Date Musume Koi no Hikanoko, Bunraku (Japanese Puppet Theatre, founded 1684, Osaka, Japan)

Bunraku, or Japanese puppet theater, is probably the most developed form of puppetry in the world.   The puppets are large (usually about one-half life size ).   Bunraku puppets are not manipulated by strings from above a small stage window. They are rather displayed on a normal theater stage by one to three puppet operators – the puppeteers. And the puppeteers are fully visible!

Many bunraku plays are historical and deal with the common Japanese theme of girl and ninjo - the conflict between social obligations and human emotions.   The greatest works by Japan’s most famous playwright Chikamatsu (1653~1724) are bunraku plays, many of which are written around this kind of conflict.  This play, called Date Musume Koi no Hikanoko, is one of many bunraku plays.

Bunraku theater as it is known today, is about 400 years old – roughly as old as its big cousin, the kabuki theater.  Compared to its aristocratic relative, the noh theater (which traces back to 1375), it is still pretty young in age.

I chose this work because I found the puppets to be fascinating.  The way they are crafted, how they move, and the expressions that are created by them are very interesting to me.  I also find it a bit strange that the puppeteers are in the background and not hidden to detract from the show.   I wonder if I were to watch several of these plays would I be able to ignore them.

http://asianinterstage.com/tonda/

www.bunraku.org

Cup, Ming dynasty, Chenghua mark and period (1465–1487)
China
Porcelain painted in underglaze blue and overglaze enamels

D. 3 1/4 in. (8.3 cm)

I selected this work of art because I found it absolutely beautiful.  Being of Asian descent, I am very partial to Asian art, especially household items that remind me of warm family gatherings.  This piece reminds me of warm Korean Plum Tea or a family blend of Oolong, cozy and comforting on a cool day.  I love the tiny details in this piece and feel the exquisite handpainted detail is a treasure to behold.

This piece dates back to the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who favored an artist named Wan Gufei.  He was responsible for the technique employed in this piece known as Chenghua doucai (“contrasting colors” or “contending colors”), which is a combination of two ornamental processes.  In doucai painting, designs were completely outlined in cobalt blue on the unfired vessel, and a few areas of blue wash were painted in as well. After glazing, and the usual high-temperature firing, the outlines were filled in with overglaze red, green, yellow, and aubergine enamels that were fired at low temperatures. Doucai-style enameling was usually saved for intimate objects of exquisite refinement, and the rare examples of Chenghua are some of the most highly treasured of all Ming-dynasty porcelains.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/08/eac/ho_1987.85.htm

John Dahlsen contemporary

Australian environmental artist

John Dahlsen studied art at the Victorian College of the Arts and at the Melbourne College of Advanced Education.

Nationally regarded i n Australia as an award winning artist, he won the prestigious  Wynne prize at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2000 and was selected as a finalist in 2003 and again in 2004. In 2006 he was a finalist in the Sulman Award at the Art Gallery of NSW. He has won several grants from various funding bodies, as well as winning other significant aquisitive and non aquisitive art prizes.

His resume is full of accomplishments and accolades.  Not much is known of him other than his achievements.

The first piece of his that I have showcased is titled Made in China (c 2001-2009 Brisbane, Australia).  This piece is made of recycled plastics that washed up onto Australian beaches during the time it was a work in progress.  I found the piece to be fascinating because of the realization that all forms of trash wash up on beaches everyday, and most of the products I see every day are “made in china”.  I felt the name of this piece was most appropriate.

The next piece shown is called Veiled Thongs (c 2001-2009 Brisbane, Australia). Created with recycled plastic thong slippers and mounted on driftwood collected from Australian beaches.  I couldn’t believe how many plastic slippers  were in this piece, and it made me realize the scope of littering in our oceans.  It was definitely an eye opener for me, since I am very passionate about beaches to begin with.

The third piece of John Dahlsen’s that I chose is called Straw Fields (c 2001-2009 Brisbane, Australia). It too contains recycled items.  The straws are a colorful array of what was once trash that he collected over the years along with the other recycled items in his other pieces.  I was drawn to the beauty of this piece, and the creative use of the straws.  It saddens me to think all of this trash washed up onto beautiful beaches.

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Kim Groff-Harrington

Visual Artist:  Garden/Recycled Art

Recycle artist Kim Groff-Harrington has been using tin, bottlecaps and random items and wired together in her unique way for the past 10 years.  Her work can be seen around the Northwest and around the United States.  She took the Red Bull Challenge in 2006 and was chosen to have her piece as one of the thirty-five pieces selected from eighty-six entries and displayed at the Red Bull Art of the Can Exhibit at the Weisman Art Museum in Minnesota.  In summer of 2008 Kim was flown by the prestigious South Bridgehampton Children’s Museum in New York to participate in their recycled art event.

The first piece titled No Ordinary Diva (c est. 2007-2009, Washington State) caught my eye as a whimsical piece of art created from recycled scrap items.  I find this piece fun and colorful, something my children would enjoy.

The second piece is titled Our Lady of Aluminum Roadkill (c est 2007-2009, Washington State).  She is also created from recycled materials.  I love this piece for the use of the crushed aluminum cans, ranging from juice to energy drinks to beer.   It reminds me of spring when all the roads are littered with squashed cans.

The last piece featured by Kim Groff-Harrington is called Urban Nest for an Urban Bird (c est. 2007-2009, Washington State)

This final piece is a collage of recycled “stuff” of urban life.  I love the colors and whimsical nature of this piece.  I find the title to be clever, and the work is just a fun conversational piece.

http://www.johndahlsen.com/

http://www.kimgroffharrington.com/

Dada was a literary and artistic movement that originated in Europe during the time World War I was up close and personal.  Many artists, writers and intellectuals took refuge in Switzerland.  They were very upset that Modern Europe had “allowed” the war to happen, and began protesting.  This group of people founded the Dada movement to go against European society and its artistic traditions.  They decided to become “non artists” and create “non art” since they believed art had no real meaning anyways.   Anything they could do to go against the current society that encouraged the war was their goal.

The word Dada has conflicting interpretation.  One that I think makes the most sense is that Dada comes from the Russian translation of “yes, yes” or “yeah, yeah” as in “yeah, whatever”.   Dadaists thrust mild obscenities, scatological humor, visual puns and everyday objects (renamed as “art”) into the general public.  The public was, of course, disgusted by this new “art”, which in turn made the Dadaists even more driven.   People caught on to this type of protesting, and the Dada movement was born.

Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (Paris, 1913) , is a classic example of Dada art.  It is said Duchamp mounted the wheel just to watch it spin.  Two years after creating this piece he coined the phrase “Readymades” to explain found everyday objects he chose and presented as art.  One of his most notorious pieces is Fountain (1917), the urinal that shocked the art world.

I chose this piece because I found it silly and entertaining.  I feel that there is a good portion of art that seems silly, and people are willing to pay lots of money for things I could dig up in my neighbor’s backyard.  I like that the Dadaists found it clever and humorous to take random everyday things and jokingly call it art, only for it to truly become such a thing.  Who knew?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp

My thoughts on Impressionism are complex.  I am unsure whether or not I truly like it.  I feel it all depends on the piece of art itself.  For the most part, I do love the blended lines and colorful works.  Most importantly I love the subject matter!  Long gone are the religious, historical or moral paintings of the Baroque era.  What a welcome change!

For example, I absolutely love Mary Cassatt’s Maternite, Paris, c1890.  This portrait captures an intimate moment between mother and child.  The earnest way the child is feeding and yet looking at the viewer is very realistic.   The mother is very relaxed and comforting her child, and the baby is cute and pudgy and is well fed.  All of this is conveyed with subtle blended lines, and calming neutral colors.  The light is soft and suggests a cozy, warm space.  Even though the backdrop and the mother’s robe are sketchy, it does not take away from the focus of the mother and the child’s face.   Upon looking at this portrait, it becomes so calming  the eyes seem to relax and blur the colors together.

I prefer this style of painting of mother and child over ones such as Caravaggio’s Madonna and Child with St. Anne, c1605-1606, Rome. Most paintings from the Baroque era, like this one, do not suggest a close loving bond between the two.  On the contrary, children are often depicted as angels, cherubs, or religious icons such as Jesus.  There aren’t many, if any, intimate moments painted like Maternite.

Madonna and Child with St. Anne , in contrast, shows classic Baroque style.  The typical dark background and darker colors is vastly different from the Impressionist style.   The religious connotations of the halos and the snake are evident.  Jesus is depicted as the child, and the mother is Mary.  The suggestion is one of Jesus conquering the snake, the emblem for original sin.  This painting is a classic example of the Baroque period’s religious themed art.  What a difference from Mary Cassatt’s work!

I do like the religious theme of some paintings but could not imagine a time when all paintings were religious.  I can understand why impressionism was such a shock at first compared to the rigid lines and themes of past periods, but am glad people came around to appreciate the change  impressionism brought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cassatt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_and_Child_with_St._Anne_%28Dei_Palafrenieri%29

Jean Racine was a French dramatist during the 17th century Classical era.   He is considered one of the three most famous writers from that era.  He produced tragedies, though he did write one comedy.  He often made enemies due to his successes, Moliere being one of his biggest and most notorious enemies.  Jean Racine was the first French writer to become so successful he was able to live entirely off of his earnings.

Racine’s work was well received by the public when he began writing plays.  He wrote mostly secular plays focusing on Greek mythology.   This was widely popular during the rise of the middle class, and affordable to many.  He and Moliere were once good friends until Racine took his plays to another company to produce them.  He also stole the lead actress from Moliere’s troupe away, which deeply wounded Moliere after all the support he gave Racine. 

Racine continued to produce a string of successful tragedies through the new company, the Hôtel de Bourgogne.  Over the next nine years before writing Phedre he was able to make so much money he needed hardly any other support.  He was so popular that the lead role for Phedre was considered the “pièce de resistance” of almost every French actress.  By this time he had acquired many enemies.  So many that, opening night, quite a large number of seats were purchased by them and left unfilled.  Racine was very bothered by this, and retired from mainstream theatre soon after. 

I enjoyed Phedre‘s emotional tragedy.  The leading role, Phedre, is very intelligent and emotional.  This play, to me, is very similar to Shakespeare plays.  I like the drama that unfolds, and a few of Phedre’s lines are classics.  Her love for her stepson is evident, as is her turmoil from it.  I would have loved to have seen Helen Mirren as Phedre at London’s Royal National Theatre.  Better than a Harlequin Romance novel!

http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc56.html

http://www.curtainup.com/phedre.html

http://www.theatredatabase.com/17th_century/jean_racine_001.html

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2009/07/20/090720crth_theatre_lahr

The Prelude 1 in C Major comes from Johann Sebastian Bach’s most famous work called “The Well-Tempered Clavier”. This work is divided into two books, with Prelude 1 in C Major being the first prelude in Part 1.  The first book was written in 1722 when Bach was appointed to work in Kothen, Germany.  Each book consists of 24 pairs of preludes and fugues.

Johann Sebastian Bach had to deal with disputes over the role of music in religious contexts every time he changed jobs, which he did on several occasions.  He avoided conflict in the court of Kothen only because its administration subscribed to the Reformed Church.  Besides the fact that Bach himself was a Lutheran, Calvinism had no use for his kind of music in the church . He was happy composing chamber and instrumental music, and was very good at creating religious music, though he did not appreciate the constraints brought about by the church.  The distinction between religious and secular music was a product of the late Reformation and never sat well with Bach.

The censures made at the Papal Council of Trent against German music accused Bach of smuggling foreign tones into the melodies, of confusing the congregation, of playing peculiar variations in the chorale, and many other trumped up charges. The opinions expressed at the Council of Trent in June of 1543 were as follows :

“…it will be necessary after peace is established to do away with those German songs. which they use very much in their churches. Not a few of these are hymns which go contrary to the authority of the Supreme Pontiffs….”

(Papal Legislation on Sacred Music: 95A.D. to 1977 A.D; Robert F. Hayburn; The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 1979)

Bach was able to continue to create music the way he saw fit mainly due to the associations his family had with many key musical people in several communities.   He was well accepted in many different cities due to his amazing abilities to write and perform musical works.

I fell in love with this piece because it has such a beautiful sound to it.  It evokes emotions of love and closeness whenever I hear it.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-Tempered_Clavier

http://www.baroquemusic.org/bqxjsbach.html

http://www.baroque.org/baroque/composers.htm#monteverdi

Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, oil on wood, 1434, Bruges
(National Gallery, London)

Jan Van Eyck was a famous artist during the Northern Renaissance.   This painting in particular is considered one of the most original and complex paintings in Western art history.  The painting was done in oils rather than tempura, and is noted to be one of the first of its kind.   Van Eyck had a special talent for bringing detail and light into his work.

The painting is assumed to be created for Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife.  Giovanni was a merchant who was born in Lucca to a wealthy family and moved to Bruges in Flanders when he was very young.  He worked for the family business trading precious items such as silks and tapestries.  There is some speculation as to which Arnolfini is pictured in this piece.  The painting itself has several names such as “The Arnolfini Wedding”, “The Arnolfini Marriage”, “The Arnolfini Double Portrait” or the “Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife”.

There were approximately five Arnolfinis living in Bruges around the time this piece was commissioned.  It is believed Giovanni di Nicolao was the most likely candidate since he was around for several years prior to 1434, and therefore would have had time to become well acquanted with Van Eyck.  He was also wed to Costanza Trenta, who also came from a wealthy family in Lucca, in 1426.  She would have been approximately 21 years old when the painting was done.  However, she passed away in 1433, and it is speculated the painting is a reminder of their marriage for Giovanni.

The Arnolfinis were related to the Medicis and most likely did banking through their Bruges branch.  Costanza’s mother, Bartolomea, was the daughter of Giovanni di Amerigo Cavalcanti.  He was a Florentine of notable stature and well acquanted with the Medicis. In 1416, Bartolomea’s sister was married to Lorenzo de’Medici. It is through this family connection that the death of Costanza is known. On February 26, 1433, Bartolomea writes from Lucca to Lorenzo de’Medici to congratulate them on the birth of their son, and to inform them of the death of her daughter Costanza.

Van Eyck had such an amazing talent for realism and attention to detail.  This painting has several symbolic meanings all related to the couple and their marriage.  For example, the two figures are exquisitely dressed and surrounded by items that represent wealth.  Even the oranges on the table by the window are extremely rare and costly.  Many people think Costanza is pregnant from the way her dress gathers at the stomach and her hand placement, though it is actually just the style of dress from that time.  There is a carved figure of Saint Margaret on the bedpost, who is the patron saint of pregnancy and childbirth.  The artist’s signature on the back wall is speculated to be a witness signature for the wedding, and the images reflected in the mirror are thought to be the two witnesses as well.   It is thought that Van Eyck used a magnifying glass to paint the minute details.

I enjoy discovering new items in this painting every time I see it.  There is a lot of speculation about each item, and worth the time to research.  The painting is so rich in detail and symbolizes their love and unity in marriage.  I like the portrayal of the sanctity of their union and the permanent reminder of the love they shared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait

http://www.smarthistory.org/Van-Eyck.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Arnolfini

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAL/is_499_158/ai_109131988/pg_4/

I have never done this before, and it is a bit intimidating…….However, I do love to talk, so I am thinking I may find this a lot of fun!!!