For What It’s Worth

Save the Country

Laura Nyro

For What It’s Worth

 

A study table

William Harnett

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harnett_William_A_Study_Table_1882.jpg

There is a story by Alice Walker, “Everyday Use”, that revolves around a mother and her two daughters. At the heart of the story are some quilts. One daughter is well educated and prosperous and wants the quilts because they carry some status as folk art and in my imagination they are beautiful to look at, as are “The Quilts of Gees Bend,” for example, that recently made a tour of museums across the United States. The second daughter wanted them because she could use them; they filled a very practical need. This does not mean these quilts were not beautiful to look at in addition to being useful, only that their usefulness was where their true value lie.

The painting above is of musical instruments and books on a table. William Harnett did another painting similar to this that is also of musical instruments and books on a table. In the painting above these objects are sitting on a tablecloth, the other painting, Music and Literature, has them sitting on an unadorned black table. I chose the painting I did because I find the design on the tablecloth pleasant to look at and as enhancing the visual beauty of the painting. It is not clear from Alice Walker’s story if the sister who wanted the quilts because of their value as folk art really valued the quilts as folk art, but the story does invite us to consider art and its value and, perhaps more importantly, to consider whether art must be useful for it to have value.

To return to the painting it evokes three different art forms, painting (because that is what it is), music, and literature. To what extent are any of these art forms useful in the sense that the quilts in the story are useful? Paintings can be pretty, designed purely to accent a room with little if any artistic merit. There is in my doctor’s office a print of a piano in a living room next to a window overlooking a park. The print was selected because of the colors the artist used and the pleasant design of the room. But if one looks carefully at the piano it becomes clear that the piano keys have not been painted correctly, there are three sets of white and black keys between both the keys of “c” and “e” an between the keys of “f” and “b”. On a real piano there are two sets of white and black keys between “c” and “e” and three between “f” and “b”. Not an important detail but one that suggests the artist either did not look closely at the piano before painting it or did not expect the viewer to look closely at the piano. This, perhaps, illustrates a difference between art and decoration or art and entertainment. Art ought to both decorate and entertain, but, hopefully, it does something more.

There are books that we read solely for entertainment, that we are unlikely to revisit, or if we do revisit, it is to be entertained in much the same way we were the first time we read them. Much of the music we listen to on the radio demands little from us (though it might also be mentioned that some of it offers more than we are willing to receive). An important difference between the pretty and the beautiful is the difference between that which merely decorates and that which does something more. This is not to say that popular songs or popular novels do not have artistic depth, though many do not; nor is it to say we should spend more time reading “the classics” or attending the opera. But this is to say for those willing to invest, perhaps it would be better to say who desire to invest, the additional time and effort there are rewards that make the investment worthwhile. It is, though, like many things in life; we do not know what we are missing until we open ourselves up to what we are missing. The print in my doctors office not only does not stand up to close study, it loses much of its decorative value if it is studied too closely.

 

 

Clio, Euterpe and Thalie

Eustache Le Sueur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eustache_Le_Sueur_002.jpg

The song, Save the Country, that played at the beginning is about peace and redemption. It is a song with a message and not a bad message. Some see in the study of art, music, and literature a kind of redemption or purification of the soul and spirit; that we read and study the arts because doing so somehow how makes us better people. The painting above is of three muses from Greek mythology, the muses of history, lyric poetry, and comedy. The suggestion is that art was art because it was divinely inspired, that it fulfilled in some fashion the will or purpose of the gods. But what if, as the “art for art’s sake” folks suggested, art serves no purpose, in the sense we usually think of the word, in the sense that the quilts in the story, though they may have been art, served a purpose.

 

Page from the Book of Common Prayer, 1583

http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/sceti/printedbooksNew/index.cfm?TextID=commonprayer&PagePosition=3

The pictures above and below are of a printed page, from the 1583 Book of Common Prayer and a painting of Mary Magdalen reading. Though the Book of Common Prayer serves a purpose, is designed to be used to as part of a religious practice, it also has beauty all its own. The book is printed using a typeface called “Blackletter” or Gothic script. It is not easily read by 21^st century readers, but even if unreadable, it delights the eye and is pleasant to just look at, even if it cannot be understood. Perhaps the angels surrounding the letter “A” are enough to articulate its religious message. In the painting Mary seems to be “idly” reading while those around her are busy doing things. Of course we do not really see enough of the others in the scene to know if they are doing anything, but I think they are. If this is the case is Mary wasting time and letting others work while she idles the time away. Reading with purpose demands all of our attention and it cannot be done either quickly or while we are doing other things. If nothing else, reading, deep purposeful reading, provides a kind of “Sabbath Rest”, a time where all physical labor must cease.

Is reading another kind of work, is it a leisure activity, does it work it work on us and change us? I do not think that readers, or “appreciators” of any of the arts are better people, many terrible people have been appreciators of the arts, but I do think if we are paying attention we are changed and just as art demands we look more closely and carefully at the work of art, this practice carries over to other things and can make us a bit more reflective as people. Of course, the other side of the equation is probably also true, that we can experience the art, no matter how well and perfectly it is executed, solely as decoration, as entertainment.

 

The Magdalen Reading

Rogier van der Weyden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Magdalen_Reading_Rogier.jpg

There was an article recently in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “We Can't Teach Students to Love Reading”, that suggest most people will never develop into readers who will read deeply and well and that there is, perhaps, little value in trying to teach literature in schools, if our purpose in teaching literature is to make students deep and thoughtful readers. Of course, by this way of thinking there is probably not much point in teaching students geometry or algebra as most will not go on to use or value abstract mathematics. But in the book this essay was taken from, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, the author, Alan Jacobs, argues that this kind of reading is done best if it begins as a whim, with our being carried away by a “fancy” to read and discover. In the book Jacobs recounts Richard Rodriguez’s experience of reading difficult books as a young child where he kept a record of each book along with the book’s “big idea” or theme. In Rodriguez’s view (and Jacobs’) this diminished the books, if only because as literary art, but probably even as just entertainment, most books do not lend themselves to so easy a reduction.

To teach literature well the teacher must not only expose students to the books, but in some way pique their interest enough that they will explore on their own. I am dyslexic and when I was in high school I could not finish the books we were assigned in the time given to read them. So I had to rely on helps, helps familiar to most students. However, the effect of these helps on my imagination was to give me a hunger for these books and over the summer when no one was making demands on my time I read these books, Moby Dick, Great Expectations, Gulliver’s Travels, and others. My affection for these books did not come directly from studying them in school, but if I had never studied them in school I would never have gone on to read them. Even though I would be oblivious to how my life was diminished by not having read these books, I would not know what I was missing, my life would be diminished.

 

Paul Bloom

TED Talk

The video makes a couple of points about art and how we assess its value. My favorite story from this film clip is of the man who sold the Vermeer to the Nazis. The sale was treated as an act of treason for which there was no defense. He was Dutch and Vermeer contributed significantly to the Dutch culture. The art dealer, Han Van Megereen had a defense. He, not Vermeer, painted the painting he sold to the Nazis. He went from traitor to folk hero. Of course the painting lost all, or most, of its value. But this raises another question. Is an artwork’s value determined by its content or its history? The painting is what it is, regardless of who painted it. One of my favorite novels is a book by Robertson Davies What is Bred in the Bone. It is about the life, work, and education of an art forger, a very successful art forger. If the forgery contains all the elements of a great work of art, is it not still a great work of art even if it is not what it pretends to be? There is also the issue of how we define ourselves as a culture. For the Dutch Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh are a part of their national identity, in the sense, perhaps, that Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, and, perhaps, John Steinbeck are part of our cultural identity. But what do these artists add to our cultural identity? How are we different as a people by the presence of this art in our midst, by these details of our cultural heritage?

The Museum of Fine Art in Boston has recently returned, or agreed to return, a part of a statue to the Turkish people and in the process reunite the two parts that make up the one statue. There has been talk about returning the Elgin Marbles, the Greek statuary that provoked poems by Lord Byron and John Keats that are now part of the British identity, to Greece, their proper home. It is now almost universally a crime to remove artifacts such as these from their native cultures, but it wasn’t a crime when the statues in question were removed from their homelands and now, because of their great beauty those that have them are reluctant to return them.

Amit Snood

TED Talk

This film clip raises another question about art and that is accessibility. Amit Snood is responsible for the Google “Art Project” and as can be seen from the film this project not only brings great art to anyone who wants to look at it, it enables those who wish to, to see the art in ways they could never see it even if they went to the museums in which these painting and statues live. The Art Project enables the viewer to see the paintings so closely and in such detail that aspects of the painting that are nearly invisible become clear. Also, unlike the print in my doctor’s office, these paintings reward the attention to detail. Things that no viewer could really be expected to notice become clear and reveal the importance of every detail to the painter. It will always be true that some works have more to offer than others, but if the work is well done it will always be true to the vision it tries to capture.

When I was starting college there was an issue of the magazine The Saturday Review that featured two articles, one on the public poet, Rod McKuen and one on the private poet, James Merrill. McKuen is for the most part forgotten and Merrill, outside of academic circles has not been that well known, though his poetry deservedly survives. Merrill’s poems are quite beautiful and some are very funny but he places demands on his readers and those that read because they enjoy the demands are richly rewarded. McKuen’s poems entertained for a time, but they did not offer much on rereading. Perhaps this is just me and that I do not have the proper sensibilities to see what lies beneath the surface of his poems, but every time I read a poem by Merrill I continue to be rewarded with new insights, and frustrated by that which remains unclear to me, that which must wait until another day to be revealed. That is in part why I go back to his poetry.

There is a book recently published by Marjorie Garber, The Use and Abuse of Literature. The book argues that literature is important for the questions it raises and not for the answers it gives and that a literary work reveals different things to different readers. What is important is not that we read and arrive at a preordained destination but that we read and consider and reflect. She makes a case for literature being “useless” in the utilitarian sense; that we do not read to accomplish anything; that in reading we will not change the world, though if we read deeply, perhaps carefully, and well we might change ourselves. But the importance of literature, the importance of any work of art, is in its ability to make us aware of the beautiful; of that which exists for no other purpose than to open our eyes to splendor and the sublime and asks nothing in return except that we take it seriously, that we enjoy it, and that we do not give it a job to do.

 

St Ivo

Roger van der Weyden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weyden_Ivo.jpg

Making Ourselves Uncomfortable

“Vorspiel” from Parsifal
Richard Wagner
James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera

Making Ourselves Uncomfortable

The Knights of the Round Table Summoned to the Quest by the Strange Damsel
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holy_Grail_tapestry_The_Summons.jpg

Most of the achievements we are proudest of are accomplished by making ourselves uncomfortable. They involve struggle, hardship, and a fair amount of failure before there is success. There was an article recently in the Times Literary Supplement, “The miraculous G. K. Chesterton?”, on the life and “cheerfulness” of G. K. Chesterton. Some described it as a “silly” cheerfulness because it seemed to require an unrealistic view of the world. But it is suggested that he learned to craft cheerfulness from the materials he was given. This is, or ought to be perhaps, a byproduct of making ourselves uncomfortable. The cheerfulness does not make the journey less difficult; it only makes the hardship a bit more bearable.

The music is from Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal. The story the opera tells is of the quest for the Holy Grail. The grail has come to represent in western culture the pinnacle of excellence in any field. Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural tells the story of a baseball player seeking the “grail” of baseball, winning the league title and the opportunity to compete in the World Series. John Feinstein, a sportswriter, wrote a book, The Majors, about the major tournaments in golf. He subtitled this book “The Holy Grail of Golf” because to win one of these tournaments is to rise to the top of the golf world.

What all grail quests have in common is the great demands they place on those involved with the quest. The quest is a trial and brings with it suffering and great discomfort. In some ways this is a metaphor for everyone’s life journey. In Le Mort d’Arthur Thomas Malory, begins his telling of the Holy Grail story with an invitation, depicted in the painting above, to the quest. The knights accept the invitation and begin set off to seek the grail. Malory says of these knights as they start their quest, “And so on the morn they were all accorded that they should depart everyone from the other; and on the morn they departed with weeping cheer, and every knight took the way that he liked best.” In other words each knight rode down the main road and when he (at this time all knights were “he’s”) saw a spot in the woods that looked inviting set off on his own personal quest, leaving the road and entering an uncharted wilderness.

This might suggest to some the line from Robert Frost’s poem, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I – / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference.” Except if we read this poem Frost also tells us that both paths were worn “really about the same.” In Frost’s poem there are two roads, not one road and a going off into the unknown, and both roads had received about the same amount of foot traffic. This is not the kind of path that Malory was talking about when he described the knights going into the woods. Joseph Campbell, in a conversation with Michael Toms, quotes from another version of the story, "They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the forest at a point he had chosen where it was darkest and there was no way or path.” The path these knights took was untraveled and chosen because it involved risk.

The Arming and Departure of the Knights
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holy_Grail_Tapestry_-The_Arming_and_Departure_of_the_Kniights.jpg

This story of the knights setting out on their journey captures the journey each of us takes as we live out our lives. As children our parents select the paths we will take, where we will live (this may not always be the parents’ choice but it is certainly not the child’s), where we go to school, where or if we worship. Others, usually adults, play a significant role in teaching us the values we should embrace, the kind of people we should befriend, and the way we should view the world around us. At some point, though, we start to make our own decisions. At that point we leave the paths that have been chosen for us and enter the dark wood to pursue, . . . pursue what? Our own dreams and aspiration? That is part of it, but the real quest is to find ourselves, who we are as individuals, to establish our identities and we cannot really come to know ourselves without making ourselves uncomfortable.

Man on Horseback Crossing a Bridge

Utagawa Hiroshige

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hiroshige_Man_on_horseback_crossing_a_bridge.jpg

But it goes beyond this. The paintings above and below depict people setting out on or in the midst of a journey. The painting above appears to be the beginning of a journey, it is peaceful, the moon is up and the sky is still dark. There are others on shore watching as the travelers set out over the bridge. Journeys, the easy ones and the most difficult, often begin with this kind of serenity that fosters hopefulness and optimism. There is a story in the painting, though we cannot know what it is. Though the man leading the horse and the man following the horse both seem alert and ready for the journey, the man on the horse seems slumped over and tired, weighed down by a burden of one kind or another. But in all other respects the landscape is peaceful and seems to provide an auspicious beginning to the journey.

The painting below is set in the midst of the journey after a catastrophe of one kind or another has struck. There are some people on a boat in high seas and what appears to be stormy weather. The sun shining behind the clouds may suggest hope for the future, but the present of the painting is of a small boat trying to make headway against high seas and a powerful current. There is a suggestion of landfall in the background far in the distance and tall waves yet to be encountered. We see the outlines of the people on the boat, but, unlike the picture above, not enough to draw any conclusions about how well they are enduring. When I look at the painting the first thing that comes to mind is the story of Odysseus fighting the waves Poseidon has thrown at him as he tries to reach the shore. He does eventually, after receiving a bit of help, but like the folks in the painting there were moments when the outcome did not look to be a happy one.

 

The Ninth Wave
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aivazovsky,_Ivan_-_The_Ninth_Wave.jpg

There was a series of articles in The Guardian ("Yes, Teen fiction can be dark - but it shows teenagers they aren't alone" and “Teen fiction accused of being 'rife with depravity'”)responding to an article in The Wall Street Journal on youth fiction, "Darkness too Visible", that criticized the dark and violent nature of much of what is called Young Adult Literature (YAL). The concerns some parents might have that the Journal article points out are understandable, but then so are the points made by those writing in The Guardian. The problem with storytelling is that it is compelling because it captures the struggles, real and imagined, that people confront. The novelist Vladimir Nabokov did not care for happy endings and argued that stories that ended happily were not realistic. There may be truth to that but I suppose that largely depends on where one chooses to end the story.

 

Life is made up, for most of us, of a mix of happy and sad. And then of course, one must consider what is meant by a happy ending. Is a story that ends on a sad or melancholy note with a glimmer of hope a happy ending or a sad ending? When we finish a book like The Grapes of Wrath does the ending leave us feeling hope for the human race in general and the Joads in particular or does it leave feeling an overwhelming sadness. A lot depends on how we interpret the final moments of the novel. It is very difficult to connect with a story, to be captured by it, if we do not empathize with the characters and empathy is usually provoked by struggle and the hardships the characters encounter.

The fiction that many young adults read may be dark and violent, but than so is the fiction read by many adults who are not so young. Perhaps it helps us cope, perhaps it enables us to experience vicariously the adventures we cannot experience in reality. Which is worse, hardship or boredom? Most of the things in life that give us pleasure and make us happy only give us pleasure and make us happy because they are ephemeral, they do not last. The longer they last the more likely it is the pleasure will turn to ennui. This is not to say we should cut the good times short, enjoy them while they last, but appreciate the fact that they end before we are sated by them.

 

Arvind Gupta
TED Talk

The film is of a toy maker and his work. He uses simple everyday objects to make toys for children. These toys often teach principals of science and mathematics but they teach without interrupting the play. I think the film illustrates that our capacity for play is fed by imagination and I believe this to be true no matter how expensive the materials used to construct our toys. It also illustrates that learning is an act of the imagination; understanding often has its roots in our ability to imagine a principal at work. These toys were developed with poor children in mind but one need not be poor to get enjoyment from playing with them (one also need not be a child to play with them). Toys, like those Arvind Gupta makes, often ease the struggles of growing up and perhaps this takes us back to the stories young adults are reading.

Growing up is a struggle for most, no matter what advantages we are born with. The toys we play with often help us to shape our identities, they give us a chance to experiment with playing roles. Like stories where we imagine ourselves entering the wood where it appears to be the darkest and in our encounters with the darkness learn something about ourselves. It is in stories that we begin to explore who we are and question our ability to hold up under circumstances similar to those encountered by the characters in the stories. It is in play that we begin to act out some of the things we are coming to understand about ourselves. In any adventure, no matter how desirable it appears on the printed page or in the world of play, there is an element of danger that frightens us and fuels our self doubt. Those doubts can only be eased by the struggles and challenges we face and overcome in daily living.

The Forging of the Sampo
Akseli Gallen-Kallela
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gallen_Kallela_The_Forging_of_the_Sampo.jpg

The painting, The Forging of the Sampo, is from an event in Finnish mythology. No one really knows what the Sampo is; all that is clear is that it is a magical object that provides good luck and protection to whoever possesses it. The ambiguity that surrounds it makes it a useful metaphor for whatever it is that brings us good fortune because whatever it is, it is different for everyone. Most cultures have produced charms, talismans, amulets; objects of one kind or another that are usually worn that ward off evil of one kind or another and keep us safe and prosperous. Perhaps they work because we believe they will work, the way a placebo drug works on patients who believe they are being given a real cure. The stories we carry with us are often a talisman against the darkness we encounter, the troubles that life brings. If we never make ourselves uncomfortable we may have fewer encounters with the forces of fear and doubt. We may live more comfortable lives, but with this kind of comfort often comes a profound dissatisfaction and an emptiness that can only be filled by tribulations of one kind or another, and just as the talismans we each carry are unique to each of us, so are the troubles.

Pacific
Isaac Levitan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isaak_Ilitsch_Lewitan_003.jpg