havingtoexplainmyself

[havingtoexplainmyself]

Look at these baby girls and tell me they aren’t Rococo. 

You can’t.

They are precious!!! The girl on the left has slits on her waist for a ribbon to be passed through and tied. The floaty chiffon, the carefully embroidered flowers, the lace details, all of it is as soft and sweet as Rococo. These dresses are perfect for a garden stroll with your (secret?) lover. The sheer fabric providing peeks of the slips worn underneath are as titillating as a Boucher painting, no? 

It is difficult to put into words how these dresses make me feel. All that comes out is moans, honestly. The meaning of Rococo is about as wordless in terms of profound statements. It’s just a frilly thing to be enjoyed. Or is it? Tell me what you think. I’m over here wordless with hearts in my eyes.

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Oh, how sublime!!! This little number is a doozy! She is made of velvet, with her lower half made of fringe and a sexy lace inset on the center front. 

Her texture evokes a pleasurable sensation and the fringe is scandalous (as well as #iconic) with a peek of silver lining flashing through with every twist and turn. The lace offers the same scandal. She sends shivers down my spine for sure! 

Wearing all black for mourning was born out of the 19th century Victorian era of fetishized death. This surely is not a mourning gown... is she a version of the infamous little black dress a la Chanel? It is such fun imagining the girl who wore this dress and for what function.

The sublime, in my opinion, was a reaction to the violence of the modern 19th century. The flapper dress is a reaction to the misogynistic violence of all of history and a modern dash towards a new freedom of movement and feminine expression. To show calves surely sent a sublime shiver down mens’ spines! The scandal, as it is in modern 21st society, is both horrific in its roots and pleasurable in the release in enjoying what shouldn’t be enjoyable (so they say).

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What a beauty! The 20s saw a rise in fascination with ancient Egyptian culture with the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. There was a similar fascination with Egypt back in the Late Neoclassical Napoleonic days in the 19th century. 

I also gotta come out and make another value judgement: Neoclassicism sucks. It was used as propaganda by the wealthy elite, but that isn’t to pass a value judgement on the beauty of this dress. All hand appliqued details are incredible in skill and design! This is truly a beautiful work of art. Curator lore says that this piece was bought in Paris during a vacation. Someone lovingly created this for a wealthy tourist to buy. The iris appliqued on a tan fabric belongs to a matching overcoat to the dress. It is quite the ensemble! 

Only the wealthy could consume such works of art; both in the 20s and the 19th century. For this gown, it required the funds to be able to travel and then purchase a handmade ensemble over there. In the 19th century, it required the funds to commission a history painting, and the knowledge to be able to appreciate both the myth it depicted and understand the contemporary messages it was sending. Knowledge is power, and that is why it was usually only the wealthy who could gain an education. Not to say education is violent, but gatekeeping is! Academia has its problems, but that is not the purpose of this post. But it does get me thinking about all sorts of related tangents. 

To even be able to understand and have opinions about art requires me having an education I pay tens of thousands of dollars for. Participating in such a violent system designed for specific kinds of people ruffles my feathers, and that is why I react in the ways I do. This project has become a queer anti-art work. Art sucks? Nah and yah. But that’s what makes talking about it so fun! 

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This is a bizarre thing. It’s an amalgamation of all sorts of movements in art and I picked it out because of how weird it is. It’s reminiscent of ancient south american iconography as well as looking like a tunic a peasant would have worn in the Middle Ages. The sleeves have an interesting cut to them and the details were embroidered by hand. Was this someones art project? 

I am connecting this to the Romantic movement because of these immediate reactions I had about this piece. It is Romantic in its appreciation for an ancient, foreign culture long ago decimated by colonialism. The peasant vibes of this silhouette and fabric (linen) reminds me of Millet’s focus on peasants in the 19th century. 

Romanticism sucks, I’ll just get that opinion out there. Does it mark the beginning of violent pornography? That sounds like something to be talked about. It also fetishized “the orient” (and the “exotic” nonwhite woman) which is a problematic (and violent) way of thinking. Can’t escape it! All the worse, it was disguised as appreciation (through the consumption of) and fascination of other cultures. Tricky words that mask the insidious repercussions of such thinking. What am I talking about? If you want to know, ask.

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She looks sad on a hanger, but her quirky cuteness still shines through thanks to that trompe l’oeil bow detail on the front center! I am connecting this dress to the Impressionist movement because the Impressionist movement was, at its core, all about capturing the immediate moment, the current and present atmosphere of contemporary life. The world had changed so much through a series of tumultuous revolutions and wars and modern life was a bizarre and fascinating thing. It is interesting to think of the word modern as it was meant in the late 19th century and in the early 20th century. Both eras refer to a new, fresh take on life in a vastly changed and changing world. Each era was characterized by violence. The people of the 20s were looking back at the 19th century with rose tinted glasses; they missed the pre WW1 days. 

This bow is evocative of the art deco movement, which came about partly as a response to the art nouveau movement. “Trompe l’oeil” means to fool the eye and was a popular design motif thanks to the contemporary Surrealist movement. Surrealism was itself born out of Impressionism, whose artists paved the way for future generations to challenge and develop their responses to modern life. 

I read this book that talked about art deco being used within the realm of furniture as a way for the New Rich to decorate their homes in the latest fashions. Eventually these people ran out of rooms in their fancy houses to furnish, so manufacturers had to figure out how to market to the New Poor. Luckily, mass manufacturing made quickly producing things to be turned around for a profit that was just as quick. Shall we talk about how violent the capitalist system is? A system born out of the Industrial Revolution. See my posts on the picturesque for my thoughts on that. 

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There is so much more that could be said and shared. I can only say so much inside one project. This is a work in progress. Always developing as there is always something else to be said and always something else to be shared. There are plenty of new discussions that could take place at any moment in time. 

Works in progress tend to still be messy. History is messier than this digital space is, though. I am less interested in cleaning things up than I am with making some kind of sense of it, but the more I try to make sense of it the more complicated and the messier it becomes. An impossible task, just as Morisot found herself doing. History repeating itself. I’m trying.

Academia does not have to be so stifling. The Impressionists fought against the academic standards of their time, just as I am doing here. I am queering the concepts of curation, of knowledge and its acquisition. It is a reflection of my thoughts and my thoughts are messy. How can anyone make sense of their thoughts in a way that makes sense to them, let alone anyone else? The idea baffles me. 

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Berthe Morisot, French. (1869). The Mother and Sister of the Artist. [Painting]. Retrieved from https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.stephens.edu/asset/ANGAIG_10313951665

Morisot was one of the few women who exhibited with the French Impressionists. This work was exhibited at both the first Impressionist exhibition and in the Salon. Morisot, like the other Impressionist women, found herself forced to narrow her subjects to what she could observe in the domestic life. It was a still life, and speaking of still lives, Morisot has worked one into this painting. This was an influence of her friend Manet, who liked to do the same. In fact, Manet reworked this painting for Morisot when she called upon him for critique and help in finishing this piece. Male violence, male fantasies, always. Oh Margaret! Oh Berthe! Manet’s actions were well-intended, but ultimately an insult to Morisot, who was appalled and embarrassed to have someone turn her work into their own. 

Morisot, in describing her Impressionist attempts to capture light, said she had taken upon herself an impossible task. What a relateable feeling! It is the way I feel having taken upon this project. What appears so easy to do, so natural, is so difficult and impossible to truly grasp and pin down. My thoughts swirl with violence, with paintings, with history, with politics, with women and goddesses and landscapes and horror. I could endlessly explain myself and contradict myself multiple times throughout the way, but it is more like history is itself contradicting. 

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Gustave Caillebotte. Le Pont De l’Europe. 1876

Finally, we have arrived at Impressionism. Impressionist painters wanted to capture the every day occurrences of modern life, which included all social classes. They were fascinated by light and became fixated on the attempt to capture its many variances. 

This painting captures the modern spirit through the depiction of the newly developed railway system and the bridge that was built to connect four main boulevards. The man and woman in the painting are the main subjects and they are interestingly not placed in the foreground. Though at first glance it appears that the man is the woman’s companion, this is not so. He is merely striding ahead of her, unencumbered by heavy skirts, and is giving her a second passing glance of intrigue. Who is this woman, walking alone? Is she grieving? Could she a possible romantic pursuit? Or is her face merely worth a second look? Manet invented the concept of being a flaneur - a well-to-do Frenchman with time to kill, so what better to do than walk around the streets of Paris and observe and contemplate his surroundings? 

Less so it is male violence and rather a male’s passive indulgence. But is it violent to indulge? That sure is a question.

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William Hunt. The Awakening Conscience. 1853. Taken from the Tate website.

This is a Realist scene painted by William Hunt. Similar to the exemplum virtutis of Neoclassicism, this scene is meant to depict a lesson in domestic morality. Young women are not to fall victim to the desires of men! A lesson dripping in irony considering the contemporary Romantic outlook. This picture is chock full of symbolism, which is not really important here. What is important is that this depicts the contemporary life of the upper middle class. These two are not members of the elite, but they do hold power that peasants such as the Gleaners do not have. But what might be most important is the fact this is yet another depiction of male violence, even while serving as a warning of it. 

Art has slowly become more accessible to the general public throughout this century. People of this social class were able to attend the annual, or bi-annual, Salons held at the Louvre, in which all the tasteful art of the day was exhibited. The world was rapidly changing. Political revolutions were happening in stride with the Industrial Revolution. The ways of life were changing. They were modernizing! History paintings were becoming passe and artists began paying attention to the world immediately around them and depicting it, to the enjoyment or utter lack thereof on the part of the critics. 

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Jean-François Millet. (1857). The Gleaners. Retrieved from https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.stephens.edu/asset/LESSING_ART_1039490315

This painting, which does not fall under the paradigms of Romanticism or Neoclassicism, was created five years into the Second Empire. Emperor Napoleon the 3rd was ruling at the time - the nephew of the first Napoleon. He reigned as the President of the Second Republic and the Emperor of the Second Empire. France has, up till now, seen a series of civil disruptions and revolutions. There seems to have never been a prolonged period of peace. How must have the common people felt, amidst all this chaos? All subject matter focused on portraits of the elite and epic historic subjects, all with political intent. When Millet chose to depict peasantry, he claimed to be taking on apolitical subject matter. But to intentionally choose such subject matter is inherently political. This picture is meant to give dignity to the lowest of the working class; women who picked over the freshly harvested fields in hopes of gathering enough grain to make a meager loaf of bread. We hardly see their faces, as their personal identities are not important. Their identity as a specific social class is.

This scene is unlike the one by Chardin, which depicted the lower class as being gracious, clean, and well fed. This picture is not a comfortable higher class fantasy, it instead was an affront to the academic standards set by the Ecole des Beaux Arts and the Salon. To claim going against the grain is apolitical is a cop out, and a boring one. 

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Jean Jacques Pradier. Odalisque. 1841

An example of Neoclassical sculpture. She is named Odalisque. It is the name given to many carved women created in this era. She is yet another male fantasy: a perfect, still and silent, naked woman with nothing better to do than sit and wait for her man to arrive.

Our attention is on her. She sits, un-moving, as statues do. We are meant to take her in for what she is: a beautiful body. Her flesh is made of marble but it looks as if it would dimple under our touch. She is an imagined sensory experience. Her attention is forever frozen on whoever has interrupted her peaceful solitude, and it is not us who has done so, though we can fantasize such a scenario. She is a thing owned: by our gaze, by her sculptor, by her lover, by the museum that has collected her. 

A male fantasy, violent even in stillness. 

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Eugène Delacroix. (Salon of 1827-28). Death of Sardanapalus. [painting]. Retrieved from https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.stephens.edu/asset/SCALA_ARCHIVES_1039930021

Welcome to Romanticism. This painting by Delacroix is an excellent example of what this movement was all about: the sensuality of violence (especially upon women) and a fascinating exotic world (full of harems!). Romanticism was extremely popular among wealthy Frenchmen, who loved to have an excuse to rake their eyes over a naked woman’s body and the excitement of pain and fear made it all the more arousing. The eroticism of violence has been made palpable.

There are loads of pictures similar to this in subject matter. The concept of a group of women, owned by one man, who sat around in waiting for him to enact his desires upon them, fascinated the men who would come to see these paintings. As Margaret Atwood so succinctly put it: “ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? “

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Jacques-Louis David, David, Jacques-Louis, 1748-1825. (1799, 1799, 1799, 1799, 1799, 1799, 1799). The Intervention of the Sabine Women.Retrieved from https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.stephens.edu/asset/SCALA_ARCHIVES_1039931969

Back to David, back with more Neoclassicism. The scene is once again one of violence, but the message is subtly different. In a radical move, David has centered Hersilia, a woman, as the “hero” of the painting. Throwback to the Oath of the Horatii, in which women were passive agents, slumping in the corner and merely waiting to see what fate brings them. Hersilia, here, is throwing herself in between warring families in order to put an end to things. Children are at her feet and the other women around her gesture to them as reason to stop fighting. This time, family takes precedence over the state in order of importance.

David’s tune changed after being imprisoned by Napoleon for his involvement with the Jacobins, the most radical revolutionist faction. After his release, he cozied up to the Emperor by painting portraits of of him that served as propaganda to the people; depicting him as a strong, cool leader who had all things under control.

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Turner, J. M. W. (Joseph Mallord William), 1775-1851. (1810-12). Snowstorm: Hannibal & His Army Crossing the Alps. Retrieved from https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.stephens.edu/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822000858744

This is an example of a landscape painting gone historic. Turner was trying to elevate the status of landscape paintings to the same level of prestige that others regarded history paintings with. In this painting, we also get a sense of the sublime - the harsh cold of the Alps is literally looming over the soldiers who are on their way to dominate other peoples, and they will dominate the landscape as well in their quest to do so. 

Domination and the glory of conquer were popular motifs within 19th century Neoclassical French painters. Plenty of literature has been written about this phenomenon surely, and the reasons why probably have something to do with the fetishization of dominance; the desire for power and control, to put it simply. The normalized violence of men. A violence to be sought after. A profitable violence. One need not physically commit it to be able to depict it, but to emulate that violence so that it may be enjoyed by others - is that a violent act? 

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John Constable, 1776 - 1837. (1821). The Hay Wain. Retrieved from https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.stephens.edu/asset/ANGLIG_10313767193

This is an example of what is known as the picturesque. It does not contain the same fearful, awesome power of the sublime and instead provides a momentary escape into the pleasant feelings caused by pleasant surroundings. It focuses on an ideal of beauty: the unspoiled beauty of nature. But what does that mean, to spoil nature’s beauty? Increasing urbanization and the Industrial Revolution, though fresh, was already wreaking havoc on the environment and peoples’ health. The picturesque depicted picture perfect landscapes, and indeed they were perfect. This scene is, though based in reality, a projected fantasy of the artists’ ideal beauty of nature. The movement was like an attempt to escape the every day violence in life and painting, it seems, as was the sublime.

John Constable also enjoyed creating quick sketches outdoors which he then took to the studio to work into larger paintings. This practice of ‘plein air’ painting would eventually take of with the artists of the Impressionism movement.

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Francisco Goya y Lucientes. (Drawn and etched about 1810–1814; whole series first published posthumously 1863). Grande Hazaña! Con muertos! (Heroic feat! Against the Dead!); Fatales consequencias de la sangrienta guerra en España con Buonaparte. Y otros caprichos enfaticos [Disasters of War], plate 39.. [Prints]. Retrieved from https://library-artstor-org.ezproxy.stephens.edu/asset/AWSS35953_35953_29381971

This is a work and artist who seems to have existed within a genre and realm unto himself. Francisco Goya, a Spanish contemporary of David, was producing art that was much at odds with the standards of French culture. He worked for the royal family after gaining attention for his tapestry designs, and the portraits he painted of them are difficult to be read as flattering. Later on, after Napoleon is over in Spain conquering the realm and civil war is wreaking additional havoc upon the landscape, Goya begins producing etchings that capture the wicked spirits of the time. This etching was born out of a possibly very real vision Goya had: remnants of the enduring violence around him. 

I have learned that the 19th century very much was characterized by radical and mostly violent change, in nearly every way these terms can be applied. The political, social, and environmental landscapes were being torn up and rearranged and seen in new ways. This inherent turmoil makes it difficult to approach at all. Goya managed to do it though.

We are presented with real horror here. This isn’t like the sublime, which only tantalizes us and gives us a taste for our temptation. Goya presents us with genuine violence, in all its grand “heroism”. The French presented such conquering violence as glory, as the personifications of female goddesses of human virtue (male virtue?). 

Is the violence we are faced with always rooted in power and the quest for it? My study has so far been focused on France in the 19th century with a glimpse of Spain here and windows into England and Germany there. The landscapes we see seem to be unmarked by this violence though, here through Goya, we see the landscape adorned with violated human bodies. It was human bodies that did this: created the subject and a human body that depicted it. We have seen kingdoms, empires, monarchies, systems of power. A very localized version of it though: “Western” as the term goes. 

It unfortunately is not all that senseless. It does make sense if you can make sense of it.

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About?

The decision to use Tumblr as my platform might be a bust seeing how the mobile app has been removed from the Apple store. Let this blog be a relic to what once was: in art, in history, in technology. It is also a documentation of my thoughts in reaction to facts more so than a collection of given knowledge to then be further passed along. It’s like a game of telephone: with every connection and every round the signal loses integrity. I want reactions from myself. I want reactions from others so that I may react to those reactions. See: Goat Island. Heard of it? Google it: you’re on the Net.

If I am wrong, my post can be reblogged and appended with comments correcting me. If you disagree with an analysis, my post can be reblogged and appended with comments “correcting” me. Let’s be social on this media! 

I also understand that everything will be difficult to decipher. Tumblr is a rather linear format. You can go to the /archive to see a more complete picture if you wish. On mobile, one goes from most recent to the furthest thing in the past. That is why I am trying to begin with the earliest and get to the latest in the end, so one can effectively travel backwards through time. It wont be a perfect timeline though. Things get messy. There are a lot of conflicts blowing things up and around. Even though it was a straight path (was it?) through time, once you dive in, it feels so messy that one does not know how to begin making sense of it. That is where I am now, and I will now begin trying to make sense of it. 

There are so many things to think about. All I do is think about things. Here I am presenting the way I think about things. Messy. Convoluted. Tangled. Disorganized. All curated; digitally, for you to experience! Enjoy. And if you don’t please leave a comment! Let people in the notes know what’s up. It is how we learn as a collectively conscious body on the Internet.