A Rebours (Against Nature) Joris Karl-Huysmans

This is a book I read, suggested by Michael Howard. Oscar Wilde quoted it being the strangest book he had ever read and it is that, but it is fantastic. Here are a few quotes that I loved from it:

"It can be stated without fear of contradiction that in his chosen province man has done as well as the god in whom he believes."

"Sophistical studies, super terrestrial semi theological speculations; fundamentally, they are ardent aspirations towards an ideal, towards and unknown universe, towards a distant beatitude, as utterly desirable as that promise by the scriptures"

Schophenhauer came nearer to the truth. He did not drum into your ears the dogma of original sin; he did not try to convince you of the superlative goodness of a god who protects the wicked, helps the foolish, crushes the young, brutalizes the old and chastises the innocent. "if a god has made this world, I should hate to be that god, for the misery of the world would break my heart"

His theory of pessimism was the great comforter of superior minds and lotty souls; it revealed society as it was, insisted on the innate stupidity of women, pointed out the pitfalls of life, saved you from disillusionment by teaching you to expect nothing at all if you were sufficiently strong willed, indeed to consider yourself lucky if you were not constantly by some unforeseen calamity

Accessible to rich in intellect, that made it all the more difficult of attainment for the poor, whose clamorous wrath was more easily appeased by the kindly voice of religion.

The loveliest melody in the world becomes unbearably vulgar once the public start humming it and the barrel organs playing it, so the work of art that appeals to charlatans, endears itself to fools. It becomes common place, almost repulsive

IMPPRESSIONISM

Jules Laforgue 1883
In a landscape bathed with light, in which entities are modelled as if in coloured grisaille, the academic painter sees nothing but white light spreading everywhere, whilst the impressionist sees it bathing everything not in dead whiteness, but in a thousand conflicting vibrations, in rich prismatic decompostitions of colour. Where the academic sees only lines at the edges of things, holding modelling in place, the impressionist sees real living lines, without geometric form, built from thousands of irregular touches which, at a distance, give the thing life. Where the academic sees only things down in regular, seperate positions within an armature of purely theoretical lines, the Impressionist sees perspective established by thousands of imperceptible tones and touches, by the variety of atmospheric states, with each plane not immobile but shifting.
...The Impressionist sees and renders nature as she is, which is to say solely by means of coloured vibrations. Neither drawing, nor light, nor modelling, nor perspective, nor chiaroscuro: these infantile classifications all resolve in reality into coloured vibrations, and must be obtained on the canvas solely by coloured vibrations.
In this small and limited exhibition at Gurlitt's, the formula is clearest in monet...and Pissarro...where everything is obtained by means of a thousand small touches, dancing off in all directions like so many straws of colour-each struggling for survival in the overall impression. No more isolated melodies, the whole thing is a symphony, which itself is life, living and changing, like the "forest voices" of Wagner's theories each struggling for existance in the great voice of the forest, just as the unconcious, the law of the world, is the great melodic voice resulting from the symphonyof conciousnesses of races and individuals. Such is the principle of the Impressionist school of plein air. And the eye of the master will be the one which will discern and render the keenest graduations and decompositions, and that on a simple flat canvas. This principle has been applied in France, not systematically but by men of genius, in poetry and in the novel.

The lectures on Impressionism to Post Impression really inspired me. I really wish I was more aware of the history of art at an earlier point because now I feel that I can appreciate art more knowing where its roots are. I also feel that I am more aware of the depths and allegories of art works. Now that I understand paintings more I have started painting and seeing things with a different eye. A lot of quotes have inspired me like the one above and :

Impressionists "develop their own originality." by abandoning themselves "to their personal sensations".

Cezanne said "To paint after nature is not a matter of copying the objective world, its giving shape to your sensations". Monet and Rouen did not want common sense conceptions or prejudices about how things ought to look to interfere with his personal impressions. Monet told Perry not to paint objects and events in the world but patches of colour, advising her: "When you go out to paint, try to forget what object you have before you. Merely think, this is a patch of blue, here an oblong of pink and to paint it just as it looks to you". Cezanne says " I see in stains" "see like a man who has just been born".

Cezanne also said "Treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything in proper perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point. Lines parallel to the horizon give breadth, that is a section of nature or, if you prefer, of the spectacle that the patter omnipotent: Acterne Deus spreads out before our eyes. Lines perpendicular to the horizon give depth. But nature for us men is more depth than surface when the need of introducing into our light vibrations, represented by reds and yellows, a sufficient amount of blue to give the impression of air".

Baudelaire's opinion of photography

This is an opinion that I find interesting as the topic has numerously crossed my mind. I believe that their is a truth in what he is saying but obviously when considering the use of photography in art today, it is not as applicable as photography has broadened into many fields of art especially when considering digital art and photo manipulation.

"An art of this type no longer created life, but merely reproduced it. It was this 'realistic' cult of nature which he was disturbed, its confusion with the beautiful, and the absence of dream and fantasy."

Photography was perceived as unfeeling, to be used by painters not as a model but as aide-memoir.

I've become more fascinated with drawing and painting:

Voluntary work - Developing an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sustain Development

Today - 16th March, I volunteered at Manchester Museum to take part in a study whereby the higher education academy (HEA) used me to find out how higher education courses can use museum spaces and their collections to aid interdisciplinary learning about and for sustainability.
For this I visisted different parts of the museum, examined a particular collection, reflected on and discussed sustainability issues with my peers. We each recorded our thoughts on a spider diagram and then discussed further. Over the 5 hours we had explored our thoughts and discussed more and so then kept going back to our spider diagram and adding further thoughts on the topic down in a different colour therefore showing how our thoughts had developed as the session had gone on and jotting down a key to show which colour came first etc. This was very interesting as everyone in the group had a different idea of what it was and I suppose a lot of it came down to what course they were studying. Purposefully HEA had asked for volunteers that studied art, materials science and social anthropology and so combining people that have been taught to or simply naturally think in an "abstract/Creative" way helped us gather a broader range of ideas and perspectives. The outcome was brilliant because not only were the outcomes great, we also learned a lot from each other. We then got to discuss with a member of staff from the museum questions that had been raised; one being, how can all of the correct information be gathered about an artifact especially when being faced with the issue of a language barrier and/or once translating what has been said, the discriptive words they used could be completely different to what british people use. Another issue would be that word of mouth through hundreds of years may have changed the purpose and meaning of a certain object. He agreed that this is an issue in some cases especially when a lot of the items were stolen through war times as trophy's/souveneers or to sell, which most often was the case with brass and ivory objects and then over time they've have been passed on through the family and then donated to museums. This way it is very difficult to retrieve information and usually archaeologists and historians come into place to estimate a story.
From this I learnt information about how museum spaces and their collections can aid interdisciplinary learning about and for sustainability and I developed a familiarity with the Manchester Museum and it's collections. I also expanded my understanding of sustainability and experienced a new way of working involving critical enquiry, listening and presenting ideas. It was a really great opportunity for me. I will soon be sent a report including what they have taken from the group of volunteers today as well as from two other museums, it seems like we were a great help to them.

The personal meaning mapping tool that we used was developed by John Falk and his colleagues, to measure learning in 'free-choice' learning settings such as museums. It is designed to measure how 'a specified educational experience uniquely affects each individual's conceptual, attitudinal and emotional understanding'. They used it today to record how our thoughts and ideas relating to 'sustainability' change throughout the day.

BRUNDTLAND (1987) Definition of Sustainable Development
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The definition has been criticised as too vague and more recently UNESCO have proposed three interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars for sustainabile development - economic development, social development and environmental protection. This formulation suggests the inclusion of social justice, health and poverty issues under the umbrella of sustainable development.