themselves: both are young (Dinteville was 29), handsome, and prosperous. Dinteville looks a bit like Henry VIII himself--perhaps he stayed in England a bit too long!--as his sumptuous jacket attests, with its ermine embroidery, framing a flouncy pink shirt and an enormous gold medallion. de Selve, by contrast, is more the scholar, wearing a simple robe and looking much less ostentatious. Indeed, he seems to be saying "are we done yet?" though he, too, portrays an air of confidence--as well as concern. The table each man is leaning on is burdened with the weight of their Renaissance scholarship: a globe, various devices to measure distance--an astrolabe, etc. Also visible is a lute and a book of music, and beneath it all, stretched cryptically across the floor...a skull?

The skull is part of the famous memento mori genre of paintings and poems famous in English literature. It translates to "remember your mortality," and here the painting transforms from a celebration of youthful achievement to an older man's warning: perhaps the mission itself was fraught with danger, or perhaps that the youthful confidence of Dinteville should have been tempered with a bit of modesty and forethought? Either way, it lends a chilling note to a painting that seems to say "we have the world!" while Holbein whispers "not for long."

The scholar Derek Wilson in his book on Holbein notes this about the painting: "It is a testament by Holbein and his patron to their shared concerns in the uncertain England of 1533...The lute has a broken string. The crucifix in the top left-hand corner is almost obscured by the curtain. On the celestial globe a hen attacks a bird of prey...In Holbein's composition the younger man (de Selve) literally upstages his friend. Set slightly further back, he appears introverted, nervously clutching the folds of his gown and tightly grasping his gloves. Yet Holbein makes us fix our attention on him."

There's so much going on here, and entire world in turmoil, leading to an uncertain future--for them and for us.

A Painting a Day: Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" (c.1799)

A painting of the day to remind us how vitally important art is under a president (and a larger culture) that doesn't value the humanities and sees it as "useless" to the business of society.

Today we have Goya's famous etching "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" (1797-99) from his series of grotesque and gothic imagery, Los Caprichos. This is one of my favorite Gothic images and one I used often in my classes in any number of contexts--to introduce Frankenstein, to discuss Romanticism, to critique the Enlightenment, etc. Goya was a true visionary, very like Beethoven in his ability to transform old genres and ideas and then turn them into something powerful and unrecognizable. This piece, in its stark black and white imagery, is designed to be nightmarish--yet with a purpose. Far from simply giving us lurid imagery, Goya uses horror as a metaphor the same way Mary Shelley would a decade or so later. Because ultimately, the most terrifying things in the world are all born from our imagination--and then let loose upon the world.

In this image, an Enlightenment gentleman has fallen asleep in the midst of his labors, perhaps writing a treatise on reason, or the fundamental "rightness" of all things. I always imagine this figure as somewhat like Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's Candide (1759). who assured his pupil that "we are in the best of all possible worlds," and that the nose was created so that we had somewhere to place our spectacles. Yet as soon as he slumbers, the dreams awake--all manner of nocturnal terrors such as bats, owls, and disturbingly sphinx-like cats. The swarm of terrors surround him, with the intention of either eating him or carting him away to a midnight mass of spirits. The idea being that no man or woman is so in control of their faculties--the darkness is always there, waiting to be unleashed or even whispering at your ear. Reason denies the existence of imagination and nightmares at its peril, for when reason sleeps, the terrors go unchecked and give birth to even greater chaos.

Goya completed this painting with the sentence "the sleep of reason produces monsters...united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels." The Romantic poets and artists knew that you had to channel the darkness of the psyche and of society itself to create great art. Art is never born of rejection or of denial; only by looking deep into the well of the sublime can you hear the echo of your own thoughts. Goya knew this, and no one peered deeper into that well than he did. Society, unfortunately, continued to deny until they had several bloody revolutions on their hands..

A Painting a Day: Liotard's Marie Adelaide of France in a Turkish Dress (1753)

A painting of the day to remind us how vitally important art is under a president (and a larger culture) that doesn't value the humanities and sees it as "useless" to the business of society.

Today we have Jean-Etienne Liotard's Marie Adelaide of France in a Turkish Dress (1753). another one of my favorite paintings for its sense of whimsy, unpretentiousness, and sumptuous colors. Actually, we don't know whether or not this is really Marie Adelaide (daughter of Louis XV, who escaped Versailles on the eve of the Revolution) and not an anonymous noblewoman enjoying her favorite pasttime--reading. Whoever she is, she's certainly in style, as she's indulging in the mid-18th century rage for all things "Turkish," which mean quasi-Turkish clothes, hats, and wigs (Mozart would celebrate this mania in his Rondo alla Turca, the last movement of his Piano Sonata No.11). The young woman is no doubt reading a romantic novel which takes place in Turkey or Persia as well, another genre that flourished and was inspired by works such as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Turkish Embassy Letters (1716-1718), which suggested that women in Turkey had more freedom as anonymous subjects of a seraglio than they did in England, where any man could view them and restrict their movements.

But back to the painting...if this is Marie Adelaide, I love how he's caught her in such a casual, unguarded moment--as if she's totally in private, not acting, not playing a role. This could be a modern woman in a fancy dress, just chilling out and reading a book. She seems comfortable, relaxed, and completely engrossed in the book. So much so, that she's forgotten that women in 18th century portraits are supposed to be seductive! What, no looking longingly at the viewer? No show of skin at all? No looking like a thoughtless and desirable match (and Marie Adelaide never married--probably because she read too many books!). In short, Liotard is simply painting the woman as she was, not when exposed in public, but simply as herself. It was a tremendous compliment to pay a woman at this time, to suggest that she had her own space and time and freedom, and didn't need to display herself to the male gaze or the marriage market. Sometimes, damn it, you just want to read a good book!

A Painting a Day In Support of the NEA: Kramskoy's "Portrait of an Unknown Woman" (1883)

I took a brief hiatus from my "a painting a day in support of the NEA" due to the death of Yevtushenko. But to honor him once more, here is a famous Russian painting from the era of Tolstoy: Ivan Kramskoi's "Neisvestnaya" or "Portrait of an Unknown Woman" (1883). This was a scandalous painting when it was first exhibited, though it's harder to see why today. However, in the 19th century, women were not allowed to travel alone--you always need a husband or a suitable chaperone. This woman is clearly quite used to riding alone, and looks down, somewhat haughtily on the viewer, as if sizing up a new conquest. More conservative Russians felt that she was a prostitute or at least a fallen woman without shame or morality. Yet there is also something poignant about this woman too, as she seems utterly isolated and hemmed in by her frigid and lifeless surroundings.

And the more we look at her face, the less sure we are that this is an arrogant glance, one of command and superiority. Something in her eyes seems frightened, or at least trapped; she has to play this elaborate social game of flirtation and seduction to stay alive, and what does she get for her pains? Many people have likened her to Anna Karenina, and the portrait has adorned many covers of this book. Anna abandoned a loveless marriage (and sadly, her own children) and the safety of society for a foolish love affair, one that never provided her the comfort of understanding she desired. She was then forced to endure the scorn of her former friends, while all the time watching her lover's fading interest and the legal threats removing her from her children. Even so, her dignity remains intact, and she refuses to grovel...yet her confidence is only skin deep, as she knows a single push could send her toppling off the coach and into the grime and slush of poverty. Kramskoy has beautifully captured her strength and fragility, as well as her quiet beauty, which stands heads and shoulders above the imposing architecture of the city.

In Memory of My Greatest Teacher, Yevgeni Yevtushenko (1932-2017)

My colleague in the English department, Dr. Sukholutskaya, asked me to write a short remembrance of Yevgeni Yetvushenko (who died a few days ago at 84 in Tulsa) for her to share at an upcoming conference of Russian language teachers. It had to be short (no easy task for me) but it was all-too easy to write. I have a dozen such stories, of which this is merely one:

My favorite memory of Yevtushenko was during one of his classes at the University of Tulsa. It was the first or second day of class, and he was asking the students to tell him their favorite work of literature. Though a few students had favorite books, most said they didn't read that much, and some offered works that weren't 'literature' by any stretch of the imagination. Yevtushenko's surprise grew by the minute, and he finally asked one, "what about your great authors Mark Twain and Jack London? Do you still read these?" And surprise turned to outright shock when a student said "who's Jack London?" Yevtushenko then launched into a thirty-minute speech about the importance of these authors in his childhood, how every Russian knew Jack London's stories and this formed their very ideas about the American landscape and its culture. "How you could not know your own literature?" he demanded, in his idiomatic way.

His speech was so passionate, and so genuinely concerned, that I think most students scrambled out of class to buy copies of The Call of the Wild that very evening (I know I did). But what most affected me was his sincere passion and relationship to authors and ideas that went beyond a mere class curriculum. These books WERE alive to him, and the thought that his students had no knowledge or curiosity of these works gave him heartfelt sorrow. Words mattered to him, and he was the first professor I had ever had who worshiped the written word. When he spoke, he was writing poetry, breaking his comments into stanzas and meters...even his stray prose seemed to have tumbled out of a play. Simply put, you couldn't leave a class of Yevtushenko's without knowing why language and literature mattered, and even the greatest literary atheist would have a crisis of faith by the semester's end. His classes made a professor of me, before I even knew I had an inkling to step into a classroom.

I mourn his passing since he taught me so much, and was probably the greatest man I've ever met (for all his flaws, which he, himself, would acknowledge). He was also a living link to the great poets of the earlier 20th century, such as Pasternak, Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, as well as great composers such as Dimitri Shostakovich (another hero), whom he collaborated with on the latter's Thirteenth Symphony. It was an honor to briefly know him and to pass on his legacy to my students when I teach his works or share insights which originated in his classes or in casual conversation. 

A Painting A Day In Support of the NEA: Edward Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin (1872-77)

My protest of Trump's proposal to cut funding to the NEA and other arts organizations continues. Every day I will post a great work of art as a reminder of what could easily be lost in the shuffle of more "useful" government spending.

Edward Burne-Jones' "The Beguiling of Merlin" (1872-77) captures the Victorian love of voluptuous beauty as well as the allure of Arthurian legends and romances (as Tennyson would immortalize in his series of poems, Idylls of the King). Jones is one of the later painters in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, which was a loose confederation of artists and poets who sought to capture artistic themes and worlds before the Renaissance through a distinctly Victorian/late Romantic prism. This painting is one of the most celebrated and beautiful: the colors and textures alone make this work beguiling, full of dreamy yellows, greens, and blues, as well as the delicate flesh of Morgan's feet and neck and Merlin's hands. It's the kind of painting you could take a bath in--cool and comforting yet warm and inviting.

Everything is languid and dreamy, capturing the moment when Morgay le Fay (or Nimue) ensnares Merlin in a hawthorn bush so she can steal his book of spells. That's the framework for this painting, which really seems to be about something else: the pair's eyes are locked together, Morgan holding the book away from her body as if no longer as enticed by its charms. Merlin, too, seems a quite willing captive, and rather than being caught, he seems to be luring her in. His pose is almost humorous, as he leans back, legs crossed, while he seems to crook his finger as if to summon her to the branch beside him. Clearly, she is torn--she wants the spells, but she wants him, more. Both have become ensnared in a spell neither one of them cast--love and desire--and Morgan seems to realize that all of her plans have come to naught. In the end, love always wins, and the steps Morgan seems to be taking away from Merlin are arrested in mid-flight. The next step, we imagine, will be back to him, with the the book on the ground, and herself in his arms.

Note, too, the binding of her hair with an elaborate headdress: she was in love with him from the start, though convinced herself it was only his spells she was after. Now, with him helpless and the power in her hands, she can't even remember why she stole it. She was caught from the start, and Merlin assures her that being "beguiled" isn't such a bad thing...in fact, to be free is infinitely worse.

A Painting A Day In Support of the NEA:Cassandra Austen's Portrait of Jane Austen (1810)

My protest of Trump's proposal to cut funding to the NEA and other arts organizations continues. Every day I will post a great work of art as a reminder of what could easily be lost in the shuffle of more "useful" government spending.

Today's work of art isn't exactly a "great" work of art, but an unfinished sketch that hints at greatness--the beginning of a portrait of Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra (c.1810). What makes this portrait so priceless is (a) it was never finished, and (b) Jane doesn't look like she's posing at all--she looks pretty annoyed, actually. Both qualities make this a far more documentary portrait than usual, one composed "from the life" and "on the spot," which is probably why it was unfinished--Jane said "enough of this nonsense!" Yet for all of this, it reminds us how art can capture the mood, character, and essence of a person which is so quickly lost behind a veil of myth and rumor. Jane Austen is always gussied up as a delicate, romantic flower, when the opposite is actually true: she liked long walks in the country, biting social satire, and abhorred romantic cliches and conventions. If anything brings us closer to the woman she actually was, this portrait does it. Not surprisingly, the family suppressed this painting for decades, and it's rarely ever been used to adorn the cover of a Jane Austen novel. Far too real, I'm afraid, and not nearly romantic enough! And thank God for it.

More than anything, I see her heroines Anne Eliot, Fanny Price, and maybe even a little Elizabeth Bennett in this portrait. It's a woman of uncompromising views, not afraid to be alone, and willing to sacrifice herself for the right cause. This portrait brings me closer to the voice of her stories, particularly the later ones, when Austen seemed to be reaching at a new style of writing. Pithier, less satirical, but also richer and more nuanced. Austen never completed her own maturation nor even her last novel, Sandition, which makes this portrait seem all the more emblematic: unfinished, hinting at the incredible genius which had too little time to record her ideas. Yet what remains is more than a good effort--it's enough to savor and ponder over for the next thousand years. 

A Painting a Day in Support of the NEA: Repin's Portrait of Mussorgsky

My protest of Trump's proposal to cut funding to the NEA and other arts organizations continues. Every day I will post a great work of art as a reminder of what could easily be lost in the shuffle of more "useful" government spending.

Here is the great Russian painter Ilya Repin's famous portrait of the equally famous Russian composer, Modest Mussorgsky (1881). Painted only a few days before Mussorgsky's death, it is an amazing psychological portrait of a tortured, tragically flawed, yet oddly dignified artist. Mussorgsky was a member of "The Mighty Five," a group of Russian nationalist composers who more or less put Russian music on the map (also included Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Balakirev, and Cui). Sadly, Mussorgsky was riddled with self-doubt and drank himself into oblivion, almost stifling his outsized talent and revolutionary sensibilities. Repin recognized a uniquely Russian character in Mussorgsky, as we see from the hollow stare and his bedraggled appearance. Yet even so, he strikes a defiant pose, as if aware that he has a powerful message that he will never be able to share with the world. He is a portrait of neglect and ridicule, yet he seems conscious of his worth, even when he most denies it. A bottle might be in one of his hands, just out of view, but eternity is in his grasp--though sadly, it might take his death to reach it. Today, Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov is in the standard repertoire, as is his haunting evocation of Halloween, A Night on Bald Mountain, and Ravel's orchestration of his beautiful piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition. This painting, too, is a kind of orchestration of the man himself, who only existed in an unfinished piano sketch--showing us the face he presented to society, and the one that slumbered beneath--visible only in his music. 

A Work of Art a Day in Support of the NEA: Dore's Illustrations of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Recently, Trump proposed cutting funds to the NEA, PBS, and tons of arts organizations, as if they're just so much fluff that's crowding the budget. The loss of support for the arts will impoverish our culture drastically, not just by encouraging new artists, but by removing agencies, such as PBS, who provide many children and students with their first contact to the rich heritage of the arts in our civilization. Millions of works can be silenced by such an act, and people can grow up with no idea that Beethoven wrote symphonies, or Monet painted cathedrals, or Shakespeare wrote plays. Education isn't a push-button process--you need great material to work with, and that in turn inspires great teachers. By cavalierly cutting these programs, our country might as well say "to hell with culture," and "to hell with our souls." 

In light of this, I've been posting a great painting every day on Facebook (and now here) as a protest to what we stand to lose in the face of such indifference. Please share these works yourself or share others you like, because the only thing that destroys art is not knowing of its existence. 

In 1876, the great artist Gustave Dore made a series of engravings to illustrate Coleridge's masterpiece, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798). While on some level a work of literature needs no illustrations other than the ones we provide in our mind, illustrations are a great way to collaborate with a work and redefine it for a new generation. Dore added a human element somewhat missing in the original, and looked back on it from the perspective of later horror and supernatural literature like Frankenstein and Poe's short stories. His stark, black and white engravings make the poem seem much more frightening than the original, but also anchor us right into the poem itself, since each image is beautifully tied to a specific moment in the text. These engravings remind us that all forms of art echo one another and can enrich the readers' experience, which is why art never dies, but grows stronger over the years and centuries. When I read Dore, I appreciate Coleridge even more, and Dore encourages me to find my own interpretations and extrapolations of Coleridge's vision.

The Art of Reading Indie

Can anyone be beautiful if someone doesn’t say to them, “I think you’re beautiful”? Can anyone be intelligent if the results of a test don’t confirm “you’re a genius”? And more pertinent to our discussion, can any book be good if not validated by a 4 or 5 star review? Can a book without reviews at all be good in any sense of the word? Doesn’t someone need to tell us it is? Otherwise, isn’t beauty, intelligence, and artistic worth a relative term, utterly meaningless without a verifiable source?

To me, the question of indie writers and books comes down to this simple question. When you browse the shelves of a bookstore or library, you implicitly know that these books have been curated for you by the experts. Not only publishers, but booksellers, sales charts, award committees, and librarians have each had their say, and personally picked through the debris of literature to offer these chosen gems: these are good and worth your time, they seem to say. So even if you take a book and decide it’s not for you, the reason isn’t that the book itself is bad, or comes from an inferior pen; it simply wasn’t your cup of tea, or what you were in the mood for. You don’t take it personally (or most of us don’t). 

Playing With Words

Langston Hughes reportedly wrote out drafts of poems on napkins or whatever spare material he had on hand, often composing right in the thick of things in a club or coffee house. When someone asked him why he didn’t invest in some more permanent writing material, he responded that writing on napkins wasn’t “for real,” and it allowed him to make mistakes and not take it so seriously. And he’s right: try writing a poem or the beginning of a story on a napkin sometime, or the back of a menu, or even on your own hand. There’s a sense of play in the activity, a sense that you’re not really writing, just giving it a shot. It’s probably the best cure for writer’s block known to man or woman: change the medium, and you change the writing. 

Racing To The Future: Charting Diversity in Science Fiction

What color is the future? Who inhabits it? What do we call the cultures or races of the 24^th century? There’s no easy answer to these questions, though science fiction has always attempted to answer them, even in times when such topics were largely taboo. Most comic book lovers are familiar with EC comics’ story “Judgment Day” (Weird Fantasy #18, 1953) which tackles the subject of 1950’s race head-on. In the story, a representative of Earth lands on the planet Cybrinia, “Planet of Mechanical Life.” The planet is inhabited by two species of robots: the orange robots and the blue robots. Tarlton, ambassador from “Earth Colonization,” is greeted by a contingent of orange robots, who take him on a tour of their city: he is shown their technology, their government, and finally, their means of production. The ambassador is puzzled that he doesn’t see blue robots anywhere in the facility, though is told that they work elsewhere. While impressed with the means of building and educating their new robots (after a brief apprenticeship, they get to choose their own vocation), he insists on seeing where the blue robots are constructed. Nervously, his robot guide answers, “Well…you’ll have to go over to Blue Town…on the South side of the city for that!”