Tuesday Toolbox: Sketchbook Huddle

Camera: "So, everyone clear on the game plan?"

Reflector, Light, and Boom: "Yes Boss!"

storyboard from "Question Mark"

www.chloecornell.com

Downton Abbey Luxury

With the finale of season 4 last night, Downton Abbey will not come around again for another year! I don't think I can wait so long! So, to pass the time and to get a little of that vintage luxury, I pulled inspiration from another Julian Fellow's film, Gosford Park. It came out to great acclaim in 2001 and was the starting point for Downton Abbey. In the film I spotted a lovely hot water bottle cover that was used by Maggie Smith and it was gorgeous. A satin embroidered cover with three buttons and a top flap, the height of 30s luxury. So I set about making my own. The ideas for the embroidery came from the booklet Pretty Pretties, I used sateen material and faux lamb's wool fabric backed with muslin, add a little embroidery floss, bias binding, self covered buttons and some elastic and it was done! My own little piece of Downton to warm the cold nights ahead..

all photos unless otherwise stated are by Chloe Cornell

Notes on Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin is a great philosopher whom I greatly admire. His "Arcade Project" is a series of essays he wrote regarding life in early 20th century Paris, particularly focusing on the huge glass covered 'arcades' or covered shopping malls, the 'passages couvert'. One of the essays in this collection, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', focuses on how reproducibility, especially of a mechanical nature. Which severs the connection between the artist and art freeing the existence of art from 'a parasite upon ritual', or where art served a social function (ex: The Sistine Chapel), to art for arts sake. Walter Benjamin wrote this in 1936 during the Dadaists movement but before the later modernist movements like Pop Art and the Post-Modernism where this notion is further expanded. He was saying that if you are able to easily reproduce copies with no real original, say a photograph, the 'Aura' of the piece is lost.

I wanted to look at his notion of 'aura' and see how technology's effect on this 'aura', and how this lack thereof effects how we, in a digitalised age, look at art. Walter Benjamin said that reproductive technology substitutes a unique instance of creation with a multiplicity of instances (7). That a painter creates a natural distance between himself and the subject, whereas an editor of a film has to delve deeply into the subject in order to lay it out to the audience and through the nature of their medium, controls their perspective. I believe that this has developed to the point where we are now very used to seeing an artworks meaning presented to us, and rarely do we have to delve deeper. We are often so bombarded by a plethora of images that our minds are dulled to drawing a deeper meaning and creating further conclusions. Duhamel stated " I can no longer think what I wish to think. The moving image have ousted my thoughts. (32) He was referring to the natural process of association when viewing images are constantly being interrupted by the fast pace of film. Added to this the camera's constant comment on the performance through the editing process, and we are now very used to the fast paced image. We are probably most suited now to taking in a large volume of information at a faster rate than Walter Benjamin could ever imagine and we find this more comfortable than being faced with say a painting or a live performance.

I found this out in my performance of "Inner Perspective" where a projected film, with few people and no real plot, seemed easier to watch than my performance as the dreamer reacting to this projected dream which was what gave it depth and character. Regardless I found that people seemed more comfortable just watching the film than paying me attention even though it was a balance of the two that created the true story line. Have we really gotten to the point where we are more comfortable with technology than reality?

p1. Walter Benjamin's notes and personal items and his memorial where you can go into the sea.
p2/3 His notes on the Arcade project
p4. Pieces including my own influenced by Walter Benjamin's writing

quotes from Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction": 1936
image links at http://www.pinterest.com/atmyworktable/walter-benjamin/

Tuesday Toolbox

Paintbrush: " But where is the Aura? 

Camera: " What do you mean, Aura? My gaze is not indifferent!"

photograph sketch based on above sculpture

Aura: "the authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced” (221).

 “we define the aura of the later as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch” (222-3) from The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

Photo:http://www.pinterest.com/pin/31243791136764638/

source:http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction

Vermeer's Music

There was recently an exhibition on at the National Gallery called "Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure" connecting the role of music in romantic relationships of the time to how musical instruments and musicians were placed in some of Vermeer's work. This combined two of my favourite things music and art, and with live music playing by the Academy of Ancient Music you could hardly tear me away from the exhibition. Music was an integral part of leisure time for the wealth, it was a sign of prestige and good breeding to be able to play several instruments. As a young lady, it was one of the few times you could be alone with a man and create music together. The placements of the players and instruments in the paintings are integral to understanding the undercurrents of the relationships between the participants. Added to this, to be able to hear music of the day added another layer of understanding and enjoyment to the viewing of the paintings.

In the above painting, "Young Woman Seated at a Virginal", she looks at the viewer in askance to join in her music this conclusion is aided by the Viola da Gamba (3) a symbolically masculine instrument as opposed to the virginal, associated with the female. It is unattended and at a difficult angle to paint, creating interaction and invitation with the viewer, something that Vermeer often does in his paintings with this instrument. This affair, between the lady and the viewer is interpreted as a pure form of love which is aided by the juxtaposition of the painting behind the lady, "The Procuress" (2), where a prostitute solicits her clients with her lute playing. Contrasting their profane love to the virginal often seen as a symbol for harmony and pure love. While the viola da gamba and the marbled virginal show exquisite detail, it is in the lady's hands (1) where Vermeer is far ahead of his time. He seems not to care for the careful detail of the fingers and hands as other artists of his time, but rather for the play of light and dark and how these wedges of colours come together to form the hand, he shows purely what is visible rather than the detail that would be impossible if this was a photograph. This almost photographic focus on the foreground and the blurred background has been speculated to show Vermeer's use of the camera obscura, or the precursor to the modern camera.

In "The Guitar Player" we again see this fascination with light and shadow, which to his contemporaries seemed unrefined, but fascinated early photographers. You can see in the hands of the guitar player (2), that flat patches of colour magically seem to come together to form the light playing on her fingers as they move on the neck of the guitar. The same is true of the pearls (1) where a band of grey followed by white highlights create the texture of the translucent pearls. The individual pearls are not painted in great detail but it is the two techniques that form their spherical and reflective nature. She looks outside the frame of the painting to another player? Listener? Creating intimacy and forms a relationship between the girl and the viewer. With her other hand (3) you can practically hear the echo of the guitar as Vermeer painted the strings in mid-vibration.

In the exhibition real instruments and music were shown alongside the paintings. There was even an eerily similar guitar to the one in "The Guitar Player" and this along side the music that played every hour the paintings seemed to come alive again with the echos of the love songs played in 17th century Delft.

Below you can hear some clips from the music performed by the Academy of Ancient Music at the National Gallery (video). Or check out the podcast.

1.painting details:

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/lady_seated_at_a_virginal.html

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/guitar_player.html

2.National Gallery: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/vermeer-and-music

3. The Academy of Ancient Music:http://www.aam.co.uk/#/

Artists that Inspire: Suzanne Jongmans

I have always been interested in portraiture. In the past, painting gave you the time to study your sitter and to capture their essence, their soul, to show a side of them revealed only within your work. Sometimes this was to the sitters discretion, to show their wealth, fidelity, bravery. Others, like the Mona Lisa or the Girl with a Pearl Earring, we may never know their names but they live on through the painters lens. In photography portraiture is a different game, you must catch the perfect moment, balancing the technical aspects; lens focus, aperture, light balance with the perfect instant moment of poise taking many pictures before you find your shot that conveys all you wanted to say of the model. It may be surprising or a carefully studied set up. Both show a long history of study, or light, perspective, proportion, and colour theory. These artistic principals have been collected through history one artist influencing another, creating a new artistic vision. Vermeer was influenced by Carvaggio and Suzanne Jongmans references the workmanship of the past and its contrast to the consumer culture we find ourselves in today. She says:

“By using this material I make a reference to consumerism and the rapid circulation of materials, which contrasts to the craftsmanship of these earlier times,” wrote Jongmans in an e-mail. “Referring to both vulnerability and transience, I am investigating the texture and feel of both the present and the past.”

I enjoy the myriad of contradictions I find in her pieces. Such as the throw away material, almost Pop Art-like in its use of everyday objects in unexpected ways to give a new meaning. Or the instant mental connection to historical portraits re visioned with a new method, photography, and new materials suspending them in time between the past and present. The painting of Velázquez and Rogier van der Weyden are images that came to mind as I looked at Jongmans pieces, they hold the same likeness and attitude.  But most of all I like the stillness and serenity of her subjects. Jongmans says,

“The serenity which radiates from these works is a real inspiration to me,” she said. “Especially in these times we live in, in which many impressions can overwhelm us."



for more of Suzanne's work: http://www.suzannejongmans.nl/work.html
source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/flemish-art-back-to-the-future--and-viral/2012/06/21/gJQAunA8sV_blog.html

Tuesday Toolbox

Pliers: "Do you think this is glam enough?"

Gold Wire: "What do you think?! I'm gold wire and I'm Fabulous!!"