Vale to an extraordinary artist: Yayoi Kusama

(Credit: the Tate Galleries video channel.)

"I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live." - Yayoi Kusama, 2012.

"Ms. Kusama said she was inspired by hallucinatory visions she had experienced since childhood, in which she could hear the voices of flowers, pumpkins and dogs. Art served as a form of therapy: She wrestled with many of the vivid images in her head by re-creating them in her art, and at times was said to paint without interruption for 40 to 50 hours straight."

"She wrote in her 2002 autobiography that she encountered her first pumpkin — a human head-sized orb that spoke to her — at a seed farm she visited with her grandfather, and was drawn to its "generous unpretentiousness" and "spiritual balance." Violets, she said, also seemed to speak to her, and patterns overwhelmed her vision."

- Two excerpts from Juno Carmel's excellent article, Yayoi Kusama, whose art evoked hallucinatory wonder, dies at 97.

Inset right is a photo of Kusama, aged 10, found in another great article, Yayoi Kusama & Pumpkins -  What you should know, where all photos in this post were sourced.

***

When I heard Yayoi Kusama (inset left) died earlier this month (August 14), I was saddened for 2 reasons: the loss of an extraordinary artist, and my inability to finish the Feminist Art & Empowerment series (2018-2019) in which she would have appeared. There is certainly a lot more information about her on the web now, however, and much more of her  work to be found. She was a true Energizer Bunny... she never stopped.

One thing that is new to me is her strangecollection of "hallucinations" and her ability to communicate with animals, pumpkins and flowers... "and patterns of stones from the nearby river which would come to life in her waking dreams."

 In ways she reminds me of another "obsessed" Japanese artist: Sakiko Ide, who was also born in the 1920s, survived WWII, lived in New York,* and had her own strange relationship with flowers... specifically the variety held by the young Kusama above, chrysanthemums. Both also attempted suicide; tragically, Ide (allegedly) succeeded. Happily, Kusama did not. Instead, after several suicide attempts she checked herself into a Japanese psychiatric hospital in 1975. and made it her permanent residence, maintaining an art studio nearby where she continued making her art, and working her magic, till her last breath. Gotta do what you gotta do.

I wouldn't have chosen her solution - it seems as if spending half your life in a hospital might reinforce the idea that one was ill and something was wrong; a stressful position for an artist... or anyone. But, it worked fine for her. She made it work. Not all of us who "follow the thread of art" do half so well. ;-)

For more about her life from a feminist perspective, try The Woman's Studio, or the article, Yayoi Kusama, the Modern Alice in Wonderland.

To view videos of her cosmic Infinity Mirror Room installations and exhibitions try here, here and here.

A Dream I Dreamed, installation, Yayoi Kusama, 2014

_________________________________________________________

* A humorous anecdote about Kusama in New York (from Carmel's article:

          

"During her 1968 "Nixon Orgy" in Lower Manhattan, Ms. Kusama bluntly offered to have sex with the president-elect if he would call for a ceasefire. 'Anatomic explosions are better than atomic explosions,' she announced in leaflets distributed on the street."

The Subtle Anarchy of Fuzz Culture

 

Interestingly, many of the creatively gifted individuals mentioned by the creatively gifted Arsh Sharma, a musician, during the course of his spot-on exposé were not merely artists, but what we can refer to as pathologically creative artists, thinkers and musicians. Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Poe, Nina Simone... men and women who were so consumed by their creative flames, that their attention to their own survival was compromised. In a sense, the pathologically "gifted" are often savants, unable to successfully maneuver through the maze of the official world while absorbed in exploring dimensions of experience outside of the official playbook. That their visionary explorations - dismissed in their own time - were eventually appreciated (and capitalized upon) by those of future generations is an ironic twist. While it lends the artists a kind of immortality, in societies in which commerce is king, money trumps all (pun inevitable). In other words, when money talks, the world listens. Well, that is, apart from the dead artists... who are unlikely to hear the "ka-ching," and,  like the anonymous meek, have inherited little more than a silent, earth-filled grave.

But, Arsh Sharma takes the tragic artist meme one step further, in that, he proposes the artist's plight arose from the subtle antagonism society felt towards those mad members of the creative sector. And, he makes a good point. He has certainly has created the nucleus of a more thorough investigation into this unfortunate element of art history and culture and the ways in which it effects us today.

Fuzz Culture features a number of unique, alternative essays in video form. This one - redefining the word delusional - is one of my favorites. But, don't miss The Real Reason Artists Create (And Can’t Stop).

Thank you, Fuzz Culture; your insight is most welcome in a world which has somehow lost its way - and is desperately trying to find it!

***

On a related note, we have more artist/madness material from Big Think:

Did Friedrich Nietzsche’s own philosophy drive him insane?

"A number of studies have shown that creative people are twice as likely to suffer from conditions like depression and anxiety compared to the general population. At the same time, the rate and intensity of these symptoms vary depending on outlet or discipline, with poets and writers proving more likely to suffer from disorders than, for example, scientists."

This is a very interesting article for the most part, but the paragraph above presents data that is fairly elementary. That poets should tend to suffer from anxiety and depression more than scientists is not terribly mysterious. Scientists generally work within established professional and academic structures, often funded by governments, the military, Big Pharma, and various medical institutions. Take that security away - and MAGA is doing it's very best - and I think you'll find many more depressed, anxiety-stricken scientists.

Vale, Sinéad!

Sorry, but I had to switch videos again! Just found: Sinéad & Roger Waters in a live performance of Water's "Mother" in Berlin. Note: this song is addictive. (I posted Water's newer, solo version here. It's odd, but I was a little snarky - okay, very snarky and I apologize - about Water's bad mother relationship at the time, but I notice I can sympathize with Sinéad's... Ah well, none of us aren't guilty of some sexism, right?)

Meanwhile, here's the missing video: My Lagan Love. Former previous tune: Moorlough Shore. Also, remember this collaboration?

***

This just found... on the lovely blog, Sophia's Mirror: Caoin na Sídhe - Keen of the Sídhe - A Tribute. Also, while there, read Emma's Invocation, from which the quote below was taken.

"We pray for all women who are suffering for their beliefs,

or because of the beliefs of others.

We pray for all women who are suffering for their ideals,

or for their dreams unable to be realized,

or for no other reason than that they are female.

We commend all these women to your grace, Blessed Shekinah,

may they find solace in the shadow of your shining wings."

***

"At the age of 15, her shoplifting and truancy led to her being placed for eighteen months in a Magdalene asylum called the Grianán Training Centre run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity. In some ways, she thrived there, especially in the development of her writing and music, but she also chafed under the imposed conformity. Unruly students there were sometimes sent to sleep in the adjoining nursing home, an experience of which she later commented, 'I have never - and probably will never - experience such panic and terror and agony over anything."

-Via the Wiki entry for Sinéad O'Connor.

I wasn't able to sleep at all last night. And, after I finally dealt with the morning routines and entered cyberspace I was immediately confronted with the news that Sinéad O'Connor has died...

Sinéad O'Connor was an artist's artist. Her intensity and her breathy voice with its dazzling range was sheer poetry and, for many of us, the first of its kind to emerge in the (late 20th Century) rock & roll world. Her technique gave international exposure to a lilting Celtic style -  as in the video above featuring the traditional song, Moorlough Shore - which would eventually become influential across many musical genres. Her popular hit "Nothing Compares 2 U" (originally written and performed by Prince) became solid gold in the music industry. (See the early live version below... impassioned to the degree of an alchemical combustion. Suggestion: watch it in full screen mode.)

I think she was a little scary to (even) me in those days. I sensed a sensitive woman whose calling in life, coupled with her spontaneous and quirky outspokenness, might bring her undeserved tragedy one day. And it did... the world, being what it was in those days... and, to some degree, still is. From the Guardian article:

"She became just as well known for her shaved head and outspoken views. Ripping up a picture of the pope created a huge backlash – there were death threats and radio boycotts. Frank Sinatra wished to “kick her ass”.

Many considered that O’Connor was vindicated by subsequent revelations about Vatican cover-ups of sex abuse scandals."

I think, like many an anguished artist, O'Connor had "the sight," but as in the lives of many artists around the world and across most periods of history, their vision is often confused with madness and cannot be tolerated within the context of the societal status quo then current.

Farewell, daughter of Brigid. Slán abhaile.

Sinéad & her son, Shawn

"But 56 is way, way too young to die. The millions who love you have been dreading this for, oh, three decades, even though you had a life force strong enough to power 50 lifetimes. I hovered for updates when you went missing in 2016; I read your aching, awful posts grieving your son Shane who died by suicide last year, only 17, the worst thing of all."

- From Michelle Griffin's touching tribute: "We needed you, Sinead, the crazy-brave anti-Barbie."

(If the singing bird has flown away, we've no one but ourselves to blame.)

"Looking into a Mirror Sideways"

Laurie Anderson, Absent in the Present: Looking into a Mirror Sideways, 1975 © Laurie Anderson

(I know it seems like I'm on a roll this week... and maybe I am... and maybe I'm not. This is my second attempt to put up this post. So, while it occurs to me that I may be slowly retrieving more of my voice after (its) long absence, it is equally as possible that I'm deluding myself...

Or, trying to communicate with a mirror bisecting my face.)

***

Laurie Anderson: "I think Donald Trump changed my relationship to reality more than virtual reality did. The second people started chanting “Lock her up,” my sense of reality shifted in a major way. I wish I had more distance and I wish I could just see, “This is really an insane person trying to get attention.” He’s very, very good at what he does. Sometimes I’m kind of lured into his world, even though I recognize it as one of attention-seeking and deeply, deeply disconnected from reality. I still get fooled by it. So, I try not to see it as a disintegrating phase, the last phase of our system. But I would have to say I’m more influenced by his vocabulary of fake news than I am by any art concept of what’s real and what’s not real, or what’s virtual and what’s not virtual, because those things I understand. I understand that art isn’t real, already. But I thought that the real world was real. Silly me, you know?"

- From a 2018 interview with Laurie Anderson found on this MIT page. Keep in mind, 2018 was a deep-shit pandemic year... illusions/delusions/fear were rife in those days... and, quite possibly, still are.

(Correction: the Pandemic - as we know it - wasn't in full swing until 2020. "Illusions/delusions/fear" were "rife" in 2018, but the doo-doo had yet to hit the fan. It merely nourished invasive weeds...) (re: the original green-blooded cast from A Little Shop of Horrors.)

“Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too.”

- Albert Camus, from The Stranger.

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

- Albert Camus.

***

This is, yet, another Addendum to the Camus post. It seems he and I continue to dance in the multiverse of the Absurd.

As it was, I just happened upon another artistic contribution by American artist & musician Laurie Anderson; one which seemed to reflect my ongoing Absurdist theme.

Regarding her 1975 photo (above), at a rapid glance, the little girl in the mirror looks like a googly-eyed monster... or the product of a very bad (chemical) trip. In reality, she's no more than a playful little kid who has learned a new trick, an illusion involving a mirror. She wasn't really a monster. But she surely loved appearing like one.

The illusion she created, however, is the central theme of this post. That is, when things start getting scary, wonky, weird, or a little out-or-sync we might ask ourselves: is this just some trick with mirrors?

Take loose cannon (and Republican pawn), Donald Trump, for instance... quite a lot of distortion there. Quite a lot of mirror tricks all the way around. One "sideways" mirror trick makes America appear like a divided nation. A similar mirror trick makes thieves look like clowns. Another mirror trick allows the most marginalized and ineffectual people to appear gargantuan and menacing. It's amazing what can be accomplished with a few strategically placed mirrors.

What's more amazing is that anyone is sane... 

"So, I try not to see it as a disintegrating phase, the last phase of our system."

Laurie Anderson may have been envisioning the future with that line... the pandemic and beyond. (See this related thought experiment.) However, "the last phase of our system" is (most likely) farther away than it appears in our present mirror. But, maybe I'm not looking in the right mirror.

Then again, maybe it's time that you and I dragged ourselves away from mirrors altogether... giving both ourselves & the mirrors a much-needed break (pun intended).

To the Moon, perhaps?

Albrecht Dürer and the Divine Ratio (Part II) - Dürer Reconsidered

Melencolia I - copper engraving - Albrecht Dürer. Geometry: 2022, DS.

"Since this knowledge is very useful to workers, and since (it) has been kept hidden and in great secret by the erudite, I propose to bring it in the open and teach it."

- A quote from Albrecht Dürer found in this interesting article by Karel Vereycken: Albrecht Dürer’s fight against “neoplatonic” melancholy.

***

"...but, after reviewing the two other prints involved, it seemed all three might have what I (now) refer to as hidden, occulted, or passive GTS. Unlike the more outrageously active spirals - e.g., those of Caravaggio, which seem as if they were deliberately designed - the passive spirals almost seem to creep into an image with the artist unaware. The thing is, it is logical to assume Albrecht Dürer did know about the golden ratio. Alas, the jury is still out."

The quote above is my own - via my first Dürer post. As it happened, the "jury" eventually just walked through the door, and informed me I was wrong on two counts: Dürer's spiral is unlikely passive... and passive spirals are never occulted (deliberately hidden)... they merely occur without conscious intention.

And, what brought me to these conclusions? Well, the story went something like this:

The night after I (finally) finished Albrecht Dürer and the Divine Ratio (Part I), I fell into one of those peculiar, delirious dream-states which, after a day of continuous and repetitious physical and/or mental activity, seem to reflect and extend a similar activity into your sleep. In this case, after spending the day pondering over Dürer, I dreamt of having a chance to speak with the man himself (!) who, I was informed, was not merely alive, but in my general vicinity. But, of course, Albrecht Dürer has been dead for hundreds of years, so, it couldn't have been a corporeal Dürer... but, apparently, this did not make a difference to my dreaming mind. Now, what is especially weird about these labor-induced dreams is that one can wake up numerous times and, yet, each and every time fall back to sleep and return to the very same dream... continuing ones "labor" in a place of no-space and no-time.

And, so it was. But, did I ever actually communicate with the incorporeal artist? Not that I remember. However, when I awoke, this much was apparent to me: I had missed something in the Dürer "dig" and it was something important; my Dürer work was not yet done. 

Now, this could've proved to be a research mine-field but, as it turned out, later that day, I had an epiphany: yes, that ladder in Melencolia is golden, but, it isn't a one-trick-pony; there might be (at least) 2 more triangles tucked inside of it. And, of course, there were. The drawing of the ladder is actually composed of 4 main diagonals (6 if you're a stickler). And, coiling around the diagonal on the inside of the ladder (see above, and inset right) were spirals orientated in the opposite direction of my first (inside left below). Each spiral initially intercepts the comet, then, coils around the polyhedron before passing under the dog's snout, around the edge of the robe, and, finally, over the angel's knee and elbow before terminating around the end of one of the large compasses. (Yes, technically a "compass" is actually composed of a pair of compasses.)

Which is, certainly, quite a different story from the first spiral... (again, inset left) which (ingloriously) terminated somewhere up the dog's... posterior.(!)

Or is it a different story? Maybe its the same one... which begins from the creative point of a compass... but ends up... well, we know where it eventually ends up; hence, melancholy.

Then again, maybe Albrecht was just having his little joke...or, maybe just having a bad day. But, whatever his motives were, I think we can conclude that Dürer consciously knew what he was doing... and that all three spirals are (very likely) active ones... i.e., deliberate.

So, regarding the "Divine" ratio and its GTS, does this mean Dürer was finally informed by the Italian painters and/or Pacioli ?  No, actually, I don't think that was the case. The Italian painters and mathematicians were notoriously secretive and unlikely to hand over their knowledge to a foreign rival. Ultimately, he figured it out all by himself...

...because that's how great a geometer he was.

Note the drawing directly above. It is a detail of one of the diagrams from his book on human proportions, although I'm at a loss to explain exactly how and what he was measuring. But, here's a description from the British Museum page (on which it was found):

 "There is also a foreshortened section of a circle on the recto, with Dürer's notes on its construction written alongside. The drawing on the verso is accompanied by manuscript notes, in which Dürer gives extensive details of his method of construction with the use of compasses. This is based on the system of human proportion, with the body made up of eight head lengths, outlined by Vitruvius in his treatise 'On Architecture', whereby architects of antiquity were encouraged to follow an ideal human proportion in their planning of temples."

 The numerically-sectioned ellipse around the figure's uplifted arm is interesting... an example of Dürer's unusual and innovative techniques. (Below the jump) is the full figure upon which I've positioned a GTS...

Caravaggio's "Golden" Boy(s)

Amor Vincit Omnia - 1602, Caravaggio. Geometry: 2022, DS.

"Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His inspiring effect on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound. His influence can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt. Artists heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" (or "Caravagesques"), as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi ("shadowists")."

 "Caravaggio displayed bizarre behavior from very early in his career. Mancini describes him as 'extremely crazy', a letter of Del Monte notes his strangeness, and Minniti's 1724 biographer says that Mario left Caravaggio because of his behavior. The strangeness seems to have increased after Malta. Susinno's early-18th-century Le vite de' pittori Messinesi ("Lives of the Painters of Messina") provides several colourful anecdotes of Caravaggio's erratic behavior in Sicily, and these are reproduced in modern full-length biographies such as Langdon and Robb."

- Two separate quotes from Caravaggio's Wiki entries (linked to in the image caption above) from which all images in this post have been sourced. Inset right is Caravaggio's Narcissus at the Source, 1599... another "golden" boy, as we shall see... which begs the question: Did Caravaggio actually "forgo drawings and work directly into the canvas" or was that merely another element of the mythology which surrounded the tragic life of this artist?

***

By most accounts, "tragedy" is not the operative word in Michelangelo da Caravaggio's life story. He was a swaggering, brawling, hot-tempered man, but he also happened to be the most celebrated artist of his time. His violent nature was, if not celebrated, accepted. After all, isn't knocking a few heads around - and other forms of assault - a manly thing to do? That his police record was as long as his right arm (or longer) and included several homicides shouldn't deter us; we love our dark heroes.

Inset left is a pastel portrait of Caravaggio (1621, Ottavio Leoni).

He was said to have created art in much the same way as he lived: spontaneously... as if he just splashed his paint on the canvas with nary a plan - nor a preliminary drawing - in mind; once again, a very manly, masterful approach. And, yet, he managed to create a number of exceptionally vibrant, cohesive images that dazzled the public of his time and continue to impress us to this day; by all accounts, his should have been a brilliant success story.

The downside is this: he spent the last years of his short life as a paranoid refugee... running scared, as a result of the murder and mayhem he had created previously. Karma caught up with him in the form of family members of one of his victims - I might add that his crime involved a "botched" castration (but, try not to dwell on this) - and, due to an infected wound he died at age 38.*

As if that wasn't bad enough, his sworn-enemy, worse critic and arch-rival - fellow artist, Giovanni Baglione - somehow - and, most likely, by nefarious means - became the author of Caravaggio's first official biography(!). Of this Wiki tells us: "Baglione, his first biographer, played a considerable part in creating the legend of Caravaggio's unstable and violent character, as well as his inability to draw."

So, keep this in mind (and make no mistake) when reading about Caravaggio: in some insidious way, Baglione's poison ink still flows...

...a matter I will attempt to circumvent.

 __________________________________

 * Other possible causes of death include lead poisoning and syphilis... but, then again, well, there was that Knight of Malta...! (See this Smithsonian article.)

 

 Love Conquers All 

I may as well tell you now that since the time I first posted Amor Vincit Omnia (Love Conquers All), and, presently, as I write these words, I made an important discovery. And, it is due to this discovery that I can state, without any hesitation, that the spiral in this painting was no accident.* That is, Caravaggio was well-informed of the pentagonal Divina Proportione and deliberately used its spiral to design this painting. Moreover, amongst his contemporaries, he wasn't the only painter to do so.. nor was he the only painter to use the spiral in this context. That being said, of all the golden spirals I have found, this one (inset right) is quite possibly my favorite. Really, what's not to love? Caravaggio almost challenges us to contemplate the mechanics of his design.

Once again, we merely have to look at Cupid's physically impossible posture; it is only through the spiral that his stance is made clear. He has become the golden triangle and its spiral... poised precariously on an area no larger than a dime. And, Caravaggio has neglected no detail: even the fret-board of the lute in the background aligns with Cupid's triangle.

As might be expected, much has been made of the eroticism in this image, but, with this, I can't quite agree. Judging by Cupid's expression - as he bends his head down and grins at us through his triangle - Caravaggio may have been celebrating the joy and playfulness love brings to human lives... and/or possibly his own love for the boy who was his model for Cupid - the diminutive, child-like form of Eros - a boy named Cecci with whom Caravaggio lived. As Caravaggio is generally considered bisexual, they may have been lovers... but they may have, instead, shared a different sort of love. As it so happened, Caravaggio was left an orphan at age 6 when his entire family was lost to the Black Death and, let's face it, an orphan of age 6 has to grow up painfully fast. Maybe Caravaggio, remembering his own past, felt protective of a boy like Cecci.

Cecci, on the other hand, as audacious, bodacious and jovial as he may be, has a certain gleam in his eye. Possibly it represents the Catch-22 of any variety of love. Can we ever fully trust another person? On the other hand, Cupid was known to be a trickster, and Cecci may have been merely modeling "in character."

In any case, utilizing Cupid/Eros, son of Venus, is a classical way to feature a GTS and this was not Caravaggio's last nod to the classical usage of the pentagonal Divina Proportione. Behold the spiral of Narcissus...

Once Possessed - The "Madness" of Vaslav Nijinsky

Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky in his 1911 role as the "Rose Ghost"
from the ballet "Le Spectre de la Rose." (Also here, and another related article in French).
Click all images in this post to enlarge.

"Ô toi qui de ma mort fus cause,

Sans que tu puisses le chasser

Toute la nuit mon spectre rose

A ton chevet viendra danser.

Mais ne crains rien, je ne réclame

Ni messe, ni De Profundis;

Ce léger parfum est mon âme

Et j’arrive du paradis."

("O you, who caused my death

Without the power to dispel,

All night long my fragrant specter

Will dance at your bedside.

But fear nothing, I require

Neither psalms nor sacred rites;

This delicate scent is my soul

And I’ve come from paradise.")

- From the poem Le Spectre de la Rose by Théophile Gautier which inspired Michel Fokine's ballet about a young woman haunted by the spirit of a rose she had received at her debut. Later that night, while she dozes in a chair, the spirit of the wilted rose visits her in a dream. (Note: So much tends to be lost in mere word translations of French poetry... specifically: the poetry! I've seen several translations of this particular stanza but found myself dissatisfied with all of them. So, I tweaked it. In other words, if this translation is also problematic, the fault is mine.)

The rose (inset right) is named for a man... as many roses are. Did you know that? It's name is Fantin Latour, named for the French artist who was known for his elegant paintings of flowers... especially his roses. More of his work can be found here. There might, in actuality, be a variety of rose named Nijinsky - well, there ought to be - but, if so, I haven't found it.

"His dancing has the unbroken quality of music, the balance of a great painting, the meaning of fine literature, and the emotion inherent in all these arts. There is something of transmutation in his performances; he becomes an alembic, transforming movement into a finely wrought and beautiful work of art. The dancing of Nijinsky is first an imaginative triumph, and the spectator, perhaps, should not be interested in further dissection of it..."

- From "The Russian Ballet and Nijinsky" by Carl van Vechten found in Nijinsky, an illustrated Monograph edited by Paul Magriel, 1946. Also found within the pages of the book are the 3 b/w photos of Nijinsky as the Rose found inset left, inset right (below) and below the jump.

"In December 1917, Vaslav Nijinsky, the most famous male dancer in the Western world, moved into a Swiss villa with his wife and three-year-old daughter and started to go insane. This diary, which he kept in four notebooks over six weeks, is the only sustained, on-the-spot account we have by a major artist of the experience of entering psychosis. Nijinsky's diary was first published in 1936, in a heavily bowdlerized version that omitted almost half of his text. The present edition, translated by Kyril FitzLyon, is the first complete version in English, and the first version in any language to include the fourth notebook, written at the very edge of psychosis. It contains Nijinsky's last lucid thoughts - on God, sex, war, and the nature of the universe, as well as on his own broken life."

- A description of The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. The New York Times has archived a small portion of the newer translation of the diary here.

"Nijinsky's Diary was written during the six weeks he spent in Switzerland before being committed to the asylum, combining elements of autobiography with appeals for compassion toward the less fortunate, and for vegetarianism and animal rights. Nijinsky writes of the importance of feeling, as opposed to reliance on reason and logic alone, and he denounces the practice of art criticism as being nothing more than a way for those who practice it to indulge their own egos rather than focusing on what the artist was trying to say. The diary also contains bitter and conflicted thoughts regarding his relationship with Diaghilev."

- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for Nijinsky.


"The man who is right is the one who feels but does not understand."

- A quote from Nijinsky's Diary found here.

***

A Less Common Kind of Guy

If someone had told me years ago that one day in the far future I would fall in love with a man dressed as a flower, I would've probably just figured they (or I) had inhaled one flower too many. And, yet, that's just what I did one recent Pandemic night, as I gazed at a photo of the Russian dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky. The photo was found in a slim red book with the name "Nijinsky" written in a thin, black script on its spine; a book I might have easily overlooked had it not fallen under my creative radar earlier in the day. And what to my wondering eyes did appear, as I opened the book to a random page, but a photograph of Nijinsky in his role from the ballet "Le Spectre de la Rose"... that is, the ghost or spirit of the rose, which I learned had been inspired by a French poem of the same name.

Lovely, lovely, exquisitely lovely. As it so happens, roses (and spirits) figure prominently in a current art project of mine - a project devoted to the mysteries of the power of love - and, well, I'd be the last one to ignore the quirky habits of fate. Unfortunately, as I began reading the book (into the wee hours of the morning) it became apparent that I had another tragic artist on my hands and, worse still, another misunderstood "mad" artist. At which point I realized Nijinsky would eventually have to make his way to Trans-D... the home of the misunderstood "mad" artist.

As a young dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky (March 12, 1889 – April 8, 1950) was beautiful, graceful, luminous, beloved by both men and women, and considered the greatest dancer and most innovative choreographer of his time. This was during the latter years of the Fin de Siècle when all sorts of dark romanticism, spiritualism - and debauchery - transpired. Tragically, his life - and (allegedly) his mind - began to unravel around the age of 29 (apparently the shelf-life of many a brilliant flame). He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and was to spend his remaining 30 years in and out of mental institutions. Professionally, he would never dance again... reminding us (to our dismay), that, yes, for an artist, there are fates worse than death... and almost all of them are in some way related to institutions.

Nijinsky is and was most often referred to as gay: the stereotypical effeminate ballet dancer - and, while looking at his "Rose" photographs, you might've  thought so, too - as if grace and beauty (and some great eye-shadow) are exclusively found in feminine form. This a fairly modern misconception. The classical world entertained a broader, unbiased perspective, glorifying both their pretty boys and pretty girls equally in art and poetry. Then again, in ancient Greece and Rome, one's sexual orientation wasn't the socially definitive issue it became in the modern world. In fact, no precise Latin words for "homosexual" or "heterosexual" existed. As for Nijinsky, well, he married a woman, fathered two children and employed a number of female prostitutes, while his few documented relationships with men - specifically Sergei Diaghilev, the founder of the renowned Ballets Russes in which Nijinsky found his fame - seem to be based predominately on Nijinsky's artistic opportunism and his partner's egocentric, abusive indulgences. "Love" did not seem to have been the operative term in their relationship. But, for Nijinsky, love was all. And, his feeling was so strong, he believed he was love's personification. In a letter to Diaghilev, Nijinsky wrote:

"You are the one who wants death and destruction, although you are afraid of death.
I love love, but I am not the flesh and blood, I am the spirit, the soul. I am love..."

Ultimately, whether Nijinsky was gay, bi, straight - or some permutation thereof - doesn't really interest us here. I'm more inclined to agree with Dorothy Parker's remark:

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.”

 So, let's just accept that Nijinsky was a less common kind of guy and move on...

Camille Claudel, Lost... & Found

Detail of L'abandon (or Sakountala) - bronze - 1905, Camille Claudel.

"Camille Claudel died in a lunatic asylum in 1943, alone and forgotten. Few people remembered that in her youth, she’d been regarded as the greatest sculptress of her generation. By the time she died, aged 78, amid the chaos and carnage of the Second World War, she’d become an obscure footnote in art history, merely remembered (if at all) as the muse and mistress of Auguste Rodin.

After the war Claudel’s work was ignored, while Rodin remained a household name. Yet lately something rather wonderful has happened – she’s been rediscovered, not only as Rodin’s model or his bedfellow but as an important artist in her own right."

- Via the BBC article: How Camille Claudel stepped out of Rodin's shadow.

***

Yesterday was a strange day... previously referred to as an "André Breton" sort of day... that is, dreamlike... or maybe the fragmented trance state which precedes the more coalescent realm of dreams. (But, yes, "surreality" is as good a word as any.)

I'd been attempting to establish a healthy beginning to my proposed third Empowerment post but was distracted (as I often am) by my research. Yes, I'm afraid I was down one rabbit hole after another. The André Breton post was one off-shoot of my mental travels and this post is, yet, another unexpected fruit from that particular tree; the sort of information that is just too amazingly wonderful to "save for later."

Some months ago, I'd come across a photo of a beautiful sculpture by Camille Claudel I'd missed previously (in 2016, while researching the Into the Madhouse section of this post.) Actually, I think it's possibly the most emotionally-satisfying sculpture I've ever seen. It wasn't the greatest of photos, however, and I saw no other evidence of it online at the time, but, I added it to my files, knowing that I'd share it on the blog eventually. Anyway, to "cut to the chase," I intended to use it in Empowerment Part III, but I needed both its date and title, so I wondered if, by this time, there was more information online. And, there certainly was... more than I could possibly hope for! Not only are there far better photos online now - and a plethora of documents referring to Camille -  but the photos of L'abandon (inset right, also above and below) were there to announce the opening of a new museum in March of last year... in Nogent-sur-Seine, France. And, the name of the museum is... (are you ready?):

 Musée Camille Claudel!!!

I really cannot say just how deeply happy I am to discover this information. My very special thanks go out to all the very special people who made this come to pass. I cannot think of an artist more deserving... or a more fitting postscript to the events of her tragic life. Merci!

Incidentally, regarding the other working title of L'abandon, Sakountala (or Shakuntala): it's the name of Sanskrit play - full name: Abhijñānashākuntala - by a fifth century Hindu poet, Kalidasa. I've just read the play and I'm still not sure why Camille chose that title, but, interestingly, (via this translation) we learn:

"The term Shakuntala means one who is brought up by birds (Shakun). There are references stating that Shakuntala was found by Rishi Kanva in a forest as a baby surrounded by, or, as some believe, being fed by birds after being left by her mother, Menaka."

A link to a related article (in French): Visite en images du nouveau Musée Camille Claudel.

"Tell me, beloved, what you want of me -

I am Love, who is filled with the all:

what you want,

we want, beloved -

tell us your desire nakedly."

- Poem fragment from The Mirror of Simple Souls, 1290 ?, Marguerite Porete.

Qualifying Feminism: Empowerment and the Arts (Part II)

A poster in a London bus station featuring an image by the artist Egon Schiele.
The banner, however - strategically plastered over the figure's pubic area -

was not of the artist's device. See here or here.
(All images in this post can be clicked-on to enlarge.)

_______________________________________________

The C-Word: Censorship

“Art cannot be modern. Art is primordially eternal.”

- Egon Schiele, Austrian painter (June 12, 1890 - October 31, 1918).

"The purging wave seems to know no bounds. The poster of an Egon Schiele nude is censored; calls are made for the removal of a Balthus painting from a museum on grounds that it’s an apology for pedophilia; unable to distinguish between the man and his work, Cinémathèque Française is told not to hold a Roman Polanski retrospective and another for Jean-Claude Brisseau is blocked. A university judges the film Blow-Up, by Michelangelo Antonioni, to be "misogynist" and "unacceptable." In light of this revisionism, even John Ford (The Searchers) and Nicolas Poussin (The Abduction of the Sabine Women) are at risk."

- Via an English translation of one of the more coherent passages from the notorious "#MeToo" backlash letter published in Le Monde earlier this year, written and signed by 100 French women-of-note, up to and including Catherine Deneuve. The original document (in French) can be found here and, in English, here. Inset left is the  painting under scrutiny at that time, Thérèse Dreaming.

"As with previous awareness raising campaigns, it is not unlikely that the backlash will snowball and that the deeply entrenched patriarchal mechanisms that have maintained sexism for centuries will reassert themselves. That is after all how the system has survived to date. It is also all too likely that we will all — men and women — soon grow weary of allegations of sexual harassment as we have done in the past, making #MeToo a distant memory, a bud that did not blossom into long-lasting structural change. As Jessa Crispin writes in her manifesto about why she is not a feminist, popular social movements must, by their very nature, be “banal… non-threatening, and ineffective.” This underscores the problem with movements propelled by hashtags and celebrities."

- Excerpted from the Public Seminar article The Many Faces of the #MeToo Backlash, written by Maryam Omidi.

"In an angry riposte, French feminists described the letter’s signatories as “apologists for rape” and “defenders of paedophiles”, a reference to Deneuve’s vigorous support of the French-Polish film director Roman Polanski, convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl.

'There’s nothing really new in the arguments they use; they’re like the embarrassing colleague or tired uncle who doesn’t understand what’s happening,' a group of feminists wrote in an open letter of their own to French radio."

- Regarding a backlash against the former backlash via this article. Inset left is a still from Repulsion, a Roman Polanski film starring Catherine Deneuve (pictured) as a woman who kills two men, one of whom sexually assaulted her. As one might expect, Deneuve's character is portrayed as psychologically deranged (i.e., violence of men is expected and often applauded in a patriarchal society, violence in women - even when justified - is pathological.)

As for Roman Polanski, in 2018: "in light of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to expel Polanski from its membership." As for Polanski's relationship with his "victim," Samantha Geimer, apparently they have become friendly... see Samantha Geimer on Roman Polanski: 'We email a little bit'.

"The problem of comprehending Lolita begins with this moral discrepancy and her literary position as a rape victim. It causes us to unravel with Humbert. We question the book, ourselves, our culture, and in the space between our disgust and Humbert’s desire, we obsess over and recreate the story. Spawning two films, several musical adaptions, ballets, plays, a Russian opera spin-off, fashion subcultures, and endless memorabilia, Lolita is a transcendent literary icon. Her ghost lingers in Lana Del Rey, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and many a pop icon seen cradling a teddy bear in skimpy lingerie. The hyper-sexualization of young women is Lolita’s legacy, a cast thrown sixty years into the future: a transition from rape victim to sex icon."

- From Emily Roese's 2016 (Huffington Post) article: The Problematic Idolization of Lolita. Inset right is a detail from a poster for Stanely Kubrick's 1962 film adaption Lolita.

"Violence against women is often against our voices and our stories. It is a refusal of our voices, and what a voice means: the right to self-determination, to participation, to consent or dissent, to live and participate, to interpret and narrate. A husband hits his wife to silence her; a date rapist or acquaintance rapist refuses to let the 'No' of his victim mean what it should, that she alone has jurisdiction over her body; rape culture asserts that a woman's testimony is worthless, untrustworthy... Having a voice is crucial. It's not all there is to human rights, but its central to them, and so you can consider the history of women's rights and lack of rights as a history of silence and breaking silence."

- From Rebecca Solnit's A Short History of Silence, an essay from her (highly recommended) collection: The Mother of All Questions, 2017, Haymarket Books.  Regarding the photo (inset left) - "STILL NOT ASKING FOR IT" - more info can be found here and here.

***

Apparently, the poster which introduces this section is one of several which appeared in London bus stations this year announcing an exhibit of artwork by Egon Schiele, a Viennese artist and painter, known for his oddly contorted human figures, both nude and otherwise (inset right and sourced here). I don't know that any feminists were involved in the censorship of his work - and, possibly, the exhibition of his nudes in a bus station wasn't the most brilliant of plans to begin with - but, in terms of censorship "100 years old and still too daring" makes a significant point. In terms of culture, are we as a species moving forwards, backwards, or remaining stationary? More importantly, will the censorship of art and/or the artist - either contemporary or from the distant past - solve anything? Lastly, is the sensual and/or sexual content of art - regardless of the variety explored or intimated - a feminist issue? And, if so, should art fall under the jurisdiction of any and/or all other political and societal movements as well?

While I can both sympathize with and applaud the #MeToo
(and subsequent Times Up) movements - which marked the historical moment when women finally broke their silence and dragged a few "rape culture" enthusiasts out from under their proverbial rocks (where they'd been congregating for a very long time) - the infamous backlash letter signed by 100 French female luminaries was correct in one respect: suppressing a work of art due to its sexual content or the sexual behavior of its makers - even when said content or behavior is presently considered taboo - is antithetical to the nature of art, human creativity and human expression. But, most importantly, for a feminist, fanning the flames of censorship can also backfire.

Then again, history tells us that in almost every case of censorship or prohibition - across the board - the eradication of the offending behavior was not achieved... neither in the short term and, most certainly, not in the long term. Case in point: Lolita, the 1955 novel written by Russian American novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977). Basically, it's a feminist's nightmare - and a hebephile's wet dream - following the obsessional musings of a middle-aged man directed towards his manipulative, sexually precocious 12-year-old stepdaughter whom he eventually rapes. Banned in Great Britain and France for a period of two years, it was then banned in Australia from 1958 to 1965. Meanwhile, when it arrived in America, 100,000 copies were sold in its first three weeks. After all, nothing says "Must Read" like the word: "Banned"...

Art From the Outside (Looking In)

An untitled element from Emery Blagdon's Healing Machine. This photo and

the two inset below were found on this Дай зин! webzine page.

(Click to enlarge.)

"As a young man, he apparently lost his parents and three of his five younger siblings to cancer, and he designed his shed––which housed a system of elegant, spindly mobiles and delicate freestanding sculptures made out of baling wire and found objects––to produce energy fields with preventative, restorative, and curative powers. The objects’ reflective, kinetic, and color properties were intended to resonate and release an electromagnetic force to combat physical and psychic pain. Blagdon’s cure also relied on an equally remarkable, but smaller, group of abstract geometrical panel paintings, which display a transcendental sense of color, proportion, and pattern."

- From Rachel Brice's 2009 post: Emery Blagdon and His Healing Machines.


"In the past century the human spirit's great need for the creation of art has come sharply to the fore – not through the commercialized vulgarity that is now the art market (my GOD – could anything so high sink so LOW?), but rather through the intimate obsessive worlds of artists (outsider or otherwise) who create for themselves and themselves alone, without thought of monetary gain, public approbation or acceptance of any kind.

...Compelled to create a world of healing machines to stave off illness, Emery Blagdon gave light and meaning to his life through wire, tinfoil, and a variety of organic and inorganic materials. These machines, and the paintings that helped power them, brought down and focused healing energy to allow Blagdon to continue living. Did he create to live or live to create? As with all true artists, the answer is either elusive, or both - but in Blagdon's case it is particularly poignant because just a few months after his machines stopped working he tragically passed away."

- From composer John Zorn's (2016) .pdf: Emery Blagdon. (Inset, left: another element of Blagdon's Healing Machine.)


"Over the years, the parameters of Outsider Art have expanded dramatically to include art made by a wide variety of art-makers who share this common denominator of raw creativity. Outsiders come from all walks of life, from all cultures, from all age groups.

In recent years, Outsider Artists may have even come to outnumber Insider Artists who have achieved critical validation within the elite art world, and yet who speak with increasingly less clarity and relevance to us about the human experience. Dubuffet's description of officially recognized art has never been more relevant: 'everyone immediately sprinkles it with champagne, and lecturers lead it from town to town with a ring through its nose. This is the false Monsieur Art.'"

- Excerpt from a description of Outsider Art found on this Outsider Art Fair page.

***

It's probably interesting to note that two of the quotes (above) regarding Outsider Artist, Emery Blagdon, originate from a belly dancer (Rachel Brice), and a musician (John Zorn), as opposed to an art critic or an art historian. And, why is this? Well, it might have to do with the nature of Emery Blagdon himself. Born in 1907, he was a self-taught artist living in the outbacks of Nebraska, who spent over 30 years of his life assembling an art installation (of sorts) - his Healing Machine - which he never intended to exhibit, and one of which he never sold one molecule of. In other words, he was a creator's creator, following his own inner vision and instinct and, pretty much, ignoring the rest of world; specifically the art world. Had his work not been "discovered" in the 1970's by Dan Dryden - a Nebraskan pharmacist who would eventually work as a sound engineer for the Philip Glass Ensemble in New York - his monumental work may have been disassembled for scrap metal after his death and the world would be none the wiser.

Then again, creatives of all persuasions find inspiration in the realm of Outsider Art. Once again, the Outsider represents the true artist's artist... understood more deeply by artists themselves as opposed to the curators, the critics, the categorizers, and the culture mavens who flock to the carcasses of artistic endeavor. So, in the eyes of the world Emery Blagdon was an oddball. In the eyes of a fellow artist, Blagdon is both a hero and an anti-hero; a maverick who left his mark outside the mainstream before the "mainstream" ultimately absorbed him. (Inset, right: a third element from the Healing Machine.)

But, in many respects, Emery Blagdon's story is a happy one compared to many of the Outsiders who came before him. He, at least, managed to stay well outside the walls of a mental institution. In reality, what we now consider Outsider Art was originally the sort created by psychiatric patients, and other marginalized non-members of society. And, it was a genre of art which would've have remained under the radar - possibly forever - had it not been for the fine, observant eye of French artist, Jean Dubuffet, who in the 1940s identified what he referred to as Art Brut - raw art - that is, art created by those on the fringe of society: prisoners, loners, the mentally ill, and, in some cases, children...