Group Blog – 4 Posts

Jesse Detzler, Kelsey Lawson, Jack Cloward, Michelle Underwood

Le Jeu

This piece was focusing on “Gambling” by Charles Baudelaire. By attempting to portray the ways in which the author focused on these people who were fallen, we compiled the ideas of his own jealous when he looked upon them. His jealousy of wanting to be one of these people, but also that he is aware that this is a negative feeling. So with this sense of jealousy, there is also a sense of shame. By interpreting these ideas into a more modern perspective, of us looking at the immoral people with jealousy of their freedom, we related this to the feelings that many get throughout their lives. This post takes on the many different ways that Charles feels about these fallen people, and being able to take them from the writing is important and shows the many ways you can look at a writing. Even if it may seem simple.

From Stones to Beauty.

This blog post was focused on Arthur Symon’s writing about the artist Rodin. First by analyzing the writing that was done by Symon representing Rodin as an artist, and then taking words from Rodin himself, we made a clash of ideas. The interesting part about Symon’s writing was that he made everything turn into life, and that’s a part of his writing about Rodin that sticks out the most. This feeling of Rodin bringing life into his work, and working with life. There was also an overwhelming theme of beauty throughout the post, which is important because that was a huge part of Symons ideas on Rodin’s work. Was that he believed that Rodin’s work showed this idea of life being beauty, and that beauty in it’s most raw form is something that Rodin portrayed through his art. We used an example of one of his pieces that seemed unfinished, but you can still see the beauty and the ideas that are forming it.

Art Nouveau

Taking on a more historical analysis, this post was about Art Nouveau and the arists that encompassed and made it different. By using Alphonse Mucha as an example, this post shows the understanding of the phase of this artistic movement, and the beginning of a line of artistic ways. Alphonse Mucha was not only an artist of this movement, but was one of the people who started this movement and made it was it was. By being different, he challenged the concepts of art. By showing pictures of him and his art, it gives the reader an idea of what is being analyzed and talked about.

The Meaning of Humanity

This was more of a random piece, but one that was important. By understanding the concepts of humanity, we understand the concepts of this class. By posting this, we hoped to show that humanity is much more than just a subject in college, but is more a subject that we see in every day life. By showing that it has importance and that it has a meaning behind the subjects being taught, it is a very wide and diverse subject.

Rough Draft For Group Poster

The ideas that we have came up with while collaborating for our project was the theme of human exploitation on the planet, and that therefore causing ruin. By showing different aspects by using our imagery, we hope to show the concept of ruin both creatively and historically.

By pulling aspects of literature, art, and philosophy into our historical and analytical poster, we hope to look at the subject from many different sides, pulling together different approaches. These will all central down to one specific theme and make one central argument that we have collaborated together. By using different ideas, we hope to show a broad sense of how this idea of ruin is not just something that is happening now, but was also happening during the past. The issue having many different effects and being caused in many different ways (i.e. World War I, Industrial Revolution, colonialism). Taking large problems or even small ones, such as the implementations of dams and how they effect water ways.

We hope to use the creativity portion of our poster to show the ways in which our original art has displayed human exploitation. Using an original photo showing the before state of a natural landscape or mostly natural landscape, comparing it to the ruin that is brought forth by man, whether it be the destruction of property through violent acts or the destruction of land and natural ecosystems by an overexploitation and misuse of an environment. 

All these pulled together will show our contribution to the ways in which ruin is being portrayed in our world through the environment and how humans, just like in society, can be centered at the core of the problem. 

The Meaning of Humanity

The idea of studying humanities sometimes doesn’t always make itself clear to many individuals. Some may find it pointless or out of date, others just don’t understand what exactly it means. When coming into this class, I have gone through the ideas of humanities that previous beginner classes have brought to light, just to learn that it was deeper than those classes really made it seem. Reading about Greek tragedies, and poems written by certain artists, what do these all have in common?

The idea of humanities is to understand the human condition through the ways of analyzing. It’s not just focusing on a certain aspect of life, but focusing on the impressions of people on culture and what their impressions mean. Each part having its own significance. It focuses on understanding meaning, purpose and goals instead of focusing on the cause of certain events. 

Through these ideas, I believe that by learning about humanities, we’re learning about how we perceive the past, and how we perceive our place in our own cultures. Understanding the meaning of what we are to a certain culture will help people understand their place among history. By reading Greek tragedies, we’re not only learning about stories that are entertaining, but learning about the trials that we go through during life in a new light. 

The Meaning of Humanity

The idea of studying humanities sometimes doesn’t always make itself clear to many individuals. Some may find it pointless or out of date, others just don’t understand what exactly it means. When coming into this class, I have gone through the ideas of humanities that previous beginner classes have brought to light, just to learn that it was deeper than those classes really made it seem. Reading about Greek tragedies, and poems written by certain artists, what do these all have in common?

The idea of humanities is to understand the human condition through the ways of analyzing. It’s not just focusing on a certain aspect of life, but focusing on the impressions of people on culture and what their impressions mean. Each part having its own significance. It focuses on understanding meaning, purpose and goals instead of focusing on the cause of certain events. 

Through these ideas, I believe that by learning about humanities, we’re learning about how we perceive the past, and how we perceive our place in our own cultures. Understanding the meaning of what we are to a certain culture will help people understand their place among history. By reading Greek tragedies, we’re not only learning about stories that are entertaining, but learning about the trials that we go through during life in a new light. 

Reflections and Dust

Jesse Detzler

11/5/12

Throughout the history of the world there has always been gender roles. Some have been subtle and others have been not so terribly subtle. Some women have struggled with for years while others have gone unnoticed and unattended to for centuries. One timeless role is that of the Ruined Woman. The woman who has let her morals slip and has thus become something less in the eyes of her society. When a man falls into immoral behavior he can often redeem himself with no great effort. However when a woman loses her morality it is often a greater struggle to regain that which she had earlier cast aside.

This role has been around since the earliest recorded history, and every mythology is full of Ruined Woman. The  Bible has Eve, Delilah, the nameless woman who was caught in adultery and brought to  Jesus. In Greek mythology Helen of Troy cheats on her husband and cause a war. Approaching modern history we have Shakespeare’s Juliet. This tradition of portraying the Ruined Woman in literary works has continued through the Renaissance, the Victorian era, and into our modern age.

Many different authors in the Victorian Era wrote to display their version of the Ruined Woman, and her affect and role in and on society. One famous writer to do this was Oscar Wilde. An extremely well known Victorian writer and playwright, he authored such works as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Ernest. He also authored a piece called The Harlot’s House, in which he describes the fallen women and men of his age.

Throughout this piece describes those fallen people in several ways, that are repeated often. In his piece Wilde makes it clear that this scene that he witnesses is a scene of horror and wonder. He speaks of the dancers as shadows and black leaves. Their laughter is described as thin and shrill. Perhaps these words bring to mind haunted woods or dark alley ways. For me this reminds me most pointedly of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hallow. With talk of whiling dust, racing shadows, and leaves in the wind, plus the haunting sound of their laughter puts me directly in the Hallow racing against the Headless Horsemen, trying desperately to cross the bridge that breaks the phantom’s power. This desperate quest to keep my head attached to my shoulders strongly bears a resemblance to the fear that is conjured by Wilde’s description of the Harlot’s House.

Another strong theme in the poem is the comparison of the dancers to things dead, or undead. Wilde calls the dancers ghosts, skeletons and phantoms. This talk of ghosts again puts me in mind of Sleepy Hallow, where many spirits haunt the grounds of the woods. Soldiers dead from war, spies hung by the neck, wraiths desperately seeking redemption from the fate that awaits them. Here this last image is the most powerful. Wilde paints a picture of these sinners as already dead. Perhaps this is an analogy to the difficulty with which these fallen women can reclaim their place in society. They are already dead to society as no one cares about their fate. Or this could be a greater comparison to the fate that awaits them in hell. These sinners, these Ruined Woman, race towards a terrible fate. A fate of damnation and biblically, “but the sons of the reign shall be cast forth to the outer darkness–there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth.” Matthew 8:12.

A final rhetorical theme present in the poem is the comparison of the dancers to machines. This is what drew me to this poem and made me want to analyze it. As an engineer I will deal heavily with machines and robots throughout my career and hope to be able to see an age when these constructs can more closely mirror human nature. Yet in sense of this poem Wilde paints a much less positive look. Here he describes the dancers as mechanical grotesques, wire-pulled automatons, clockwork puppets, and horrible marionettes. These descriptions are not positive things and when applied to humans are quite terrifying. Not only is this nest of vipers a frightening prospect, with the dancers cast out from society and doomed to a terrible fate, but Wilde seems to be saying that they are no longer even human. So far have they sunk in their sin and disgrace that they are no longer even recognizable as living people, all their humanity lost to lust and greed. This brings to mind the conclusion of  George Orwell’s Animal Farm. When the pigs and the humans are suddenly one and the same. Where both the humans have lost their humanity, and the pigs have lost their “animality,” or their nature that makes them similar in appearance and behavior to the other animals. This loss of humanity that Wilde and Orwell betray so well in their pieces is a truly frightening prospect. That the path of sin that the Ruined Women take not only dooms them to be outcasts, with the accompanying threat of hell, but also makes them not even worth attempting to find redeeming features.

 

 

 

Artist Statement

For this piece I was trying to portray the imagery that Oscar Wilde used in his poem. He called the people spirits, shadows, and automations. So I have the people as they envision themselves on the top as beautiful dancers with courtly manner and fancy dress. The men are gentlemen with frock coats and the women are ladies with nice dresses. Reflected in the floor however is what Wilde sees when he gazes upon the dancers. Here they are the grotesques of Wilde’s imagination. The women are marionettes in tawdry  dresses with chains on wrists and ankles. The men are but shadows without any real form or bodies. The top is  one view. The bottom is another. But which is true? Which is how society sees the dancers? The truth of that may never be known.

A note on the artistic process. The medium is pencil on paper, with some pen thrown if for effect. It should be noted that because my camera didn’t work I had to take several scans of the picture and reassemble it with paint. So it has a much lower quality then I wanted.  

Pablo Picasso-Michelle Underwood

For my art analysis, I decided to write a haiku.  I am artistically challenged so this seemed a better way to express my analysis.

 

Pablo Picasso

Girl descending on staircase.

Abstract art is nonsense.

 

This seems like a silly poem, however; it really expresses what I saw.  I appreciate the creativity of the painting of the girl descending down a staircase.  However; I also find it completely nonsense.  I find art like this to look more like a Kindergarten painting than deep art.  This is why I wrote the poem in this way.