Lady Emma Hamilton
Lady Emma Hamilton was not so much née, but eventually took the name Hart. She was a young beauty, and became the love of Lord Admiral Nelson’s life. In a codicil to his will, he wrote: “I leave Emma Lady Hamilton, therefore, a legacy to my King and Country, that they will give her ample provision to maintain her rank in life.”Susan Sontag fictionalized their love affair in her novel The Volcano Lover, a book that I enjoy but certainly not for its great worth as a literary text. Partly it means so much to me because of the lover who gave it to me four years ago for my birthday.
The first image is credited to Joshua Reynolds, but she is largely known as the muse of George Romney, whose paintings are below. Life was not kind to Lady Emma. Besides eventually becoming quite large, and disdained, she died in France in 1815 in poverty. Her beauty gone she was largely forgotten–the beauty myth was less myth than fact of life.
Art and Meaning
Is art a language? Answering in the affirmative requires that we take it as a communicative tool with meaning posited in each work. Answering in the negative leaves us with the question of what to do with it.
By positing art as a language, whose visual images express meaning just as verbal language does, André Breton establishes a manner in which he thinks of visual works. That art should express meaning, whatever that meaning might be, is to interject an ethics into art that not all are willing to accept. With its previously stated intention to alter the cultural norms of reason, Surrealism has an agenda, and the works that come of it are attempting a shift in consciousness. This assumes that to engage with art is to be in a certain kind of quest. That may be the case for the artist, but not all would agree that art should offer a journey for the spirit.
Art may refuse what language offers. Communication, understood as being meaningful, may be a limit to the way we experience art. If communication is not understood as having to express a specific idea that can be comprehended in words that follow an ordered logic, then sure paintings communicate. Perhaps that is what people mean when they say that art must express something. Too often, however, that phrase "express something," is used not for what it states but as a way of saying provides meaning. I don't think art needs to be narrative, but nor do I think narrative art is irrelevant or dead. Art may be a way to be in the world beyond the confines of language.
Will much bad art be accepted on the basis of such an argument? Sure. But much academic painting is accepted because it says something, albeit boring and pallid. I think the greater challenge is on the viewer to attempt to engage with art not simply for its historical moment, the artist's established greatness, for the tale told on the canvas, tapestry, bowl, or wall, nor for the personal psychological reaction to what you see, but for a way of being alive in the world without the trappings of language as the means to thought, dream, aspiration, desire.
I don't know what that looks like, but I've had moments with art that did that. Briefly. I'm still figuring out whether it can be described, or whether even the experience is beyond language.
By positing art as a language, whose visual images express meaning just as verbal language does, André Breton establishes a manner in which he thinks of visual works. That art should express meaning, whatever that meaning might be, is to interject an ethics into art that not all are willing to accept. With its previously stated intention to alter the cultural norms of reason, Surrealism has an agenda, and the works that come of it are attempting a shift in consciousness. This assumes that to engage with art is to be in a certain kind of quest. That may be the case for the artist, but not all would agree that art should offer a journey for the spirit.
Art may refuse what language offers. Communication, understood as being meaningful, may be a limit to the way we experience art. If communication is not understood as having to express a specific idea that can be comprehended in words that follow an ordered logic, then sure paintings communicate. Perhaps that is what people mean when they say that art must express something. Too often, however, that phrase "express something," is used not for what it states but as a way of saying provides meaning. I don't think art needs to be narrative, but nor do I think narrative art is irrelevant or dead. Art may be a way to be in the world beyond the confines of language.
Will much bad art be accepted on the basis of such an argument? Sure. But much academic painting is accepted because it says something, albeit boring and pallid. I think the greater challenge is on the viewer to attempt to engage with art not simply for its historical moment, the artist's established greatness, for the tale told on the canvas, tapestry, bowl, or wall, nor for the personal psychological reaction to what you see, but for a way of being alive in the world without the trappings of language as the means to thought, dream, aspiration, desire.
I don't know what that looks like, but I've had moments with art that did that. Briefly. I'm still figuring out whether it can be described, or whether even the experience is beyond language.
Lily's Painting
Though Lily, the artist and a significant character in To The Lighthouse, has had her vision, it is over, unrecognized by anyone but herself, resolving none of the pain those around her experience.
Among the various qualities given modernism (at least to literary works attributed to the period) is their dismay that the world is not, never was, and may never be whole. The fragmentation of narrative viewpoint and chronology presents this: that hubris, that single-minded confidence which led to the cataclysmic destruction of a world vision. The tragedy of modernism is the loss of satisfaction, of innocence, where there is life beyond Eden. Mrs. Ramsey is diminished to a purple triangle, and yet...and yet the text, if not the fictional painting, provides the comfort of companionship. The tragedy of the Ramseys can be extrapolated to serve the tragedy of the reader. Lily's painting permits her to know that she continues the work she started years ago.
There is a wisftul wandering tone in many modernist works. Tragedy reigned until other tones became necessary. And in due course other tones did become necessary, such as anger, mockery, naiveté, crass excess, and others. In due course, we might even imagine that heroism, grace, dignity will return. No matter how much we become convinced that each epoch must define itself, the fact is that it is all a matter of redefining.
The idea that there is nothing new need not be a point of hopelessness, but rather offer a lineage. Though the creative ego might desire spontaneous existence, the past provides for the future. The tragedy of Modernism was not that the satisfaction of empires had become ashes in the mouth, nor that innocence was lost, but rather that we continue to believe we must respond to that tragedy rather than observing the tragedies of our own age.
Among the various qualities given modernism (at least to literary works attributed to the period) is their dismay that the world is not, never was, and may never be whole. The fragmentation of narrative viewpoint and chronology presents this: that hubris, that single-minded confidence which led to the cataclysmic destruction of a world vision. The tragedy of modernism is the loss of satisfaction, of innocence, where there is life beyond Eden. Mrs. Ramsey is diminished to a purple triangle, and yet...and yet the text, if not the fictional painting, provides the comfort of companionship. The tragedy of the Ramseys can be extrapolated to serve the tragedy of the reader. Lily's painting permits her to know that she continues the work she started years ago.
There is a wisftul wandering tone in many modernist works. Tragedy reigned until other tones became necessary. And in due course other tones did become necessary, such as anger, mockery, naiveté, crass excess, and others. In due course, we might even imagine that heroism, grace, dignity will return. No matter how much we become convinced that each epoch must define itself, the fact is that it is all a matter of redefining.
The idea that there is nothing new need not be a point of hopelessness, but rather offer a lineage. Though the creative ego might desire spontaneous existence, the past provides for the future. The tragedy of Modernism was not that the satisfaction of empires had become ashes in the mouth, nor that innocence was lost, but rather that we continue to believe we must respond to that tragedy rather than observing the tragedies of our own age.
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