Instructions

This week you will use your readings from the past two weeks as a point of departure to create your own artistic production and a reflection paper.

Part 1: Art Creation
Select one of the visual art pieces from Chapters 1-6 or the lessons from Weeks 1-3 to use as a point of inspiration. Create a painting, sculpture, drawing, or work of architecture inspired by your selected art piece.

Part 2: Reflection
Write a reflection about the relationship between your art production and the inspiration piece. Include the following in the reflection paper:

• Introduction
• Inspiration Piece

  Include image.
  Record the title, artist, year, and place of origin.
  Briefly explain the background of the inspiration piece.

• Your Art Piece

  Include image.
  Provide a title.
  Explain the background of your piece.

• Connection

  Explain the thematic connection between the two pieces.
  How are they similar and different?
  Are they the same medium? How does the medium impact what the viewer experiences?
  How do the formal elements of design compare to one another?

Original Artwork Requirements

• Methods: paint, watercolor, pencil, crayon, marker, collage, clay, metal, or wood (Check with your instructor about other methods you have in mind.)
• No computer-generated pieces

Writing Requirements (APA format)

• Length: 3 pages (not including title page, references page, or image of artwork)
• 1-inch margins
• Double spaced
• 12-point Times New Roman font
• Title page
• References page (minimum of 2 scholarly source)

THE HUMANITIES
THROUGH THE ARTS
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THE HUMANITIES
THROUGH THE ARTS
N i n t h E d i t i o n
F. David Martin
Professor of Philosophy Emeritus
Bucknell University
Lee A. Jacobus
Professor of English Emeritus
University of Connecticut
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THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS, NINTH EDITION
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2015 by
McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions
© 2011, 2008, and 2004. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by
any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill
Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or
broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside
the United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
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All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Martin, F. David, 1920– author.
The humanities through the arts / F. David Martin, Bucknell University; Lee A. Jacobus, University of
Connecticut–Storrs.—Ninth Edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978–0–07–352398–9 — ISBN 0–07–352398–4 (hard : alk. paper)
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v
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
F. David Martin (PhD, University of Chicago) taught at the University of
Chicago and then at Bucknell University until his retirement in 1983. He was a
Fulbright Research Scholar in Florence and Rome from 1957 through 1959, and
he has received seven other major research grants during his career as well as the
Christian Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. In addition to more than
100 articles in professional journals, Dr. Martin is the author of Art and the Religious
Experience (Associated University Presses, 1972); Sculpture and the Enlivened Space
(The University Press of Kentucky, 1981); and Facing Death: Theme and Variations
(Associated University Presses, 2006).
Lee A. Jacobus (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) taught at Western
Connecticut University and then at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) until he
retired in 2001. He held a Danforth Teachers Grant while earning his doctorate.
His publications include Hawaiian Tales (Tell Me Press, 2014); Substance, Style and
Strategy (Oxford University Press, 1999); Shakespeare and the Dialectic of Certainty
(St. Martin’s Press, 1992); Sudden Apprehension: Aspects of Knowledge in Paradise Lost
(Mouton, 1976); John Cleveland: A Critical Study (G. K. Hall, 1975); and Aesthetics
and the Arts (McGraw-Hill, 1968). Dr. Jacobus writes poetry, drama, and fi ction.
He is the editor of The Bedford Introduction to Drama (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013).
His A World of Ideas (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013) is in its ninth edition.
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We dedicate this study to
teachers and students of the humanities.
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vii
BRIEF CONTENTS
PREFACE xiii
Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS
1 The Humanities: An Introduction 1
2 What Is a Work of Art? 18
3 Being a Critic of the Arts 47
Part 2 THE ARTS
4 Painting 63
5 Sculpture 95
6 Architecture 126
7 Literature 171
8 Theater 199
9 Music 225
10 Dance 256
11 Photography 278
12 Cinema 304
13 Television and Video Art 333
Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS
14 Is It Art or Something Like It? 352
15 The Interrelationships of the Arts 379
16 The Interrelationships of the Humanities 400
GLOSSARY G-1
CREDITS C-1
INDEX I-1
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viii
CONTENTS
PREFACE xiii
Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS
1 Th e Humanities:
An Introduction 1
The Humanities: A Study of Values 1
Taste 4
Responses to Art 4
Structure and Artistic Form 9
EXPERIENCING: The Mona Lisa 10
Perception 12
Abstract Ideas and Concrete Images 13
Summary 16
2 What Is a Work of Art? 18
Identifying Art Conceptually 19
Identifying Art Perceptually 19
Artistic Form 20
Participation 24
Participation and Artistic Form 26
Content 27
Subject Matter 29
Subject Matter and Artistic Form 30
Participation, Artistic Form, and Content 30
Artistic Form: Examples 32
Subject Matter and Content 38
EXPERIENCING: Interpretations of the Female Nude 44
Further Thoughts on Artistic Form 44
Summary 45
3 Being a Critic of the Arts 47
You Are Already an Art Critic 47
Participation and Criticism 48
Three Kinds of Criticism 48
Descriptive Criticism 49
Interpretive Criticism 53
Evaluative Criticism 56
EXPERIENCING: The Polish Rider 60
Summary 61
Part 2 THE ARTS
4 Painting 63
Our Visual Powers 63
The Media of Painting 64
Tempera 64
Fresco 66
Oil 67
Watercolor 69
Acrylic 69
Other Media and Mixed Media 70
Elements of Painting 72
Line 73
Color 76
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CONTENTS ix
6 Architecture 126
Centered Space 126
Space and Architecture 127
Chartres 128
Living Space 131
Four Necessities of Architecture 132
Technical Requirements of Architecture 132
Functional Requirements of Architecture 133
Spatial Requirements of Architecture 137
Revelatory Requirements of Architecture 137
Earth-Rooted Architecture 139
Site 140
Gravity 140
Raw Materials 142
Centrality 143
Sky-Oriented Architecture 145
Axis Mundi 148
Defi ance of Gravity 149
Integration of Light 150
Earth-Resting Architecture 151
Earth-Dominating Architecture 153
Combinations of Types 154
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Sydney Opera House 155
High-Rises and Skyscrapers 157
EXPERIENCING: Sydney Opera House 158
FOCUS ON: Fantasy Architecture 163
Urban Planning 166
Summary 170
7 Literature 171
Spoken Language and Literature 171
Literary Structures 174
The Narrative and the Narrator 174
The Episodic Narrative 176
The Organic Narrative 179
The Quest Narrative 182
The Lyric 184
EXPERIENCING: “Musée des Beaux Arts” 187
Literary Details 188
Image 189
Texture 77
Composition 77
The Clarity of Painting 80
The “All-at-Onceness” of Painting 81
Abstract Painting 81
Intensity and Restfulness in
Abstract Painting 83
Representational Painting 84
Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings 84
FOCUS ON: The Self-Portrait: Rembrandt van Rijn, Gustave
Courbet, Vincent van Gogh, and Frida Kahlo 90
Frames 92
Some Painting Styles of the Past 150 Years 92
EXPERIENCING: Frames 93
Summary 94
5 Sculpture 95
Sensory Interconnections 96
Sculpture and Painting Compared 96
Sculpture and Space 98
Sunken-Relief Sculpture 98
Low-Relief Sculpture 99
High-Relief Sculpture 100
Sculpture in the Round 101
Sculpture and Architecture Compared 103
Sensory Space 104
Sculpture and the Human Body 105
Sculpture in the Round and the
Human Body 106
EXPERIENCING: Sculpture and Physical Size 108
Contemporary Sculpture 109
Truth to Materials 109
Protest against Technology 112
Accommodation with Technology 115
Machine Sculpture 116
Earth Sculpture 117
FOCUS ON: African Sculpture 119
Sculpture in Public Places 122
Summary 125
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x CONTENTS
Tonal Center 235
Musical Structures 237
Theme and Variations 237
Rondo 238
Fugue 238
Sonata Form 238
Fantasia 239
Symphony 240
FOCUS ON: Beethoven’s Symphony in E ♭ Major, No. 3,
Eroica 245
Blues and Jazz: Popular American Music 250
Blues and Rock and Roll 252
Summary 254
10 Dance 256
Subject Matter of Dance 256
EXPERIENCING: Feeling and Dance 258
Form 259
Dance and Ritual 259
Ritual Dance 261
Social Dance 261
The Court Dance 262
Ballet 262
Swan Lake 264
Modern Dance 267
Alvin Ailey’s Revelations 269
Martha Graham 271
Pilobolus and Momix Dance Companies 272
Mark Morris Dance Group 273
FOCUS ON: Theater Dance 275
Popular Dance 276
Summary 277
11 Photography 278
Photography and Painting 278
EXPERIENCING: Photography and Art 282
Photography and Painting: The
Pictorialists 283
Straight Photography 286
Stieglitz: Pioneer of Straight Photography 287
Metaphor 191
Symbol 194
Irony 195
Diction 196
Summary 198
8 Th eater 199
Aristotle and the Elements of Drama 200
Dialogue and Soliloquy 201
Archetypal Patterns 203
Genres of Drama: Tragedy 205
The Tragic Stage 205
Stage Scenery and Costumes 207
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 209
Comedy: Old and New 212
Tragicomedy: The Mixed Genre 215
A Play for Study: The Swan Song 215
EXPERIENCING: Anton Chekhov’s The Swan Song 219
FOCUS ON: Musical Theater 220
Experimental Drama 223
Summary 224
9 Music 225
Hearing and Listening 225
The Elements of Music 226
Tone 226
Consonance 227
Dissonance 227
Rhythm 228
Tempo 228
Melodic Material: Melody, Theme, and Motive 228
Counterpoint 229
Harmony 229
EXPERIENCING: “Battle Hymn of the Republic” 230
Dynamics 231
Contrast 231
The Subject Matter of Music 231
Feelings 232
Two Theories: Formalism and Expressionism 234
Sound 234
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CONTENTS xi
Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS
14 Is It Art or Something
Like It? 352
Art and Artlike 352
Illustration 355
Realism 355
Folk Art 356
Popular Art 358
Propaganda 363
EXPERIENCING: Propaganda Art 364
FOCUS ON: Kitsch 364
Decoration 366
Idea Art 369
Dada 369
Duchamp and His Legacy 371
Conceptual Art 372
Performance Art 374
Shock Art 375
Virtual Art 376
Summary 378
15 Th e Interrelationships
of the Arts 379
Appropriation 379
Synthesis 381
Interpretation 382
Film Interprets Literature: Howards End 382
Music Interprets Drama: The Marriage of Figaro 385
Poetry Interprets Painting: The Starry Night 388
Sculpture Interprets Poetry: Apollo and Daphne 390
EXPERIENCING: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s
The Metamorphoses 392
FOCUS ON: Photography Interprets Fiction 393
Architecture Interprets Dance: National
Nederlanden Building 395
Painting Interprets Dance and Music: The Dance and
Music 396
EXPERIENCING: Death in Venice: Three Versions 398
Summary 399
The f/64 Group 288
The Documentarists 290
The Modern Eye 296
FOCUS ON: Digital Photography 300
Summary 303
12 Cinema 304
The Subject Matter of Film 304
Directing and Editing 305
The Participative Experience and Film 308
The Film Image 309
EXPERIENCING: Still Frames and Photography 310
Camera Point of View 312
Violence and Film 315
Sound 316
Image and Action 318
Film Structure 319
Cinematic Signifi cance 321
The Context of Film History 322
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather 323
The Narrative Structure of The Godfather Films 324
Coppola’s Images 325
Coppola’s Use of Sound 326
The Power of The Godfather 326
FOCUS ON: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo 327
Experimentation 330
Summary 332
13 Television and Video Art 333
The Evolution of Television 333
The Subject Matter of Television and Video
Art 334
Commercial Television 335
The Television Series 336
The Structure of the Self-Contained Episode 337
The Television Serial 337
Video Art 342
FOCUS ON: Downton Abbey 343
Summary 350
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xii CONTENTS
FOCUS ON: The Arts and History, The Arts and Philosophy,
The Arts and Theology 406
Summary 411
GLOSSARY G-1
CREDITS C-1
INDEX I-1
16 Th e Interrelationships
of the Humanities 400
The Humanities and the Sciences 400
The Arts and the Other Humanities 401
EXPERIENCING: The Humanities and Students
of Medicine 402
Values 403
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xiii
PREFACE
The Humanities through the Arts , ninth edition, explores the humanities with an
emphasis on the arts. Examining the relationship of the humanities to values, ob-
jects, and events important to people is central to this book. We make a distinction
between artists and other humanists: Artists reveal values, while other humanists
examine or refl ect on values. We study how values are revealed in the arts, while
keeping in mind a basic question: “What is Art?” Judging by the existence of an-
cient artifacts, we see that artistic expression is one of the most fundamental human
activities. It binds us together as a people by revealing the most important values
of our culture.
Our genre-based approach offers students the opportunity to understand the
relation of the arts to human values by examining in-depth each of the major artis-
tic media. Subject matter, form, and content in each of the arts supply the frame-
work for careful analysis. Painting and photography focus our eyes on the visual
appearance of things. Sculpture reveals the textures, densities, and shapes of things.
Architecture sharpens our perception of spatial relationships, both inside and out.
Literature, theater, cinema, and video make us more aware of the human condition,
among other ideas. Our understanding of feelings is deepened by music. Our sensi-
tivity to movement, especially of the human body, is enhanced by dance. The wide
range of opportunities for criticism and analysis helps the reader synthesize the
complexities of the arts and their interaction with values of many kinds. All of this
is achieved with an exceptionally vivid and complete illustration program alongside
detailed discussion and interactive responses to the problems inherent in a close
study of the arts and values of our time.
Four major pedagogical boxed features enhance student understanding of the
genres and of individual works within the genres: Perception Key boxes, Concep-
tion Key boxes, Experiencing boxes, and new Focus On boxes (the latter described
in detail in the “Key Changes in the Ninth Edition” section of this Preface):
• The Perception Key boxes are designed to sharpen readers in their responses
to the arts. These boxes raise important questions about specifi c works of art in
a way that respects the complexities of the works and of our responses to them.
The questions raised are usually open-ended and thereby avoid any doctrinaire
views or dogmatic opinions. The emphasis is on perception and awareness, and
how a heightened awareness will produce a fuller and more meaningful under-
standing of the work at hand. In a few cases our own interpretations and analyses
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xiv
PREFACE
follow the keys, and are offered not as the way to perceive a given work of art
but, rather, as one possible way. Our primary interest is in exciting our readers to
perceive the splendid singularity of the work of art in question.
• We use Conception Key boxes, rather than Perception Key boxes, in certain
instances throughout the book where we focus on thought and conception rather
than observation and perception. Again, these are open-ended questions that
involve refl ection and understanding. There is no single way of responding to
these keys, just as there is no simple way to answer the questions.
PERCEPTION KEY Public Sculpture
1. Public sculpture such as that by Maya Lin, Richard Serra, and Judy Chicago usually
produces tremendous controversy when it is not representative, such as a conven-
tional statue of a man on a horse, a hero holding a rifl e and fl ag, or person of local
fame. What do you think causes these more abstract works to attract controversy?
Do you react negatively or positively to any of these three works?
2. Should artists who plan public sculpture meant to be viewed by a wide-ranging
audience aim at pleasing that audience? Should that be their primary mission, or
should they simply make the best work they are capable of ?
3. Which of the three, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Sequence, or The Dinner Party, seems
least like a work of art to you? Try to convince someone who disagrees with you
that it is not a work of art.
4. Choose a public sculpture that is in your community, photograph it, and establish
its credentials, as best you can, for making a claim to being an important work of
art.
5. If we label Chicago’s The Dinner Party a feminist work, is it then to be treated as
political sculpture? Do you think Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a less political
or more political sculpture than Chicago’s work? Could Serra’s Sequence be consid-
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1. You may wish to supplement the comments above by reading the third chapter of
Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism or the Hamlet chapter in Francis Fergusson’s
The Idea of a Theater.
2. Whether or not you do additional reading, consider the recurrent patterns you
have observed in dramas—include television dramas or television adaptations of
drama. Can you fi nd any of the patterns we have described? Do you see other
patterns showing up? Do the patterns you have observed seem basic to human
experience? For example, do you associate gaiety with spring, love with summer,
death with fall, and bitterness with winter? What season seems most appropriate
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• Each chapter provides an Experiencing box that gives the reader the opportu-
nity to approach a specifi c work of art in more detail than the Perception Key
boxes. Analysis of the work begins by answering a few preliminary questions to
make it accessible to students. Follow-up questions ask students to think criti-
cally about the work and guide them to their own interpretations. In every case
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xv
PREFACE
we raise major issues concerning the genre of work, the background of the work,
and the artistic issues that make the work demanding and important.
EXPERIENCING Sydney Opera House
1. Would you recognize the function of
the building if you did not know its
name?
2. Which type does this building ful-
fi ll, earth-resting, earth-rooted, or
sky-oriented?
In the late 1950s the design was a
sensation in part because no one
could know by looking at it that it
was a concert and opera hall. Its
swooping “sails” were so novel that
people were more amazed at its
construction than by its function.
Additionally, the fact that the build-
ing was fl oating in a harbor rather than being built on solid earth was all the
more mystifying. Today, however, with the innovations of computer-generated
plans for buildings like Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao (Figures 6-24 to 6-26), we
are accustomed to the extraordinary shapes that make these buildings possible.
In fact, now we are likely to associate the shape of the Sydney Opera House
(Figure 6-27) with a function related to the arts. This tells us that our percep-
tion of function in a building is established by tradition and our association with
a class of buildings. Therefore, the dogma that was so fi rmly established years
ago—“form follows function”—is capable of distinct revision.
FIGURE 6-27
Jørn Utzon, Opera House, Sydney,
Australia. 1973.
This is considered an expressionist
modern design. The precast
concrete shells house various
concert and performance halls.
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Organization
This edition, as with previous editions, is organized into three parts, offering
considerable fl exibility in the classroom:
Part 1, “Fundamentals,” includes the fi rst three introductory chapters. In
Chapter 1, The Humanities: An Introduction , we distinguish the humanities from the
sciences, and the arts from other humanities. In Chapter 2, What Is a Work of Art? ,
we raise the question of defi nition in art and the ways in which we distinguish art
from other objects and experiences. Chapter 3, Being a Critic of the Arts , introduces
the vital role of criticism in art appreciation and evaluation.
Part 2, “The Arts,” includes individual chapters on each of the basic arts. The
structure of this section permits complete fl exibility: The chapters may be used in
their present order or in any order one wishes. We begin with individual chapters
on Painting , Sculpture , and Architecture , follow with Literature , Theater , Music , and
Dance , and continue with Photography , Cinema , and Television and Video Art . Instruc-
tors may reorder or omit chapters as needed. The Photography chapter now more
logically precedes the Cinema and Television and Video Art chapters for the conve-
nience of instructors who prefer to teach the chapters in the order presented.
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xvi
PREFACE
Part 3, “Interrelationships,” begins with Chapter 14, Is It Art or Something Like
It? We study illustration, folk art, propaganda, and kitsch while raising the ques-
tion “What is Art?” We also examine the avant-garde as it pushes us to the edge of
defi nition. Chapter 15, The Interrelationships of the Arts , explores the ways in which
the arts work together, as in how literature and music result in a Mozart opera; how
poetry inspires a Bernini sculpture; and how a van Gogh painting inspires poetry
and song. Chapter 16, The Interrelationships of the Humanities , addresses the ways in
which the arts impact the other humanities, particularly history, philosophy, and
theology.
Key Changes in the Ninth Edition
• New “Focus On” boxes. In each chapter of “The Arts” and “Interrelationships”
sections of the book, we include a Focus On box, which provides an opportunity
to deal in-depth with a group of artworks as a way of exploring art in context with
similar works. For example, we focus on African sculpture, fantasy architecture,
self-portraits, kitsch, and other topics via a variety of examples. In the Cinema
and Television and Video Art chapters, we focus in-depth on specifi c works (Alfred
Hitchcock’s Vertigo and the popular PBS drama Downton Abbey, respectively)
from a variety of perspectives. Each of these opportunities encourages in-depth
and comparative study.
FOCUS ON Downton Abbey
By 2013, in its third season, the British serial drama Down-
ton Abbey (PBS) became one of the most watched television
programs in the world. Almost the diametrical opposite of
The Sopranos and The Wire, it presents a historical period in
England in which the language is formal by comparison and
the manners impeccable. What we see is the upheaval of
the lives of the British aristocracy in the wake of historical
forces that cannot be ignored or stemmed.
The fi rst season began with a major historical event, the
sinking of the Titanic in 1912. With the ship went Patrick
Crawley, the young heir to Downton Abbey. The result is
that, much to the dismay of the Dowager Countess Vio-
let Crawley (Figure 13-8), the great house will now go to
the Earl of Grantham’s distant cousin, Matthew Crawley,
a person unknown to the family. Young Matthew enters as
a middle-class solicitor (lawyer) with little interest in the ways of the aristocracy. But
soon he fi nds himself in love with his distant cousin, Lady Mary Crawley, beginning
a long and complicated love interest that becomes one of the major centers of the
drama for three seasons. Lord Grantham and his wife Cora, Countess of Grantham,
have three daughters (Figure 13-9), and therefore the question of marriage is as im-
portant in this drama as in any Jane Austen novel.
The fate of Downton Abbey itself is a major center of interest in the drama—not only
because of the question of who is to inherit and live in the great house, but also because
in season 3 Lord Grantham announces that, as a result of bad investments, he has lost
FIGURE 13-8
Maggie Smith as Violet Crawley in
Downton Abbey. She is the Dowager
Countess of Grantham and the
series’ most stalwart character in
her resistance to change. She has
been a scene-stealer since season 1.
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xvii
PREFACE
• Updated illustration program and contextual discussions. More than 30 per-
cent of the images in this edition are new or have been updated to include fresh
classic and contemporary works. New discussions of these works appear near
the illustrations. The 200-plus images throughout the book have been carefully
chosen and reproduced in full color when possible, resulting in a beautifully
illustrated text. Newly-added visual artists represented include painters Lee
Krasner, Frida Kahlo, and Gustave Courbet; sculptors Ron Mueck, Frank Stella,
and Jeff Koons; photographers Edward Steichen, Cindy Sherman, and Lewis
Hine; and video artist Janine Antoni. Newly-added fi lm and television stills rep-
resent Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo , James Cameron’s Avatar, Quentin Taranti-
no’s Django Unchained , the PBS series Downton Abbey , and more.
• New literature, dance, theater, and music coverage. Along with the many
new illustrations and contextual discussions of the visual arts, fi lm, and televi-
sion, new works and images in the literary, dance, theatrical, and musical arts
have been added and contextualized. These include works by Edgar Lee Masters,
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Anton Chekhov, John Milton, Gerard Manley
Hopkins, Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn, Samuel Beckett, Steven Sondheim, Mark
Morris, Joseph Haydn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The theater chapter
also includes a new section on stage scenery and costumes.
• Increased focus on non-Western art. This edition contains numerous new
examples of non-Western art, from painting (Wang Yuanqi’s Landscape after Wu
Zhen ) to sculpture (Focus On: African Sculpture) to architecture (the Guangzhou
Opera House) to dance (the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble) to fi lm (Yasujiro−
Ozu’s Tokyo Story ).
• Additional references to online videos. Since many opportunities exist for ex-
periencing the performing arts online, we point to numerous online videos that
can help expand our understanding of specifi c works of art. Virtually all the arts
have some useful illustrations online that become more intelligible as a result of
our discussion of the medium or the specifi c work of art.
Supplements
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xviii
PREFACE
Online Learning Center
Instructor Resources An Instructor’s Online Learning Center (OLC) at www.
mhhe.com/hta9 includes a number of resources to assist instructors with planning
and teaching their courses: an instructor’s manual, which offers learning objec-
tives, chapter outlines, possible discussion and lecture topics, and more; a test bank
with multiple-choice and essay questions; and a chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint
presentation.
Student Resources The student content for the Online Learning Center of this
new edition of The Humanities through the Arts enriches the learning experience.
Students can watch videos on various art techniques and access interactive de-
signs to strengthen their understanding of visual art, dance, music, sculpture,
literature, theater, architecture, and fi lm. They will also be able to use the guided
Research in Action tool to enhance their understanding of time periods, genres,
and artists. We hope that this online availability will spark their own creativity.
All of this information is available at www.mhhe.com/hta9 when you click on
the MyHumanitiesStudiolink. Additional resources, including quizzes, links to
relevant websites, and a chapter-by-chapter glossary, are available on the OLC
to help students review and test their knowledge of the material covered in the
book.
Acknowledgments
This book is indebted to more people than we can truly credit. We are deeply
grateful to the following reviewers for their help on this and previous editions:
Addell Austin Anderson, Wayne County Community College District
David Avalos, California State University San Marcos
Bruce Bellingham, University of Connecticut
Eugene Bender, Richard J. Daley College
Michael Berberich, Galveston College
Barbara Brickman, Howard Community College
Peggy Brown, Collin County Community College
Lance Brunner, University of Kentucky
Alexandra Burns, Bay Path College
Bill Burrows, Lane Community College
Glen Bush, Heartland Community College
Sara Cardona, Richland College
Brandon Cesmat, California State University San Marcos
Selma Jean Cohen, editor of Dance Perspectives
Karen Conn, Valencia Community College
Harrison Davis, Brigham Young University
Jim Doan, Nova University
Jill Domoney, Johnson County Community College
Gerald Eager, Bucknell University
Kristin Edford, Amarillo College
D. Layne Ehlers, Bacone College
Jane Ferencz, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater
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xix
PREFACE
Roberta Ferrell, SUNY Empire State
Michael Flanagan, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater
Kathy Ford, Lake Land College
Andy Friedlander, Skagit Valley College
Harry Garvin, Bucknell University
Susan K. de Ghizee, University of Denver
Amber Gillis, El Camino College–Compton Center
Michael Gos, Lee College
M. Scott Grabau, Irvine Valley College
Lee Hartman, Howard Community College
Jeffrey T. Hopper, Harding University
James Housefi eld, Texas State University–San Marcos
Stephen Husarik, University of Arkansas–Fort Smith
Ramona Ilea, Pacifi c University Oregon
Joanna Jacobus, choreographer
Lee Jones, Georgia Perimeter College–Lawrenceville
Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
Nadene A. Keene, Indiana University–Kokomo
Marsha Keller, Oklahoma City University
Paul Kessel, Mohave Community College
Edward Kies, College of DuPage
John Kinkade, Centre College
Gordon Lee, Lee College
Tracy L. McAfee, North Central State College
L. Timothy Myers, Butler Community College
Marceau Myers, North Texas State University
Martha Myers, Connecticut College
William E. Parker, University of Connecticut
Seamus Pender, Franklin Pierce College
Ellen Rosewall, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay
Susan Shmeling, Vincennes University
Ed Simone, St. Bonaventure University
C. Edward Spann, Dallas Baptist University
Mark Stewart, San Joaquin Delta College
Robert Streeter, University of Chicago
Peter C. Surace, Cuyahoga Community College
Robert Tynes, University of North Carolina at Asheville
Walter Wehner, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Keith West, Butler Community College
We want to thank the editorial team at McGraw-Hill for their smart and gener-
ous support for this edition. Director of Development Dawn Groundwater, along
with Brand Managers Sarah Remington and Laura Wilk, oversaw the revision from
inception through production, with the invaluable support of Editorial Coordi-
nator Iris Kim. Development Editor Bruce Cantley guided us carefully through
the process of establishing a revision plan and incorporating new material into the
text. In all things he was a major sounding board as we thought about how to im-
prove the book. We also owe thanks to Content Project Manager Laura Bies, who
oversaw the book smoothly through the production process; Trevor Goodman,
who revised the interior design for a sharper look and also designed the extraordi-
nary cover; Margaret Moore, who was an exceptionally good copyeditor; Content
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xx
PREFACE
Licensing Specialist Brenda Rolwes; Judy Mason, our image and photo researcher,
who dealt with many diffi cult issues and resolved them with great skill; and Permis-
sions Editor Jenna Caputo, who did a wonderful job clearing the rights for textual
excerpts and line art.
A Note from the Authors
Our own commitment to the arts and the humanities has been lifelong. One pur-
pose of this book is to help instill a lifelong love of all the arts in its readers. We
have faced many of the issues and problems that are considered in this book, and
to an extent we are still undecided about certain important questions concerning
the arts and their relationship to the humanities. Clearly, we grow and change our
thinking as we grow. Our engagement with the arts at any age will refl ect our own
abilities and commitments. But as we grow, we deepen our understanding of the
arts we love as well as deepen our understanding of our own nature, our inner self.
We believe that the arts and the humanities function together to make life more
intense, more signifi cant, and more wonderful. A lifetime of work unrelieved by a
deep commitment to the arts would be stultifying and perhaps destructive to one’s
soul. The arts and humanities make us one with our fellow man. They help us
understand each other just as they help us admire the beauty that is the product of
the human imagination. As the philosopher Susanne K. Langer once said, the arts
are the primary avenues to the education of our emotional lives. By our efforts in
understanding the arts we are indelibly enriched.
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1
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art 1
F
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C h a p t e r 1
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
The Humanities: A Study of Values
Today we think of the humanities as those broad areas of human creativity and
study, such as philosophy, history, social sciences, the arts and literature, that are
distinct from mathematics and the “hard” sciences, mainly because in the human-
ities, strictly objective or scientifi c standards are not usually dominant.
The current separation between the humanities and the sciences reveals itself in
a number of contemporary controversies. For example, the cloning of animals has
been greeted by many people as a possible benefi t for domestic livestock farmers.
Genetically altered wheat, soybeans, and other cereals have been heralded by many
scientists as a breakthrough that will produce disease-resistant crops and therefore
permit us to continue to increase the world food supply. On the other hand, some
people resist such modifi cations and purchase food identifi ed as not being genet-
ically altered. Scientifi c research into the human genome has identifi ed certain
genes for inherited diseases, such as breast cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, that could
be modifi ed to protect individuals or their offspring. Genetic research also suggests
that in a few years individuals may be able to “design” their children’s intelligence,
body shape, height, general appearance, and physical ability.
Scientists provide the tools for these choices. Their values are centered in science
in that they value the nature of their research and their capacity to make it work
in a positive way. However, the impact on humanity of such a series of dramatic
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2
CHAPTER 1
changes to life brings to the fore values that clash with one another. For example, is
it a positive social value for couples to decide the sex of their offspring rather than
following nature’s own direction? In this case, who should decide if “designing”
one’s offspring is a positive value, the scientist or the humanist?
Even more profound is the question of cloning a human being. Once a sheep was
cloned successfully, it was clear that this science would lead directly to the possibility
of a cloned human being. Some proponents of cloning support the process because
we could clone a child who dies in infancy or clone a genius who has given great gifts
to the world. For these people, cloning is a positive value. For others, the very thought
of cloning a person is repugnant on the basis of religious belief. For still others, the
idea of human cloning is objectionable because it echoes the creation of an unnatural
monster, and for them it is a negative value. Because this is a worldwide problem, local
laws will have limited effect on establishing a clear position on the value of cloning of
all sorts. The question of how we decide on such a controversial issue is at the heart
of the humanities, and some observers have pointed to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s
famous novel, Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus, which in some ways enacts the
confl ict among these values.
These examples demonstrate that the discoveries of scientists often have tremen-
dous impact on the values of society. Yet some scientists have declared that they
merely make the discoveries and that others—presumably politicians—must decide
how the discoveries are to be used. It is this last statement that brings us closest to
the importance of the humanities. If many scientists believe they cannot judge how
their discoveries are to be used, then we must try to understand why they give that
responsibility to others. This is not to say that scientists uniformly turn such deci-
sions over to others, for many of them are humanists as well as scientists. But the
fact remains that many governments have made use of great scientifi c achievements
without pausing to ask the “achievers” if they approved of the way their discoveries
were being used. The questions are, Who decides how to use such discoveries? On
what grounds should their judgments be based?
Studying the behavior of neutrinos or string theory will not help us get closer to
the answer. Such study is not related to the nature of humankind but to the nature
of nature. What we need is a study that will get us closer to ourselves. It should be
a study that explores the reaches of human feeling in relation to values—not only
our own individual feelings and values but also the feelings and values of others. We
need a study that will increase our sensitivity to ourselves, others, and the values in
our world. To be sensitive is to perceive with insight. To be sensitive is also to feel
and believe that things make a difference. Furthermore, it involves an awareness of
those aspects of values that cannot be measured by objective standards. To be sen-
sitive is to respect the humanities, because, among other reasons, they help develop
our sensitivity to values, to what is important to us as individuals.
There are numerous ways to approach the humanities. The way we have chosen
here is the way of the arts. One of the contentions of this book is that values are
clarifi ed in enduring ways in the arts. Human beings have had the impulse to
express their values since the earliest times. Ancient tools recovered from the most
recent Ice Age, for example, have features designed to express an affection for
beauty as well as to provide utility.
The concept of progress in the arts is problematic. Who is to say whether the
cave paintings (Figure 1-1) of 30,000 years ago that were discovered in present-day
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3
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
France are less excellent than the work of Picasso (see Fig ure 1-4)? Cave paintings
were probably not made as works of art to be contemplated. To get to them in the
caves is almost always diffi cult, and they are very diffi cult to see. They seem to have
been made for some practical purpose, such as improving the prospects for the hunt.
Yet the work reveals something about the power, grace, and beauty of all the animals
they portrayed. These cave paintings function now as works of art. From the begin-
ning, our species instinctively had an interest in making revealing forms.
Among the numerous ways to approach the humanities, we have chosen the way
of the arts because, as we shall try to elucidate, the arts clarify or reveal values. As
we deepen our understanding of the arts, we necessarily deepen our understanding
of values. We will study our experience with works of art as well as the values others
associate with them, and in this process we will also educate ourselves about our
own values.
Because a value is something that matters, engagement with art—the illumina-
tion of values—enriches the quality of our lives signifi cantly. Moreover, the subject
matter of art—what it is about—is not limited to the beautiful and the pleasant, the
bright sides of life. Art may also include and help us understand the dark sides—the
ugly, the painful, and the tragic. And when it does and when we get it, we are better
able to come to grips with those dark sides of life.
Art brings us into direct communication with others. As Carlos Fuentes wrote in
The Buried Mirror, “People and their cultures perish in isolation, but they are born
or reborn in contact with other men and women of another culture, another creed,
another race. If we do not recognize our humanity in others, we shall not recognize
it in ourselves.” Art reveals the essence of our existence.
FIGURE 1-1
Cave painting from Chauvet Caves,
France.
Discovered in 1994, the Chauvet
Caves have yielded some of the
most astonishing examples of
prehistoric art the world has seen.
This rhinoceros may have lived as
many as 35,000 years ago, while the
painting itself seems as modern as a
contemporary work.
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4
CHAPTER 1
Taste
The taste of the mass public shifts constantly. Movies, for example, survive or fail
on the basis of the number of people they appeal to. A fi lm is good if it makes
money. Consequently, fi lm producers make every effort to cash in on current pop-
ular tastes, often by making sequels until the public’s taste changes—for example,
the Batman series (1989, 1992, 1995, 1997, 2005, 2008, 2012).
Our study of the humanities emphasizes that commercial success is not the most
important guide to excellence in the arts. The long-term success of works of art
depends on their ability to interpret human experience at a level of complexity that
warrants examination and reexamination. Many commercially successful works give
us what we think we want rather than what we really need with reference to insight
and understanding. By satisfying us in an immediate and superfi cial way, commercial
art can dull us to the possibilities of complex, more deeply satisfying art.
Everyone has limitations as a perceiver of art. Sometimes we defend our-
selves against stretching our limitations by assuming that we have developed
our taste and that any effort to change it is bad form. An old saying—“Matters of
taste are not disputable”—can be credited with making many of us feel righteous
about our own taste. What the saying means is that there is no accounting for what
people like in the arts, for beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thus, there is no use
in trying to educate anyone about the arts. Obviously we disagree. We believe that
all of us can and should be educated about the arts and should learn to respond to
as wide a variety of the arts as possible: from jazz to string quartets, from Charlie
Chaplin to Steven Spielberg, from Lewis Carroll to T. S. Eliot, from folk art to
Picasso. Most of us defend our taste because anyone who challenges it challenges
our deep feelings. Anyone who tries to change our responses to art is really trying
to get inside our minds. If we fail to understand its purpose, this kind of persuasion
naturally arouses resistance.
For us, the study of the arts penetrates beyond facts to the values that evoke our
feelings—the way a succession of Eric Clapton’s guitar chords when he plays the
blues can be electrifying or the way song lyrics can give us a chill. In other words,
we want to go beyond the facts about a work of art and get to the values revealed
in the work. How many times have we all found ourselves liking something that,
months or years before, we could not stand? And how often do we fi nd ourselves
now disliking what we previously judged a masterpiece? Generally, we can say the
work of art remains the same. It is we who change. We learn to recognize the values
illuminated in such works as well as to understand the ways in which this is accom-
plished. Such development is the meaning of “education” in the sense in which we
have been using the term.
Responses to Art
Our responses to art usually involve processes so complex that they can never be fully
tracked down or analyzed. At fi rst, they can only be hinted at when we talk about
them. However, further education in the arts permits us to observe more closely and
thereby respond more intensely to the content of the work. This is true, we believe,
even with “easy” art, such as exceptionally beautiful works—for example, Giorgione
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5
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
(see Figure 2-16), Cézanne (see Figure 2-4), and O’Keeffe (see Figure 4-11). Such
gorgeous works generally are responded to with immediate satisfaction. What more
needs to be done? If art were only of the beautiful, textbooks such as this would never
fi nd many users. But we think more needs to be done, even with the beautiful. We
will begin, however, with three works that obviously are not beautiful.
The Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream (Figure 1-2) is a highly
emotional painting—in the sense that the work seems to demand a strong emotional
FIGURE 1-2
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican,
1896–1974, Echo of a Scream. 1937.
Enamel on wood, 48 3 36 inches
(121.9 3 91.4 cm). Gift of Edward
M. M. Warburg. Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
Siqueiros, a famous Mexican
muralist, fought during the
Mexican Revolution and possessed
a powerful political sensibility,
much of which found its way into
his art. He painted some of his
works in prison, held there for his
political convictions. In the 1930s
he centered his attention on the
Spanish Civil War, represented
here.
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6
CHAPTER 1
response. What we see is the huge head of a baby crying and, then, as if issuing from its
own mouth, the baby himself. What kinds of emotions do you fi nd stirring in yourself
as you look at this painting? What kinds of emotions do you feel are expressed in the
painting? Your own emotional responses—such as shock, pity for the child, irritation
at a destructive, mechanical society, or any other nameable emotion—do not sum up
the painting. However, they are an important starting point, since Siqueiros paints in
such a way as to evoke emotion, and our understanding of the painting increases as we
examine the means by which this evocation is achieved.
FIGURE 1-3
Peter Blume, 1906–1992, The
Eternal City. 1934–1937. Dated on
painting 1937. Oil on composition
board, 34 3 477⁄8 inches. Museum
of Modern Art, New York. Mrs.
Simon Guggenheim Fund.
Born in Russia, Blume came to
America when he was six. His
paintings are marked by a strong
interest in what is now known as
magic realism, interleaving time
and place and the dead and the
living in an emotional space that
confronts the viewer as a challenge.
He condemned the tyrant dictators
of the fi rst half of the twentieth
century.
Art © Estate of Peter Blume/Licensed by
VAGA, New York, NY.
PERCEPTION KEY Echo of a Scream
1. Identify the mechanical objects in the painting.
2. What is the condition of these objects? What is their relationship to the baby?
3. What are those strange round forms in the upper right corner?
4. How might your response diff er if the angular lines were smoothed out?
5. What is the signifi cance of the red cloth around the baby?
6. Why are the natural shapes in the painting, such as the forehead of the baby,
distorted? Is awareness of such distortions crucial to a response to the painting?
7. What eff ect does the repetition of the baby’s head have on you?
Study another work, very close in temperament to Siqueiros’s painting: The
Eternal City by the American painter Peter Blume (Figure 1-3). After attending
carefully to the kinds of responses awakened by The Eternal City, take note of
some background information about the painting that you may not know. The
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7
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
year of this painting is the same as that of Echo of a Scream: 1937. The Eternal
City is a name reserved for only one city in the world—Rome. In 1937 the world
was on the verge of world war: Fascists were in power in Italy and the Nazis in
Germany. In the center of the painting is the Roman Forum, close to where
Julius Caesar, the alleged tyrant, was murdered by Brutus. But here we see fascist
Blackshirts, the modern tyrants, beating people. In a niche at the left is a fi gure
of Christ, and beneath him (hard to see) is a crippled beggar woman. Near her
are ruins of Roman statuary. The enlarged and distorted head, wriggling out like
a jack-in-the-box, is that of Mussolini, the man who invented fascism and the
Blackshirts. Study the painting closely again. Has your response to the painting
changed?
PERCEPTION KEY Siqueiros and Blume
1. What common ingredients do you fi nd in the Blume and Siqueiros paintings?
2. Is your reaction to the Blume similar to or distinct from your reaction to the
Siqueiros?
3. Is the eff ect of the distortions similar or diff erent?
4. How are colors used in each painting? Are the colors those of the natural world, or
do they suggest an artifi cial environment? Are they distorted for eff ect?
5. With reference to the objects and events represented in each painting, do you
think the paintings are comparable? If so, in what ways?
6. With the Blume, are there any natural objects in the painting that suggest the
vitality of the Eternal City?
7. What political values are revealed in these two paintings?
Before going on to the next painting, which is quite different in character, we
will make some observations about what we have done, however briefl y, with the
Blume. With added knowledge about its cultural and political implications—what
we shall call the background of the painting—your responses to The Eternal City
may have changed. Ideally, they should have become more focused, intense, and
certain. Why? The painting is surely the same physical object you looked at orig-
inally. Nothing has changed in that object. Therefore, something has changed
because something has been added to you, information that the general viewer of
the painting in 1937 would have known and would have responded to more emo-
tionally than viewers do now. Consider how a Fascist, on the one hand, or an Italian
humanist and lover of Roman culture, on the other hand, would have reacted to this
painting in 1937.
A full experience of this painting is not unidimensional but multidimensional.
Moreover, “knowledge about” a work of art can lead to “knowledge of ” the work of
art, which implies a richer experience. This is important as a basic principle, since
it means that we can be educated about what is in a work of art, such as its shapes,
objects, and structure, as well as what is external to a work, such as its political
references. It means we can learn to respond more completely. It also means that
artists such as Blume sometimes produce works that demand background informa-
tion if we are to appreciate them fully. This is particularly true of art that refers to
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historical circumstances and personages. Sometimes we may fi nd ourselves unable
to respond successfully to a work of art because we lack the background knowledge
the artist presupposes.
Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4), one of the most famous paintings of the
twentieth century, is also dated 1937. Its title comes from the name of an old
Spanish town that was bombed during the Spanish Civil War—the fi rst aerial
bombing of noncombatant civilians in modern warfare. Examine this painting
carefully.
8
FIGURE 1-4
Pablo Picasso, Guernica. 1937. Oil
on canvas, 11 feet 6 inches 3 25 feet
8 inches. Museo Nacional Centro de
Arte Reina Sofi a, Madrid, Spain.
Ordinarily, Picasso was not a
political painter. During World
War II he was a citizen of Spain,
a neutral country. But the Spanish
Civil War excited him to create
one of the world’s greatest
modern paintings, a record of
the German bombing of a small
Spanish town, Guernica. When a
Nazi offi cer saw the painting he
said to Picasso, “Did you do this?”
Picasso answered scornfully, “No,
you did.”
PERCEPTION KEY Guernica
1. Distortion is powerfully evident in this painting. How does its function diff er from
that of the distortion in Blume’s The Eternal City or Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream?
2. Describe the objects in the painting. What is their relationship to one another?
3. Why the prominence of the lightbulb?
4. There are large vertical rectangles on the left and right sides and a very large trian-
gle in the center. Do these shapes provide a visual order to what would otherwise
be sheer chaos? If so, how? As you think about this, compare one of many studies
Picasso made for Guernica (Figure 1-5). Does the painting possess a stronger form
than the study? If so, in what ways?
5. Because of reading habits in the West, we tend initially to focus on the left side of
most paintings and then move to the right, especially when the work is very large.
Is this the case with your perception of Guernica? In the organization or form of
Guernica, is there a countermovement that, once our vision has reached the right
side, pulls us back to the left? If so, what shapes in the painting cause this counter-
movement? How do these left–right and right–left movements aff ect the balance
of the painting? Note that the actual painting is over twenty-fi ve feet wide.
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9
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
The next painting (Figure 1-6), featured in “Experiencing: The Mona Lisa,” is by
Leonardo da Vinci, arguably one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance.
Da Vinci is a household name in part because of this painting. Despite the lack of a
political or historically relevant subject matter, the Mona Lisa, with its tense pose and
enigmatic expression, has become possibly the most famous work of art in the West.
Structure and Artistic Form
The responses to the Mona Lisa are probably different from those you have when
viewing the other paintings in this chapter, but why? You might reply that the Mona
Lisa is hypnotizing, a carefully structured painting depending on a subtle but basic
geometric form, the triangle. Such structures, while operating subconsciously, are
obvious on analysis. Like all structural elements of the artistic form of a painting,
they affect us deeply even when we are not aware of them. We have the capacity to
respond to pure form even in paintings in which objects and events are portrayed.
6. The bull seems to be totally indiff erent to the carnage. Do you think the bull may be
a symbol? For example, could the bull represent the spirit of the Spanish people?
Could the bull represent General Franco, the man who ordered the bombing? Or
could the bull represent both? To answer these questions adequately, do you need
further background information, or can you defend your answers by referring to
what is in the painting, or do you need to use both?
7. The bombing of Guernica occurred during the day. Why did Picasso portray it as
happening at night?
8. Which are more visually dominant, human beings or animals? If you were not told,
would you know that this painting was a representation of an air raid?
9. Is the subject matter—what the work is about—of this painting war? Death?
Suff ering? Fascism? Or a combination?
FIGURE 1-5
Pablo Picasso, Composition Study
(Guernica study). 1937. Pencil on
white paper, 91⁄2 3 177⁄8 inches.
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10
CHAPTER 1
EXPERIENCING The Mona Lisa
1. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is one of the most famous
paintings in the history of art. What, in your opinion, makes
this painting noteworthy?
2. Because this painting is so familiar, it has sometimes been
treated as if it were a cliché, an overworked image. In several
cases, it has been treated with satirical scorn. Why would any
artist want to make fun of this painting? Is it a cliché, or are
you able to look at it as if for the fi rst time?
3. Unlike the works of Siqueiros, Blume, and Picasso, this paint-
ing has no obvious connections to historical circumstances
that might intrude on your responses to its formal qualities.
How does a lack of context aff ect your understanding of the
painting?
4. It has been pointed out that the landscape on the left and the
landscape on the right are totally diff erent. If that judgment
is correct, why do you think Leonardo made such a decision?
What moods do the landscapes suggest?
5. The woman portrayed may be Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo,
the wife of a local businessman, and the painting has long been
known in Italy as La Gioconda. Is it necessary to your sense of
participation that we know who the sitter is, or that we know
that Leonardo kept this painting with him throughout his life
and took it wherever he went?
Experiencing a painting as frequently reproduced as Mona Lisa,
which is visited by millions of people every year at the Louvre in
Paris, takes most of us some special eff ort. Unless we study the
painting as if it were new to us, we will simply see it as an icon of
high culture rather than as a painting with a formal power and
a lasting value. Because it is used in advertisements, on mouse
pads, playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, and a host of other banal lo-
cations, we might see this as a cliché.
However, we are also fortunate in that we see the painting as
itself, apart from any social or historical events, and in a location
that is almost magical or mythical. The landscape may be unreal,
fantastic, and suggestive of a world of mystical opportunity.
Certainly it emphasizes mystery. Whoever this woman is, she is
concentrating in an unusual fashion on the viewer, whether we
FIGURE 1-6
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. Circa 1503–1506. Oil on
panel, 301⁄4 3 21 inches. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Leonardo’s most personal picture has sometimes been hailed
as a psychologically powerful painting because of the power
of Mona Lisa’s gaze, which virtually rivets the viewer to the
spot. The painting is now protected under glass, and while
always surrounded by a crowd of viewers, its small size
proportional to its reputation has sometimes disappointed
viewers because it is so hard to see. And in a crowd it is
impossible to contemplate.
Thus, responding to The Eternal City will involve responding not just to an interpre-
tation of fascism taking hold in Italy but also to the sensuous surface of the painting.
This is certainly true of Echo of a Scream; if you look again at that painting, you will
see not only that its sensuous surface is interesting intrinsically but also that it deep-
ens our response to what is represented. Because we often respond to artistic form
without being conscious that it is affecting us, the painter must make the structure
interesting. Consider the contrast between the simplicity of the structure of the Mona
Lisa and the urgent complexity of the structures of the Siqueiros and the Blume.
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imagine it is we or it is Leonardo whom she contemplates. A study of her expression
reminds us that for generations the “Gioconda smile” has teased authors and critics
with its mystery. Is she making an erotic suggestion in that smile, or is it a smile of
self-satisfaction? Or is it a smile of tolerance, suggesting that she is just waiting for
this sitting to be done? Her expression has been the most intriguing of virtually any
portrait subject in any museum in the world. It is no surprise, then, that Leonardo kept
this for himself, although we must wonder whether or not he was commissioned for
the painting and that for some reason did not want to deliver it.
The arresting quality of the painting is in part, to be sure, because of the enig-
matic expression on Mona Lisa’s face, but the form of the painting is also arresting.
Leonardo has posed her so that her head is the top of an isosceles triangle in which
her face glows in contrast with her dark clothing. Her hands, expressive and radiant,
create a strong diagonal leading to the base of the triangle. Her shoulders are turned
at a signifi cant angle so that her pose is not really comfortable, not easy to maintain
for a long time. However, her position is visually arresting because it imparts a tension
to the entire painting that contributes to our response to it as a powerful object.
The most savage satirical treatment of this painting is the Dadaist Marcel
Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. (Figure 14-14). By parodying this work, Duchamp thumbed his
nose at high culture in 1919, after World War I, and after the Mona Lisa had assumed
its role as an epitome of high art. His work was an expression of disgust at the middle
and upper classes that had gone so enthusiastically into a war of attrition that brought
Europe to the verge of self-destruction.
The composition of any painting can be analyzed because any painting has to be
organized: Parts have to be interrelated. Moreover, it is important to think carefully
about the composition of individual paintings. This is particularly true of paintings
one does not respond to immediately—of “diffi cult” or apparently uninteresting
paintings. Often the analysis of structure can help us gain access to such paintings
so that they become genuinely exciting.
Artistic form is a composition or structure that makes something—a subject
matter—more meaningful. The Siqueiros, Blume, and Picasso reveal something
about the horrors of war and fascism. But what does the Mona Lisa reveal? Perhaps
just the form and structure? For us, structures or forms that do not give us insight
are not artistic forms. Some critics will argue the point. This major question will
be pursued throughout the text.
11
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Eternal City
1. Sketch the basic geometric shapes of the painting.
2. Do these shapes relate to one another in such a way as to help reveal the obscenity
of fascism? If so, how?
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12
CHAPTER 1
Perception
We are not likely to respond sensitively to a work of art that we do not perceive
properly. What is less obvious is what we referred to previously—the fact that
we can often give our attention to a work of art and still not perceive very much.
The reason for this should be clear from our previous discussion. Frequently, we
need to know something about the background of a work of art that would aid our
perception. Anyone who did not know something about the history of Rome, or
who Christ was, or what fascism was, or what Mussolini meant to the world would
have a diffi cult time making sense of The Eternal City. But it is also true that anyone
who could not perceive Blume’s composition might have a completely superfi cial
response to the painting. Such a person could indeed know all about the back-
ground and understand the symbolic statements made by the painting, but that is
only part of the painting. From seeing what da Vinci can do with form, structure,
pose, and expression, you can understand that the formal qualities of a painting are
neither accidental nor unimportant. In Blume’s painting, the form focuses attention
and organizes our perceptions by establishing the relationships between the parts.
Composition is basic to all the arts. To perceive any work of art adequately,
we must perceive its structure. Examine the following poem—“l(a”—by e. e.
cummings. It is unusual in its form and its effects.
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
At fi rst this poem looks like a strange kind of code, like an Egyptian hieroglyph. But
it is not a code—it is more like a Japanese haiku, a poem that sets a scene or paints a
picture and then waits for us to get it. And to “get it” requires sensitive perception.
PERCEPTION KEY “l(a”
1. Study the poem carefully until you begin to make out the words. What are they?
2. One part of the poem refers to an emotion; the other describes an event. What is
the relationship between them?
3. Is the shape of the poem important to the meaning of the poem?
4. Why are the words of the poem diffi cult to perceive? Is that diffi culty important to
the meaning of the poem?
5. Does the poem evoke an image or images?
6. With the emphasis on letters in the poem, is the use of the lowercase for the poet’s
title fi tting?
7. Once you have perceived the words and imagery of the poem, does your response
change? Compare your analysis of the poem with ours, which follows.
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13
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
In this poem a word is interrupted by parentheses: “l one l iness”—a feeling we
have all experienced. Because of its isolating, biting power, we ordinarily do not
like this feeling. Then, inside the parentheses, there is a phrase, “a leaf falls,” the
description of an event. In poetry such a description is usually called an image. In
this poem the image illustrates the idea or theme of loneliness, melding the specifi c
with the abstract. But how is this melding accomplished? First of all, notice the
devices that symbolize or represent oneness, an emblem of loneliness. The poem
begins with the letter “l,” which in the typeface used in the original poem looks
like the number “one.” Even the parenthesis separating the “a” from the “l” helps
accent the isolation of the “l.” Then there is the “le,” which is the singular article in
French. The idea of one is doubled by repetition in the “ll” fi gure. Then cummings
brazenly writes “one” and follows it by “l” and then the ultimate “iness.” Further-
more, in the original edition the poem is number one of the collection. Also notice
how these representations of oneness are wedded to the image: “a leaf falls.”
As you look at the poem, your eye follows a downward path that swirls in a pat-
tern similar to the diagram in Figure 1-7. This is merely following the parentheses
and consonants. As you follow the vowels as well, you see curves that become spi-
rals, and the image is indeed much like that of a leaf actually falling. This accounts
for the long, thin look of the poem. Now, go back to the poem and reread it. Has
your response changed? If so, how?
Of course, most poems do not work in quite this way. Most poems do not rely on
the way they look on the page, although this is one of the most important strategies
cummings uses. But what most poets are concerned with is the way the images or
verbal pictures fi t into the totality of the poem, how they make us experience the
whole poem more intensely. In cummings’s poem the single, falling, dying leaf—
one out of so many—is perfect for helping us understand loneliness from a dying
person’s point of view. People are like leaves in that they are countless when they
are alive and together. But like leaves, they die singly. And when one person sepa-
rates himself or herself from the community of friends, that person is as alone as
the single leaf.
Abstract Ideas and Concrete Images
“l(a” presents an abstract idea fused with a concrete image or word picture. It
is concrete because what is described is a physical event—a falling leaf. Loneli-
ness, on the other hand, is abstract. Take an abstract idea: love, hate, indecision,
arrogance, jealousy, ambition, justice, civil rights, prejudice, revenge, revolution,
coyness, insanity, or any other. Then link it with some physical object or event
that you think expresses the abstract idea. “Expresses” here means simply making
us see the object as portraying—and thus helping us understand—the abstract
idea. Of course, you need not follow cummings’s style of splitting words and using
parentheses. You may use any way of lining up the letters and words that you think
is interesting.
In Paradise Lost, John Milton describes hell as a place with “Rocks, Caves, Lakes,
Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death.” Now, neither you nor the poet has ever
seen “shades of death,” although the idea is in Psalm 23, “the valley of the shadow
of death.” Milton gets away with describing hell this way because he has linked the
FIGURE 1-7
Diagram of e. e. cummings’s “l(a.”
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14
CHAPTER 1
abstract idea of shades of death to so many concrete images in this single line. He
is giving us images that suggest the mood of hell just as much as they describe the
landscape, and we realize that he gives us so many topographic details in order to
get us ready for the last detail—the abstract idea of shades of death.
There is much more to be said about poetry, of course, but on a prelim-
inary level poetry worked in much the same way in the seventeenth-century
England of Milton as it does in contemporary America. The same principles are
at work: Described objects or events are used as a means of bringing abstract
ideas to life. The descriptions take on a wider and deeper signifi cance—wider in
the sense that the descriptions are connected with the larger scope of abstract
ideas, deeper in the sense that because of these descriptions the abstract ideas
become vividly focused and more meaningful. Thus, cummings’s poem gives us
insight—a penetrating understanding—into what we all must face: the isolating
loneliness of our death.
The following poem is highly complex: the memory of an older culture
(simplicity, in this poem) and the consideration of a newer culture (complexity). It is
an African poem by the contemporary Nigerian poet Gabriel Okara; and knowing
that it is African, we can begin to appreciate the extreme complexity of Okara’s feel-
ings about the clash of the old and new cultures. He symbolizes the clash in terms
of music, and he opposes two musical instruments: the drum and the piano. They
stand respectively for the African and the European cultures. But even beyond the
musical images that abound in this poem, look closely at the images of nature, the
pictures of the panther and leopard, and see how Okara imagines them.
PIANO AND DRUMS
When at break of day at a riverside
I hear jungle drums telegraphing
the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw
like bleeding fl esh, speaking of
primal youth and the beginning,
I see the panther ready to pounce,
the leopard snarling about to leap
and the hunters crouch with spears poised;
And my blood ripples, turns torrent,
topples the years and at once I’m
in my mother’s lap a suckling;
at once I’m walking simple
paths with no innovations,
rugged, fashioned with the naked
warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts
in green leaves and wild fl owers pulsing.
Then I hear a wailing piano
solo speaking of complex ways
in tear-furrowed concerto;
of far-away lands
and new horizons with
coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint,
crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth
of its complexities, it ends in the middle
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15
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
of a phrase at a daggerpoint.
And I lost in the morning mist
of an age at a riverside keep
wandering in the mystic rhythm
of jungle drums and the concerto.
Such a poem speaks directly to legions of the current generation of Africans.
But consider some points in light of what we have said earlier. In order to perceive
the kind of emotional struggle that Okara talks about—the subject matter of the
poem—we need to know something about Africa and the struggle African nations
have in modernizing themselves along the lines of more technologically advanced
nations. We also need to know something of the history of Africa and the fact that
European nations, such as Britain in the case of Nigeria, once controlled much of
Africa. Knowing these things, we know then that there is no thought of the “I” of
the poem accepting the “complex ways” of the new culture without qualifi cation.
The “I” does not think of the culture of the piano as manifestly superior to the cul-
ture of the drum. That is why the labyrinth of complexities ends at a “daggerpoint.”
The new culture is a mixed blessing.
We have argued that the perception of a work of art is aided by background
information and that sensitive perception must be aware of form, at least implicitly.
But we believe there is much more to sensitive perception. Somehow the form of
a work of art is an artistic form that clarifi es or reveals values, and our response is
intensifi ed by our awareness of those revealed values. But how does artistic form do
this? And how does this awareness come to us? In the next chapter we shall consider
these questions, and in doing so, we will also raise that most important question:
What is a work of art? Once we have examined each of the arts, it will be clear, we
hope, that the principles developed in these opening chapters are equally applicable
to all the arts.
Participate and analyze and participate again with Edward Hopper’s Early
Sunday Morning (Figure 1-8).
PERCEPTION KEY “Piano and Drums”
1. What are the most important physical objects in the poem? What cultural signifi –
cance do they have?
2. Why do you think Okara chose the drum and the piano to help reveal the clash
between the two cultures? Where are his allegiances?
PERCEPTION KEY Early Sunday Morning
1. What is the subject matter of this painting?
2. Back up your judgment with reference to as many relevant details as possible
before reading further.
3. What visual elements in the painting link its content with e. e. cummings’s poem?
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On one level the subject matter is a city street scene. But on a more basic level,
we think, the subject matter is loneliness. Packed human habitation is portrayed, but
no human being is in sight (incidentally but noteworthy, a human fi gure originally
placed behind one of the windows was painted out). We seem to be at the scene
alone on New York’s Seventh Avenue. We seem to be strangely located across the
street at about the level of the second-story windows. Loneliness is usually accom-
panied by anxiety. And anxiety is expressed by the silent windows, especially the
ominous dark storefronts, the mysterious translucent lighting, and the strange dark
rectangle (what is it?) on the upper right. The street and buildings, despite their
rectilinear format, seem to lean slightly downhill to the left, pushed by the shadows,
especially the unexplainable weird fl aglike one wrapping over the second window on
the left of the second story. Even the bright barber pole is tilted to the left, the tilt
accentuated by the uprightness of the door and window frames in the background
and the wonderfully painted toadlike fi re hydrant. These subtle oddities of the scene
accent our “iness”—our separateness.
Summary
Unlike scientists, humanists generally do not use strictly objective standards. The
arts reveal values; other humanities study values. Artistic form refers to the structure
or organization of a work of art. Values are clarifi ed or revealed by a work of art.
FIGURE 1-8
Edward Hopper, Early Sunday
Morning. 1930. Oil on canvas,
35 3 60 inches.
When the Whitney Museum of
American Art purchased Early
Sunday Morning in 1930, it was
their most expensive acquisition.
Hopper’s work, centered in
New York’s Greenwich Village,
revealed the character of city life.
His colors—vibrant, intense—and
the early morning light—strong
and unyielding—created indelible
images of the city during the Great
Depression.
16
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17
THE HUMANITIES:
AN INTRODUCTION
Judging from the most ancient efforts to make things, we can assert that the arts
represent one of the most basic human activities. They satisfy a need to explore
and express the values that link us together. By observing our responses to a work
of art and examining the means by which the artist evokes those responses, we can
deepen our understanding of art. Our approach to the humanities is through the
arts, and our taste in art connects with our deep feelings. Yet our taste is continually
improved by experience and education. Background information about a work of
art and increased sensitivity to its artistic form intensify our responses.
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18
C h a p t e r 2
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
No defi nition for a work of art seems completely adequate, and none is universally accepted. We shall not propose a defi nition here, therefore, but ra ther attempt
to clarify some criteria or distinctions that can help us identify works of art. Since the
term “work of art” implies the concept of making in two of its words — “work” and
“art” (short for “artifi ce”) — a work of art is usually said to be something made by a
person. Hence sunsets, beautiful trees, “found” natural objects such as grained drift-
wood, “paintings” by in sects or songs by birds, and a host of other natural phenomena
are not considered works of art, despite their beauty. You may not wish to accept the
proposal that a work of art must be of human origin, but if you do accept it, consider
the construction shown in Figure 2-1, Jim Dine’s Shovel.
Shovel is part of a valuable collection and was fi rst shown at an art gal lery in
New York City. Furthermore, Dine is considered an important Amer i can artist.
However, he did not make the shovel himself. Like most shov els, the one in his
construction, although designed by a person, was mass-produced . Dine mounted
the shovel in front of a painted panel and presented this con struc tion for se ri ous
consideration. The construction is described as “mixed media,” mean ing it consists
of several materials: paint, wood, a cord, and metal. Is Shovel a work of art?
We can hardly discredit the construction as a work of art simply because Dine did
not make the shovel; after all, we often accept objects manufactured to specifi cation
by factories as genuine works of sculpture (see the Calder construction, Figure 5-11).
Collages by Picasso and Braque, which in clude objects such as paper and nails mounted
on a panel, are generally ac cepted as works of art. Museums have even accepted objects
such as a signed urinal by Marcel Duchamp, one of the Dadaist artists of the early
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19
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
twen ti eth century, which in many ways anticipated the works of Dine, Warhol, and
oth ers in the Pop Art movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Identifying Art Conceptually
Three criteria for determining whether something is a work of art are that (1) the
object or event is made by an artist, (2) the object or event is intended to be a work
of art by its maker, and (3) recognized ex perts agree that it is a work of art. Unfor-
tunately, one cannot always de ter mine whether a work meets these criteria only by
perceiving it. In many cases, for instance, we may confront an object such as Shovel
and not know whether Dine constructed the shovel, thus not satisfying the fi rst
criterion that the ob ject be made by an artist; or whether Dine intended it to be a
work of art; or whether experts agree that it is a work of art. In fact, Dine did not
make this particular shovel, but because this fact cannot be established by percep-
tion, one has to be told.
FIGURE 2-1
Jim Dine, Shovel. 1962. Mixed
media.
Using off-the-shelf products,
Dine makes a statement about
the possibilities of art.
Identifying art conceptually seems to the authors as not very useful. Because
someone intends to make a work of art tells us little. It is the made rather than the
making that counts. The third criterion—the judgment of experts—is important
but debatable.
Identifying Art Perceptually
Perception, what we can observe, and conception, what we know or think we
know, are closely related. We often recognize an object because it conforms
to our conception of it. For example, in architecture we recognize churches
and office buildings as dis tinct because of our conception of what churches and
office buildings are supposed to look like. The ways of identifying a work of art
mentioned above depend on the conceptions of the artist and experts on art and
not enough on our perceptions of the work itself.
PERCEPTION KEY Identifying a Work of Art
1. Why not simply identify a work of art as what an artist makes?
2. If Dine actually made the shovel, would Shovel then unquestionably be a work of
art?
3. Suppose Dine made the shovel, and it was absolutely perfect in the sense that it
could not be readily distinguished from a mass-produced shovel. Would that kind
of perfection make the piece more a work of art or less a work of art? Suppose
Dine did not make the shovel but did make the panel and the box. Then would it
seem easier to identify Shovel as a work of art?
4. Find people who hold opposing views about whether Shovel is a work of art. Ask
them to point out what it is about the object itself that qualifi es it for or disqualifi es
it from being identifi ed as a work of art.
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20
CHAPTER 2
We suggest an approach here that is simple and fl exible and that depends largely
on perception. The distinctions of this approach will not lead us nec es sar ily to a
defi nition of art, but they will offer us a way to examine ob jects and events with
reference to whether they possess artistically per ceivable qualities. And, in some
cases at least, it should bring us to reasonable grounds for distinguishing certain
objects or events as art. We will con sider four basic terms related primarily to the
perceptual nature of a work of art:
Artistic form: the organization of a medium that results in clarifying some sub-
ject matter.
Participation: sustained attention and loss of self-awareness.
Content: the interpretation of subject matter.
Subject matter: some value expressed in the work of art.
Understanding any one of these terms requires an understanding of the others.
Thus we will follow — please trust us — what may appear to be an illogical order:
artistic form; participation; participation and artistic form; content; subject matter;
subject matter and artistic form; and, fi nally, participation, artistic form, and content.
Artistic Form
All objects and events have form. They are bounded by limits of time and space, and
they have parts with distinguishable relationships to one another. Form is the in-
terrelationships of part to part and part to whole. To say that some object or event
has form means it has some degree of perceptible unity. To say that something
has artistic form, however, usually implies a strong degree of perceptible unity. It
is artistic form that distinguishes a work of art from objects or events that are not
works of art.
Artistic form implies that the parts we perceive — for example, line, color, tex-
ture, shape, and space in a painting — have been unifi ed for the most profound
effect possible. That effect is revelatory. Artistic form reveals, clarifi es, en light ens,
gives fresh meaning to something valuable in life, some subject mat ter. A form
that lacks a signifi cant degree of unity is unlikely to accomplish this. Our daily
experiences usually are characterized more by disunity than by unity. Consider, for
instance, the order of your experiences dur ing a typ i cal day or even a segment of
that day. Compare that order with the order most novelists give to the experiences
of their characters. One impulse for read ing novels is to experience the tight unity
that artistic form usu ally imposes, a unity almost none of us comes close to achiev-
ing in our daily lives. Much the same is true of music. Noises and random tones in
ev ery day ex pe ri ence lack the order that most composers impose.
Since strong, perceptible unity appears so infrequently in nature, we tend to
value the perceptible unity of artistic form. Works of art differ in the power of their
unity. If that power is weak, then the question arises: Is this a work of art? Consider
Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie ( Figure 4-9) with reference to its artistic form.
If its parts were not carefully proportioned in the overall structure of the paint-
ing, the tight balance that produces a strong unity would be lost. Mondrian was so
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21
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
concerned with this balance that he often mea sured the areas of lines and rectangles
in his works to be sure they had a clear, almost math e mat i cal, relationship to the
totality. Of course, disunity or playing against expectations of unity can also be
artistically useful at times. Some art ists realize how strong the impulse toward unity
is in those who have per ceived many works of art. For some people, the contempo-
rary attitude to ward the loose organization of formal elements is a norm, and the
highly unifi ed work of art is thought of as old-fashioned. However, it seems that the
effects achieved by a lesser degree of unity succeed only be cause we recognize them
as departures from our well-known, highly or ga nized forms.
Artistic form, we have suggested, is likely to involve a high degree of perceptible
unity. But how do we determine what is a high degree? And if we cannot be clear
about this, how can this distinction be helpful in distinguishing works of art from
things that are not works of art? A very strong unity does not necessarily identify a
work of art. That formal unity must give us insight into something important.
Consider the news photograph — taken on one of the main streets of Saigon
in February 1968 by Eddie Adams, an Associated Press photographer—showing
Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, then South Vietnam’s na tional police chief,
killing a Vietcong captive (Figure 2-2). Adams stated that his picture was an acci-
dent, that his hand moved the camera refl exively as he saw the general raise the
revolver. The lens of the camera was set in such a way that the background was
thrown out of focus. The blurring of the background helped bring out the drama
of the foreground scene. Does this photograph have a high degree of perceptible
unity? Certainly the ex pe ri ence of the pho tog ra pher is evident. Not many amateur
photographers would have had enough skill to catch such a fl eeting event with such
FIGURE 2-2
Eddie Adams, Execution in Saigon.
1968. Silver halide.
Adams captured General Loan’s
execution of a Vietcong captive.
He said later, “The general killed
the Vietcong; I killed the general
with my camera. Still photographs
are the most powerful weapon in
the world.”
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22
CHAPTER 2
stark clar ity. If an amateur had ac com plished this, we would be inclined to believe
that it was more luck than skill. Adams’s skill in catching the scene is even more evi-
dent, and he risked his life to get it. But do we admire this work the way we ad mire
Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream (Figure 1-2)? Do we experience these two works in the
same basic way?
Compare a painting of a somewhat similar subject matter — Goya’s May 3, 1808
(Figure 2-3). Goya chose the most terrible moment, that split second be fore the
crash of the guns. There is no doubt that the executions will go on. The desolate
mountain pushing down from the left blocks escape, while from the right the fi ring
squad relentlessly hunches forward. The soldiers’ thick legs — planted wide apart
and parallel — support like sturdy pillars the blind, pressing wall formed by their
backs. These are men of a military machine. Their rifl es, fl ashing in the bleak light
of the ghastly lantern, thrust out as if they belonged to their bodies. It is unimag-
inable that any of these men would defy the command of their superiors. In the
dead of night, the doomed are backed up against the mountain like animals ready
for slaughter. One man fl ings up his arms in a gesture of utter despair — or is it
defi ance? The uncertainty increases the intensity of our attention. Most of the rest
of the men bury their faces, while a few, with eyes staring out of their sockets, glance
out at what they cannot help seeing — the sprawling dead smeared in blood.
With the photograph of the execution in Vietnam, despite its immediate and pow-
erful attraction, it takes only a glance or two to grasp what is presented. Undivided
FIGURE 2-3
Francisco Goya, May 3, 1808.
1814–1815. Oil on canvas, 8 feet
9 inches 3 13 feet 4 inches. The
Prado, Madrid.
Goya’s painting of Napoleonic
soldiers executing Spanish
guerrillas the day after the Madrid
insurrection portrays the faces of
the victims, but not of the killers.
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23
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
attention, perhaps, is necessary to become aware of the signifi cance of the event, but
not sustained attention. In fact, to take careful no tice of all the details — such as the
patterns on the prisoner’s shirt — does not add to our awareness of the signifi cance
of the photograph. If anything, our awareness will be sharper and more productive
if we avoid such detailed ex am i na tion. Is such the case with the Goya? We believe
not. Indeed, without sus tained attention to the details of this work, we would miss
most of what is revealed. For example, block out everything but the dark shadow at
the bottom right. Note how differently that shadow appears when it is isolated. We
must see the details individually and collectively, as they work together. Unless we
are aware of their collaboration, we are not going to grasp fully the total form.
Close examination of the Adams photograph reveals several efforts to increase
the unity and thus the power of the print. For example, the fl ak jacket of General
Loan has been darkened so as to remove distracting details. The build ings in the
background have been “dodged out” (held back in printing so that they are not fully
visible). The shadows of trees on the road have been soft ened so as to lead the eye
inexorably to the hand that holds the gun. The space around the head of the victim
is also dodged out so that it appears that something like a halo surrounds the head.
All this is done in the act of printing, enhancing the formal unity.
Yet we are suggesting that the Goya has a much higher degree of percep ti ble unity
than Adams’s photograph, that perhaps only the Goya has artistic form. We base these
conclusions on what is given for us to perceive: the fact that the part-to-part and the
part-to-whole relationships are much stronger in the Goya. Now, of course, you may
disagree. No judgment about such matters is indisputable. Indeed, that is part of the
fun of talking about whether some thing is or is not a work of art — we can learn how to
perceive from one another.
PERCEPTION KEY Goya and Adams
1. Is the painting diff erent from Adams’s photograph in the way the details work
together? Be specifi c.
2. Could any detail in the painting be changed or removed without weakening the
unity of the total design? What about the photograph?
3. Does the photograph or the painting more powerfully reveal human barbarity?
4. Are there details in the photograph that distract your attention?
5. Do the buildings in the background of the photograph add to or subtract from
the power of what is being portrayed? Compare the eff ect of the looming
architecture in the painting.
6. Do the shadows on the street add anything to the signifi cance of the photograph?
Compare the shadows on the ground in the painting.
7. Does it make any signifi cant diff erence that the Vietcong prisoner’s shirt is
check ered? Compare the white shirt on the gesturing man in the painting.
8. Is the expression on the soldier’s face, along the left edge of the photograph,
appropriate to the situation? Compare the facial expressions in the painting.
9. Can these works be fairly compared when one is in black and white and the other
is in full color? Why or why not?
10. What are some basic diff erences between viewing a photograph of a real man
being killed and a painting of such an event? Does that distinction alone qualify or
disqualify either work as a work of art?
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24
CHAPTER 2
Participation
Both the photograph and the Goya tend to grasp our attention. Initially for most
of us, probably, the photograph has more pulling power than the painting, es pe-
ci ally as the two works are illustrated here. In its setting in the Prado in Madrid,
however, the great size of the Goya and its powerful lighting and color draw the
eye like a magnet. But the term “participate” is more accurately de scrip tive of what
we are likely to be doing in our experience of the painting. With the Goya, we
must not only give but also sustain our undivided attention so that we lose our self-
consciousness, our sense of being separate, of standing apart from the painting. We
participate. And only by means of participation can we come close to a full aware-
ness of what the painting is about.
Works of art are created, exhibited, and preserved for us to perceive with not
only undivided but also sustained attention. Artists, critics, and philos o phers of art
(aestheticians) generally are in agreement about this. Thus, if a work requires our
participation in order to understand and appreciate it fully, we have an indication
that the work is art. Therefore — unless our analyses have been incorrect, and you
should satisfy yourself about this — the Goya would seem to be a work of art. Con-
versely, the photograph is not as ob vi ously a work of art as the painting, and this
is the case despite the fascinating impact of the photograph. Yet these are highly
tentative judgments. We are far from being clear about why the Goya requires our
participation and the photograph may not. Until we are clear about these “whys,”
the grounds for these judgments remain shaky.
Goya’s painting tends to draw us on until, ideally, we become aware of all the
details and their interrelationships. For example, the long dark shadow at the bot-
tom right underlines the line of the fi ring squad, and the line of the fi r ing squad
helps bring out the shadow. Moreover, this shadow is the darkest and most opaque
part of the painting. It has a forbidding, blind, fateful qual ity that, in turn, rein-
forces the ominous appearance of the fi ring squad. The dark shadow on the street
just below the forearm of General Loan seems less pow er ful. The photograph has
fewer meaningful details. Thus our attempts to keep our attention on the photo-
graph tend to be forced — which is to say that they will fail. Sustained attention or
participation cannot be achieved by acts of will. The splendid singularity of what we
are attending to must fascinate and control us to the point that we no longer need
to will our attention. We can make up our minds to give our undivided attention to
something. But if that something lacks the pulling power that grasps our attention,
we cannot participate with it.
The ultimate test for recognizing a work of art, then, is how it works in us, what it
does to us. Participative experiences of works of art are communions — experiences
so full and fruitful that they enrich our lives. Such experiences are life- enhancing
not just because of the great satisfaction they may give us at the moment but
also because they make more or less permanent contributions to our future lives.
Does da Vinci’s Mona Lisa ( Figure 1-6) heighten your perception of a painting’s
underlying structure, the power of simplicity of form, and the importance of a
fi gure’s pose? Does cummings’s “l(a” (Figure 1-7) heighten your perception of
falling leaves and deepen your understanding of the loneliness of death? Do you
see shovels differently, perhaps, after experiencing Shovel by Dine ( Figure  2-1)?
If not, presumably they are not works of art. But this assumes that we have really
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25
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
participated with these works, that we have allowed them to work fully in our ex-
perience, so that if the meaning or content were present, it had a chance to reveal
itself to our awareness. Of the four basic distinctions — subject matter, artistic form,
content, and participation — the most fundamental is participation. We must not
only understand what it means to participate but also be able to participate. Other-
wise, the other basic distinctions, even if they make good theoretical sense, will not
be of much practical help in making art more important in our lives. The central
importance of participation requires further elaboration.
As participators, we do not think of the work of art with reference to cat e gor ies
applicable to objects — such as what kind of thing it is. We grasp the work of art
directly. When, for example, we participate with Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire
(Figure 2-4), we are not making geographical or geological observations. We are
not thinking of the mountain as an object. For if we did, Mont Sainte-Victoire pales
into a mere instance of the appro pri ate scientifi c categories. We might judge that
the mountain is a certain type. But in that process, the vivid impact of Cézanne’s
mountain would be lessened as the focus of our attention shifted beyond in the
direction of gener al ity. This is the natural thing to do with mountains if you are a
geologist.
When we are participators, our thoughts are dominated so much by something
that we are unaware of our separation from that something. Thus the artistic form
initiates and controls thought and feeling. When we are spectators, our thoughts
dominate something, and we are aware of our separation from that something.
FIGURE 2-4
Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-
Victoire . 1886–1887. Oil on canvas,
231⁄2 3 281⁄2 inches. The Phillips
Collection, Washington, D.C.
Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-
Victoire in Aix, France, throughout
his life. Local legend is that the
mountain was home to a god and
therefore a holy place.
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26
CHAPTER 2
We set the object into our framework. We see the Cézanne — name it, identify its
maker, classify its style, recall its background information — but this approach will
not lead us into the Cézanne as a work of art. Of course, such knowledge can be
very helpful. But that knowledge is most helpful when it is under the control of the
work of art work ing in our experience. This happens when the artistic form not
only sug gests that knowledge but also keeps it within the boundaries of the paint-
ing. Otherwise, the painting will fade away. Its splendid specifi city will be sacrifi ced
for some generality. Its content or meaning will be missed.
These are strong claims, and they may not be convincing. In any case, before
concluding our search for what a work of art is, let us seek further clarifi cation of
our other basic distinctions — artistic form, content, and subject matter. Even if you
disagree with the conclusions, clarifi cation helps understanding. And understand-
ing helps appreciation.
Participation and Artistic Form
The participative experience — the undivided and sustained attention to an object
or event that makes us lose our sense of separation from that object or event — is
induced by strong or artistic form. Participation is not likely to develop with weak
form because weak form tends to allow our attention to wander. Therefore, one
indication of a strong form is the fact that participation occurs. Another indica-
tion of artistic form is the way it clearly identifi es a whole or totality. In the visual
arts, a whole is a visual fi eld limited by boundaries that separate that fi eld from its
surroundings.
Both Adams’s photograph and Goya’s painting have visual fi elds with boundar-
ies. No matter what wall these two pictures are placed on, the Goya will probably
stand out more distinctly and sharply from its background. This is partly because
the Goya is in vibrant color and on a large scale — eight feet nine inches by thirteen
feet four inches — whereas the Adams photograph is nor mally exhibited as an eight
by ten-inch print. However carefully such a pho to graph is printed, it will probably
include some random details. No detail in the Goya, though, fails to play a part in
the total structure. To take one further instance, notice how the lines of the sol-
diers’ sabers and their straps reinforce the ruthless forward push of the fi ring squad.
The photograph, however, has a relatively weak form because a large number of
details fail to cooperate with other details. For example, running down the right
side of General Loan’s body is a very erratic line that fails to tie in with anything
else in the photograph. If this line were smoother, it would con nect more closely
with the lines formed by the Vietcong prisoner’s body. The connection between
killer and killed would be more vividly established.
Artistic form normally is a prerequisite if our attention is to be grasped and held.
Artistic form makes our participation possible. Some philosophers of art, such as
Clive Bell and Roger Fry, even go so far as to claim that the pres ence of artistic
form — what they call “signifi cant form” — is all that is nec es sary to identify a work
of art. And by signifi cant form, in the case of paint ing, they mean the interrelation-
ships of elements: line to line, line to color, color to color, color to shape, shape
to shape, shape to texture, and so on. The elements make up the artistic medium,
the “stuff” the form organizes. Ac cord ing to Bell and Fry, any reference of these
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27
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
elements and their in ter re la tion ships to actual objects or events should be basically
irrelevant in our awareness.
According to the proponents of signifi cant form, if we take explicit notice of
the executions as an important part of Goya’s painting, then we are not per ceiv ing
properly. We are experiencing the painting not as a work of art but rather as an
illustration telling a story, thus reducing a painting that is a work of art to the level
of commercial communications. When the lines, colors, and the like pull together
tightly, independently of any objects or events they may represent, there is a signif-
icant form. That is what we should perceive when we are perceiving a work of art,
not a portrayal of some object or event. Anything that has signifi cant form is a work
of art. If you ignore the objects and events represented in the Goya, signifi cant
form is evident. All the details depend on one another and jell, creating a strong
struc ture. There fore, the Goya is a work of art. If you ignore the objects and events
rep re sented in the Adams photograph, signifi cant form is not evident. The orga-
ni za tion of the parts is too loose, creating a weak structure. There fore, the photo-
graph, according to Bell and Fry, would not be a work of art. “To appreciate a work
of art,” according to Bell, “we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge
of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions.”
Does this theory of how to identify a work of art satisfy you? Do you fi nd that
in ignoring the representation of objects and events in the Goya, much of what is
important in that painting is left out? For example, does the line of the fi ring squad
carry a forbidding quality partly because you recognize that this is a line of men in
the process of killing other men? In turn, does the close relationship of that line
with the line of the long shadow at the bottom right depend to some degree upon
that forbidding quality? If you think so, then it follows that the artistic form of
this work legitimately and relevantly re fers to objects and events. Somehow artistic
form goes beyond itself, referring to objects and events from the world beyond
the form. Artistic form informs us about things outside itself. These things — as
revealed by the artistic form — we shall call the “content” of a work of art. But how
does the artistic form do this?
Content
Let us begin to try to answer the question posed in the previous section by examining
more closely the mean ings of the Adams photograph and the Goya painting. Both
basically, al though oversimply, are about the same abstract idea — barbarity. In the
case of the photograph, we have an example of this barbarity. Since it is very close
to any knowledgeable American’s interests, this instance is likely to set off a lengthy
chain of thoughts and feelings. These thoughts and feelings, furthermore, seem
to lie “beyond” the photograph. Suppose a debate de vel oped over the meaning of
this photograph. The photograph itself would play an important role primarily as
a starting point. From there on, the pho to graph would probably be ignored except
for dramatizing points. For ex am ple, one person might argue, “ Remember that this
occurred during the Tet offensive and innocent civilians were being killed by the
Vietcong. Look again at the street and think of the consequences if the terrorists
had not been eliminated.” Another person might argue, “General Loan was one of
the highest offi cials in South Vietnam’s government, and he was taking the law into
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28
CHAPTER 2
his own hands like a Nazi.” What would be very strange in such a de bate would be a
discussion of every detail or even many of the details in the photograph.
In a debate about the meaning of the Goya, however, every detail and its interre-
lationships with other details become relevant. The meaning of the painting seems
to lie “within” the painting. And yet, paradoxically, this mean ing, as in the case of
the Adams photograph, involves ideas and feelings that lie beyond the painting.
How can this be? Let us fi rst consider some back ground information. On May 2,
1808, guerrilla warfare had fl ared up all over Spain against the occupying forces of
the French. By the following day, Napoleon’s men were completely back in control
in Madrid and the sur round ing area. Many of the guerrillas were executed. And,
according to tra di tion, Goya portrayed the execution of forty-three of these guer-
rillas on May 3 near the hill of Principe Pio just outside Madrid. This background
in for ma tion is important if we are to understand and appreciate the painting fully.
Yet notice how differently this information works in our experience of the painting
compared with the way background information works in our ex pe ri ence of the
Adams photograph.
The execution in Adams’s photograph was of a man who had just mur dered one
of General Loan’s best friends and had then knifed to death his wife and six chil-
dren. The general was part of the Vietnamese army fi ght ing with the assistance of the
United States, and this photograph was widely disseminated with a caption describing
the victim as a suspected ter ror ist. What shocked Americans who saw the photograph
was the summary jus tice that Loan meted out. It was not until much later that the
details of the victim’s crimes were published.
With the Goya, the background information, although very helpful, is not as es-
sential. Test this for yourself. Would your interest in Adams’s pho to graph last very
long if you completely lacked background information? In the case of the Goya,
the background information helps us understand the where, when, and why of the
scene. But even without this information, the paint ing probably would still grasp and
hold the attention of most of us because it would still have signifi cant meaning. We
would still have a powerful image of barbarity, and the artistic form would hold us
on that image. In the Prado Mu seum in Madrid, Goya’s painting continually draws
and holds the attention of innumerable viewers, many of whom know little or noth-
ing about the re bel lion of 1808. Adams’s photograph is also a powerful image, of
course — and probably initially more powerful than the Goya — but the form of the
pho to graph is not strong enough to hold most of us on that image for very long.
With the Goya, the abstract idea (barbarity) and the concrete image (the fi ring
squad in the process of killing) are tied tightly together because the form of the paint-
ing is tight. We see the barbarity in the lines, colors, masses, shapes, groupings, and
lights and shadows of the painting itself. The details of the painting keep referring to
other details and to the totality. They keep holding our attention. Thus the ideas and
feelings that the details and their organization awaken within us keep merging with
the form. We are prevented from separating the meaning or content of the painting
from its form because the form is so fascinating. The form constantly intrudes, how-
ever unobtrusively. It will not let us ignore it. We see the fi ring squad kill ing, and
this evokes the idea of barbarity and the feeling of horror. But the lines, colors, mass,
shapes, and shadowings of that fi ring squad form a pat tern that keeps exciting and
guiding our eyes. And then the pattern leads us to the pattern formed by the victims.
Ideas of fatefulness and feelings of pathos are evoked, but they, too, are fused with the
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29
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
form. The form of the Goya is like a powerful magnet that allows nothing within its
range to escape its pull. Artistic form fuses or embodies its meaning with itself.
In addition to participation and artistic form, then, we have come upon another
basic distinction — content. Unless a work has content — meaning that is fused or
embodied with its form — we shall say that the work is not art. Content is the mean-
ing of artistic form. If we are correct (for our view is by no means universally ac-
cepted), artistic form always informs — has mean ing, or content. And that content,
as we experience it when we participate, is always ingrained in the artistic form. We
do not perceive an artistic form and then a content. We perceive them as insepa-
rable. Of course, we can sep a rate them analytically. But when we do so, we are not
having a participative expe rience. Moreover, when the form is weak — that is, less
than artistic — we experience the form and its meaning separately. We see the form
of the Adams photograph, and it evokes powerful thoughts and feelings. But the
form is not strong enough to keep its meaning fused with itself. The photograph
lacks content, not because it lacks meaning but be cause the meaning is not merged
with the form. Idea and image break apart.
Subject Matt er
The content is the meaning of a work of art. The content is embedded in the ar tis tic
form. But what does the content interpret? We shall call it subject mat ter. Content
is the interpretation — by means of an artistic form — of some sub ject matter. Thus
subject matter is the fourth basic distinction that helps iden tify a work of art. Since
every work of art must have a content, every work of art must have a subject mat-
ter, and this may be any aspect of expe ri ence that is of human interest. Anything
related to a human interest is a value. Some values are positive, such as pleasure
and health. Other val ues are negative, such as pain and ill health. They are values
because they are re lated to human interests. Negative values are the subject matter
of both Adams’s photograph and Goya’s painting. But the photograph, unlike the
paint ing, has no content. The less-than-artistic form of the photograph simply pre-
sents its subject matter. The form does not transform the sub ject matter, does not
enrich its signifi cance. In comparison, the artistic form of the painting enriches or
interprets its subject matter, says something signifi cant about it. In the photograph,
the subject matter is directly given. But the subject matter of the painting is not just
there in the painting. It has been transformed by the form. What is directly given
in the painting is the content.
The meaning, or content, of a work of art is what is revealed about a subject
matter. But in that revelation you must infer or imagine the subject matter. If
PERCEPTION KEY Goya and Adams Revisited
We have argued that the painting by Goya is a work of art and the photograph
by Adams is not. Even if the three basic distinctions we have made so far—artistic
form, participation, and content—are useful, we may have misapplied them. Bring
out every possible argument against the view that the painting is a work of art and the
photograph is not.
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30
CHAPTER 2
some one had taken a news photograph of the May 3 executions, that would be
a record of Goya’s subject matter. The content of the Goya is its interpre ta tion
of the barbarity of those executions. Adams’s photograph lacks content because
it merely shows us an example of this barbarity. That is not to dis parage the pho-
tograph, for its purpose was news, not art. A similar kind of photograph — that is,
one lacking artistic form — of the May 3 executions would also lack content. Now,
of course, you may disagree with these conclu sions for very good reasons. You
may fi nd more transformation of the sub ject matter in Adams’s photograph than in
Goya’s painting. For example, you may believe that transforming the visual experi-
ence in black and white dis tances it from reality and intensifi es content. In any case,
such disagreement can help the perception of both parties, provided the debate is
fo cused. It is hoped that the basic distinctions we are making — subject matter, ar-
tistic form, content, and participation — will aid that focusing.
Subject Matt er and Artistic Form
Whereas a subject matter is a value—something of importance—that we may per-
ceive before any artistic interpretation, the content is the signifi cantly interpreted
subject matter as re vealed by the artistic form. Thus the subject matter is never
directly presented in a work of art, for the subject matter has been transformed by
the form. Ar tis tic form transforms and, in turn, informs about life. The conscious
intentions of the artist may include magical, religious, political, economic, and other
purposes; the conscious intentions may not include the pur pose of clari fy ing values.
Yet underlying the artist’s activity — going back to cavework (Figure 1-1) — is always
the creation of a form that illuminates some thing from life, some subject matter.
Artistic form draws from the chaotic state of life, which, as van Gogh describes it,
is like “a sketch that didn’t come off ” — a distillation. In our interpretation, Adams’s
photograph is like “a sketch that didn’t come off,” because it has numerous mean-
ingless details. Goya’s form eliminates meaningless detail. A work of art creates an
illusion that illuminates reality. Thus such paradoxical declarations as Delacroix’s are
explained: “Those things which are most real are the illusions I create in my paint-
ings.” Or Edward Weston’s “The photographer who is an artist reveals the essence
of what lies before the lens with such clear insight that the beholder may fi nd the
recreated image more real and comprehensible than the actual object.” Camus: “If
the world were clear, art would not exist.” Artistic form is an economy that produces
a lucidity that enables us better to understand and, in turn, manage our lives. Hence
the informing of a work of art reveals a subject matter with value dimensions that go
beyond the artist’s idiosyncrasies and perversities. Whether or not Goya had idiosyn-
crasies and perversities, he did justice to his subject matter: He revealed it. The art of
a period is the revelation of the collective soul of its time.
Participation, Artistic Form, and Content
Participation is the necessary condition that makes possible our insightful percep-
tion of artistic form and content. Unless we participate with the Goya, we will fail to
see the power of its artistic form. We will fail to see how the details work together
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31
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
to form a totality. We will also fail to grasp the content fully, for artistic form and
content are inseparable. Thus we will have failed to gain insight into the subject
matter. We will have collected just one more instance of barbarity. The Goya will
have basically the same ef fect upon us as Adams’s photograph except that it may be
less important to us because it happened long ago. But if, on the contrary, we have
partic i pated with the Goya, we probably will never see such things as executions in
quite the same way again. The insight that we have gained will tend to re fo cus our
vision so that we will see similar subject matters with heightened awareness.
Look, for example, at the photograph by Kevin Carter (Figure 2-5), which was
published in the New York Times on March 26, 1993, and which won the Pul it zer
Prize for photography in 1994. The form isolates two dramatic fi g ures. The clos-
est is a starving Sudanese child making her way to a feeding cen ter. The other is a
plump vulture waiting for the child to die. This pow er ful photograph raised a hue
and cry, and the New York Times published a com men tary explaining that Carter
chased away the vulture and took the child to the feeding center. Carter committed
suicide in July 1994.
FIGURE 2-5
Kevin Carter, Vulture and Child in
Sudan. 1993. Silver halide.
Carter saved this child, but became
so depressed by the terrible
tragedies he had recorded in Sudan
and South Africa that he committed
suicide a year after taking this
photograph.
PERCEPTION KEY Adams, Carter, and Goya
1. Does our discussion of the Adams photograph aff ect your response to Carter’s
photograph?
2. To what extent does Carter’s photograph have artistic form? Are there as many
meaningless details in the Carter as in the Adams?
continued
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32
CHAPTER 2
Artistic Form: Examples
Let us examine artistic form in a series of examples taken from the work of the
late Roy Lichtenstein, in which the subject matter, compared with Goya’s May 3,
1808, is not so obviously important. With such examples, a purely formal ana ly sis
should seem less artifi cial. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lich ten stein be came
interested in comic strips as subject matter. The story goes that his two young boys
asked him to paint a Donald Duck “straight,” without the en cum brances of art. But
much more was involved. Born in 1923, Lich ten stein grew up before the invention
of television. By the 1930s, the comic strip had be come one of the most important
of the mass media. Ad ven ture, romance, sen ti men tal ity, and terror found expression
in the stories of Tarzan, Flash Gor don, Superman, Wonder Woman, Steve Roper,
Winnie Winkle, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Batman and Robin, and the like.
The purpose of the comic strip for its producers is strictly commercial. And be-
cause of the large market, a premium has always been put on making the processes of
production as inexpensive as possible. And so generations of mostly unknown com-
mercial artists, going far back into the nineteenth century, developed ways of quick,
cheap color printing. They developed a technique that could turn out cartoons like
the products of an assembly line. Moreover, because their market included a large
number of children, they developed ways of producing images that were immedi-
ately understandable and of striking impact.
Lichtenstein reports that he was attracted to the comic strip by its stark
sim pli city — the blatant primary colors, the ungainly black lines that encircle the
shapes, the balloons that isolate the spoken words or the thoughts of the characters.
He was struck by the apparent inconsistency between the strong emotions of the sto-
ries and the highly impersonal, mechanical style in which they were expressed. Despite
the crudity of the comic strip, Lichtenstein saw power in the directness of the medium.
Somehow the car toons mirrored something about our selves. Lichtenstein set out to
clarify what that something was. At fi rst people laughed, as was to be expected. He was
called the “worst artist in America.” Today he is considered one of our best.
The accompanying examples (Figures 2-6 to 2-15) pair the original car toon
with Lichtenstein’s transformation.1 Both the comic strips and the trans for ma tions
3. Why are your answers to these questions fundamentally important in determining
whether Adams’s photograph or Carter’s photograph or Goya’s painting or all of
them are works of art?
4. Describe your experience regarding your participation with either Adams’s or
Carter’s photograph or Goya’s painting. Can you measure the intensity of your
participation with each of them? Which work do you refl ect upon most when you
relax and are not thinking directly on the subject of art?
5. The intensity of your reactions to the Adams and Carter photographs may well be
stronger than the intensity of your experience with the Goya. If so, should that
back up the assertion that the photographs are works of art?
1These examples were suggested to us by an article on Lichtenstein’s balloons. Albert Boime,“Roy
Lichtenstein and the Comic Strip,” Art Journal, vol. 28, no. 2 (Winter 1968–69): 155–159.
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FIGURE 2-6
Pair 1a
The exploration of popular forms of graphic art gave Pop artists of
the 1960s a source of inspiration that appealed to a wide audience.
FIGURE 2-7
Pair 1b
33
FIGURE 2-8
Pair 2a
FIGURE 2-9
Pair 2b
originally were in color, and Lichtenstein’s paintings are much larger than the
comic strips. For the purpose of analysis, however, our reproductions are presented
in black and white, with the sizes equalized. The absence of color and the reduction
of size all but destroy the power of Lich ten stein’s work, but these changes will help
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FIGURE 2-11
Pair 3b
FIGURE 2-10
Pair 3a
Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein treats anonymous comic strip panels
as if they were early sketches that need development to make them
visually stronger.
FIGURE 2-13
Pair 4b
FIGURE 2-12
Pair 4a
34
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Compare your analysis of Pair 1 with ours (Figures 2-6 and 2-7). Example a
of Pair 1, we think, has a much stronger structure than b. The organization of
the parts of a is much more tightly unifi ed. The circles formed by the peep hole
and its cover in a have a graceful, rhythmic unity lacking in b. Note how in a the
contour lines, formed by the overlapping of the cover on the right side, have a
long sweeping effect. These lines look as if they had been drawn by a human hand.
In b the analogous contours, as well as the circles to which the contours belong,
look as if they had been drawn with the aid of a compass. In a the circular border
35
us compare the structures. They will also help us concentrate upon what is usually
the most obvious element of two-dimensional visual structure — line. The fi ve pairs
of ex am ples have been scrambled so that either the comic strip or Lichtenstein’s
paint ing of it may be on the left or the right.
PERCEPTION KEY Comic Strips and Lichtenstein’s
Transformations (Figures 2-6 through 2-15)
Decide which are the comic strips and which are Lichtenstein’s transformations.
De fend your decisions with reference to the strength of organization. Presumably,
Lich ten stein’s works will possess much stronger structures than those of the
com mer cial artists. Be specifi c and detailed. For example, compare the lines and
shapes as they work together in each example. Take plenty of time, for the perception
of artistic form is something that must “work” in you. Such perception never comes
instantaneously. Compare your judgments with those of others, and only then study
our analysis.
FIGURE 2-14
Pair 5a
FIGURE 2-15
Pair 5b
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36
CHAPTER 2
of  the cover is broken at the right edge and by the balloon above, helping to
soften the hard defi niteness not only of this circle but also of the contours it forms
with the circle of the peephole. In a, also, the man’s fi ngers and most of his face
are shadowed. These contrasts help give variety and irregularity to the peephole
circle, which blends in smoothly with its surroundings compared to the abrupt
insularity of the peep hole in b. Notice, too, that in b a white outline goes almost
completely around the cover, whereas in a this is avoided. Moreover, the balloon
in a over lies a signifi cant portion of the cover. In b the balloon is isolated and
leaves the cover almost alone.
In a no part remains isolated. Thus the balloon as it extends over the breadth of
the painting helps bind the lower parts together. At the same time, the shape and
contours of the balloon help accent the shape and contours of the other details.
Even the shape of the man’s mouth is duplicated partially by the shape of the bal-
loon. Conversely, the balloon in b is more isolated from the other details. It just
hangs there. Yet notice how the tail of the balloon in a, just below the exclamation
point, repeats the curve of the latch of the cover and also how the curve of the tail
is caught up in the sweep of the curves of the peephole and cover. In a the latch of
the cover unobtrusively helps orbit the cover around the peephole. In b the latch
of the cover is awkwardly large, which helps block any sense of dynamic interre-
lationship between the peephole and its cover. Whereas the cover seems light and
graceful in a and only the top of a fi nger is needed to turn it back, in b a much
heavier fi nger is necessary. Similarly, the lines of face and hand in a lightly inte-
grate, whereas in b they are heavy and fail to work together very well. Compare,
for example, the eye in a with the eye in b. Finally, there are meaningless details
in b — the bright knob on the cover, for instance. Such details are eliminated in a.
Even the shape and size of the lettering in a belong to the whole in a way com-
pletely lacking in b.
Now turn to Pair 2 (Figures 2-8 and 2-9). Limit your analysis to the design func-
tioning of the lettering in the balloons of Pair 2.
PERCEPTION KEY Comic Strips and Lichtenstein’s
Transformation, Pair 2
1. Does the shape of the lettering in a play an important part in the formal
organi za tion? Explain.
2. Does the shape of the lettering in b play an important part in the formal
organi za tion? Explain.
Compare your analysis of Pair 2 with ours. We think it is only in b that the
shape of the lettering plays an important part in the formal organization. Con-
versely, the shape of the lettering is distracting in a. In b the bulky bal loons are
eliminated and only two important words are used — “torpedo” and “LOS!” The
three letters of “LOS” stand out very viv idly. A regular shape among so many
irregular shapes, the balloon’s simple shape helps the letters stand out. Also,
“LOS” is larger, darker, and more cen trally located than “torpedo.” Notice how
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37
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
no word or lettering stands out vividly in a. Moreover, as Albert Boime points out
in his study of Lich ten stein, the shapes of the letters in “LOS” are clues to the
structure of the panel:
The “L” is mirrored in the angle formed by the captain’s hand and the vertical contour of
his head and in that of the periscope. The “O” is repeated in the tubing of the periscope
handle and in smaller details throughout the work. The oblique “S” recurs in the high-
light of the captain’s hat just left of the balloon, in the contours of the hat itself, in the
shadow that falls along the left side of the captain’s face, in the lines around his nose and
in the curvilinear tubing of the periscope. Thus the dialogue enclosed within the balloon
is visually exploited in the interests of compositional structure.2
Now analyze Pair 3 (Figures 2-10 and 2-11), Pair 4 (Figures 2-12 and 2-13), and
Pair 5 (Figures 2-14 and 2-15).
Don’t be surprised if you have changed some of your decisions; perhaps your
reasoning has been expanded. Other people’s analyses, even when you disagree with
them, will usually suggest new ways of perceiving things. In the case of good criti-
cism, this is almost always true. The correct identifi cations follow, and they should
help you test your perceptive abilities.
Pair 1a Lichtenstein, I Can See the Whole Room . . . and There’s Nobody in It!
1961. Magna on canvas.
Pair 1b Panel from William Overgard’s comic strip Steve Roper.
Pair 2a Anonymous comic book panel.
Pair 2b Lichtenstein, Torpedo . . . Los! 1963. Magna on canvas.
Pair 3a Anonymous comic book panel.
Pair 3b Lichtenstein, Image Duplicator. 1963. Magna on canvas.
Pair 4a Anonymous comic book panel.
Pair 4b Lichtenstein, Hopeless. 1963. Magna on canvas.
Pair 5a Lichtenstein, The Engagement Ring. 1961. Magna on canvas.
Pair 5b Panel from Martin Branner’s comic strip Winnie Winkle.
2Boime, “Roy Lichtenstein and the Comic Strip.”
PERCEPTION KEY Comic Strips and Lichtenstein’s
Transformations, Pairs 3, 4, and 5
1. Decide once again which are the comic strips and which the transformations.
2. If you have changed any of your decisions or your reasons, how do you account for
these changes?
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38
CHAPTER 2
Subject Matt er and Content
While the male nude was a common subject in Western art well into the Renaissance,
images of the female body have since predominated. The variety of treatment of
the female nude is bewildering, ranging from the Greek idealization of erotic love
in the Venus de Milo to the radical reordering of Duchamp’s Nude Descending a
Staircase, No. 2. A number of female nude studies follow (Figures 2-16 through 2-25).
FIGURE 2-16
Giorgione, Sleeping Venus. 1508–1510. Oil on canvas, 43 3 69 inches. Gemaldegalerie, Dresden.
Giorgione established a Renaissance ideal in his painting of the goddess Venus asleep in the Italian countryside.
PERCEPTION KEY I Can See the Whole Room . . . and Th ere’s
Nobody in It! (Figure 2-6)
Lichtenstein’s painting (Figure 2-6) recently sold for $45 million. Do you consider this
strong evidence that this painting is a work of art? Or is it conceivable that the art
world (dealers, collectors, and critics) has been taken? If Figure 2-6 is worth $45 mil-
lion, then how much do you think the comic strip panel, Figure 2-7, should sell for?
Do you think collectors will be willing to pay a million dollars for it? If not, why not?
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39
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
FIGURE 2-17
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bather
Arranging Her Hair. 1893. Oil on
canvas, 363⁄8 3 291⁄8 inches. National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
Chester Dale Collection.
Renoir’s impressionist interpretation
of the nude provides a late-
nineteenth-century idealization of a
real-life fi gure who is not a goddess.
Consider, as you look at them, how the form of the work interprets the female
body. Does it reveal it in such a way that you have an increased understanding of
and sensitivity to the female body? In other words, does it have content? Also ask
yourself whether the content is different in the two paintings by women compared
with those by men.
Most of these works are highly valued — some as masterpieces—because they are
powerful interpretations of their subject matter, not just pres en ta tions of the human
body as in Playboy. Notice how different the interpretations are. Any important sub-
ject matter has many different facets. That is why shovels and soup cans have limited
utility as subject matter. They have very few facets to offer for interpretation. The
female nude, however, is almost limitless. The next artist interprets something about
the female nude that had never been interpreted before, because the female nude
seems to be inexhaustible as a subject matter, more so perhaps than the male nude.
More precisely, these works all have somewhat different subject mat ters. All are
about the nude, but the painting by Giorgione is about the nude as ide alized, as
a goddess, as Venus. Now there is a great deal that all of us could say in trying to
describe Giorgione’s interpretation. We see not just a nude but an ide al i za tion that
presents the nude as Venus, the goddess who the Ro mans felt best expressed the
ideal of woman. She rep re sents a form of beautiful per fec tion that hu mans can only
strive toward. A de scrip tion of the subject matter can help us perceive the content if
we have missed it. In understanding what the form worked on — that is, the subject
matter — our perceptive apparatus is better pre pared to perceive the form-content,
the work of art’s structure and meaning.
FIGURE 2-18
Venus de Milo. Greece. Circa
100 BCE. Marble, 5 feet 1⁄2 inch.
Louvre Paris.
Since its discovery in 1820 on the
island of Cyclades, the Venus de
Milo has been thought to represent
the Greek ideal in feminine
beauty. It was originally decorated
with jewelry and may have been
polychromed.
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FIGURE 2-19
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Large Odalisque. 1814. Oil on canvas, 35 3 64 inches. Louvre Paris.
Ingres’s Odalisque is a frank portrait of a prostitute idealized by the addition of three extra vertebrae, achieving a lengthened torso.
FIGURE 2-20
Tom Wesselmann, 1931–2004,
study for Great American Nude.
1975. Watercolor and pencil,
191⁄2 3 54 inches. Private collection.
Wesselmann’s study leaves the face
blank and emphasizes the telephone
as a suggestion of this nude’s
availability in the modern world.
40
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FIGURE 2-21
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase,
No. 2. 1912. Oil on canvas, 58 3 35 inches.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. Louise and
Walter Arensberg Collection.
This painting provoked a riot in 1912 and
made Duchamp famous as a chief proponent
of the distortions of cubism and modern art
at that time.
FIGURE 2-23
Suzanne Valadon, Reclining Nude.
1928. Oil on canvas, 235⁄8 3
3011⁄16 inches. Photo: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. Robert
Lehman Collection, 1975.
Valadon interprets the nude simply,
directly. To what extent is the
fi gure idealized?
41
FIGURE 2-22
Standing Woman. Ivory Coast.
Nineteenth or twentieth century.
Wood and beads, 203⁄8 3 75⁄8 3
53⁄8 inches. Detroit Institute of Arts.
Standing Woman was once owned
by Tristan Tzara, a friend of
Picasso. Sculpture such as this
infl uenced modern painters and
sculptors in France and elsewhere
in the early part of the twentieth
century. It is marked by a direct
simplicity, carefully modeled and
polished.
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42
CHAPTER 2
FIGURE 2-24
Alice Neel, Margaret Evans Pregnant.
1978. Oil on canvas, 573⁄4 3 38 inches.
Collection, John McEnroe Gallery.
Neel’s Margaret Evans Pregnant is one of
a series of consciously anti-idealized nude
portraits of pregnant women.
PERCEPTION KEY Ten Female Nudes (Figures 2-16 to 2-25)
1. Which of these nudes is most clearly idealized? What visual qualities contribute to
that idealization?
2. Which of these nudes seem to be aware of being seen? How does their awareness
aff ect your interpretation of the form of the nude?
The subject matter of Renoir’s painting is the nude more as an earth mother.
In the Venus de Milo, the subject matter is the erotic ideal, the goddess of love. In
the Duchamp, it is a mechanized dissection of the female form in action. In the
Wesselmann, it is the nude as exploited. In the Ingres, it is the nude as pros ti tute. In
all eight paintings the subject matter is the female nude — but qual i fi ed in relation
to what the artistic form fo cuses upon and makes lucid.
The two paintings by Suzanne Valadon and Alice Neel treat the female nude some-
what differently from the others, which were painted by men. Neel’s painting empha-
sizes an aspect of femaleness that the men usually ignore — pregnancy. Her painting
does not show the alluring female but the female who is beyond allure. Valadon’s nude
is more traditional, but a comparison with Renoir and Giorgione should demonstrate
that she is far from their ideal.
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FIGURE 2-25
Philip Pearlstein, Two Female Models in the Studio. 1967. Oil on canvas, 501⁄8 3 601⁄4 inches. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen B. Booke.
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Pearlstein’s attention to anatomy, his even lighting, and his unsensuous surroundings seem to eliminate the erotic content associated
with the traditional female nude.
3. Nude Descending a Staircase caused a great uproar when it was exhibited in New York
in 1913. Do you feel it is still a controversial painting? How does it interpret the
female nude in comparison with the other paintings in this group? Could the nude
be male? Why not? Suppose the title were Male Descending or Body Descending. Isn’t
the sense of human movement the essential subject matter?
4. If you were not told that Suzanne Valadon and Alice Neel painted Figures 2-23 and
2-24, would you have known they were painted by women? What are the principal
diff erences of treatment of the nude fi gure on the part of all these artists? Does
their work surprise you?
5. Decide whether Standing Woman (Figure 2-22) is the work of a male artist or a
female artist. What criteria do you use in your decision?
43
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44
CHAPTER 2
Further Th oughts on Artistic Form
Artistic form is an organized structure, a design, but it is also a window open-
ing on and focusing our world, helping us to perceive and understand what is
important. This is the function of artistic form. The artist uses form as a means
to understanding some subject matter, and in this process, the subject matter
exerts its own imperative. A subject matter has, as Edmund Husserl puts it, a
EXPERIENCING Interpretations of the Female Nude
1. Is there an obvious diff erence between the representation of the female nude by
male and female artists?
2. Does distortion of the human fi gure help distance the viewer from the subject?
3. To what extent does the represented fi gure become a potential sexual object?
Some suggestions for analysis:
First, working backward, we can see that the question of the fi gure being a sexual
object is to a large extent parodied by Tom Wesselmann’s study for Great American Nude
(Figure 2-20). The style and approach to painting is couched in careful design includ-
ing familiar objects—the telephone, the rose, the perfume bottle, the sofa cushions,
the partial portrait—all of which imply the boudoir and the commodifi cation of women
and sex. The fi gure’s face is totally anonymous, implying that this is not a painting of
a woman, but of the idea of the modern American woman, with her nipple carefully
exposed to accommodate advertising’s breast fetish as a means of selling goods.
Even Ingres’s Large Odalisque, (Figure 2-19), a painting whose subject is supposedly a
high-class prostitute, is less a sexual object than Wesselmann’s. For one thing, her body
is less revealed than Wesselmann’s, and her face, with its remarkable gaze obviously
examining the person who observes her, suggests she is in command of herself and is
not to be taken lightly. The objects in the painting are sumptuous and sensuous—rich
fabrics, a gold-handled peacock feather duster, silks behind her, a jeweled belt on the
divan and a jeweled headpiece, and in the lower right, a rack of what may be pipes to
increase the pleasure of the evening.
Then, the question of the distortion of the subject is powerfully handled by
Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (Figure 2-21). This painting provoked
a riot in 1912 because it seemed to be a contemptuous portrait of the nude at a
time when the nude aesthetic was still academic in style. Duchamp was taunting the
audience for art, while also fi nding a modern technological representation of the nude
on canvas that mimed the cinema of his time. Philip Pearlstein’s study of two nudes
(Figure 2-25) moves toward a de-idealization of the nude. He asks us to look at the
nudes without desire, yet with careful attention to form and color.
Finally, we may partly answer the question of whether women paint nude
females diff erently by looking at Suzanne Valadon’s (Figure 2-23) and Alice Neel’s
(Figure  2-24) paintings. Neel represents Margaret Evans in a manner emphasizing
her womanness, not her sexual desirability. Hers is the only pregnant female fi gure—
emphasizing the power of women to create life. Valadon’s nude makes an eff ort to
cover herself while looking at the viewer. She is relaxed yet apprehensive. There is no
attempt at commodifi cation of either of these fi gures, which means we must look at
them very diff erently from the rest of the paintings represented here.
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45
WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?
“structure of determination” that to some signifi cant degree is independent of
the artist. Even when the ideas of the artist are the subject matter, they chal-
lenge and resist, forcing the artist to discover their signifi cance by discarding
irrelevancies.
Subject matter is friendly, for it assists interpretation, but subject matter is also hos-
tile, for it resists interpretation. Otherwise there would be no fundamental stimulus
or challenge to the creativity of the artist. Only subject matter with interesting latent
or uninterpreted values can challenge the artist, and the artist discovers these values
through form. If the maker of a work takes the line of least resistance by ignoring the
challenge of the subject matter—pushing the subject matter around for entertaining
or escapist effects instead of trying to uncover its signifi cance—the maker functions as
a decorator rather than an artist.
Whereas decorative form merely pleases, artistic form informs about subject mat-
ter embedded in values that to an overwhelming extent are produced independently
of the artist. By revealing those values, the artist helps us understand ourselves and
our world, provided we participate, or “think from.”
Thinking from is a fl owing experience. One thought or image or sensation
merges into another, and we don’t know where we are going for certain, except
that what we are thinking from is moving and controlling the fl ow, and clock time
is irrelevant. Instead of objects being fi xed points of reference, from which our
“thinking at” proceeds in a succession of stops, there is no stopping when we think
from, because each thing unfolds in a duration in which beginning, middle, and
end meld.
Thinking from is often interrupted—someone moves in front of the painting, the
telephone call breaks the reading of the poem, someone goes into a coughing fi t at the
concert—but as long as we keep coming back to thinking from as dominant over think-
ing at, we have something of the wonder of participation.
Summary
A work of art is a form-content. An artistic form is a form-content. An artistic form
is more than just an organization of the elements of an artistic medium, such as the
lines and colors of painting. The artistic form interprets or clarifi es some subject
matter. The subject matter, strictly speaking, is not in a work of art. When partici-
pating with a work of art, one can only imagine the subject matter, not perceive it.
The subject matter is only suggested by the work of art. The interpretation of the
subject matter is the content, or meaning, of the work of art. Content is embodied
in the form. The content, unlike the subject matter, is in the work of art, fused
with the form. We can separate content from form only by analysis. The ultimate
justifi cation of any analysis is whether it enriches our participation with that work,
whether it helps that work “work” in us. Good analysis or criticism does just that.
But, conversely, any analysis not based on participation is unlikely to be helpful.
Participation is the only way to get into direct contact with the form-content,
so any analysis that is not based upon a participative experience inevitably misses
the work of art. Participation and good analysis, although necessarily occurring at
different times, end up hand in hand.
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46
CHAPTER 2
In this chapter, we have elaborated one set of guidelines. Other sets are possi-
ble, of course. We have discussed one other set very briefl y: that a work of art is
signifi cant form. If you can conceive of other sets of guidelines, make them explicit
and try them out. The ultimate test is clear: Which set helps you most in appreci-
ating works of art? We think the set we have proposed meets that test better than
other proposals. But this is a large question indeed, and your decision should be
delayed. In any event, we will now investigate the principles of criticism. These
principles will help show us how to apply our set of guidelines to specifi c examples.
Then we will be properly prepared to examine the extraordinary uniqueness of the
various arts.
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47
C h a p t e r 3
BEING A CRITIC
OF THE ARTS
In this chapter, we are concerned with establishing the goals of responsible criticism. The act of responsible criticism aims for the fullest under stand ing and
participation possible. Being a responsible critic de mands be ing at the height of
awareness while examining a work of art in de tail, es tab lish ing its context, and clar-
ifying its achievement. It is not to be confused with popular journalism, which often
sidetracks the critic into be ing fl ashy, neg a tive, and cute. The critic aims at a full
understanding of a work of art.
You Are Already an Art Critic
On a practical level, everyday criticism is an act of choice. You decide to change
from one program to another on television because you have made a critical choice.
When you fi nd that certain programs please you more than others, that, too, is a
matter of expressing choices. If you decide that David Lean’s fi lm Lawrence of Arabia
is better than John Ford’s fi lm The Searchers, you have made a critical choice. When
you stop on an avenue to admire a powerful piece of architecture while ignoring a
nearby building, you have again made a critical choice. We are active every day in
art criticism of one kind or another. Most of the time it is low-level criticism, almost
instinctive, establishing our preferences in music, literature, painting, sculpture,
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48
CHAPTER 3
architecture, fi lm, and video art. We have made such judgments since we were chil-
dren. The question now is how to move on to a higher-level criticism that accounts
for the subtlest distinctions in the arts and therefore the most-complex choices.
What qualifi es us to make critical distinctions when we are young and uninformed
about art? Usually it is a matter of simple pleasure. Art is designed to give us pleasure,
and for most children the most pleasurable art is simple: representational painting,
lyrical and tuneful melodies, recognizable sculpture, children’s verse, action stories,
and animated videos. It is another thing to move from that pleasurable beginning to
account for what may be higher-level pleasures, such as those in Cézanne’s still lifes,
Beethoven’s symphonies, Jean Arp’s sculpture Growth, Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do
Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus Rex, or David
Simon’s video triumph, The Wire. One of our purposes is to point to the kinds of
critical acts that help us expand our repertoire of responses to the arts.
Participation and Criticism
Participation with a work of art is complex, but also sometimes immediate. We think
participation is an essential act that makes art signifi cant in our lives. We have described
it as a loss of self, by which we mean that when contemplating, or experiencing, a work
of art we tend to become one with the experience. As in fi lms such as Casablanca,
Thelma and Louise, or The Bourne Supremacy, we become one with the narrative and
lose a sense of our physical space. We can also achieve a sense of participation with
painting, music, and the other arts. The question is not so much how we become
outside ourselves in relation to the arts, but why we may not achieve that condition in
the face of art that we know has great power but does not yet speak to us. Developing
critical skills will help bridge that gap and allow participation with art that may not be
immediately appealing. In essence, that is the purpose of an education in the arts.
Patience and perception are the keys to beginning high-level criticism. Using
painting as an example, it is clear that careful perception of color, rhythm, line, form,
and balance are all useful in understanding the artistic form and its resultant content.
Our discussion of Goya’s May 3, 1808 in terms of the emphasis of the line at the bot-
tom of the painting and the power of the lines formed by the soldiers’ rifl es, while in
contrast with the white blouse of one of the men being executed, helps us perceive the
painting’s artistic form. Coming to such a huge and demanding painting with enough
patience to stand and perceive the underlying formal structures, while seeing, too, the
power of the color and details designed to heighten our awareness of the signifi cance
of the action, makes it possible to achieve participation. From there it is possible to go
back to the Eddie Adams photograph Execution in Saigon and decide whether the same
kind of participation is possible and whether the formal signifi cance of the photograph
is comparable. Any decision we make in this context is an act of art criticism.
Three Kinds of Criticism
We point to three kinds of criticism that aim toward increasing our ability to partic-
ipate with works of art. In Chapter 2 we argued that a work of art is a form-content
and that good criticism, which involves careful examination and thoughtful analysis,
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49
BEING A CRITIC
OF THE ARTS
will sharpen our perception and deepen our understanding. Descriptive criticism
aims at a careful accounting of the formal elements in the work. As its name implies,
this stage of criticism is marked by an examination of the large formal elements as
well as the details in the composition. Interpretive criticism focuses on the content
of the work, the discovery of which requires refl ection on how the formal elements
transform the subject matter. Evaluative criticism, on the other hand, is an effort to
qualify the relative merits of a work.
CONCEPTION KEY Kinds of Criticism
1. In Chapter 2, which portions of the discussion of Goya’s May 3, 1808 and Adams’s
Execution in Saigon are descriptive criticism? How do they help you better perceive
the formal elements of the works?
2. Comment on the usefulness of the descriptive criticism of e. e. cummings’s poem
“1(a” in Chapter 1. When does that discussion become interpretive criticism?
3. “Experiencing: Interpretations of the Female Nude” (page 44) introduces a series
of interpretive criticisms of some of the paintings in Chapter 2. Which of these
interpretations, in your opinion, was most successful in sharpening your awareness
of the content of the painting? What are the most useful interpretive techniques
used in the discussion of the paintings of female nudes?
4. Evaluative criticism is used in Chapters 1 and 2. To what extent are you most en-
lightened by this form of criticism in our discussion of the Goya painting and the
Adams photograph? When is evaluative criticism invoked in our discussion of the
comic-strip comparisons? How important was it for you to use this form of criti-
cism in examining these works?
5. In what other discussions in this book do you fi nd evaluative criticism? How often
do you practice it on your own while examining the works in this book?
Descriptive Criticism
Descriptive criticism concentrates on the form of a work of art, describing, sometimes
exhaustively, the important characteristics of that form in order to improve our un-
derstanding of the part-to-part and part-to-whole inter relationships. At fi rst glance
this kind of criticism may seem unnecessary. After all, the form is all there, completely
given — all we have to do is observe. Yet we can spend time attending to a work we are
very much interested in and still not perceive all there is to perceive. We miss things,
oftentimes things that are right there for us to observe. For example, were you imme-
diately aware of the visual form of e. e. cummings’s “l(a” (Figure 1-7) — the spiraling
downward curve? Or, in Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3), were you immediately
aware of the way the line of the long dark shadow at the bottom right underlines the
line of the fi ring squad?
Good descriptive critics call our attention to what we otherwise might miss in an
artistic form. And more important, they help us learn how to do their work when
they are not around. We can, if we carefully attend to de scrip tive criticism, develop
and enhance our own powers of observation. Descriptive criticism, more than any
other type, is most likely to improve our participation with a work of art, for such
criticism turns us directly to the work itself.
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Study Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper (Figure 3-1), damaged by repeated res-
torations. Leonardo unfortunately experimented with dry fresco, which, as in this
case, deteriorates rapidly. Still, even in its present condition, this painting can be
overwhelming.
FIGURE 3-1
Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper.
Circa 1495–1498. Oil and tempera
on plaster, 15 feet 11/8 inches 3
28 feet 10½ inches. Refectory of
Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
Leonardo’s painting was one of
many on this subject, but his is
the fi rst to represent recognizably
human fi gures with understandable
facial expressions. This is the
dramatic moment when Jesus tells
his disciples that one of them will
betray him.
PERCEPTION KEY Last Supper
Descriptively criticize the Last Supper (Figure 3-1). Point out every facet of form that
seems important. Look for shapes that relate to each other, including groupings of
fi gures. Do any shapes stand out as unique—for example, the shapes of Christ and
Judas, who leans back fourth from the left? Describe the color relationships. Describe
the symmetry, if any. Describe how the lines tend to meet in the landscape behind
Christ’s head. The descriptions of Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3) might be helpful.
Leonardo planned the fresco so that the perspectival vanishing point would
reside in the head of Jesus, the central fi gure in the painting (Figure 3-2). He also
used the concept of the trinity, in the number 3, as he grouped each of the disciples
in threes, two groups on each side of the painting. Were you to diagram them, you
would see they form the basis of triangles. The three windows in the back wall
also repeat the idea of three. The fi gure of Jesus is itself a perfect isosceles trian-
gle, while the red and blue garment centers the eye. In some paintings, this kind
50
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of architectonic organization might be much too static, but because Leonardo
gathers the fi gures in dramatic poses, with facial expressions that reveal apparent
emotions, the viewer is distracted from the formal organization while being sub-
liminally affected by its perfection. It seems that perfection—appropriate to his
subject matter—was what Leonardo aimed at in creating the underlying structure
of the fresco. Judas, the disciple who will betray Jesus, is the fourth fi gure from the
left, his face in shadow, pulling back in shock.
Detail, Regional, and Structural Relationships The totality of any work of art
is a continuum of parts. A small part we shall call a detail, a large part a region.
Signifi cant relationships between or among details or regions we shall call detail
or regional relationships, respectively. Signifi cant relationships between or among
details or regions to the totality we shall call structural relationships. For example,
the triangular fi gure of Christ, with red and blue garments, in the center of the
Last Supper (Figure 3-1) is a dominant settling force for the eye, but it contrasts
immediately with the other triangular arrangements of the apostles. This is a detail
relationship. So, too, the white rectangular tablecloth beneath all the fi gures estab-
lishes a powerful element as a visual base. In turn, that white rectangle contrasts
with the receding white wall to the right of the composition. Each of the fi gures
in the painting, with their complementary colors of red, blue, and ochre, compete
with the dominant darkness of the upper left segment of the painting. Seeing the
many color garments and their natural triangular grouping is a matter of regional
relationship. However, seeing the competition of triangular and rectangular shapes
implies a structural relationship.
FIGURE 3-2
The Last Supper is geometrically
arranged with the single-point
vanishing perspective centered
on the head of Jesus. The basic
organizing form for the fi gures
in the painting is the triangle.
Leonardo aimed at geometric
perfection.
51
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Detail relationships dominate Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3), so much that at fi rst
sight, perhaps, no structure is apparent. The loops, splashes, skeins, and blots of
color were dripped or thrown on the canvas, which was laid out fl at on the fl oor
during execution. Yet there is not as much chaotic chance as one might suppose.
Most of Pollock’s actions were controlled accidents, the result of his awareness,
developed through long trial-and-error experience, of how the motion of his hand
and body along with the weight and fl uidity of the paint would determine the shape
and textures of the drips and splashes as he moved around the borders of the canvas.
Somehow the endless details fi nally add up to a self-contained sparkling totality
holding the rhythms of autumn.
Picasso’s Guernica, alternatively, is more or less balanced with respect to detail,
region, and structure. The detail relationships are organized into three major re-
gions: the great triangle — with the apex at the candle and two sides sloping down
to the lower corners — and the two large rectangles, vertically oriented, running
down along the left and right borders. Moreover, these regions are hierarchically
PERCEPTION KEY Detail, Regional, or Structural Dominance
Whether detail, regional, or structural relationships dominate — or are equal — often
varies widely from work to work. Compare Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4), Pollock’s
Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3), and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (Figure 1-6). In which painting
or paintings, if any, do detail relationships dominate? Regional relationships? Struc-
tural relationships?
FIGURE 3-3
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm
(Number 30). 1950. Enamel on
canvas, H. 105, W. 207 in. (266.7 3
525.8 cm). George A. Hearn Fund,
1957 (57.92). The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, NY.
Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm, one
of the best examples of his drip
technique, is often connected with
the improvisations of the jazz music
he listened to as he painted.
52
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53
BEING A CRITIC
OF THE ARTS
ordered. The triangular region takes precedence in both size and interest, and the
left rectangle, mainly because of the fascination of the impassive bull (what is he
doing here?), dominates the right rectangle, even though both are about the same
size. Despite the complexity of the detail relationships in Guernica, we gradually
perceive the power of a very strong, clear structure.
The basic formal element in Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (Figure 1-6) is the isosceles
triangle, but in this portrait the roundness of the three points of the triangle soften
the impact of the form. We are drawn to the hands, which are crossed in such a way
as to create an “upside down” triangle with the elbows and the other points. The
fl esh of her neck and bosom create another triangle, while her oval face dominates
the composition. Naturally, her smile has been an enigma because it implies an
understanding between the painter and the model. Its enigmatic quality is echoed
slightly by the strange landscapes in the background—they carefully avoid any sta-
ble geometric fi gure as a way of contrast. Return to the discussion of this painting in
“Experiencing The Mona Lisa” in Chapter 1 and consider the descrip tive criticism
offered there.
Interpretive Criticism
Interpretive criticism explicates the content of a work of art. It helps us un der-
stand how form transforms subject matter into content: what has been re vealed
about some subject matter and how that has been accomplished. The content of
any work of art will become clearer when the structure is per ceived in relation
to the details and regions. The examples on the next page (Fig ures 3-4 and 3-5)
demonstrate that the same principle holds for architecture as holds for painting.
The subject matter of a building — or at least an important component of it — is
usually the practical function the building serves. We have no diffi culty telling
which of these buildings was meant to serve as a bank and which was meant to
serve as a church.
PERCEPTION KEY Sullivan and Le Corbusier
1. If you had not been told, would you know that Le Corbusier’s building is a church?
Now, having been told, which structural details help identify it as a church?
2. Which of these buildings better uses its basic structure to suggest solidity? Which
better uses formal patterns to suggest fl ight and motion?
3. In which of these buildings does detail better complement the overall structure?
4. Most buildings have a central entrance. Comment on the centrality of Sullivan’s
and Le Corbusier’s buildings. Is centrality or the lack of it an artistic value?
5. Comment on how the formal values of these buildings contribute to their content
as serving their established functions as bank and church.
6. One of these buildings is symmetrical and one is not. Symmetry is often praised in
nature as a constituent of beauty. How important is symmetry in evaluating these
buildings?
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Form-Content The interpretive critic’s job is to fi nd out as much about an artistic
form as possible in order to explain its meaning. This is a particularly useful task
for the critic — which is to say, for us in particular — since the forms of numerous
works of art seem important but are not immediately understandable. When we
look at the examples of the bank and the church, we ought to realize that the sig-
nifi cance of these buildings is expressed by means of the form-content. It is true
that without knowing the functions of these buildings we could appreciate them
as structures without special functions, but knowing about their functions deepens
our appreciation. Thus, the lofty arc of Le Corbusier’s roof soars heavenward more
mightily when we recognize the building as a church. The form takes us up toward
heaven, at least in the sense that it moves our eyes upward. For a Christian church,
such a reference is perfect. The bank, however, looks like a pile of square coins or
banknotes. Certainly the form “amasses” something, an appropriate suggestion for
a bank. We will not belabor these examples, since it should be fun for you to do this
kind of critical job yourself. Observe how much more you get out of these examples
of architecture when you consider each form in relation to its meaning — that is,
the form as form-content. Furthermore, such analyses should convince you that
interpre tive criticism operates in a vacuum unless it is based on descriptive criti-
cism. Unless we perceive the form with sensitivity — and this means that we have
the basis for good descriptive criticism — we simply cannot understand the content.
In turn, any interpretive criticism will be useless.
FIGURE 3-5
Louis Henry Sullivan, Guaranty
(Prudential) Building, Buffalo,
New York. 1894.
Sullivan’s building, among the
fi rst high-rise structures, was
made possible by the use of mass-
produced steel girders supporting
the weight of each fl oor.
FIGURE 3-4
Le Corbusier, Notre Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamps, France. 1950–1955.
The chapel is built on a hill where a pilgrimage chapel was destroyed during the Second World War. Le
Corbusier used soaring lines to lift the viewer’s eyes to the heavens and the surrounding horizon, visible on
all four sides.
© Ezra Stoller/Esto
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55
BEING A CRITIC
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Participate with a poem by William Butler Yeats:
THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
PERCEPTION KEY Yeats’s Poem
1. Off er a brief description of the poem, concentrating on the nature of the rhyme-
words, the contrasting imagery, the rhythms of the lines.
2. What does the poet say he intends to do? Do you think he will actually do it?
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” is a lyric written from the fi rst person, “I.” Its three
stanzas of four lines each rhyme in simple fashion with full vowel sounds, and as a
result, the poem lends itself to being sung, as indeed it has of ten been set to music.
The poet portrays himself as a simple person pre fer ring the simple life. The descrip-
tive critic will notice the basic formal qualities of the poem: rhyme, steady meter,
the quatrain stanza structure. But the critic will also move further to talk about the
imagery in the poem: the image of the simply built cabin, the small garden with bean
rows, the bee hive, the sounds of the linnet’s wings and the lake water lapping the
shore, the look of noon’s purple glow. The interpretive critic will address the entire
project of the poet, who is standing “on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,”
longing to return to the distant country and the simple life. The poet “hears” the
lake waters “in the deep heart’s core,” which is to say that the simple life is ab so lutely
basic to the poet. The last three words actually repeat the same idea. The heart is
always at the core of a person, and it is always deep in that core. Such emphasis helps
produce in the reader a sense of completion and signifi cance.
Yeats later commented on this poem and said it was the fi rst poem of his career
to have a real sense of music. He also said that the imagery came to him when
he was stepping off a curb near the British Museum in the heart of London and
heard the sound of splashing water. The sounds immediately brought to mind the
imagery of the island, which is in the west of Ireland.
It is important that we grasp the relative nature of explanations about the content
of works of art. Even descriptive critics, who try to tell us about what is really there,
will perceive things in a way that is relative to their own per spec tive. An amusing
story in Cervantes’s Don Quixote il lu strates the point. Sancho Panza had two cousins
who were expert wine tasters. However, on occasion, they disagreed. One found the
wine excellent except for an iron taste; the other found the wine excellent ex cept
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56
CHAPTER 3
for a leather taste. When the barrel of wine was emptied, an iron key with a leather
thong was found. As N. J. Berrill points out in Man’s Emerging Mind,
The statement you often hear that seeing is believing is one of the most misleading ones
a man has ever made, for you are more likely to see what you believe than believe what
you see. To see anything as it really exists is about as hard an exercise of mind and eyes as
it is possible to perform.1
Two descriptive critics can often “see” quite different things in an artistic form.
This is not only to be expected but is also desirable; it is one of the reasons great
works of art keep us intrigued for centuries. But even though they may see quite
different aspects when they look independently at a work of art, when they talk it
over, the critics will usually come to some kind of agreement about the aspects each
of them sees. The work being described, after all, has verifi able, objective qualities
each of us can perceive and talk about. But it has subjective qualities as well, in the
sense that the qualities are observed only by “subjects.”
In the case of interpretive criticism, the subjectivity and, in turn, the relativity of
explanations are more obvious than in the case of descriptive criticism. The content
is “there” in the form, and yet, unlike the form, it is not there in a directly perceiv-
able way. It must be interpreted.
Interpretive critics, more than descriptive critics, must be familiar with the sub-
ject matter. Interpretive critics often make the subject matter more explicit for us
at the fi rst stage of their criticism, bringing us closer to the work. Perhaps the best
way initially to get at Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4) is to discover its subject mat-
ter. Is it about a fi re in a building or something else? If we are not clear about this,
perception of the painting is obscured. But after the subject matter has been eluci-
dated, good interpretive critics go much further: exploring and discovering mean-
ings about the subject matter as revealed by the form. Now they are concerned with
helping us grasp the content directly, in all of its complexities and subtleties. This
fi nal stage of interpretive criticism is the most demanding of all criticism.
Evaluative Criticism
To evaluate a work of art is to judge its merits. At fi rst, this seems to suggest that
evaluative criticism is prescriptive criticism, which prescribes what is good as if it
were a medicine and tells us that this work is superior to that work.
1N. J. Berrill, Man’s Emerging Mind (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1955), p. 147.
PERCEPTION KEY Evaluative Criticism
1. Suppose you are a judge of an exhibition of painting and Figures 2-16 through 2-25
in Chapter 2 have been placed into competition. You are to award fi rst, second, and
third prizes. What would your decisions be? Why?
2. Suppose, further, that you are asked to judge which is the best work of art from the fol-
lowing selection: cummings’s “l(a” (page 12), Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4),
and Le Corbusier’s church (Figure 3-4). What would your decision be? Why?
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57
BEING A CRITIC
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It may be that this kind of evaluative criticism makes you uncomfortable. If so,
we think your reaction is based on good instincts. First, each work of art is unique,
so a relative merit ranking of sev eral of them seems arbitrary. This is especially the
case when the works are in different media and have different subject matters, as in
the second ques tion of the Perception Key. Second, it is not clear how such judg ing
helps us in our basic critical purpose — to learn from our refl ections about works of
art how to participate with these works more intensely and enjoyably.
Nevertheless, evaluative criticism of some kind is generally necessary. As
authors, we have been making such judgments continually in this book — in the
selections for illustrations, for example. You make such judgments when, as you
enter a museum, you decide to spend your time with this painting rather than that.
Obviously, directors of museums must also make evaluative criticisms, because
usually they cannot display every work owned by the museum. If a van Gogh is on
sale — and one of his paintings, Vase with Fifteen Sunfl owers, was bought in 1997 for
$90 million — someone has to decide its worth. Evaluative criticism, then, is always
functioning, at least implicitly.
The problem, then, is how to use evaluative criticism as constructively as pos-
sible. How can we use such criticism to help our participation with works of art?
Whether Giorgione’s painting (Figure 2-16) or Pearlstein’s (Figure 2-25) deserves
fi rst prize seems trivial. But if almost all critics agree that Shakespeare’s poetry
is far superior to Edward Guest’s, and if we have been thinking Guest’s poetry
is better, we should do some reevaluating. Or if we hear a music critic whom
we respect state  that the music of Nora Jones is worth listening to — and up to
this time we have dismissed it — then we should indeed make an effort to listen.
Perhaps the basic importance of evaluative criticism lies in its commendation of
works that we might otherwise dismiss. This may lead us to delightful experiences.
Such criticism may also make us more skeptical about our own judgments. If
we think that the poetry of Edward Guest and the paintings of Norman Rockwell
(see Figure 14-5) are among the very best, it may be helpful for us to know that
other informed people think otherwise.
Evaluative criticism presupposes three fundamental standards: perfection,
insight, and inexhaustibility. When the evaluation centers on the form, it usually
values a form highly only if the detail and regional relationships are organically
related. If they fail to cohere with the structure, the result is distracting and thus
inhibits participation. An artistic form in which everything works together may
be called perfect. A work may have perfect organization, however, and still be
evaluated as poor unless it satisfi es the standard of insight. If the form fails to in-
form us about some subject matter — if it just pleases or interests or excites us but
doesn’t make some signifi cant difference in our lives — then, for us, that form is
not artistic. Such a form may be valued below artistic form because the participa-
tion it evokes, if it evokes any at all, is not lastingly signifi cant. Incidentally, a work
lacking representation of objects and events may possess artistic form. Abstract
art has a defi nite subject matter — the sensuous. Who is to say that the Pollock
(Figure 3-3) is a lesser work of art because it informs only about the sensuous?
The sensuous is with us all the time, and to be sensitive to it is exceptionally
life- enhancing.
Finally, works of art may differ greatly in the breadth and depth of their content.
The subject matter of Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3) — the sensuous — is
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58
CHAPTER 3
not as broad as the subject of Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4). Yet it
does not follow necessarily that the Cézanne is a superior work. The stronger the
content — that is, the richer the insight on the subject matter — the more intense
our participation, because we have more to keep us involved in the work. Such
works apparently are inexhaustible, and evaluative critics usually will rate only those
kinds of works as masterpieces.
One of the most popular and controversial art shows of recent times was
Sen sa tion: Young British Artists, originally viewed at the Royal Academy of Art
in London in 1997. Three hundred thousand viewers went to see art that was
described as shocking by a number of commentators. The show moved on to
Hamburg, Germany, where it was a signal success, and then on to the Brook lyn
Museum in New York in 1999, where it faced intense negative criticism from
churchmen and politicians. The museum put up a sign restricting the show to
those over seventeen (the British Academy restricted it to those over eighteen).
Ron Mueck’s four-foot-long Mask: Self-Portrait (Figure 3-6) was a sensation
because of its hugeness and its hyper-real style. Mueck had been making pup-
pets for children’s television in Australia. The Saatchi Gallery commissioned this
work for the Sensation show in London.
Rudolph Giuliani, mayor of New York at the time, did not see the show but was
horrifi ed by complaints from William Donahue, president of the Catholic League,
and cut off funding to the museum. He later restored it, but not until protesters
accused him of censorship. Churchmen and politicians thought the most shock-
ing work of art was by Chris Ofi li, a young black painter whose Holy Virgin Mary
(Figure 3-7) alarmed religious New Yorkers because elephant dung was part of the
mixed media that went into the painting.
FIGURE 3-6
Ron Mueck, Mask II. 2001–2002.
Mixed media, 303⁄8 3 461⁄2 3
331⁄2 inches. (77.2 3 118.1 3
85.1 cm). Collection of the Art
Supporting Foundation to the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Mueck’s huge sculptures were part
of the original Sensation show in
London. Their effect on the viewer
is one of surprise and, ultimately,
delight.
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59
BEING A CRITIC
OF THE ARTS
FIGURE 3-7
Chris Ofi li, Holy Virgin Mary. 1996.
Mixed media, 96 3 72 inches.
Victoria Miro Gallery, London.
This is another example of shock
art, by Ofi li, a British artist noted
for works referencing his African
heritage. Audiences were alarmed
when they discovered one of
the media was elephant dung,
a substance common in African
art, but not easily accepted by
Western audiences.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Sensation Show
1. Musician and artist David Bowie said Sensation was the most important show since
the 1917 New York Armory show in which Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase,
No. 2 (Figure 2-21) created a scandal, protest, and intense controversy. Most art
that was once shocking seems tame a few years later. To what extent do any of
these works of art still have shock value?
2. Should politicians like the mayor of New York punish major museums for showing
art that the politicians feel is off ensive? Does such an act constitute a legitimate
form of evaluative art criticism? Does it constitute art criticism if, like ex-mayor
Giuliani, the politician has not seen and experienced the art? Would you agree that
punishing museums for shows constitutes a form of censorship?
3. The Sensation show was described as shock art. Ofi li’s use of dung in a portrait of the
Madonna shocked many people. Why would it have been shocking? To what extent
is shock an important value in art? Would you agree with those who said Chris
Ofi li’s work was not art? What would be the basis for such a position?
4. Would Chris Ofi li’s painting be shocking if people were unaware that he painted
some of it with elephant dung? Would people be less alarmed if they knew that in
Africa such a practice in art is relatively common? Does any of this matter in mak-
ing a judgment about the painting’s success as a work of art? What matters most
for you in evaluating this painting?
continued
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60
CHAPTER 3
The Polish Rider (Figure 3-8), featured in “Experiencing: The Polish Rider,” was
originally attributed to Rembrandt. But in 1982 a group of fi ve scholars, members
of the Rembrandt Research Project, “disattributed” the painting. Studying subtle-
ties such as brushwork, color transitions, transparency, shadowing, and structuring,
they concluded that Willem Drost, a student of Rembrandt, was probably the artist.
In the Frick Museum in New York City, The Polish Rider no longer draws crowds.
Another work, presumably by Rembrandt, had been expected to sell for at least
$15 million. It too was disattributed and was sold for only $800,000!
5. Government offi cials in totalitarian states invariably censor the arts. They typically
approve only of realistic, idealized portraits of the “happy life” under their rule.
What do you make of an American elected offi cial condemning modern art, punish-
ing a public museum, and urging everyone to boycott the show?
EXPERIENCING The Polish Rider
1. Does knowing The Polish Rider was
probably painted by Willem Drost in-
stead of Rembrandt van Rijn diminish
your participation with the painting?
Does the fact that it was painted by a
student negatively aff ect your evalua-
tion of the painting?
2. Should a work of art be evaluated
completely without reference to its
creator?
3. How should our critical judgment of
the painting be aff ected by knowing
it was once valued at millions of dol-
lars and is now worth vastly less?
One of the authors, as a young adult,
saw this painting in the Frick Museum
and listened to a discussion of its mer-
its when it was thought to be by Rem-
brandt. Today the painting is neglected
partly because its value is thought to be
less, not because it is less excellent than
it was. Questions about monetary value
for works of art have been intensely de-
bated in the last three or four centuries
because the modern age has produced
individuals who can, like Charles Kane
in the fi lm Citizen Kane, amass huge col-
lections at great expense and then, like
FIGURE 3-8
Willem Drost, The Polish Rider. 1655. Oil on canvas, 46 3 531/8 inches. Frick Collection,
New York.
Long thought to be a painting by Rembrandt, The Polish Rider is now credited to one of his
gifted students. The Frick removed it from a prominent place after Julius Held determined
that it is probably the work of Willem Drost.
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Henry Clay Frick, create
great museums when they
die. Art critics do not feel a
painting is better because it
is worth more money. Eval-
uative judgments are made
on the basis of observation
and sometimes by compar-
ing works of art.
One school of thought
holds that paintings are
to be evaluated wholly on
their own merit without
reference to the artist who
created it. The Polish Rider,
for instance, would still be
held in great esteem if it
had not been assumed to
be by Rembrandt. But an-
other school of thought
holds that a painting is best
evaluated when seen in the
context of other paintings
by the same artists, or even in the context of other paintings with similar style and
subject matter.
Because in modern times artworks have sometimes been investment opportunities
for wealthy people, the question of value has become a fi nancial question even more
than an aesthetic question. The result is that some works of art have been grossly
overvalued by art critics who are swayed by the dollar value, not the artistic value. We
believe art must be valued for its capacity to provide us with insight and to promote
our participation, not for its likelihood to be worth a fortune.
4. Which school of thought do you belong to: those who evaluate a painting on its
own merits, or those who consider the reputation of the artist?
5. Prices for art soared enormously beginning in the 1980s. The highest price paid
at auction for a work of art was $120 million for Edvard Munch’s iconic image,
The Scream (Figure 3-9). Munch painted three other versions of this from 1893 to
1910. The other versions are in museums in Norway. Why would a pastel version
of this image be worth so much money? Do you feel its artistic value is very great
or not? How does its money value aff ect its artistic value?
FIGURE 3-9
LONDON, ENGLAND – April 12:
Gallery technicians at Sotheby’s
auction house stand guard in front
of ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch
on April 12, 2012 in London,
England. Munch used pastel on
board in 1895. This version of
“The Scream” is 23.2 3 31.1 inches.
61
Summary
Being a responsible critic demands being at the height of awareness while examin-
ing a work of art in detail, establishing its subject matter, and clarifying its achieve-
ment. There are three main types of criticism: Descriptive criticism focuses on
form, interpretive criticism focuses on content, and evaluative criticism focuses on
the relative merits of a work.
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62
CHAPTER 3
Good critics can help us understand works of art while also giving us the means
or techniques that will help us become good critics ourselves. They can teach
us about what kinds of questions to ask. Each of the following chapters on the
individual arts is designed to do just that — to give some help about what kinds of
questions a serious viewer should ask in order to come to a clearer perception and
deeper understanding of any specifi c work. With the arts, unlike many other areas
of human concern, the questions are often more important than the answers. The
real lover of the arts will often not be the person with all the answers, but rather
the one who asks the best questions. This is not because the answers are worthless
but because the questions, when properly applied, lead us to a new awareness, a
more exalted consciousness of what works of art have to offer. Then when we get
to the last chapter, this preparation will lead to better understanding of how the
arts are related to other branches of the humanities.
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63
P
art 2
T
H
E
A
R
T
SC h a p t e r 4
PAINTING
Our Visual Powers
Painting awakens our visual senses in such a way as to make us see color, shape, light,
and form in new ways. Painters such as Siqueiros, Goya, Cézanne, Wesselmann,
Valadon, Neel, and virtually all the painters illustrated in this book make demands
on our sensitivity to the visual fi eld, rewarding us with challenges and delights that
only painting can provide. But at the same time, we are also often dulled by day-to-
day experience or by distractions of business or study that make it diffi cult to look
with the intensity that great art requires. Therefore, we sometimes need to refresh
our awareness by sharpening our attention to the surfaces of paintings as well as
to their overall power. For example, by referring to the following Perception Key
we may prepare ourselves to look deeply and respond in new ways to some of the
paintings we considered in earlier chapters.
PERCEPTION KEY Our Visual Powers
1. Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3). Identify the three major colors
Pollock uses in addition to the background. How do these colors establish a
sense of visual rhythm? Which of the three colors is most intense? Which most
surprising?
continued
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64
CHAPTER 4
Our point is that everyday life tends to dull our senses so that we do not observe
our surroundings with the sensitivity that we might. For help we must go to the
artists, especially the painter and the sculptor—those who are most sensitive to the
visual appearances of things. With their aid, our vision can be made whole again,
as when we were children. Their works accomplish this by making things and their
qualities much clearer than they usually appear. The artist purges from our sight
the fi lms of familiarity. Painting, with its “all-at-onceness,” more than any other
art, gives us the time to allow our vision to focus.
The Media of Painting
Throughout this book we will be talking about the basic materials and media
in each of the arts, because a clear understanding of their properties will help
us understand what artists do and how they work. The most prominent media
in Western painting—and most painting in the rest of the world—are tempera,
fresco, oil, watercolor, and acrylic. In early paintings, the pigment—the actual
color—required a binder such as egg yolk, glue, or casein to keep it in solution and
permit it to be applied to canvas, wood, plaster, and other substances.
Tempera
Tempera is pigment bound by egg yolk and applied to a carefully prepared surface
like the wood panels of Cimabue’s thirteenth-century Madonna and Child Enthroned
with Angels (Figure 4-1). The colors of tempera sometimes look slightly fl at and
are diffi cult to change as the artist works, but the marvelous precision of detail
and the subtlety of linear shaping are extraordinary. The purity of colors, notably
in the lighter range, can be wondrous, as with the tinted white of the inner dress
2. Suzanne Valadon, Reclining Nude (Figure 2-23). Examine the piece of furniture, the
sofa, on which Valadon’s nude reclines. What color is it? Why is it an eff ective con-
trast to the nude? What are the designs on the sofa? What color are the lines of
the designs? How do they relate to the subject matter of the painting?
3. Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning (Figure 1-8). What are the most important
colors in the painting? How do they balance and complement each other? Why does
Hopper limit the intensity of the colors as he does? What is the visual rhythmic
eff ect of the patterns formed in the windows of the second fl oor? Are any two
windows the same? How does Hopper use unexpected forms to break the rhythm
of the fi rst level of shops? What emotional qualities are excited by Hopper’s control
of the visual elements in the painting?
4. Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4). How many colors does Cézanne
use in this painting? Which color is dominant? Which fi gure in the painting is most
dominant? How do the most important lines in the painting direct your vision?
Describe the way your eye moves through the painting. How does Cézanne use line
and color to direct your attention?
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65
PAINTING
FIGURE 4-1
Cimabue, Madonna and Child
Enthroned with Angels. Circa
1285–1290. Tempera and gold on
wood, 12 feet 73⁄4 inches 3 7 feet
4 inches. Uffi zi, Florence.
Cimabue’s painting is typical of
Italian altarpieces in the thirteenth
century. The use of tempera
and gold leaf creates a radiance
appropriate to a religious scene.
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66
CHAPTER 4
of Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned (Figure 4-2). In the fourteenth century, Giotto
achieves an astonishing level of detail in the gold ornamentation below and around
the Madonna. At the same time, his control of the medium of tempera permitted
him to represent fi gures with a high degree of individuality and realism, represent-
ing a profound change in the history of art.
Fresco
Because many churches and other buildings required paintings directly on plaster
walls, artists perfected the use of fresco, pigment dissolved in lime water applied to
wet plaster as it is drying. In the case of wet fresco, the color penetrates to about
one-eighth of an inch and is bound into the plaster. There is little room for error
FIGURE 4-2
Giotto, Madonna Enthroned. Circa
1310. Tempera and gold on wood,
10 feet 83⁄16 inches 3 6 feet 83⁄8
inches. Uffi zi, Florence.
Giotto, credited with creating a
realistic portrayal of fi gures from
nature in religious art, lavishes
his Madonna Enthroned with
extraordinary detail permitted
by the use of tempera and gold
leaf. Giotto was one of Florence’s
greatest painters.
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because the plaster dries relatively quickly, and the artist must understand how the
colors will look when embedded in plaster and no longer wet. One advantage of
this medium is that it will last as long as the wall itself. One of the greatest exam-
ples of the use of fresco is Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, on the ceiling of which
is the famous Creation of Adam (Figure 4-3).
Oil
Oil painting uses a mixture of pigment, linseed oil, varnish, and turpentine to pro-
duce either a thin or thick consistency, depending on the artist’s desired effect. In
the fi fteenth century, oil painting dominated because of its fl exibility, the richness
of its colors, and the extraordinary durability and long-lasting qualities. Because
oil paint dries slowly and can be put on in thin layers, it offers the artist remark-
able control over the fi nal product. No medium in painting offers a more fl exible
blending of colors or subtle portrayal of light and textures, as in Parmigianino’s The
Madonna with the Long Neck (Figure 4-4). Oil paint can be messy, and it takes some-
times months or years to dry completely, but it has been the dominant medium in
easel painting since the Renaissance.
FIGURE 4-3
Michelangelo, Creation of Adam,
detail. Circa 1508–1512. Fresco.
Michelangelo’s world-famous
frescoes in the Sistine Chapel have
been cleaned to reveal intense,
brilliant colors. This detail from
the ceiling reveals the long-lasting
nature of fresco painting. The
period 1508–1512 marks the High
Renaissance in Italy.
67
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68
CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 4-4
Parmigianino, The Madonna with
the Long Neck. Circa 1535. Oil
on panel, 85 3 52 inches. Uffi zi,
Florence.
Humanistic values dominate the
painting, with recognizably distinct
faces, young people substituting
for angels, and physical distortions
designed to unsettle a conservative
audience. This style of oil painting,
with unresolved fi gures and
unanswered questions, is called
Mannerism—painting with an
attitude.
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69
PAINTING
Watercolor
The pigments of watercolor are bound in a water-soluble adhesive, such as gum-
arabic, a gummy plant substance. Usually, watercolor is slightly translucent so that
the whiteness of the paper shows through. Unlike artists working with tempera or
oil painting, watercolorists work quickly, often with broad strokes and in broad
washes. The color resources of the medium are limited in range, but often striking
in effect. Unlike tempera, watercolor usually does not lend itself to precise detail. In
his Blue Mountain on the Circle Drive Near Taos (Figure 4-5), John Marin delights
in the unfi nished quality of the watercolor and uses its energy to communicate his
affection for this view.
Acrylic
A modern synthetic medium, acrylic is fundamentally a form of plastic resin that
dries very quickly and is fl exible for the artist to apply and use. One advantage
of acrylic paints is that they do not fade, darken, or yellow as they age. They can
support luminous colors and look sometimes very close to oil paints in their fi nal
effect. Many modern painters use this medium. Helen Frankenthaler’s The Bay
(Figure 4-6) is a large abstract painting whose colors are somewhat fl at, but suggest
a range of intensities similar to what we see in watercolor details.
FIGURE 4-5
John Marin, Blue Mountain on
the Circle Drive Near Taos. 1929.
Watercolor, crayon, and graphite
on paper, 21¾ 3 30¼ inches.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Alfred Stieglitz Collection.
Although a mixed-media
composition, Blue Mountain on the
Circle Drive Near Taos is dominated
by watercolor. An apparently
unfi nished quality imparts a
sense of energy, spontaneity, and
intensity typical of Marin’s work.
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70
CHAPTER 4
Other Media and Mixed Media
The dominant medium for Chinese and many Asian artists has been ink, as in Wang
Yuanqi’s Landscape after Wu Zhen (Figure 4-7). Modern painters often employ
mixed media, using duco and aluminum paint, house paint, oils, even grit and sand.
Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3) is a good example. Andy Warhol
used acrylic and silk-screen ink in his famous Marilyn Monroe series. Some basic
kinds of prints (the graphic arts) are woodcut, engraving, linocut, etching, drypoint,
lithography, and aquatint.
FIGURE 4-6
Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay.
1963. Acrylic on canvas, 6 feet
87/8 inches 3 6 feet 97/8 inches.
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.
The painting reveals the fl uid
qualities of acrylics, essentially
sensuous color permitted to radiate
through a range of tones. Its size,
almost seven feet square, intensifi es
our reaction to the shapes the
colors take, which Frankenthaler
controls in a characteristic fashion.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Media of Painting
1. Compare the detail of tempera in Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned (Figure 4-2) with
the radiance of color in Parmigianino’s oil painting The Madonna with the Long Neck
(Figure 4-4). What diff erences do you see in the quality of detail in each painting
and in the quality of the color?
2. Contrast the eff ect of Marin’s watercolor approach to nature with Wang Yuanqi’s
use of ink. Which communicates a sense of nature more readily?
continued
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71
PAINTING
FIGURE 4-7
Wang Yuanqi, Landscape after
Wu Zhen. 1695. Hanging scroll;
ink on paper, 42¾ 3 20¼ inches.
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Bequest of John M. Crawford Jr.
Typical of many of the great
Chinese landscape scrolls, Wang
Yuanqi uses his brush and ink
prodigiously, fi nding a powerful
energy in shaping the rising
mountains and its trees. The
presence of tiny houses and rising
pathways to the heights places
humanity in a secondary role in
relation to nature and to the visual
power of the mountain itself.
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Elements of Painting
The elements are the basic building blocks of a medium. For painting they are line,
color, texture, and composition.1 Before we discuss the elements of painting, con-
sider the issues raised by the Perception Key associated with Botticelli’s painting,
Venus and Mars (Figure 4-8).
1Light, shape, volume, and space are often referred to as elements, but strictly speaking, they are
compounds.
PERCEPTION KEY Venus and Mars
The subject matter of this painting is the struggle between the sexes, a scene after
lovemaking by two mythical gods.
1. What powerful ideas do Venus and Mars represent? Would you know this painting
pictured a power struggle if you knew nothing about the mythic characters?
2. Mars is reduced to a snoring lump of fl esh. Venus is dreamy but alert. What does
this tell you about their struggle?
3. How does the clarity of the line in this painting help you understand the signifi –
cance of the action? For which of these fi gures is clarity of line more revealing of
character?
4. Compare this Botticelli with the paintings by Cimabue, Giotto, and Michelangelo
(Figures 4-1, 4-2, and 4-3). All are about gods. What makes the concerns of Botti-
celli diff erent from those of the other painters?
FIGURE 4-8
Botticelli, Venus and Mars. 1483.
Egg tempera and oil on poplar,
27.2 3 68.3 inches.
Botticelli’s painting combines
media to achieve a heightened
detail and radiance. In ancient
myth, Venus, the goddess of love,
and Mars, the god of war, are
often in confl ict. Botticelli portrays
them here with love clearly
having conquered war. The satyrs,
fertility fi gures in myth, are playful
children celebrating a victory.
3. Compare the traditional fresco of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (Figure 4-3) with
Leonardo’s experimental fresco of the Last Supper (Figure 3-1). To what extent does
Michelangelo’s use of the medium help you imagine what Leonardo’s fresco would
have looked like if he had used Michelangelo’s technique?
72
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73
PAINTING
Line
Line is a continuous marking made by a moving point on a surface. Line outlines
shapes and can contour areas within those outlines. Sometimes contour or internal
lines dominate the outlines, as with the robe of Cimabue’s Madonna (Figure 4-1).
Closed line most characteristically is hard and sharp, as in Lichtenstein’s Torpedo . . .
Los! (Figure 2-9). In the Cimabue and in Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, the line is also
closed but somewhat softer. Open line most characteristically is soft and blurry, as
in Frankenthaler’s The Bay (Figure 4-6) and Renoir’s Bather Arranging Her Hair
(Figure 2-17).
PERCEPTION KEY Goya, Frankenthaler, and Cézanne
1. Goya used both closed and open lines in his May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3). Locate these
lines. Why did Goya use both kinds?
2. Does Frankenthaler use both closed and open lines in The Bay (Figure 4-6)? Locate
these lines.
3. Identify outlines in Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4). There seem to be no
outlines drawn around the small bushes in the foreground. Yet we see these bushes
as separate objects. How can this be?
Line can suggest movement. Up-and-down movement may be indicated by the
vertical, as in Parmigianino’s The Madonna with the Long Neck (Figure 4-4). Lateral
movement may be indicated by the horizontal and tends to stress stability, as in the
same Parmigianino. Depending on the context, however, vertical and horizontal lines
may appear static, as in Wesselmann’s study for Great American Nude (Figure 2-20)
and Lichtenstein’s Torpedo . . . Los! (Figure 2-9). Generally, diagonal lines, as in
Cézanne’s Mont Sainte- Victoire (Figure 2-4), express more tension and movement
than verticals and horizontals. Curving lines usually appear softer and more fl owing,
as in Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (Figure 2-16).
Line in Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (Figure 4-9) can also suggest rhythm
and movement, especially when used with vibrant colors, which in this painting are
intended to echo the neon lights of 1940s Broadway. Mondrian lived and worked for
twenty years in Paris, but in 1938, with Nazis threatening war, he moved to London.
In 1940, with the war under way, he went to New York. He was particularly attracted
to American jazz music. He arrived in New York when the swing bands reached their
height of popularity and he used his signature grid style in Broadway Boogie Woogie to
interpret jazz visually. The basic structure is a grid of vertical and horizontal yellow
lines—and only vertical and horizontal lines. On these lines, and between these lines,
Mondrian places patterns of intense blocks of color to suggest the powerful jazz
rhythms he loved so much. Even the large “silent” blocks of white imply musical
rests.
An axis line is an imaginary line that helps determine the basic visual directions
of a painting. In Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3), for example, two powerful
axis lines move toward and intersect at the white shirt of the man about to be
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74
CHAPTER 4
shot: lines of the rifl es appear to converge and go on, and the line of those to be
executed moving out of the ravine seems to be inexorably continuing. Axis lines
are invisible vectors of visual force. Every visual fi eld is dynamic, a fi eld of forces
directing our vision, some visible and some invisible but controlled by the visible.
Only when the invisible lines are basic to the structuring of the image, as in the
Goya, are they axis lines.
Since line is usually the main determinant of shapes, and shapes are usually the main
determinant of detail, regional, and structural relationships, line is usually fundamental
in the overall composition—Mark Rothko’s Earth Greens (Figure 4-10) is an exception.
The term “linear design” is often used to describe this organizing function.
Cézanne’s small bushes are formed by small juxtaposed greenish-blue planes
that vary slightly in their tinting. These planes are hatched by brushstrokes that
slightly vary the textures. And from the center of the planes to the perimeters there
is usually a shading from light to dark. Thus emerges a strong sense of volume with
density. We see those small bushes as somehow distinct objects, and yet we see no
separating outlines. Colors and textures meet and create impressions of line. As
with axis lines, the visible suggests the invisible—we project the outlines.
FIGURE 4-9
Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie
Woogie. 1942–1943. Oil on canvas,
50 3 50 inches (127 3 127 cm).
Given anonymously. Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
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On occasion, this kind of projection may occur when we think we see outlines of
trees and other objects in the natural world. We see a tree, know it is a distinct object,
and assume, of course, that it has distinct edges or outlines. But it may be that some-
times we imagine lines while seeing only colors, shadows, and textures. Cézanne has
clarifi ed the way we sometimes see things in the natural world. That is one reason his
paintings may strike us as so fresh and true. What Cézanne has revealed is the way
we sometimes see and our ignorance about how it occurs. What we are suggesting is
controversial, and you may not be seeing it that way. Try to get to a museum that has
a late Cézanne landscape (after 1890), and test our analysis. But above all, participate.
You may come out with a wonderful new lens in your eyes.
FIGURE 4-10
Mark Rothko, Earth Greens. 1955.
Oil on canvas, 90¼ 3 73½ inches.
Museum Ludwig, Köln.
At seven and a half feet high and
six feet wide, Earth Greens has a
huge physical impact on the viewer.
Many of Rothko’s similar works
were commissioned for public
spaces such as restaurants, but they
ended up in sanctuaries because of
their calming, spiritual effect on
the viewer.
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The brushwork in Wang Yuanqi’s painting varies with the tone of the ink.
The rising forms of the mountains are made with a broad brush, almost trans-
lucent ink-tone, with intense dark dots implying the vegetation defi ning the top
of each ridge. The man-made structures in the painting are made with a smaller
brush, as in the curved bridge at the lower right of the painting. The rooftops
and buildings in the mid portion of the painting on both left and right use a small
brush with strong lines, like those of the trees in the mid foreground. The leaves
of the nearest trees and bushes are deep-tone dark ink produced by chopping
strokes, sometimes known as the ax-cut. The painting demands that our eyes
begin with the trees in the foreground, then rise inexorably upward following the
rising nearby mountains, leading us to the smooth, distant higher mountains that
have no vegetation.
Color
Color is composed of three distinct qualities: hue, saturation, and value. Hue is simply
the name of a color. Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors. Their mixtures
produce the secondary colors: green, orange, and purple. Further mixing produces six
more, the tertiary colors. Thus the spectrum of the color wheel shows twelve hues.
Saturation refers to the purity, vividness, or intensity of a hue. When we speak of the
“redness of red,” we mean its highest saturation. Value, or shading, refers to the light-
ness or darkness of a hue, the mixture in the hue of white or black. A high value of a
color is obtained by mixing in white, and a low value is obtained by mixing in black.
The highest value of red shows red at its lightest; the lowest value of red shows red
at its darkest. Complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel—for
example, red and green, orange and blue. When two complements are equally mixed,
a neutral gray appears. An addition of a complement to a hue will lower its saturation.
A red will look less red—will have less intensity—by even a small addition of green.
And an addition of either white or black will change both the value and the saturation
of the hue.
PERCEPTION KEY Wang Yuanqi
Examine with a magnifying glass the brushstrokes in Landscape after Wu Zhen
(Figure 4-7).
1. What diff erent kinds of brushstrokes can you identify?
2. Why such a variety?
In the Asian tradition, the expressive power of line is achieved generally in
a very different way from the Western tradition. The stroke—made by fl exible
brushes of varying sizes and hairs—is intended to communicate the spirit and
feelings of the artist, directly and spontaneously. The sensitivity of the inked
brush is extraordinary. The ink offers a wide range of nuances: texture, shine,
depth, pallor, thickness, and wetness. The brush functions like a seismograph of
the painter’s mind.
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Texture
Texture is the surface “feel” of something. When the brushstrokes have been
smoothed out, the surface is seen as smooth, as in Wesselmann’s study for Great
American Nude (Figure 2-20). When the brushstrokes have been left rough, the sur-
face is seen as rough, as in van Gogh’s The Starry Night (see Figure 15-4) and Pol-
lock’s Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3). In these two examples, the textures are real, for
if—heaven forbid!—you were to run your fi ngers over these paintings, you would
feel them as rough. Yet the surface of paintings that would be smooth to touch can
render simulated textures that are rough.
Distinctive brushstrokes produce distinctive textures. Compare, for example, the
soft hatchings of Valadon’s Reclining Nude (Figure 2-23) with the grainy effect of
most of the brushstrokes in Wang Yuanqi’s painting (Figure 4-7). Sometimes the
textural effect can be so dominant that the specifi c substance behind the textures is
disguised, as in the background behind the head and shoulders of Renoir’s Bather
Arranging Her Hair (Figure 2-17).
PERCEPTION KEY Texture
1. In what ways are the renditions of textures an important part in the portrayal of
the ten nudes (Figures 2-16 to 2-25)?
2. Suppose the ultra-smooth surfaces of Wesselmann’s nude had been used by Neel.
How would this have signifi cantly changed the content of her picture?
3. In Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3), the impasto (the protruding paint) lies
noticeably on top of a smoothly textured brownish background. Suppose there
were no impasto. Would this have made a signifi cant diff erence? If so, why?
Neel’s nude would be greatly altered, we believe, if she had used textures such
as Wesselmann’s. A tender, vulnerable, motherly appearance would become harsh,
confi dent, and brazen. With the Pollock, the title brings autumn to mind; and,
in turn, the laying on and drippings of heavy paint suggest vivid chaotic swirling
rhythms of rain and windblown debris.
The medium of a painting may have much to do with textural effects. Tempera
usually has a dry feel. Watercolor naturally lends itself to a fl uid feel. Because they
can be built up in heavy layers, oil and acrylic are useful for depicting rough tex-
tures, but of course they can be made smooth. Fresco usually has a grainy crystalline
texture.
Composition
In painting or any other art, composition refers to the ordering of relationships:
among details, among regions, among details and regions, and among these and
the total structure. Deliberately or more usually instinctively, artists use organizing
principles to create forms that inform.
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Principles Among the basic principles of traditional painting are balance, grada-
tion, movement and rhythm, proportion, variety, and unity.
• Balance refers to the equilibrium of opposing visual forces. Leonardo’s Last
Supper (Figure 3-1) is an example of symmetrical balance. Details and regions
are arranged on either side of a central axis. Goya’s May 3, 1808 (Figure 2-3) is
an example of asymmetrical balance, for there is no central axis.
• Gradation refers to a continuum of changes in the details and regions, such as the
gradual variations in shape, color value, and shadowing in Siqueiros’s Echo of a
Scream (Figure 1-2).
• Movement and rhythm refers to the way a painting controls the movement and
pace of our vision. For example, in Botticelli’s Venus and Mars (Figure 4-8), the
implied movement of the satyrs establishes a rhythm in contrast with the gods’
indolence.
• Proportion refers to the emphasis achieved by the scaling of sizes of shapes—for
example, the way the large Madonna in the Cimabue (Figure 4-1) contrasts with
the tiny prophets.
• Unity refers to the togetherness, despite contrasts, of details and regions to the
whole, as in Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4).
• Variety refers to the contrasts of details and regions—for example, the color and
shape oppositions in O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch Cliffs (Figure 4-11).
FIGURE 4-11
Georgia O’Keeffe, Ghost Ranch Cliffs. 1940–l942. Oil on canvas, 16 3 36 inches. Private collection.
O’Keeffe found the American West to be a refreshing environment after living for years in New York. Ghost Ranch is the name of her home in Abiquiu,
New Mexico, where she painted landscapes such as this.
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Space and Shapes Perhaps the best way to understand space is to think of it as a
hollow volume available for occupation by shapes. Then that space can be described
by referring to the distribution and relationships of those shapes in that space; for
example, space can be described as crowded or open.
Shapes in painting are areas with distinguishable boundaries, created by colors,
textures, and usually—and especially—lines. A painting is a two-dimensional surface
with breadth and height. But three-dimensional simulation, even in the fl attest of
paintings, is almost always present, even in Mark Rothko’s Earth Greens (Figure 4-10).
Colors when juxtaposed invariably move forward or backward visually. And when
shapes suggest mass—three-dimensional solids—depth is inevitably seen.
The illusion of depth—perspective—can be made by various techniques,
including
• Overlapping of shapes (Wesselmann, Figure 2-20)
• Making distant shapes smaller, darker, and less detailed (Siqueiros, Figure 1-2)
• Placing distant shapes higher (Goya, Figure 2-3)
• Moving from higher to lower saturation (Pollock, Figure 3-3)
• Moving from lighter to heavier textures (Cézanne, Figure 2-4)
• Shading from light to dark (Giorgione, Figure 2-16)
• Using less saturated and cooler hues in the distance (Rothko, Figure 4-10)
• Slanting lines inward—linear perspective—illustrated by the phenomenon of
standing on railroad tracks and watching the two rails apparently meet in the
distance.
PERCEPTION KEY Principles of Composition
After defi ning each principle briefl y, we listed an example. Go through the color pho-
tographs of paintings in the book, and select another example for each principle.
PERCEPTION KEY Composition
Choose four paintings not discussed so far and answer the following questions:
1. In which does color dominate line, or line dominate color?
2. Which painting has the most balanced space?
3. Which painting is most symmetrical? Which most asymmetrical?
4. Which pleases your eye more: symmetry or asymmetry?
5. In which painting is the sense of depth perspective the strongest? How does the
artist achieve this depth?
6. Which painting most controls the movement of your eye along set paths?
7. In which painting is proportion most important?
8. Which painting pleases you the most? Explain how its composition pleases you.
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The Clarity of Painting
Cézanne’s form distorts reality in order to reveal reality. He makes Mont Sainte-
Victoire far clearer in his painting than you will ever see it in nature or even in the
best of photographs. Once you have participated with this and similar paintings,
you may begin to see mountains like Mont Sainte-Victoire with a more meaningful
vision.
PERCEPTION KEY Mont Sainte-Victoire (Figure 2-4)
1. Why did Cézanne put the two trees in the foreground at the left and right edges? Why
did he have them cut off by the frame? Why did he portray the trees as if trembling?
2. In the painting, the viaduct has been moved to the left. Why?
3. In the painting, the lines of the viaduct appear to move toward the left. Why?
4. Furthermore, the lines of the viaduct lead (with the help of an axis line) to a meet-
ing point with the long road that runs (also with the help of an axis line) toward
the left side of the mountain. The fi elds and buildings within that triangle all seem
drawn toward that unseen apex. Why did Cézanne organize this middle ground
more geometrically than the foreground or the mountain? And why is the apex of
the triangle the unifying area for that region?
The subject matter of Cézanne’s painting is the mountain. Suppose the title of
the painting were Trees. This would strike us as strange because when we read the
title of a representational painting, we usually expect it to tell us what the painting
is about—that is, its subject matter. And although the trees in Cézanne’s painting
are important, they obviously are not as important as the mountain. A title such as
Viaduct would also be misleading.
Each aspect of the painting’s composition helps bring forth the energy of Mont
Sainte-Victoire, which seems to roll down the valley and then shake the foreground
trees. Everything is dominated and unifi ed around the mountain. The rolls of its
ridges are like waves of the sea, but far more durable, as we sense the impenetrable
solidity of the masses underneath.
The small color shapes are something like pieces in a mosaic. These units move
toward one another in receding space, and yet their intersections are rigid, as if
their impact froze their movement. Almost all the colors refl ect light, like the facets
of a crystal, so that a solid color or one-piece effect rarely appears. And the color
tones of the painting, variously modulated, are repeated endlessly. For example, the
color tones of the mountain are repeated in the viaduct and the fi elds and buildings
of the middle ground and the trees of the foreground. Cézanne’s colors animate
everything, mainly because the colors seem to be always moving out of the depth
of everything rather than being laid on fl at like house paint. The vibrating colors,
in turn, rhythmically charge into one another and then settle down, reaching an
equilibrium in which everything except the limbs of the foreground trees seems to
come to rest.
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The “All-at-Onceness” of Painting
In addition to revealing the visually perceptible more clearly, paintings give us time
for our vision to focus, hold, and participate. Of course, there are times when we
can hold on a scene in nature. We are resting with no pressing worries and with
time on our hands, and the sunset is so striking that we fi x our attention on its
redness. But then darkness descends and the mosquitoes begin to bite. In front of a
painting, however, we fi nd that things stand still, like the red in Siqueiros’s Echo of
a Scream (Figure 1-2). Here the red is peculiarly impervious and reliable, infallibly
fi xed and settled in its place. It can be surveyed and brought out again and again; it
can be visualized with closed eyes and checked with open eyes. There is no hurry,
for all of the painting is present, and, under normal conditions, it is going to stay
present; it is not changing in any signifi cant perceptual sense.
Moreover, we can hold on any detail or region or the totality as long as we like
and follow any order of details or regions at our own pace. No region of a paint-
ing strictly presupposes another region temporally. The sequence is subject to no
absolute constraint. Whereas there is only one route in listening to music, for ex-
ample, there is a freedom of routes in seeing paintings. With Mont Sainte-Victoire,
for example, we may focus on the foreground trees, then on the middle ground,
and fi nally on the mountain. The next time, we may reverse the order. “Paths are
made,” as the painter Paul Klee observed, “for the eye of the beholder which moves
along from patch to patch like an animal grazing.” There is a “rapt resting” on any
part, an unhurried series, one after the other, of “nows,” each of which has its own
temporal spread.
Paintings make it possible for us to stop in the present and enjoy at our leisure the
sensations provided by the show of the visible. That is the second reason paintings can
help make our vision whole. They not only clarify our world but also may free us from
worrying about the future and the past, because paintings are a framed context in which
everything stands still. There is the “here-now” and relatively speaking nothing but the
“here-now.” Our vision, for once, has time to let the qualities of things and the things
themselves unfold.
Abstract Painting
Abstract, or nonrepresentational, painting may be diffi cult to appreciate if we are
confused about its subject matter. Since no objects or events are depicted, abstract
painting might seem to have no subject matter: pictures of nothing. But this is not
the case. The subject matter is the sensuous. The sensuous is composed of visual
qualities—line, color, texture, space, shape, light, shadow, volume, and mass. Any
qualities that stimulate our vision are sensa. In representational painting, sensa are
used to portray objects and events. In abstract painting, sensa are freed. They are
depicted for their own sake. Abstract painting reveals sensa, liberating us from our
habits of always identifying these qualities with specifi c objects and events. They
make it easy for us to focus on sensa themselves, even though we are not artists.
Then the radiant and vivid values of the sensuous are enjoyed for their own sake,
satisfying a fundamental need. Abstractions can help fulfi ll this need to behold
and treasure the images of the sensuous. Instead of our controlling the sensa,
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transforming them into signs that represent objects or events, the sensa control us,
transforming us into participators.
Moreover, because references to objects and events are eliminated, there is a
peculiar relief from the future and the past. Abstract painting, more than any other
art, gives us an intensifi ed sense of here-now, or presentational immediacy. When
we perceive representational paintings such as Mont Sainte-Victoire, we may think
about our chances of getting to southern France some time in the future. Or when
we perceive May 3, 1808, we may think about similar massacres. These suggestions
bring the future and past into our participation, causing the here-now to be some-
what compromised. But with abstract painting—because there is no portrayal of
objects or events that suggest the past or the future—the sense of presentational
immediacy is more intense.
Although sensa appear everywhere we look, in paintings, sensa shine forth. This is
especially true with abstract paintings, because there is nothing to attend to but the
sensa. What you see is what you see. In nature the light usually appears as external to
the colors and surface of sensa. The light plays on the colors and surface. In paintings
the light usually appears immanent in the colors and surface, seems to come—in
part at least—through them, even in the fl at polished colors of a Mondrian. In Lee
Krasner’s Celebration (Figure 4-12), the light seems to be absorbed into the colors
and surfaces. There is a depth of luminosity about the sensa of paintings that rivals
nature. Generally the colors of nature are more brilliant than the colors of painting;
but usually in nature the sensa are either so glittering that our squints miss their
inner luminosity or so changing that we lack the time to participate and penetrate.
To ignore the allure of the sensa in a painting, and, in turn, in nature, is to miss one
of the chief glories life provides. It is especially the abstract painter—the shepherd of
sensa—who is most likely to call us back to our senses.
Study the Krasner (Figure 4-12) or the Rothko (Figure 4-10). Then refl ect on
how you experienced a series of durations—“spots of time”—that are ordered by
the relationships between the regions of sensa. Compare your experience with
listening to music.
FIGURE 4-12
Lee Krasner, Celebration. 1957–1960.
Oil on canvas, 92½ 3 184½ inches.
Cleveland Museum of Art.
The muted color sensa in Lee
Krasner’s Celebration are intensifi ed
by the dramatic black curving lines.
They suggest movement and create
a sense of rhythm. The rounded red
and pink forms may also suggest
fi gures in motion, but we are drawn
to the excitement of pulsing forms
that seem to well up from the
surface. The green shapes imply
a connection to nature, but what
we respond to is the magnifi cent
motion achieved by Krasner’s
attack on the canvas.
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Intensity and Restfulness in Abstract Painting
Abstract painting reveals sensa in their primitive but powerful state of innocence.
This makes possible an extraordinary intensity of vision, renewing the spontaneity
of our perception and enhancing the tone of our physical existence. We clothe our
visual sensations in positive feelings, living in these sensations instead of using them
as means to ends. And such sensuous activity—sight, for once minus anxiety and
eyestrain—is sheer delight. Abstract painting offers us a complete rest from practical
concerns. Abstract painting is, as Matisse in 1908 was beginning to see,
an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter,
an art which might be for every mental worker, be he businessman or writer, like an ap-
peasing infl uence, like a mental soother, something like a good armchair in which to rest
from physical fatigue.2
The underlying blue rectangle of Earth Greens is cool and recessive with a pro-
nounced vertical emphasis, accented by the way the bands of blue gradually expand
upward. However, the green and rusty-red rectangles, smaller but more prominent be-
cause they stretch over most of the blue, have a horizontal “lying down” emphasis that
quiets the upward thrust. The vertical and the horizontal—the simplest, most universal,
and potentially the most tightly “relatable” of all axes, but in everyday experience usually
cut by diagonals and oblique curves or strewn about chaotically—are brought together
in perfect peace. This fulfi lling harmony is enhanced by the way the lines, with one
exception, of all these rectangles are soft and slightly irregular, avoiding the stiffness of
straight lines that isolate. Only the outside boundary line of the blue rectangle is strictly
straight, and this serves to separate the three rectangles from the outside world.
Within the fi rm frontal symmetry of the color fi eld of this painting, the green rect-
angle is the most secure and weighty. It comes the closest to the stability of a square; the
upper part occupies the actual center of the picture, which, along with the lower blue
border, provides an anchorage; and the location of the rectangle in the lower section of
the painting suggests weight because in our world heavy objects seek and possess low
places. But even more important, this green, like so many earth colors, is a peculiarly
quiet and immobile color. Wassily Kandinsky, one of the earliest abstract painters, fi nds
PERCEPTION KEY Rothko, Krasner, and O’Keeff e
1. Rothko’s Earth Greens (Figure 4-10) is, we think, an exceptional example of time-
lessness and the sensuous. O’Keeff e’s Ghost Ranch Cliff s (Figure 4-11) also em-
phasizes the sensuous, especially the rich yellows and greens. What makes one
presumably more timeless?
2. Examine the sensa in the O’Keeff e. Does the fact that the painting represents real
things distract you from enjoying the sensa? How crucial are the sensa to your full
appreciation of the painting?
3. What diff erence do you perceive in Rothko’s and Krasner’s treatment of sensa?
4. Look at the Rothko or the Krasner upside down. Is the form weakened or strength-
ened? Does it make a diff erence? If so, what?
2Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” La Grande Revue, December 25, 1908.
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green generally an “earthly, self-satisfi ed repose.” It is “the most restful color in existence,
moves in no direction, has no corresponding appeal, such as joy, sorrow, or passion, de-
mands nothing.” Rothko’s green, furthermore, has the texture of earth, thickening its
appearance. Although there are slight variations in brightness and saturation in the green,
their movement is congealed in a stable pattern. The green rectangle does not look as
though it wanted to move to a more suitable place.
The rusty-red rectangle, on the other hand, is much less secure and weighty.
Whereas the blue rectangle recedes and the green rectangle stays put, the rusty-red
rectangle moves toward us, locking the green in depth between itself and the blue.
Similarly, whereas the blue is cold and the rusty-red warm, the temperature of the
green mediates between them. Unlike the blue and green rectangles, the rusty-red
seems light and fl oating, radiating vital energy. Not only is the rusty-red rectangle
the smallest, but also its winding, swelling shadows and the dynamism of its blurred,
obliquely oriented brushstrokes produce an impression of self- contained movement
that sustains this lovely shape like a cloud above the earthy green below. This effect
is enhanced by the blue, which serves as a kind of fi rmament for this sensuous world,
for blue is the closest to darkness, and this blue, especially the middle band, seems lit
up as if by starlight. Yet, despite its amorphous inner activity, the rusty-red rectangle
keeps its place, also serenely harmonizing with its neighbors. Delicately, a pervasive
violet tinge touches everything. And everything seems locked together forever, an
image of eternity. When Earth Greens is turned upside down, the green rectangle
weighs heavily down on the red—breaking the harmonious stability.
Representational Painting
In the participative experience with representational paintings, the sense of here-now,
so overwhelming in the participative experience with abstractions, is somewhat weak-
ened. Representational paintings situate the sensuous in objects and events. A repre-
sentational painting, like an abstraction, is “all there” and “holds still.” But past and
future are more relevant than in our experience of abstract paintings because we are
seeing representations of objects and events. Inevitably, we are at least vaguely aware of
place and date; and, in turn, a sense of past and future is a part of that awareness. Our
experience is more ordinary than it is when we feel the extraordinary isolation from
objects and events that occurs in the perception of abstract paintings. Representational
paintings always bring in some suggestion of “once upon a time.” Moreover, we are
kept closer to the experience of every day, because images that refer to objects and
events usually lack something of the strangeness of the sensuous alone.
Representational painting furnishes the world of the sensuous with objects and
events. The horizon is sketched out more closely and clearly, and the spaces of the
sensuous are fi lled, more or less, with things. But even when these furnishings (subject
matter) are the same, the interpretation (content) of every painting is always different.
Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings
From time to time, painters have grouped themselves into “schools” in which like-
minded artists sometimes worked and exhibited together. The Barbizon school in
France in the 1840s, a group of six or seven painters, attempted to paint outdoors so
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that their landscapes would have a natural feel in terms of color and light, unlike the
studio landscapes that were popular at the time. Probably the most famous school
of art of all time is the Impressionist school, which fl ourished between 1870 and
1905, especially in France. The Impressionists’ approach to painting was domi-
nated by a concentration on the impression light made on the surfaces of things.
FIGURE 4-13
Claude Monet, Impression,
Sunrise. 1873. Oil on canvas,
19 3 24 inches. Musée
Marmottan Monet, Paris.
This painting gave the name
to the French Impressionists
and remains one of the most
identifi able paintings of the age.
Compared with paintings by Ingres
or Giorgione, this seems to be a
sketch, but that is the point. It is an
impression of the way the brilliant
light plays on the waters at sunrise.
PERCEPTION KEY Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings
1. In which of the following paintings is color most dominant over line? In which is line
most dominant over color? How important does line seem to be for the impres-
sionist painter?
2. In terms of composition, which paintings seem to rely on diagonal lines or diagonal
groups of objects or images?
3. Comment on the impressionist reliance on balance as seen in these paintings. In
which painting is symmetry most eff ectively used? In which is asymmetry most ef-
fective? How is your response to the paintings aff ected by symmetry or asymmetry?
4. If you were to purchase one of these paintings, which would it be? Why?
Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (Figure 4-13) was shown at the fi rst show of
the impressionist painters in Paris in 1874, and it lent its name to the entire group.
Unfortunately, this painting has been stolen and not yet recovered. However,
Monet’s many impressionist paintings grace museums around the world. The scene
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in Sunrise has a spontaneous, sketchy effect, the sunlight breaking on glimmering
water. Boats and ships lack mass and defi nition. The solidity of things is subor-
dinated to shimmering surfaces. We sense that only a moment has been caught.
Monet and the Impressionists painted, not so much objects they saw, but the light
that played on and around them.
Edouard Manet was considered the leader of the impressionist group. His strik-
ing painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Figure 4-14) is more three-dimensional
than Monet’s, but the emphasis on color and light is similar. In this painting the
impressionists’ preference for everyday scenes with ordinary people and objects is
FIGURE 4-14
Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. 1881–1882. Oil on canvas, 37¾ 3 51¼ inches. Courtauld Institute Galleries, London.
Typical of impressionist paintings, this one has for its subject matter ordinary everyday events. Viewers may also surmise a narrative embedded in the
painting, given the character in the mirror, not to mention the feet of the trapeze artist in the upper left.
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present. Details abound in this painting—some mysterious, such as the legs of the
trapeze artist in the upper left corner.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s joyful painting (Figure 4-15) also represents an
ordinary scene of people dining on a warm afternoon, all blissfully unaware of the
painter. The scene, like many impressionist scenes, could have been captured by a
camera. The perspective is what we would expect in a photograph, while the cut-off
elements of people and things are familiar from our experience with snapshots. The
use of light tones and reds balances the darker greens and grays in the background.
Again, color dominates in this painting.
FIGURE 4-15
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party. 1881. Oil on canvas, 51 3 68 inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Renoir, one of the greatest of the Impressionists, portrays ordinary Parisians in Luncheon of the Boating Party. Earlier painters would have seen this as
unfi t for exhibition because its subject is not heroic or mythic. The Impressionists celebrated the ordinary.
87
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88
CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 4-16
Childe Hassam, Summer Evening. 1886. Oil on Canvas, 121/8 3 203/8 inches. Florence Griswold Museum.
The softness of both color and line imply a muted moment. Childe Hassam studied and painted in France
and New York, but this scene commemorates a visit to New Hampshire. It has some of the infl uence
of photography—an off-the-cuff pose, the fi gure and window both cut off—a characteristic of much
impressionist painting. Hassam was considered an American Impressionist and famously connected with the
Old Lyme, Connecticut, painters from the 1880s to the 1920s.
Childe Hassam was well known for his cityscapes, particularly for his colorful
views of New York and Paris. But he also spent summers in the New England
countryside, capturing moments such as Summer Evening (Figure 4-16) recollect-
ing an ordinary evening in New Hampshire. The sharp diagonal fi gure of a woman
is presented in contrast to the strong horizontal lines of the window. Hassam cre-
ates a relaxed moment, a sense of the ordinary in life, by avoiding any studied
traditional composition. He seems to depend upon a photographer’s “trick” called
the “rule of thirds,” by placing the fi gure in the right third of the composition
and placing the lower horizontal of the window one-third of the way up from the
bottom of the canvas. By avoiding traditional centrality of organization, Hassam
produces a painting that echoes a photograph, as if doing little more than recording
a simple moment.
Mary Cassatt’s sister Lydia is also posed in a sharp diagonal in Autumn (Fig-
ure 4-17). Cassatt’s intense autumn colors create a brilliance almost unexpected.
For most people autumn suggests a duller pallette and a more somber mood. Lydia
is dressed very warmly in a bulky, but cheerful coat, with a warm hat and gloves, and
while her expression is calm and perhaps enigmatic, she is restful in the midst of an
explosion of colors. In this painting line may be less signifi cant in terms of compo-
sition than the vitality of the brushstrokes that seem to attack the canvas. The deep,
resonant colors suggest the ripening of autumn vegetables and fruits characteristic
of harvest time.
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89
PAINTING
FIGURE 4-17
Mary Cassatt, Autumn (Profi le of Lydia Cassatt). 1880. Musée du Petit Palais, Paris.
Mary Cassatt and her sister Lydia shared an apartment in Paris. Lydia frequently modeled for her. This scene
is rich with autumn colors set in a Parisian garden.
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FOCUS ON The Self-Portrait: Rembrandt van Rijn, Gustave Courbet,
Vincent van Gogh, and Frida Kahlo
FIGURE 4-18
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait. 1659. Oil on canvas, 33¼ 3 26
inches. Andrew W. Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
Rembrandt was remarkable for his repeated self-portraits. This one
shows him at age fi fty-three at the height of his powers as an artist.
His forceful expression is arresting and assertive although at the same
time tentative. He seems to emerge from a darkness.
FIGURE 4-19
Gustave Courbet, The Desperate Man. 1843–1845. Oil on canvas,
17.7 3 21.7 inches. Private collection. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon.
Courbet was in his early twenties when he produced this dramatic
image, virtually showing him pulling his hair out. At the time of
this painting, he had left a secure position as a painter in another
painter’s studio and was on his own. This painting, along with
another self-portrait, was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1848.
The self-portrait is one of the enduring genres of paint-
ing. Rembrandt (Figure 4-18) painted himself again and
again, beginning in his youth and continuing into his old
age, each time revealing a great deal of the inner man. He
left us a changing picture of age and station, particularly
as he ran into fi nancial diffi culties that stressed him emo-
tionally and physically. Rembrandt made approximately
a hundred self-portraits, and this one, at age fi fty-three,
is among the most poignant. He had been enormously
successful as a painter. His commissions, personal and
public, had made him a wealthy man, but just a few years
before this painting he proved a poor businessman and
was fi nancially ruined. His color palette in this painting is
limited to earth tones, subdued, controlled, and limited.
His gaze is steady, almost directly at the viewer. The impli-
cation of his expression is diffi cult to interpret.
Because self-portraits were not especially salable at the
time these artists worked, we can only imagine what their
purposes were and what they revealed to the artists. Courbet
(Figure 4-19) produced far fewer paintings than Rembrandt,
and even fewer self-portraits, but those he produced were
powerful and leave an indelible mark on all who see them.
Vincent van Gogh (Figure 4-20) was as determined as
Rembrandt to paint himself in numerous locations, in nu-
merous moods, and in many seasons. Like Rembrandt, he
continued the practice to the end of his life. Most of his
life he had suff ered from depression and mental instabil-
ity. This portrait was completed only two years before he
died, possibly of a self-infl icted gunshot wound.
The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (Figure 4-21) also
painted herself throughout her career. Self Portrait with
Monkey (1938) was done when she was thirty-one. Kahlo
explained her 55 self-portraits, by saying that she was
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FIGURE 4-20
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat. 1887. Oil on
cardboard, 15.9 3 12.8 inches. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
In his last years in Paris, Vincent van Gogh produced a number of
powerful self-portraits. He experimented with a strong brushstroke
infl uenced by pointilist painters like Georges Seurat. This summer
portrait emphasizes the intensity of the season and connects him
to the natural straw colors of the countryside despite his living in
the city. Self-portraits such as this imply a strong desire for self-
examination and seem to bare the artist’s soul.
FIGURE 4-21
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954). © ARS, NY. Self-Portrait with Monkey.
1938. Oil on Masonite, support: 16 3 120 (40.64 3 30.48 cm.).
Bequest of A. Conger Goodyear, 1966. Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, NY, USA.
Kahlo, like Rembrandt, painted self-portraits throughout her life.
She has become recognized as one of Mexico’s greatest painters.
often alone and “I am the subject I know best.” Kahlo
had polio as a child and in 1925 was in a horrifi c traffi c
accident causing multiple fractures that left her in pain
throughout most of her life.
Kahlo’s husband, Diego Rivera, one of Mexico’s most
famous muralists, was never faithful to her and their mar-
riage was marked by many stormy arguments and strug-
gles. She was involved with the Communist party in Mexico
protesting war and inequities. She devoted herself to at-
tempts to help others. Her Self-Portrait with Monkey was
painted during a time of stress, after her marriage began to
crumble. She was divorced in the next year and re-married
Rivera in 1940. In October 1938 she gave a major show of
her work at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York and sold
many of her paintings. This painting was commissioned
after that show by A. Conger Goodyear who was then
president of the Museum of Modern Art and who had tried
to buy another painting at the Levy Gallery of Kahlo and
her pet monkey Fulang-Chang, but it had been sold. The
monkey may be symbolic or not, but Kahlo painted it in
several of her portraits. The leaves behind her are derived
from Mexican folk art. Kahlo looks directly at the viewer,
but Fulang-Chang’s straight-on gaze is not on the viewer;
instead, it is distracted, or distant. She reveals herself as
she was, plain, unadorned by make-up, honest.
Historically, the self-portrait is one of the most enig-
matic and fascinating modes of painting. In a sense it echoes
back to the cave paintings of 30,000 years ago, when the
painters placed their hands on the wall and painted around
them—leaving the most primitive of self-portraits.
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92
CHAPTER 4
Frames
Photographs of paintings, as in this book, usually do not include their frames, the
exceptions being Figures 4-1, 4-2, 4-7, and 14-9. In general, it seems obvious that
a “good” or appropriate frame should harmonize and enhance rather than dom-
inate the picture. For example, the frame of the Cimabue (Figure 4-1) delicately
picks up the colors and lines of the Madonna’s throne. Furthermore, an appropriate
frame usually should separate the picture from its surroundings, as again with the
Cimabue. Sometimes the artist doesn’t bother with a frame. And sometimes owners
have the frame removed or remade to their taste, often at variance with the intent
of the artist.
Some Painting Styles of the Past 150 Years
Painting, whether abstract or representational, sets forth the visually perceptible
in such a way that it works in our experience with heightened intensity. Every
style of painting fi nds facets of the visually perceptible that had previously been
missed. For example, the painting of the past hundred years has given us, among
many other styles, Impressionism, revealing the play of sunlight on color, as in
the Monet, Manet, Renoir, Hassam, and Cassatt (Figures 4-13 to 4-17); Post-
Impressionism, using the surface techniques of Impressionism but drawing out the
solidity of things, as in the van Gogh (Figure 4-20) and the Cézanne (Figure 2-4);
Expressionism, portraying strong emotion, as in the Blume (Figure 1-3); Cubism,
showing the three- dimensional qualities of things as splayed out in a tightly closed
two- dimensional space—without signifi cant perspective or cast shadow—through
geometrical crystallization, a technique partially exhibited in Picasso’s Guernica
(Figure 1-4); Dada, poking fun at the absurdity of everything, as in Picabia’s
The Blessed Virgin (see Figure  14-12); Surrealism, expressing the subconscious,
as perhaps in Siqueiros (Figure 1-2); Suprematism or Constructivism, portraying
sensa in movement with—as in Expressionism—the expression of powerful emo-
tion or energy, exemplifi ed in the Pollock (Figure 3-3); Pop Art, the revelation of
mass-produced products, as in the Dine (Figure 2-1). And today and tomorrow,
PERCEPTION KEY Four Self-Portraits
1. Which of these portraits is most dominated by detail? How does color control the
detail?
2. In which of the portraits is the facial expression most mysterious?
3. What do these paintings reveal about their subject matter? With which of the
paintings do you fi nd it easiest to participate?
4. In which portrait does line play the most important role? In which does color play
the most important role?
5. Which painting has the most complex composition? Which has the simplest?
6. Which painting tells you the most about the painter’s personality? Which is most
psychologically revealing?
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EXPERIENCING Frames
1. What importance does the frame
have for our enjoyment of a painting?
2. Giotto’s frame (Figure 4-2) is plainer
than Cimabue’s (Figure 4-1). But
would a more decorative frame be
appropriate for the Giotto?
3. Howard Hodgkin is famous for paint-
ing directly on the frames of his
works. Examine his Dinner in Palazzo
Albrizzi (Figure 4-22). How eff ective
is his use of the frame? Is there any
question about whether it is part of
the painting?
Sometimes a frame overwhelms a
painting, as in Raphael’s Madonna
(Figure 14-10), and sometimes paint-
ings have no frames, as in almost all
of Mondrian’s paintings. The con-
sensus seems to be that a frame is
valuable when it complements the
painting, either by establishing its
preciousness—as in the ordinary gold
frame—or by establishing its shape
and purpose, as in the case of the
Giotto and Cimabue frames. Neither
is very ornate, both are suffi cient and
useful. Clearly, the fact that almost
all the paintings illustrated in this book lack frames tells us something about the
frame’s ultimate worth. Yet, all museums include frames in most of the paintings
represented here. Frames stabilize the canvas, establish the period and value of a
painting, and set it off from the wall. They also “fi nish” the painting—almost like the
fi nal chord of a great symphony or the closing of the fi nal curtain on a play. They
say, “the end.”
In the case of Howard Hodgkin, the paintings for which he is best known are all
marked by the existence of a frame, sometimes a large and heavy frame, but Hodgkin
inevitably paints brightly over the frame, in some cases giving the impression that the
painting does not end at its borders, but could continue.
Dinner in Palazzo Albrizzi is a brilliantly colored painting seemingly representing the
vegetables and seafood that are popular in Venice, where the palazzo—which has
been owned by the same family for 500 years, and which hosts gala high-society din-
ners—sits on the canal. Brushstrokes in bright red, and in darker red, are clearly vis-
ible on the frame, which is itself clearly identifi able as a frame, not part of the canvas.
Hodgkin seems to be saying that no frame could contain his painting—its astonishing
energy, as expressed in brilliant colors and striking shapes and visual rhythms, seems
uncontainable. Here we can say the frame is functional, that it shares center stage
with the painting.
FIGURE 4-22
Howard Hodgkin, Dinner in
Palazzo Albrizzi. 1964–1988. Oil on
wood, 46¼ 3 46¼ inches. Modern
Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort
Worth, Texas.
This is typical of Hodgkin’s work
in that he includes a frame upon
which he ordinarily paints freely.
His abstract paintings are notable
for their intense and characteristic
colors. While appearing
instantaneous and improvisatory,
his brushstrokes are often the
product of months of careful work.
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94
CHAPTER 4
new dimensions are and will be portrayed. In Chapter 14, we will study some exam-
ples of avant-garde painting. Never in the history of painting have there been such
rapid change and vitality. Never in history has there been so much help available
for those of us who, in varying degrees, are blind to the fullness of the visually
perceptible. If we take advantage of this help, the rewards are priceless.
Summary
Painting is the art that has most to do with revealing the sensuous and the visual
appearance of objects and events. Painting shows the visually perceptible more
clearly. Because a painting is usually presented to us as an entirety, with an all-at-
onceness, it gives time for our vision to focus, hold, and participate. This makes
possible a vision that is both extraordinarily intense and restful. Sensa are the qual-
ities of objects or events that stimulate our sense organs. Sensa can be disassociated
or abstracted from the objects or events in which they are usually joined. Sensa
and the sensuous (the color fi eld composed by the sensa) are the primary subject
matter of abstract painting. Objects and events are the primary subject matter of
representational painting.
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95
C h a p t e r 5
SCULPTURE
The concept of “all-at-onceness” that usually relates to painting does not relate to sculpture because in most cases sculpture is a mass extending into space in-
viting us to walk around and view it from several positions. While some sculpture
seems best viewed from a single position, as in wall-mounted reliefs such as the Stele
of Maety (Figure 5-2), most sculpture, such as Michelangelo’s David (Figure 5-9) or
Rodin’s Danaïde (Figure 5-10), must be viewed from a number of positions. As we
move around a sculpture, we build in our imagination’s eye the whole, but at no
instant in time can we conceive its wholeness.
Henry Moore, one of the most infl uential sculptors of the twentieth century,
said that the sculptor “gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head—he thinks of
it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of
his hand.” Moore continues: The sculptor “mentally visualizes a complex form all
round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like; he iden-
tifi es himself with its center of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume,
as the space that the shape displaces in the air.”1 In a sense, Moore tells us that
sculpture is perceptible not only by sight, as with painting, but by our either real
or imagined sense of touch. The tactile nature of sculpture is important for us to
recognize, just as it is important to recognize imaginatively the density and weight
of a piece of sculpture.
1Henry Moore, “Notes on Sculpture,” in Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1948, 4th rev. ed., ed. David
Sylvester (New York: George Wittenborn, 1957), p. xxxiii ff.
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96
CHAPTER 5
Sensory Interconnections
It is an oversimplifi cation to distinguish the various arts on the basis of which sense
organ is activated — for example, to claim that painting is ex pe ri enced solely by sight
and sculpture solely by touch. Our nervous systems are far more complicated than
that. Generally no clear separation is made in experience between the faculties of
sight and touch. The sensa of touch, for instance, are normally joined with other
sensa — visual, aural, oral, and olfactory. Even if only one kind of sensum initiates a
perception, a chain reaction triggers other sensations, either by sensory motor con-
nec tions or by memory associations. We are constantly grasping and handling things
as well as seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling them. And so when we see a thing,
we have a pretty good idea of what its surface would feel like, how it would sound if
struck, how it would taste, and how it would smell if we approached. And if we grasp
or handle a thing in the dark, we have some idea of what its shape looks like.
Sculpture and Painting Compared
Compare Rothko’s Earth Greens (Figure 4-10) with Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1). Both
works are abstract, we suggest, for neither has objects or events as its primary subject
matter. Arp’s sculpture has something to do with growth, of course, as confi rmed by the
title. But is it human, animal, or vegetable growth? Male or female? Clear-cut answers
do not seem possible. Specifi city of reference, just as in the Rothko, is missing. And yet,
if you agree that the subject matter of the Rothko is the sensuous, would you say the
same for the Arp? To affi rm this may bother you, for Arp’s marble is dense material.
This substantiality of the marble is very much a part of its appearance as sculpture.
Conversely, Earth Greens as a painting — that is, as a work of art rather than as a physical
canvas of such and such a weight — does not appear as a material thing. The weight of
the canvas is irrelevant to our participation with Earth Greens as a work of art.
Rothko has abstracted sensa, especially colors, from objects or things, whereas Arp
has brought out the substantiality of a thing — the density of the marble. Earth and
grass and sky are not “in” Rothko’s painting. Conversely, Arp has made the marble rel-
evant to his sculpture. This kind of difference is perhaps the underlying reason the term
“abstract painting” is used more frequently than the term “abstract sculpture.” There is
an awkwardness about describing as abstract something as material as most sculpture.
Picasso once remarked, “There is no abstract art. You must always start with some-
thing. There is no danger then anyway because the idea of the object will have left an
indelible mark.” This may be an overstatement with respect to painting, but the point
rings true with sculpture. Still, the distinction between abstract and representational
sculpture is worth making, just as with painting, for being clear about the subject matter
of a work of art is essential to all sensitive participation. It is the key to understanding
the content, for the content is the subject matter interpreted by means of the form.
PERCEPTION KEY Rothko and Arp
1. Which work seems to invite you to touch it? Why?
2. Would you expect either the Rothko or the Arp to feel hot or cold to your touch?
3. Which work seems to require the more careful placement of lighting? Why?
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97
SCULPTURE
FIGURE 5-1
Jean Arp, Growth. 1938. Marble, 39½ inches high.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Curt Valentin.
Shown here in marble, Growth was also cast in
bronze. Arp showed his work with the Surrealists,
who often included chance in abstract pieces that
suggest organic natural forms.
4. Which of the two works appears to be the more unchangeable in your perception?
5. Why do the authors claim that Earth Greens is more abstract than Growth? Can you
think of other reasons — for example, the shapes in the two works?
Most sculpture, whether abstract or representational, returns us to the voluminos-
ity (bulk), density (mass), and tactile quality of things. Thus sculpture has touch or tac-
tile appeal. Even if we do not actually handle a work of sculpture, we can and often do
imagine how it would feel with reference to its surface, volume, and weight. Sculpture
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98
CHAPTER 5
brings us back into touch with things by allowing the thickness of things to permeate
its surface. Most sculptures make us feel them as resistant, as substantial. Hence the
primary subject matter of most abstract sculpture is the density of sensa. Sculpture is
more than skin deep. Abstract painting can only represent density, whereas sculpture,
whether abstract or representational, presents density. Abstract painters generally
emphasize the surfaces of sensa, as in Earth Greens. Their interest is in the vast ranges
of color qualities, lines, and the play of light that bring out textural nuances. Abstract
sculptors, on the other hand, generally restrict themselves to a minimal range of color,
line, and textural qualities and emphasize light not only to play on these qualities but
also to bring out the inherence of these qualities in things. Whereas abstract painters
are shepherds of surface sensa, abstract sculptors are shepherds of depth sensa.
Sculpture and Space
A painting is usually set off by a frame, the painting space being imaginary, separate
and distinct from real space. Between the painting and us, space is transparent. With
sculpture, the space between is translucent. The space from the material body of a
work of art to the participator we call “the between.” With sculpture, even if we do
not actually touch the material body, we can still sense the solidity of the material
body permeating and animating the surrounding space. Shadows cast by a sculpture,
for example, slant into the space between us and the material body of the sculpture,
charging the between with energy; whereas shadows cast by the things represented
in a painting stay within the painting. The convexities of a sculpture are actively out-
going into the between, and the between invades the concavities; whereas the con-
vexities and concavities of a painting stay within the frame. The lines of the material
body of a sculpture may create vectors into the between, whereas the lines of a paint-
ing do not impinge into the between. Sculpture creates an “impacting between.”
Since the between is energized by the material body of a sculpture, the between
is not only a perceptible part of that sculpture but is felt as pushing into us. Vision is
fundamental in this perception of impact, of course, not because our eyes directly feel
much impact but because sight records the solidity and the texture of the material as
well as the effects of the mass of the sculpture into the between. Such sight is likely to
evoke tactual memories. We recall the density and the feel of such solids and textures
and the outward advance of such masses. These evocations are an essential part of
our perception of impact, however indirect, and they occur with our experience of
painting as well as with sculpture. With sculpture, however, in our view there is also
a direct or physical impact. The space between us and any three-dimensional thing
that we are perceiving comes forth into our perception, by literally pushing into our
bodies. Sculpture transforms real space, making the between more perceptible and
impacting. To put it awkwardly but succinctly, sculpture is a “more real world.”
Sunken-Relief Sculpture
The Stele of Maety (Figure 5-2) is incised in limestone, representing the gatekeeper
of the Royal Treasury celebrating at his own funeral service. The emblems incised
beside him indicate measures of wealth for which he was responsible. Compare this
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sunken-relief sculpture with Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3). While
their subject matters are very different, their surfaces are curiously similar. The
stele does not project into space, as do most sculptures, but actually projects inward,
into the surface of the stone. Pollock’s painting, although considered essentially
fl at, is built up slightly and, in some spots, projects up to half an inch into space.
The light helps clarify the tactile qualities of the stele by revealing the sharp
edges of the limestone. The density of the stone is evident. We virtually sense the
weight of the object. Pollock’s work lacks signifi cant tactile appeal despite the pro-
jection of its thick, heavy paint. And while the stele makes us aware of its ma-
terial texture and substance — perhaps even revealing essential qualities of the
limestone — the painting remains an essentially two-dimensional image whose
impact is much less tactile than visual.
Low-Relief Sculpture
Low-relief sculpture projects relatively slightly from its background plane, and so
its depth dimension is very limited. Medium- and high-relief sculpture project far-
ther from their backgrounds, their depth dimensions expanded. Sculpture in the
round is freed from any background plane, and so its depth dimension is unre-
stricted. Frank Stella’s Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards (Figure 5-3) is,
FIGURE 5-2
Stele of Maety, Gatekeeper of the
Royal Treasury, from Thebes .
Dynasty XI, reign of Men tu ho tep II
(ca. 2040–2020 BCE). Limestone,
24¼ inches high. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York.
The Stele of Maety is typical of the
sunken-relief funeral sculpture of
ancient Egypt.
99
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CHAPTER 5
we think, most usefully classifi ed as sculpture of the low-relief species. The materi-
ality of the magnesium, fi berglass, and especially the aluminum is brought out very
powerfully by their juxtaposition. Unfortunately, this is diffi cult to perceive from
a photograph. Because of its three-dimensionality, sculpture generally suffers even
more than painting from being seen only in a photograph.
Relief sculpture, except sunken relief, allows its materials to stand out from a back-
ground plane. Thus relief sculpture in at least one way reveals its materials simply by
showing us — directly — their surface and something of their depth. By moving to a
side of Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards, we can see that the materials are
of such and such thickness. However, this three-dimensionality in relief sculpture,
this movement out into space, is not allowed to lose its ties to its background plane.
Hence relief sculpture, like painting, is usually best viewed from a frontal position.
You cannot walk around a relief sculpture and see its back side as sculpture any more
than you can walk around a painting and see its back side as painting. That is why
both relief sculptures and paintings are usually best placed on walls or in niches.
High-Relief Sculpture
The high-relief sculpture from a thirteenth-century temple in Orissa (Figure 5-4)
was carved during a period of intense temple-building in that part of India. The
tenderness of the two fi gures is emphasized by the roundness of the bodies as well
as by the rhythms of the lines of the fi gures and the overarching swoop of the
FIGURE 5-3
Frank Stella, Giufà, the Moon,
the Thieves, and the Guards. 1984.
Synthetic polymer paint, oil,
urethane enamel, fl uorescent alkyd,
and printing ink on canvas, and
etched magnesium, aluminum,
and fi berglass, 9 feet 71/4 inches 3
16 feet 31/4 inches 3 24 inches.
Museum of Modern Art.
This work was done after Stella
spent two years at the American
Academy at Rome. Giufà is a
character out of Sicilian folklore,
a trickster who gets into amusing
situations. This work refers to
a story called “Giufà and the
Judge” in which the boy kills
a fl y on the nose of the judge,
doing great damage to the judge.
Stella’s sculpture was infl uenced by
Picasso’s cubist experiments.
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SCULPTURE
vegetation above them. This temple carving was made in a very rough stone, which
emphasizes the bulk and mass of the man and woman, despite their association with
religious practice. Almost a thousand years of weathering have increased its sense
of texture. The happy expression on the faces is consistent with the great erotic
religious sculpture of this period.
Sculpture in the Round
Michelangelo’s Pietà (Figure 5-5), one of his last sculptures, ca. 1550–1555, is
unfi nished. According to Vasari and Condivi, historians of the time, Michelangelo
originally wanted to be buried at the foot of this sculpture, which was to be placed
in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Hence he portrayed his own features in the head
of Joseph of Arimathea, the fi gure hovering above. Apparently he was making good
progress when a series of accidents occurred, some involuntary and some probably
voluntary. In carving the left leg of Christ, a vein in the marble broke, and the leg
was completely destroyed. There are also breaks above the left elbow of Christ, in
his chest on the left, and on the fi ngers of the hand of the Virgin. The story goes
that, in despair, Michelangelo did some of this damage himself. In any case, he gave
up on it as a monument for his tomb and sold it in 1561, deciding that he preferred
burial in Florence.
PERCEPTION KEY Pietà
1. Of the four fi gures in this statue — Joseph, Christ, the Virgin to the right, and
Mary Magdalene to the left — one seems to be not only somewhat stylistically out
of harmony with the other three but of less artistic quality. Historians and critics
generally agree that this fi gure was not done or at least not completed by Michel-
angelo but rather by a second-rate sculptor, presumably Tiberio Calcagni. Which
fi gure is this? What are your reasons for choosing it?
2. Michelangelo, perhaps more than any other sculptor, was obsessed with marble.
He spent months searching the hills of Carrara near Pisa for marble blocks from
which he could help sculptural shapes emerge. Something of his love for marble,
perhaps, is revealed in this Pietà. Do you perceive this?
3. Is this sculpture in the round? The fi gures are freed from a base as background,
and the viewer can walk around the work. But is this Pietà in the round in the same
way as Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1)?
FIGURE 5-4
Mithuna Couple. Twelfth to
thir teenth century. Orissa,
India. Stone, 83 inches high.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.
Stone, high-relief sculpture like
this, found on Indian temples built
in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, represents fi gures
combining the divine spirit with
the erotic.
The answer to the fi rst question is the Magdalene. Her fi gure and pose, relative
to the others, are artifi cial and stiff. Her robe — compare it with the Virgin’s — fails
to integrate with the body beneath. For no accountable reason, she is both aloof
and much smaller, and the rhythms of her fi gure fail to harmonize with the others.
Finally, the marbleness of the marble fails to come out with the Magdalene.
In the other fi gures — and this is the key to the second question — Michelangelo
barely allows his shapes, except for the polished surfaces of the body of Christ, to
emerge from the marble block. The features of the Virgin’s face, for example, are
very roughly carved, as if she were still partially a prisoner in the stone. The Virgin
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CHAPTER 5
is a marble Virgin; the Mag dalene is a Magdalene and marble. Or, to put it another
way, Michelangelo saw the Virgin in the marble and helped her image out with-
out allowing it to betray its origin. Calcagni, or whoever did the Magdalene, saw
the image of Magdalene and then fi tted the marble to the image. Thus the claim
that the face of the Virgin was unfi nished is mistaken. It is hard to conceive, for
us at least, how more chiseling or any polishing could have avoided weakening
the expression of tender sorrow. The face of the Magdalene is more fi nished in a
realistic sense, of course, but the forms of art reveal rather than reproduce reality.
FIGURE 5-5
Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pietà .
Circa 1550–1555. Marble,
7 feet 8 inches high. Opera del
Duomo , Florence.
One of Michelangelo’s last
unfi nished pieces represents Jesus
being taken down from the cross.
The portrayal of emotion in the
faces of Joseph of Arimathea and
Mary, next to Jesus, is subtle but
haunting. The Pietà was a favorite
subject of Renaissance artists.
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SCULPTURE
In the case of the body of Christ — compared with the rest of the statue except
the Magdalene — the more fi nished chiseling and the high polish were appropriate
because they help reveal the bodily suffering.
Since there is no background plane from which the fi gures emerge, the Pietà is
usually described as sculpture in the round. Yet when compared with Arp’s Growth
(Figure 5-1), it is obvious that the Pietà is not so clearly in the round. There is no
“pull” around to the rough-hewn back side, except, perhaps, our need to escape from
the intensity of the awesome pity. And when we do walk behind the Pietà, we fi nd
the back side unintegrated with the sides and front and of little interest. Michel-
angelo intended this essentially three-sided pyramid, as with practically all of his
sculptures, to be placed in a niche so that it could be seen principally from the front.
In this sense, the Pietà is a transition piece between high-relief sculpture, such as the
Mithuna Couple, and unqualifi ed sculpture in the round, such as Growth.
Sculpture and Architecture Compared
Architecture is the art of separating inner from outer space so that the inner space can
be used for practical purposes. Sculpture does not provide a practically usable inner
space. What about the Sphinx and the Pyramid of Cheops (Figure 5-6)? They are the
densest and most substantial of all works. They attract us visually and tactilely. But
since there is no usable space within the Sphinx, it is sculpture. Within the Pyramid,
FIGURE 5-6
The Sphinx and Pyramid
of Cheops, Egypt. Fourth dynasty,
ca. 2850 BCE. Limestone and
masonry. Base of pyramid ca.
13 acres; sphinx 66 feet high,
172 feet wide.
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104
CHAPTER 5
however, space was provided for the burial of the dead. There is a separation of inner
from outer space for the functional use of the inner space. Yet the use of this inner
space is so limited that the living often have a diffi cult time fi nding it. The inner space
is functional only in a restricted sense—is this Pyramid then sculpture or architecture?
We shall delay our answer until the next chapter. The diffi culty of the question points
up an important factor to keep in mind. The distinctions between the arts that we
have been and will be making are helpful in order to talk about them intelligibly, but
the arts resist neat pigeonholing, and attempts at that are futile.
Sensory Space
The space around a sculpture is sensory rather than empty. Despite its invisibility,
sensory space — like the wind — is felt. Sculptures such as Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1)
are surrounded by radiating vectors, something like the axis lines of painting. But
with sculpture, our bodies as well as our eyes are directed. Growth is like a magnet
drawing us in and around. With relief sculptures, except for very high relief such
as the Mithuna Couple (Figure 5-4), our bodies tend to get stabilized in one favored
position. The framework of front and sides meeting at sharp angles, as in Giufà, the
Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards (Figure 5-3), limits our movements to 180 degrees
at most. Although we are likely to move around within this limited range for a while,
our movements gradually slow down, as they do when we fi nally get settled in a com-
fortable chair. We are not Cyclops with just one eye, and so we see something of the
three-dimensionality of things even when restricted to one position. But even low-
relief sculpture encourages some movement of the body, because we sense that dif-
ferent perspectives, however slight, may bring out something we have not directly
perceived, especially something more of the three-dimensionality of the materials.
When one of the authors participated with Arp’s Growth, he had this response:
I fi nd a warm and friendly presence. I fi nd myself reaching toward the statue rather than
keeping my distance.
The Arp seems not only three-dimensional but four-dimensional, because it brings
in the element of time so discernibly — a cumulative drama. In addition to making equal
demands upon my contemplation, at the same time, each aspect is also incomplete,
enticing me on to the next for fulfi llment. As I move, volumes and masses change, and
on their surfaces points become lines, lines become curves, and curves become shapes. As
each new aspect unrolls, there is a shearing of textures, especially at the lateral borders.
The marble fl ows. The leading border uncovers a new aspect, and the textures of the old
aspect change. The light fl ames. The trailing border wipes out the old aspect. The curv-
ing surface continuously reveals the emergence of volumes and masses in front, behind,
and in depth. What is hidden behind the surfaces is still indirectly perceived, for the
textures indicate a mass behind them. As I move, what I have perceived and what I will
perceive stand in defi ned positions with what I am presently perceiving. My moving body
links the aspects. A continuous metamorphosis evolves, as I remember the aspects that
were and anticipate the aspects to come, the leaping and plunging lights glancing off the
surface helping to blend the changing volumes, shapes, and masses. The remembered and
anticipatory images resonate in the present perception. My perception of the Arp is alive
with motion. The sounds in the museum room are caught, more or less, in the rhythm
of that motion. As I return to my starting point, I fi nd it richer, as home seems after a
journey.
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SCULPTURE
Sculpture and the Human Body
Sculptures generally are more or less a center — the place of most importance that
organizes the places around it — of actual three-dimensional space: “more” in the
case of sculpture in the round, “less” in the case of low relief. That is why sculpture
in the round is more typically sculpture than is the other species. Other things being
equal, sculpture in the round, because of its three-dimensional centeredness, brings
out the voluminosity and density of things more certainly than does any other kind
of sculpture. First, we can see and perhaps touch all sides. But, more important,
our sense of density has something to do with our awareness of our bodies as three-
dimensional centers thrusting out into our surrounding environment. Philosopher –
critic Gaston Bachelard remarks that
immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being which life
curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we become
motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed,
immensity is the movement of a motionless man.2
Lachaise’s Floating Figure (Figure 5-7), with its ballooning buoyancy emerging
with lonely but powerful internal animation from a graceful ellipse, expresses not
only this feeling but also something of the instinctual longing we have to be-
come one with the world about us. Sculpture in the round, even when it does not
portray the human body, often gives us something of an objective image of our
2From Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. Translation © 1964 by the Orion Press, Inc. Reprinted by
permission of Grossman Publishers.
FIGURE 5-7
Gaston Lachaise, Floating Figure.
1927. Bronze (cast in 1979–80). 135
3 233 3 57 cm. National Gallery
of Australia, Canberra. Purchased
1978.
This massive sculpture appears to
be “fl oating” in a refl ective pool.
New York’s Museum of Modern
Art elevates it on a plinth in its
sculpture garden. The National
Gallery of Australia places its
Floating Figure in a refl ecting Pool.
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CHAPTER 5
Sculpture in the Round and the Human Body
No object is more important to us than our bodies, which are always with us. Yet
when something is continually present to us, we fi nd great diffi culty in focusing our
attention upon it. Thus we usually are only vaguely aware of our bodies except when
we feel pain or pleasure. Nevertheless, our bodies are part of our most intimate
selves — we are our bodies — and, since most of us are narcissists to some degree,
most of us have a deep-down driving need to fi nd a satisfactory material counter-
point for the mental images of our bodies. If that is the case, we are likely to be
lovers of sculpture in the round. All sculpture always evokes our outward sensations
and sometimes our inner sensations. Sculpture in the round often evokes our inward
sensations, for such sculpture often is anthropomorphic in some respect. And sculp-
ture in the round that has the human body as its subject matter not only often evokes
our inward sensations but also interprets them — as in the Aphrodite (Figure 5-8),
Michelangelo’s David (Figure 5-9), or Rodin’s Danaïde (Figure 5-10).
PERCEPTION KEY Aphrodite and Venus
The marble Aphrodite (Figure 5-8), slightly under life size, is a Roman copy of a Greek
original of the fi rst century BCE. It is extraordinary both for the delicacy of its
carving — for most Roman copies of Greek works crudely deaden their liveliness — and
the translucency of its marble, which seems to refl ect light from below its surface.
Compare this work with Giorgione’s Venus (Figure 2-16).
1. In both these works, graceful lassitude and sexuality have something to do with
their subject matter. Yet they are interpreted, we think, quite diff erently. What do
you think?
FIGURE 5-8
Aphrodite. First century BCE.
Marble, slightly under life size.
Found at Cyrene. Museo Nazionale
delle Terme, Rome.
A Roman copy of a Greek
original, this is an example of
the idealization of human form
interpreted by ancient sculptors.
PERCEPTION KEY Exercise in Drawing and Modeling
1. Take a pencil and paper. Close your eyes. Now draw the shape of a human being but
leave off the arms.
2. Take some clay or putty elastic enough to mold easily. Close your eyes. Now model
your material into the shape of a human being, again leaving off the arms.
3. Analyze your two eff orts. Which was easier to do? Which produced the more
realistic result? Was your drawing process guided by any factor other than your
memory images of the human body? What about your modeling process? Did any
signifi cant factors other than your memory images come into play? Was the feel of
the clay or putty important in your shaping? Did the awareness of your inner bodily
sensations contribute to the shaping? Did you exaggerate any of the functional
parts of the body where movement originates, such as the neck muscles, shoulder
bones, knees, or ankles? Could these exaggerations, if they occurred, have been a
consequence of your inner bodily sensations?
internal bodily awareness as related to its surrounding space. Furthermore, when
the human body is portrayed in the round, we have the most vivid material image
of our internal feelings.
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Rodin, one of the greatest sculptors of the human body, wrote that
instead of imagining the different parts of the body as surfaces more or less fl at, I repre-
sented them as projections of interior volumes. I forced myself to express in each swelling
of the torso or of the limbs the effl orescence of a muscle or a bone which lay beneath the
skin. And so the truth of my fi gures, instead of being merely superfi cial, seems to blossom
forth from within to the outside, like life itself.3
Aphrodite, David, and Danaïde present objective correlatives — images that are ob-
jective in the sense that they are “out there” and yet correlate or are similar to subjec-
tive awareness. All three clarify inner bodily sensations as well as outward appearance.
These are large, highly speculative claims. You may disagree, of course, but we hope
they will stimulate your thinking.
2. If the head and arms of the Venus were obliterated, would this injure the work more
than in the Aphrodite? If so, why? Some critics claim that the Aphrodite is not very
seriously injured as an artistic object by the destruction of her head and arms. Yet
how can this be? Suppose the Aphrodite were to come off her pedestal and walk.
Would you not fi nd this monstrous? Yet many people treasure her as one of the
most beautiful of all female sculptures. How can this be explained?
FIGURE 5-9
Michelangelo Buonarroti, David.
1501–1504. Marble, 13 feet high.
Accademia, Florence.
The heroic-size David stood as
Florence’s warning to powers that
might consider attacking the city-
state. It represents Michelangelo’s
idealization of the human form and
remains a Renaissance ideal.
FIGURE 5-10
Auguste Rodin, Danaïde. 1885.
Marble, approximately 14 3 28 3
22 inches. Musée Rodin , Paris.
Danaïde is from a Greek myth in
which the fi fty daughters of Danaos
were ordered to kill their fi fty
husbands, sons of Argos, on their
wedding night. All complied except
the one Rodin portrays here in
sensuous carving.
3Auguste Rodin, Art, trans. Romilly Fedden (Boston: Small, 1912), p. 65.
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CHAPTER 5
EXPERIENCING Sculpture and Physical Size
1. The sculptor Henry Moore claims that
“sculpture is more aff ected by actual
size considerations than painting. A
painting is isolated by a frame from
its surroundings (unless it serves just
a decorative purpose) and so retains
more easily its own imaginary scale.”
He makes the further claim that the
actual physical size of sculpture has
an emotional meaning. “We relate ev-
erything to our own size, and our emo-
tional response to size is controlled
by the fact that men on the average
are between fi ve and six feet  high.” 4
Now look at Five Swords, by Alexander
Calder (Figure   5-11), and compare
it to David and the Dana de. Does the
fact that Five Swords is much larger
than David, which in turn is larger than
the Dana de, make any signifi cant dif-
ference with respect to your tactile
sensations?
4Moore, “Notes on Sculpture,” p. xxxiv.
FIGURE 5-11
Alexander Calder, Five Swords. 1976. Sheet metal, bolts, paint, 213 3 264 3 348 inches.
Calder’s sculpture implies by its form that the swords have been turned into plowshares,
which may be seen as a monument to the end of the Vietnam War, America’s longest
modern war.
When we participate with sculpture such as the Aphrodite, we fi nd something of
our bodily selves confronting us. If we demanded all of our bodily selves, we would
be both disappointed and stupid. Art is always a transfor ma tion of reality, never a
duplication. Thus the absence of head and arms in the Aphrodite does not shock us
as it would if we were confronting a real woman. Nor does their absence ruin our
perception of its beauty. Even before the damage, the work was only a partial image
of a female. Now the Aphrodite is even more partial. But, even so, she is in that
partiality exceptionally sub stan tial. The Aphrodite is substantial because the female
shape, texture, grace, sensuality, sexuality, and beauty are interpreted by a form and
thus clarifi ed.
The human body is supremely beautiful. To begin with, there is its sensuous
charm. There may be other things in the world as sensuously attractive — for
example, the full glory of autumn leaves — but the human body also possesses a sex-
uality that greatly enhances its sensuousness. Moreover, in the human body, mind
is incarnate. Feeling, thought, purposefulness — spirit — have taken shape. Thus the
absent head of the Aphrodite is not really so absent after all. There is a dignity of
spirit that permeates her body. It is the manifestation of Aphrodite’s composed
spirit in the shaping of her body that, in the fi nal analysis, explains why we are not
repulsed by the absence of the head and arms.
Compare Michelangelo’s David (Figure 5-9) and Pietà (Figure 5-5) with the
Aphrodite.
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Contemporary Sculpture
Developments in sculpture are emerging and changing so rapidly that no attempt can
be made here even to begin to classify them adequately. But adding to the traditional
species (relief sculpture and sculpture in the round), at least fi ve new species have taken
hold: space, protest against technology, accommodation with technology, machine,
and earth sculpture. In much contemporary sculpture, there is one fairly pervasive
characteristic: truth to materials, more of a reaffi rmation than an innovation.
Truth to Materials
In the fl amboyant eighteenth-century Baroque and in some of the Roman ticism of the
later nineteenth century, respect for materials tended to be ignored. Karl Knappe
referred to a “crisis” in the early twentieth century that “concerns . . . the artistic media”:
An image cannot be created without regard for the laws of nature, and each kind of material
has natural laws of its own. Every block of stone, every piece of wood is subject to its own
rules. Every medium has, so to speak, its own tempo; the tempo of a pencil or a piece of
charcoal is quite different from the tempo of a woodcut. The habit of mind which creates, for
instance, a pen drawing cannot simply be applied mechanically to the making of a woodcut;
to do this would be to deny the validity of the spiritual as well as the technical tempo.5
5Karl Knappe, quoted in Kurt Herberts, The Complete Book of Artists’ Techniques (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1958), p. 16. Published in the United States by Frederick A. Praeger.
Size in sculpture can be signifi cant for many reasons. Michelangelo intentionally made
David large as a political statement in Florence. The great Renaissance sculptor Donatello
had created an earlier David that was slightly smaller than a life-size boy, partly as a way of
emphasizing the fact that the small warrior defeated the large warrior. But Michelangelo’s
heroic-size fi gure was a warning to other Italian city-states that Florence was not easy
pickings at a time when regional wars were common.
Rodin’s Dana de is much smaller than David, but its expressiveness, as Rodin suggests,
is considerable despite its size. This sculpture, unlike Calder’s and Michelangelo’s, is not
intended as an outdoor monument. Rather, it is an intimate piece designed to be close to
the viewer, even close enough to tempt the viewer to touch and sense its tactile repertoire,
from smooth to rough.
Five Swords is a gigantic structure, not in marble, but in steel panels painted a brilliant
color. Calder’s work needs to have space around it, which is one reason it is located in a huge
parklike setting. We are arrested by the sensa of this piece, and its hugeness when we are
near it is an important part of the sensa. Calder’s ideas about size are naturally infl uenced by
his own practice as a sculptor of monumental works, some of which dominate huge public
spaces in major cities. Unfortunately, photographs in this book can only suggest the diff er-
ences in size, but if you spend time with sculpture in its own setting, consider how much the
size of the work aff ects your capacity to participate with it.
2. Find and photograph a sculpture whose size seems to contribute importantly to its
impact. In your photograph, try to provide a visual clue that would help a viewer see
whether the object is huge or tiny.
3. To what extent does your respect for size aff ect your response to the sculpture?
109
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CHAPTER 5
PERCEPTION KEY Truth to Materials
1. Examine the examples of twentieth-century sculpture in the book. Assuming
that these examples are fairly representative, do you fi nd a pervasive tendency
to truth to materials? Do you fi nd exceptions, and, if so, how might these be
explained?
2. Henry Moore has stated that “every material has its own individual qualities. It is only
when the sculptor works direct, when there is an active relationship with his ma te-
rial, that the material can take its part in the shaping of an idea. Stone, for ex am ple,
is hard and concentrated and should not be falsifi ed to look like soft fl esh — it should
not be forced beyond its constructive build to a point of weakness. It should keep
its hard tense stoniness.”6 Does Recumbent Figure (Figure 5-12) il lu s trate Moore’s
point? If so, point out specifi cally how this is done.
6Quoted by Herbert Read, Henry Moore, Sculptor (London: A. Zwemmer, 1934), p. 29.
FIGURE 5-12
Henry Moore, Recumbent Figure.
1938. Green Hornton stone,
54 inches long. Tate Gallery,
London, Great Britain.
Recumbent Figure is one of an
enormous number of similar
sculptures by Moore in both
stone and bronze. This stone
piece distorts the fi gure in ways
reminiscent of Picasso’s paintings
of the same period.
Jeff Koons has made a career by pushing against the idea of truth to materials. His
Balloon Dog, Red (Figure 5-13) is a whimsical piece and amuses young and old alike.
Much of his work seems to be an attempt to call the entire question of What is art? to
the forefront. After looking at Balloon Dog in Versailles, will you see birthday-party
balloon dogs differently?
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SCULPTURE
As technology has gained more and more ascendancy, reverence toward natural
things has receded. In highly industrialized societies, people tend to re vere arti-
fi cial things, and the pollution of our environment is one result. An other result
is the fl ooding of the commercial market with imitations of prim i tive sculpture,
which are easily identifi ed because of the lack of truth to the ma te ri als (test this
for yourself ). Even contemporary sculptors have lost some of their innocence
toward things simply because they live in a technological age. Many sculptors still
possess something of the natural way of feeling things, and so they fi nd inspira-
tion in primitive sculpture. Despite its abstract sub ject matter, Barbara Hepworth’s
Pelagos (Figure 5-14), with its reverence to wood, has a close spiritual affi nity to the
Ma ter nity Group Figure (Figure 5-24). Truth to ma te ri als sculpture is an implicit
protest against technological ascendancy.
FIGURE 5-13
Jeff Koons, Balloon Dog, Red.
1994–2000. High chromium steel.
121 3 143 3 45 inches.
Balloon Dog, Red, among Koons’s
most popular works, has been
exhibited in the Museum of
Modern Art, Chateau de Versailles,
Venice, and elsewhere. Several
examples exist in blue, yellow,
orange, and magenta. Koons often
works against the principles of truth
to materials.
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112
CHAPTER 5
Protest against Technology
Explicit social protest is part of the subject matter of the works we will discuss
by Trova, Segal, and Giacometti, although perhaps only in Trova’s Study: Falling
Man (Wheel Man) (Figure 5-15) is that protest unequivocally directed at technol-
ogy. Flaccid, faceless, and sexless, this anonymous robot has “grown” spoked wheels
instead of arms. Attached below the hips, these mechanisms produce a sense of
eerie instability, a feeling that this antiseptically cleansed automaton with the slack,
protruding abdomen may tip over from the slightest push. In this inhuman me-
chanical purity, no free will is left to resist. Human value, as ar ticulated in Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World, has been reduced to human power, functions performed
in the world of goods and services. Since another individual can also perform these
functions, the given person has no special worth. His or her value is a unit that can
easily be replaced by another.
George Segal’s The Bus Driver (Figure 5-16) is an example of environmental
sculpture. Grimly set behind a wheel and coin box taken from an old bus, the
driver is a plaster cast made in sections over a living, well-greased human model.
Despite the “real” environment and model, the stark white fi gure with its rough
and generalized features is both real and strangely unreal. In the air around him,
we sense the hubbub of the streets, the smell of fumes, the ceaseless com ings and
goings of unknown customers. Yet, despite all these suggestions of a crowded,
nervous atmosphere, there is a heartrending loneliness about this driver. Worn
down day after day by the same grind, Segal’s man, like Trova’s, has been fl at-
tened into an x — a quantity.
FIGURE 5-14
Barbara Hepworth, © Bowness,
Hepworth Estate. Pelagos. 1946.
Wood with color and strings,
16 inches in diameter. Tate
Gallery, London, Great Britain.
Pelagos was inspired by a bay on the
coastline of St. Ives in Cornwall,
where Barbara Hepworth lived.
The strings, she said, represent the
tension between “myself and the
sea, the wind and hills.”
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113
SCULPTURE
In Giacometti’s emaciated fi gures (Figure 5-17), the huge, solidly implanted
feet suggest nostalgia for the earth; the soaring upward of the elongated bodies
suggests aspiration for the heavens. The surrounding environment has eaten away
at the fl esh, leaving lumpy, irregular surfaces with dark hollows that bore into the
bone. Each fi gure is without bodily or mental contact with anyone, as despair-
ingly isolated as The Bus Driver. They stand in or walk through an utterly alienated
space, but, unlike Falling Man, they seem to know it. And whereas the habitat of
Falling Man is the clean, air-conditioned factory or offi ce of Brave New World,
Giacometti’s people, even when in neat galleries, always seem to be in the grubby
streets of our decaying cities. The cancer of the city has left only the armatures of
FIGURE 5-15
Ernest Trova, Study: Falling
Man (Wheel Man). 1965. Silicon
bronze, 60 3 48 3 2013⁄16 inches.
Collection, Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis. Gift of the T. B.
Walker Foundation, 1965.
Trova’s sculpture portrays man as
part of a machine, implying that
in the machine age humans are
becoming less and less human.
Consider the unidealized human
fi gure in comparison with the
Greek ideal.
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114
CHAPTER 5
bodies stained with pollution and scarred with sickness. There is no center in this
city square or any particular exit, nor can we imagine any communication among
these citizens. Their very grouping in the square gives them, paradoxically, an even
greater feeling of isolation. Each Giacometti fi gure separates a spot of space from
the common place. The disease and utter distress of these vulnerable creatures
demand our respectful distance, as if they were lepers to whom help must come, if
at all, from some public agency. To blame technology entirely for the dehuman-
ization of society interpreted in these sculptures is an oversimplifi cation, of course.
But this kind of work does bring out something of the horror of technology when
it is misused.
FIGURE 5-16
George Segal, The Bus Driver. 1962.
Figure of plaster over cheesecloth
with bus parts, including coin box,
steering wheel, driver’s seat, railing,
dashboard, etc. Figure 531⁄2 3
267⁄8 3 45 inches (136 3 68.2 3
114 cm); overall 7 feet 5 inches 3
4 feet 35⁄8 inches 3 6 feet 43⁄4 inches
(226 3 131 3 195 cm). Museum
of Modern Art, New York, Philip
Johnson Fund.
Segal’s plaster fi gures posed in
ordinary activities are an important
part of the Pop Art movement. The
cool ghostly whiteness of Segal’s
plaster fi gure contrasts profoundly
with the subtle warmth of fi gures in
classical Greek and Roman marble
sculptures.
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115
SCULPTURE
Accommodation with Technology
Many contemporary sculptors see in technology blessings for humankind. It is true
that sculpture can be accomplished with the most primitive tools (that, incidentally,
is one of the basic reasons sculpture in primitive cultures usually not only precedes
painting but also usually dominates both qualitatively and quantitatively). Never-
theless, sculpture in our day, far more than painting, can take advantage of some
of the most sophisticated advances of technology, surpassed in this respect only by
architecture. Many sculptors today interpret the positive rather than the negative
aspects of technology. This respect for technology is expressed by truth to its ma-
terials and the showing forth of its methodology.
David Smith’s Cubi X (Figure 5-18) illustrates truth to technological mate-
rials. The stainless steel cylinders of Cubi X support a juggling act of hollow
rectangular and square cubes that barely touch one another as they cantilever
out into space. Delicate buffi ng modulates the bright planes of steel, giving the
illusion of several atmospheric depths and refl ecting light like rippling water.
Smith writes,
I like outdoor sculpture and the most practical thing for outdoor sculpture is stainless
steel, and I make them and I polish them in such a way that on a dull day, they take on
the dull blue, or the color of the sky in late afternoon sun, the glow, golden like the rays,
the colors of nature. And in a particular sense, I have used atmosphere in a refl ective way
on the surfaces. They are colored by the sky and the surroundings, the green or blue of
water. Some are down by the water and some are by the mountains. They refl ect the
colors. They are designed for outdoors.7
But Smith’s steel is not just a mirror, for in the refl ections the fl uid surfaces and
tensile strength of the steel emerge in a structure that, as Smith puts it, “can face
the sun and hold its own.”
FIGURE 5-17
Alberto Giacometti, Swiss, 1901–
1965, City Square (La Place). 1948.
Bronze, 81⁄2 3 253⁄8 3 171⁄4 inches
(21.6 3 64.5 3 43.8 cm). Museum
of Modern Art, New York. Purchase.
This is one of a series of sculptures
that became emblematic of the
alienation of modern life in the
decade following the end of World
War II.
7David Smith in Cleve Gray, ed., David Smith (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), p. 123.
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116
CHAPTER 5
Machine Sculpture
Jean Tinguely is dedicated to humanizing the machine. His Homage to New York
(Figure 5-19), exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960, was not only a
machine sculpture, but a onetime sculpture performance. Tinguely introduced
a  touch of humor into the world of sculpture as he explored the subject matter
of technology in the arts. For those present it was unforgettable. The mechanical
parts, collected from junk heaps and dismembered from their original machines,
stood out sharply, and yet they were linked by their spatial locations, shapes, and
textures, and sometimes by nervelike wires. Only the old player piano was intact.
As the piano played, it was accompanied by howls and other weird sounds in ir-
regular patterns that seemed to be issuing from the wheels, gears, and rods, as if
they were painfully communicating with one another in some form of mechanical
speech. Some of the machinery that runs New York City was exposed as vulnerable,
pathetic, and comic, but Tinguely humanized this machinery as he exposed it. Even
death was suggested, for Homage to New York was self-destructing: The piano was
electronically wired for burning, and, in turn, the whole structure collapsed.
FIGURE 5-18
David Smith, American, 1906–1965,
Cubi X. 1963. Stainless steel, 10 feet
13⁄8 inches 3 6 feet 63⁄4 inches 3
2 feet (308.3 3 199.9 3 61 cm),
including steel base 27⁄8 3 25 3
23 inches (7.3 3 63.4 3 58.3 cm).
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Robert O. Lord Fund.
Cubi X is Smith’s cubistic experiment
representing a human fi gure in planes
of polished steel, akin to the cubistic
paintings of Picasso and others.
Smith produced a wide collection of
Cubi sculptures.
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117
SCULPTURE
Earth Sculpture
Another avant-garde sculpture — earth sculpture — goes so far as to make the earth
itself the medium, the site, and the subject matter. The proper spatial se lec tion
becomes absolutely essential, for the earth usually must be taken where it is found.
Structures are traced in plains, meadows, sand, snow, and the like, in order to help
FIGURE 5-19
Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York.
1960. Mixed media. Exhibited
at the Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
Homage to New York was exhibited
in the sculpture garden of the
Museum of Modern Art in
New York, where it operated for
some twenty-seven minutes until
it destroyed itself. This was a late
Dadaist experiment.
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118
CHAPTER 5
make us stop and perceive and enjoy the “form site” — the earth transformed to be
more meaningful. Usually nature rapidly breaks up the form and returns the site to
its less ordered state. Accordingly, many earth sculptors have a special need for the
photographer to preserve their art.
Robert Smithson was a pioneer in earthwork sculpture. One of his best-known
works is Spiral Jetty (Figure 5-20), a 1,500-foot-long coil 15 feet wide that spirals
out from a spot on the Great Salt Lake. It is constructed of “mud, precipitated salt
crystals, rocks, water,” and colorful algae, all of which is now submerged in the
lake. At times it reemerges when the water level is low. Because the sculpture is
usually hidden, it exists for most viewers only in photographs. This mode of exis-
tence offers some interesting problems for those who question the authenticity of
such works.
FIGURE 5-20
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty. 1970.
Rock, salt crystals, earth, algae; coil
length 1,500 feet. Great Salt Lake,
Utah (now submerged).
Reaching 1,500 feet into the Great
Salt Lake is one of the fi rst and
most infl uential of large earth
sculptures. Utah offi cials stopped a
recent move to drill for oil nearby.
PERCEPTION KEY Spiral Jett y
1. Does the fact that the sculpture is usually submerged and invisible disqualify it as a
work of art? How important is it for such a work to be photographed artistically?
2. Would you like to see a work of this kind in a lake near you?
3. What would be the best vantage point to observe and participate with Spiral Jetty?
4. How does Smithson’s use of the spiral connect this sculpture with its natural
surroundings?
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FOCUS ON African Sculpture
Sub-Saharan African sculpture has exerted an
important infl uence on Western art since the
late eighteenth century, but it was especially in-
fl uential on nineteenth- and twentieth-century
artists such as Paul Gauguin, Constantine
Brancusi, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse,
and especially Pablo Picasso, who developed a
large personal collection of African sculpture.
Picasso’s experiments in Cubism owe their ori-
gin to the infl uence of African sculpture, which
had become widely known in Europe in the late
nineteenth century.
Because most African sculpture was carved
from wood, much of the older artistic heritage
has been lost to weathering, repeated use, and
even termites. Very little sculpture was made
from stone. In certain periods, cast metal sculp-
ture was created for kings in important courts,
especially in the Benin culture in Nigeria. Benin
cast sculpture, such as Figure 5-21, Commemora-
tive Head of a King, was usually meant to celebrate
a ruler. While some of these cast works are pro-
foundly realistic, in general realism is not the aim
of African sculpture. Yet the power of the Com-
memorative Head of a King is undeniable. The face
has noble scarifi cation on its forehead, powerful
eyes and lips, and a sense of bulk and density im-
plied in the garment covering the neck and chin as
well as the woven hat and what appears to be hair
or fi ber held with beads. One senses an expres-
sion of power and authority in this work.
The fi gural distortions common in African sculpture were what most interested
Picasso and other Western artists in the early twentieth century. The artists’ response
to those distortions freed them in important ways, permitting them to emphasize por-
tions of a face or fi gure to intensify its strength and signifi cance. It also helped Picasso
and others create a sense of freedom from being tied to a realistic representation. It
gave them a new way to conceive of proportion, shape, and beauty. But the purpose
of distortion in African sculpture is less an artistic value than it is an eff ort to respect
the life forces these artists perceived in the enlarged eyes, the oversize head, the ab-
domen, the prominent genitalia, all of which were sources of power for their culture.
For a contemporary Western art lover the cultural values are usually unknown, but
the eff ect of the distortions is perceived as being emotionally expressive and visually
intensifying.
The Luba Helmet Mask (Figure 5-22) is considered one of the most important hold-
ings of the Royal Museum for African Art in Belgium. The modeling and fi nish of the
wood is remarkable, a testament to truth to materials. The powerful nose and deep
sculpted eyes dominate, but the bull horns may suggest that the Luba chief, on whom
this mask may be based, has supernatural powers. Invisible from the front is a bird
FIGURE 5-21
Commemorative Head of a King.
Edo people, Nigeria. Eighteenth
century. Copper alloy, iron,
13 3 91⁄4 3 91⁄8 inches.
National Museum of African
Art (Smithsonian).
This work is an example of the
Benin lost-wax metal sculpture
technique. The original was
modeled in wax and placed in a
cast, and then the hot metal was
poured in, melting the wax, but
cooling into the original shape.
119
continued
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carved on the back, also perhaps symbol-
izing special powers. Originally the lower
part of the mask was covered by about
ten inches of grass, making it possible to
wear the mask in a ceremony. Like the
face in Figure 5-21, this mask exudes ex-
treme dignity, implying that the individ-
ual is of high station and great value.
One of the most mysterious pieces
is Figure (Figure 5-23). It is remarkable
fi rst because it is carved from stone
and then darkened with a patina. Its
date is unknown, but it was referred to
in a publication on African art in 1958.
Only one other fi gure of this type is
known, a female sculpture in the British
Museum. While both may be products of
Zimbabwe, there is not enough evidence to know which people produced it. We have no
idea whether it was an ancestor carving or a decoration for a costume. But its stark form
seems to connect it with modern Western sculpture. The arms are simplifi ed and rigid
on the side of the fi gure with all fi ve fi ngers in relief, while the back is marked by three
vertical ridges, almost as if to suggest folded wings.
FIGURE 5-23
Figure. Possibly Shona people,
possibly Zimbabwe. Date
unknown (before 1958). Stone,
13 inches 3 33⁄4 inches 3 9⁄16 inch.
National Museum of African Art
(Smithsonian).
We know very little about this
piece, although it was referred to in
a book before 1958, so it may be a
late-nineteenth- or early-twentieth-
century carving. To Western eyes
it seems very modern, as if it could
have infl uenced some contemporary
Western sculptors.
FIGURE 5-24
Maternity Group Figure. Afo
peoples, Nigeria. Nineteenth
century. Wood, 273⁄4 inches high.
Horniman Museum & Gardens,
London.
This fi gure is one of the African
spiritual pieces that inspired
modern European painters in the
early twentieth century.
FIGURE 5-22
Luba Helmet Mask. Luba people,
southeastern Congo. Circa 1880.
25½ inches high. Royal Museum
for African Art, Tervuren, Belgium.
This is a strongly modeled mask of
what may be an important person.
The rams’ horns and the bird carved
on the rear of the mask may imply
supernatural powers. Many African
sculptures refer to magical powers
and the supernatural.
120
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The Maternity Group Figure (Figure 5-24) celebrates
the life force in woman, with two  children behind the
mother and one feeding from her oversize breasts. This
work may be viewed from several positions because it is
an example of sculpture in the round. Its powerful paral-
lel lines, expressed in the angle of the breasts, the arms,
and the topmost child, imply a kinetic quality, as if some
energy were about to be released. Maternity groups
are common in African sculpture and some may have
been infl uenced by Western images of the Madonna and
Child, but the African versions tend to be more dynamic,
as in the case of this Afo group.
The Yoruba Bowl (Figure 5-25) is remarkable for its
brilliance in carving and the modeling of the wood base
and wood bowl cover. But it is even more remarkable for
the fact that we know who the artist was, Olowe of Ise,
who may have carved this functional sculpture in the
late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Like the fe-
male in Maternity Group Figure, this woman has an elon-
gated neck, prominent breasts, careful scarifi cation, and
strong angular lines. The women holding up the bowl all
represent ideals of Yoruba female beauty, and as they
support the bowl they imprison a male head that is loose
but cannot be freed. The birds above the bowl may be a
tribute to the power and freedom of the women in the
community. FIGURE 5-25
Olowe of Ise, Yoruba Bowl. Early twentieth century. Wood. The Walt
Disney-Tishman collection at the National Museum of African Art
(Smithsonian Institution).
Olowe of Ise was a master carver whose work has been identifi ed because
of his distinctive style. The women portrayed in the piece represent
ideals of Yoruba beauty, dignity, and strength. Beneath the bowl is a
loose male head which is captive in the piece. The Dallas Museum of Art
purchased a close duplicate in 2004 for more than $530,000.
PERCEPTION KEY African Sculpture
1. Which of the paintings in Chapter 2 seem most infl uenced by the African sculpture
discussed here?
2. To what extent do these African sculptures seem to reveal the psychology of the
fi gures?
3. Distortion is a powerful device in African sculpture, but it is also powerful in West-
ern art. Comment on the distorted necks of the kneeling woman in Yoruba Bowl
(Figure 5-25), the mother in Maternity Group Figure (Figure 5-24), and Parmigiani-
no’s The Madonna with the Long Neck (Figure 4-4). How does the use of distortion
aff ect your ability to participate with these works?
4. Examine these fi ve African sculptures for their use of space, simplifi cation of form,
and sense of dynamics. Which are most stable? Which are most dynamic?
5. How important is the concept of truth to materials for these sculptors?
121
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122
CHAPTER 5
Sculpture in Public Places
Sculpture has traditionally shared its location with major buildings, sometimes acting
as decoration on the building, as in many churches, or acting as a center point of
interest, as in the original placement of Michelangelo’s David, which was positioned
carefully in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the central building of the Florentine gov-
ernment. It stood as a warning not to underestimate the Florentines. Many small
towns throughout the world have public sculpture that commemorates wars or other
important events.
One of the most popularly successful of contemporary public sculptures has
been Maya Ying Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Figure 5-26) in Wash ing ton,
D.C. Because the Vietnam War was both terribly unpopular and a ma jor defeat,
there were fears that any memorial might stir public antagonism. However, the
result has been quite the opposite. The piece is a sloping black granite wall,
V-shaped, which descends ten feet below grade. On the wall are engraved the
names of more than 58,000 dead Americans. Visitors walk along its length, absorb-
ing the seemingly endless list of names. The impact of the memorial grows in part
because the list of names grows with each step down the slope. Visitors respond to
the memorial by touching the names, sometimes taking rubbings away with them,
sometimes simply weeping.
FIGURE 5-26
Maya Ying Lin, Vietnam Veterans
Memorial. 1982. Black granite,
V-shaped, 493 feet long, 10 feet
high at center. Washington, D.C.
Lin designed the memorial when
she was an undergraduate. One
angle of the wall points to the
Washington Monument, the
other to the Lincoln Memorial.
Its V-shape below the ground was
intended to suggest a wound in the
earth. Incised on it are the names of
58,256 fallen American warriors.
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123
SCULPTURE
Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial was a controversial public sculpture
when it was fi rst unveiled, but has become a most popular attraction both in
its place in Washington, D.C., and as a replica tours around the country. Judy
Chicago’s The Dinner Party (Figure 5-27), in the midst of a powerful wave of
feminist activity in the late 1970s, was celebrated by feminists and denounced by
opponents of the movement. Although it is not public sculpture in the sense that
it is on view outdoors, it once toured the country and attracted huge crowds. It is
now in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The sculpture
includes place settings for thirty-nine mythic and historical women such as Ishtar,
Hatshepsut, Sacagawea, Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth, Emily Dickinson,
and Virginia Woolf. Each place setting has embroidery, napkins, place settings,
and a plate with a butterfl y design that alludes to female genitalia—one reason
for protest against the work. Judy Chicago oversaw the project, but it is the work
of many women working in crafts traditionally associated with women, such as
sewing and embroidery.
Study (with imagination) Serra’s Sequence (Figure 5-28), four huge torqued Cor-
Ten steel plates installed in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in summer
2007. We are—as never before—immersed in sculptural space. At both ends we
have the chance of entering through one of two openings—one leads into a con-
tainment center of settled space, the other pulls us into a seemingly endless curvi-
linear corridor between two brutal, looming steel walls. Yet strangely, if we wait, we
see on the steel intriguing textures and beautiful orange-rust patterns sculpted by
time. Still we may feel compressed, confused, perhaps even a touch fearful. To go
FIGURE 5-27
Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party.
1979. Mixed media, each side
48 feet. Elizabeth A. Sackler Center,
Brooklyn Museum of Art.
The Dinner Party consists of thirty-
nine place settings for important
women of myth and history. The
work was produced by a collective
of women sewing, embroidering,
and weaving to complement the
elaborately designed plates.
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124
CHAPTER 5
FIGURE 5-28
Richard Serra, Sequence. 2006.
Cor-Ten steel, 12 feet 9 inches 3
40 feet 83⁄8 inches 3 65 feet
23⁄16 inches.
People walk around and in this
gigantic work, in which the walls
are torqued in such a way as to lean
toward the viewer. Critic Ronald
Paulson calls Serra the greatest
modern sculptor, perhaps the
greatest sculptor.
PERCEPTION KEY Public Sculpture
1. Public sculpture such as that by Maya Lin, Richard Serra, and Judy Chicago usually
produces tremendous controversy when it is not representative, such as a conven-
tional statue of a man on a horse, a hero holding a rifl e and fl ag, or person of local
fame. What do you think causes these more abstract works to attract controversy?
Do you react negatively or positively to any of these three works?
2. Should artists who plan public sculpture meant to be viewed by a wide-ranging
audience aim at pleasing that audience? Should that be their primary mission, or
should they simply make the best work they are capable of ?
3. Which of the three, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Sequence, or The Dinner Party, seems
least like a work of art to you? Try to convince someone who disagrees with you
that it is not a work of art.
4. Choose a public sculpture that is in your community, photograph it, and establish
its credentials, as best you can, for making a claim to being an important work of
art.
5. If we label Chicago’s The Dinner Party a feminist work, is it then to be treated as
political sculpture? Do you think Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a less political
or more political sculpture than Chicago’s work? Could Serra’s Sequence be consid-
ered a political work? Would labeling these works as political render them any less
important as works of art?
back is not necessarily an appealing option, for the spaces are narrow, and where are
we anyhow? Normal spatial perception is undermined. The walls appear to close
both behind and over us. They seem to sway, and so does the fl oor. At last we come
to the center, overcome with wonder.
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125
SCULPTURE
Summary
Sculpture is perceived differently from painting, engaging more acutely our
sense of touch and the feeling of our bodies. Whereas painting is more about the
visual appearance of things, sculpture is more about things as three- dimensional
masses. Whereas painting only represents voluminosity and density, sculpture
presents these qualities. Sculpture in the round, especially, brings out the three-
dimensionality of objects. No object is more important to us than our bodies, and
its “strange thickness” is always with us. When the human body is the subject
matter, sculpture more than any other art reveals a material counterpoint for our
mental images of our bodies. Tra di tional sculpture is made by either modeling or
carving. Many contemporary sculptures, however, are made by assembling pre-
formed pieces of material. New sculptural techniques and materials have opened
developments in avant-garde sculpture that defy classifi cation. Nonetheless, con-
temporary sculptors, generally, have emphasized truth to materials, respect for
the medium that is organized by their forms. Space, protest against technology,
accommodation with technology, machine, and earth sculpture are fi ve of the most
important new species. Public sculpture is fl ourishing.
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126
C h a p t e r 6
ARCHITECTURE
Buildings constantly assault us. Our only temporary escape is to the increasingly less accessible wilderness. We can close the novel, shut off the music, refuse to
go to a play or dance, sleep through a movie, shut our eyes to a painting or a sculp-
ture. But we cannot escape from buildings for very long, even in the wilderness.
Fortunately, however, sometimes buildings are works of art—that is, architecture.
They draw us to them rather than push us away or make us ignore them. They make
our living space more livable. Architecture is the shaping of buildings and space.
Centered Space
Painters do not command real three-dimensional space: They feign it. Sculptors
can mold out into space, but generally they do not enfold an enclosed or inner space
for our movement. The holes in the sculpture by Henry Moore (Figure 5-12), for
example, are to be walked around, not into, whereas our passage through the inner
spaces of architecture is one of the conditions under which its solids and voids
have their effect. In a sense, architecture is a great hollowed-out sculpture that
we perceive by moving about both outside and inside. Space is the material of the
architect, the primeval cutter,1 who carves apart an inner space from an outer space
in such a way that both spaces become more fully perceptible and interesting.
1This meaning is suggested by the Greek architectón.
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Inner and outer space come together on the earth to form a centered and illu-
minated context or clearing. Centered space is the arrangement of things around
some paramount thing — the place at which the other things seem to converge.
Sometimes this center is a natural site, such as a great mountain, river, canyon,
or forest. Sometimes the center is a natural site enhanced by a human-made
structure.
Centered space is centripetal, insisting upon drawing us in. There is an in-rush
that is diffi cult to escape, that overwhelms and makes us acquiescent. We perceive
space not as a receptacle containing things but rather as a context energized by the
positioned interrelationships of things. Centered space has a pulling power that,
even in our most harassed moments, we cannot escape feeling. In such places as
the piazza before St. Peter’s ( Figure 6-1), we walk slowly and speak softly. We fi nd
ourselves in the presence of a power be yond our control. We feel the sublimity of
space, but, at the same time, the centeredness beckons and welcomes us.
Space and Architecture
Architecture — as opposed to mere engineering — is the creative conservation of
space. Architects perceive the centers of space in nature and build to pre serve these
centers and make them more vital. Architects are confronted by centered spaces
that desire to be made, through them, into works. These spaces of nature are not
offspring of architects alone but appearances that step up to them, so to speak,
FIGURE 6-1
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the
Piazza before St. Peter’s, Rome.
1656–1667.
Bernini created a space large
enough to permit thousands to see
the pope offer his blessings. The
Egyptian obelisk centers the space,
and the two fountains on a design
by Maderno give it balance. The
colonnades on each side create a
sense of awe.
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CHAPTER 6
and demand protection. If an architect succeeds in carrying through these appeals,
the power of the natural space streams forth and the work rises. Architects are the
shepherds of space. In turn, the paths around their shelters lead us away from our
ordinary preoccupations demanding the use of space. We come to rest. Instead of
our using up space, space takes possession of us with a ten-fi ngered grasp. We have
a place to dwell.
The architect typically shelters inner space from outer space in such a way that
we can use the inner space for practical purposes at the same time we perceive both
spaces and their relationships as more interesting, thus evoking participation. The
partitioning of space renders invisible air visible. Inside the building, space is fi lled
with stresses and pressures. Outside the building, space becomes organized and
focused. Inner space is anchored to the earth. Outer space converges upon inner
space. Sunlight, rain, snow, mist, and night fall gracefully upon the cover protecting
the inner space as if drawn by a channeled and purposeful gravity, as if these events
of the outside belonged to the inside as much as the earth from which the building
rises. Inner and outer space are formed over the earth by the architect to create a
centered and illuminated clearing.
Architecture generally creates a strengthened hierarchy in the positioned interre-
lationships of earth and sky and what is in between. Architecture enhances the cen-
tered clearings of nature, accentuating a context in which all our senses can be in
harmony with their surroundings. And even when architecture is not present, our
memories of architecture, especially of great buildings, teach us how to order the
sensations of our natural environment. Aristotle said, “Art completes nature.” Every
natural environment, unless it has been ruined by man, lends itself to centering and
ordering, even if no architecture is there. The architectural model teaches us how to
be more sensitive to the potential centering and ordering of nature. As a result of such
intensifi ed sensitivity, we have a context—a special place—within which the sounds,
smells, temperatures, breezes, volumes, masses, colors, lines, textures, and constant
changes of nature can be ordered into something more than a blooming, buzzing
confusion. That special place might be sublimely open, as with the spectacle of an
ocean, or cozily closed, as with a bordered brook. In either case, nature is consecrated,
and we belong and dwell.
Chartres
On a hot summer day many years ago, following the path of Henry Adams,
who wrote Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, one of the authors was attempting
to drive from Mont-Saint-Michel to Chartres in time to catch the setting sun
through the western rose window of Chartres Cathedral. The following is an
account of this experience:
In my rushing anxiety — I had to be in Paris the following day and I had never been to
Chartres before — I became oblivious of space except as providing landmarks for my
time-clocked progress. Thus I have no signifi cant memories of the towns and coun-
trysides I hurried through. Late that afternoon the two spires of Chartres [Figure 6-2],
like two strangely woven strands of rope let down from the heavens, gradually came
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ARCHITECTURE
into focus. The blue dome of the sky also became visible for the fi rst time, centering as
I approached more and more fi rmly around the axis of those spires. “In lovely blueness
blooms the steeple with metal roof ” (Hölderlin). The surrounding fi elds and then the
town, coming out now in all their specifi city, grew into tighter unity with the church and
sky. I recalled a passage from Aeschylus: “The pure sky desires to penetrate the earth,
and the earth is fi lled with love so that she longs for blissful unity with the sky. The rain
falling from the sky impregnates the earth, so that she gives birth to plants and grain
for beasts and men.” No one rushed in or out or around the church. The space around
seemed alive and dense with slow currents all ultimately being pulled to and through
the central portal.2 Inside, the space, although spacious far beyond the scale of practical
human needs, seemed strangely compressed, full of forces thrusting and counterthrust-
ing in dynamic in ter re la tions. Slowly, in the cool silence inlaid with stone, I was drawn
down the long nave, following the stately rhythms of the bays and piers. But my eyes
also fol lowed the vast vertical stretches far up into the shifting shadows of the vaultings.
It was as if I were being borne aloft. Yet I continued down the narrowing tun nel of the
nave, but more and more slowly as the pull of the space above held back the pull of the
FIGURE 6-2
Chartres Cathedral, Chartres.
The cathedral, built starting
in 1140 and continuing into the
fi fteenth century, dominates the
cityscape. Chartres is considered
the greatest of the Gothic
cathedrals.
2Chartres, like most Gothic churches, is shaped roughly like a recumbent Latin cross: The front — with
its large circular window shaped like a rose and the three vertical windows, or lancets, beneath — faces
west. The apse, or eastern end, of the building contains the high altar. The nave is the central and largest
aisle leading from the central portal to the high altar. But before the altar is reached, the transept crosses
the nave. Both the northern and southern facades of the transept of Chartres contain, like the western
facade, glorious rose windows. (Drawing after R. Sturgis)
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space below. At the crossing of the transept, the fl aming colors, especially the reds, of
the northern and southern roses transfi xed my slowing pace, and then I turned back
at last to the western rose [Figure 6-3] and the three lancets beneath — a delirium of
color, dominantly blue, was pouring through. Earthbound on the crossing, the blaze of
the Without was merging with the Within. Ra di ant space took complete possession of
my senses. In the protective grace of this sheltering space, even the outer space which I
had dismissed in the traffi c of my driving seemed to converge around the center of this
crossing. Instead of be ing alongside things — the church, the town, the fi elds, the sky, the
sun — I was with them, at one with them. This housing of holiness made me feel at home
in this strange land.
FIGURE 6-3
Chartres Cathedral. The great
western rose window.
The window casts a powerful light
within the cathedral in the later
afternoon. Rose windows were
designed to cast a “dim, religious
light,” as the poet John Milton said.
PERCEPTION KEY Chartres Cathedral
1. Form and function usually work together in most architecture. What visible exte-
rior architectural details indicate that Chartres Cathedral functions as a church?
Are there any visible details that confl ict with its function as a church?
2. The two spires of the church were built at diff erent times. Should they have been
made symmetrical? What might be some reasons for their not being symmetrical?
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Living Space
Living space is the feeling of the comfortable positioning of things in the environ-
ment, promoting both liberty of movement and paths as directives. Taking pos-
session of space is our fi rst gesture as infants, and sensitivity to the position of
other things is a prerequisite of life. Space infi ltrates through all our senses, and our
sensations of everything infl uence our perception of space. A breeze broadens the
spaciousness of a room that opens on a garden. A sound tells us something about
the surfaces and shape of that room. A cozy temperature brings the furniture and
walls into intimate relationships. The smell of books gives that space a personality.
With living space, since all the senses are involved, the whole body is a center.
Furthermore, when we relate to a place of special value, such as the home, a “con-
fi gurational center” is formed, a place that is a gathering point around which a fi eld
of interest is structured. If we oversimplify, we can say that for the ancient Romans,
it was the city of Rome to which they most naturally belonged—Rome constituted
their confi gurational center. For medieval people, it was the church and castle, for
Babbitt the offi ce, for Sartre the café, and for de Gaulle the nation. But, for most
people at almost any time, although undoubtedly more so in contemporary times,
there are more than a couple of centers. Often these are more or less confused and
changing. In living space, nevertheless, places, principal directions, and distances
arrange themselves around confi gurational centers.
3. What seem to be the primary values revealed by the rose window of Chartres?
4. How did the builders satisfy the fourth requirement of architecture: that the build-
ing be revelatory? What values does the exterior of the building reveal?
5. What is implied by the fact that the cathedral dwarfs all the buildings near it?
PERCEPTION KEY Buildings
1. Select a house in your community that strikes you as ugly. Why?
2. Select a house in your community that strikes you as beautiful. Why?
3. Do the same for an apartment house, a school building, an offi ce building, a gas
station, a supermarket, a city street, a bridge.
4. Do you have any buildings that provide a centered space?
5. What are your confi gurational centers? Which are beautiful? Which are not?
A building that lacks artistic qualities, even if it encloses a convenient void,
encourages us to ignore it. Normally we will be blind to such a building and
its space as long as it serves its practical purposes. If the roof leaks or a wall
breaks down, however, we will only see the building as a damaged instrument.
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A well-designed building, on the other hand, brings us into living space by cen-
tering space. Such a building clarifi es earlier impressions of the scene that had
been obscure and confused. The potentialities of power in the positioned inter-
relationships of things are captured and channeled. Our feeling for interesting,
enlivened space is awakened. We become aware of the power and embrace of
space. Such a building strikes a bargain between what it lets us do and what it
makes us do.
Four Necessities of Architecture
Architecture is a peculiarly public art because buildings gen erally have a social
function, and many buildings require public funds. More than other artists,
architects must consider the public. If they do not, few of their plans are likely
to materialize. Thus architects must be psychologists, sociologists, economists,
businesspeople, politicians, and courtiers. They must also be engineers, for
they must be able to design structurally stable buildings. And then they need
luck. Even as famous an architect as Frank Lloyd Wright could not prevent the
destruction, for economic reasons, of one of his masterpieces — the Imperial
Hotel in Tokyo.
Architects have to take into account four basic and closely interrelated ne-
cessities: technical requirements, function, spatial relationships, and revelatory
requirements. To succeed, their structures must adjust to these necessities. As for
what time will do to their creations, they can only hope and prepare with foresight.
Wright’s hotel withstood earthquakes, but ultimately every building is peculiarly
susceptible to economic demands and the whims of future taste.
Technical Requirements of Architecture
Of the four necessities, the technical requirements of a building are the most obvious.
Buildings must stand and withstand. Architects must know the materials and their
potentialities, how to put the materials together, and how the materials will work on
a particular site. Stilt construction, for instance, will not withstand earthquakes —
and so architects are engineers. But they are something more as well — artists.
In solving their technical problems, they must also make their forms revelatory.
Their buildings must illuminate something signifi cant that we would otherwise
fail to perceive.
Consider, for example, the relationship between the engineering requirements
and artistic qualities of the Parthenon, 447–432 BCE. (Figure 6-4). The engineer-
ing was superb, but unfortunately the building was almost destroyed in 1687, when
it was being used as an ammunition dump by the Turks and was hit by a shell from a
Venetian gun. Basically the technique used was post-and-lintel (or post-and-beam)
construction. Set on a base, or stylobate, columns (verticals: the posts) support the
entablature (horizontals: the lintel), which, in turn, supports the pediment (the
triangular structure) and roof.
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Functional Requirements of Architecture
Architects must not only make their buildings stand but also usually stand them
in such a way that they reveal their function or use. One contemporary school of
architects even claims that form must follow function. If the form succeeds in this,
that is all the form should do. In any case, a form that disguises the function of a
building seems to irritate almost everyone.
FIGURE 6-4
The Parthenon, Athens.
447–432 BCE.
The Parthenon was dedicated
to Athena, the patron of Athens.
To give its proportions a sense
of perfection, a number of
imperfections were built into the
columns to accommodate the
way people must look up to the
building.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Parthenon and Chartres Cathedral
1. Compare the dominant vertical elements of the Parthenon—the Doric columns
and the pediment—with the dominant vertical elements of Chartres Cathedral—
the spires, the strong vertical buttresses, and the round window. Each building is
dedicated to God or gods. What revelatory function do the strong verticals seem
to serve? What might they reveal to those who fi rst saw these buildings?
2. Which building is more dominated by straight lines? What does the emphasis on
straight or rounded lines in these buildings imply in terms of revealing religious
values?
3. Both buildings are temples. Which seems to you more holy? Which seems to put
more trust in God? Compare your views with those of your peers.
4. Examine the elements of the Doric order in Figure 6-5. What values are revealed
by the attention to detail in the stylobate, the shaft, and the segments of the cap-
ital, the necking, echinus, and abacus? Are these details simply decoration, or are
they also functional and revelatory?
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If form follows function in the sense that the form stands “for” the function of
its building, then conventional forms or structures are often suffi cient. No one is
likely to mistake Chartres Cathedral for an offi ce building. We have seen the con-
ventional structures of too many churches and offi ce buildings to be mistaken about
this. Nor are we likely to mistake the Seagram Building (Figure 6-6) for a church.
We recognize the functions of these buildings because they are in the conventional
shapes that such buildings so often possess.
FIGURE 6-5
Elements of the Doric order, the
simplest of the Greek orders and
thus considered most appropriate
for temples.
PERCEPTION KEY Form, Function, Content, and Space
Study Figures 6-6 and 3-4, Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame-du-Haut.
1. What is the basic function of each of these buildings?
2. How do you know what the functions are? How have the respective forms revealed
the functions of their buildings? We would argue that both works are architecture
because the form of the building in Figure 3-4 is revelatory of the subject matter—
of the tension, anguish, striving, and ultimate concern of religious faith; whereas
in Figure 6-6 the form of the building is revelatory of the stripped-down, uniform
effi ciency of an American business corporation. Consider every possible relevant
argument against this view.
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Study one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s last and most famous works, the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City (Figures 6-7 and 6-8), constructed in
1957–1959 but designed in 1943. Wright wrote,
Here for the fi rst time architecture appears plastic, one fl oor fl owing into another (more
like sculpture) instead of the usual superimposition of stratifi ed layers cutting and butting
into each other by way of post-and-beam construction. The whole building, cast in con-
crete, is more like an egg shell — in form a great simplicity — rather than like a crisscross
structure. The light concrete fl esh is rendered strong enough everywhere to do its work
by embedded fi laments of steel either separate or in mesh. The structural calculations
are thus those of cantilever and continuity rather than the post and beam. The net result
of such construction is a greater repose, the atmosphere of the quiet unbroken wave: no
meeting of the eye with abrupt changes of form.3
FIGURE 6-6
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and
Philip Johnson, architects, the
Seagram Building, New York City.
1954–1958.
An example of the International style
popular in midcentury, the building
was designed so that the structure of
the building would be visible.
3Reprinted from The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, copyright 1960, by permission of the publishers,
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Horizon Press, New York, p. 16ff.
© Ezra Stoller/Esto
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FIGURE 6-8
Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum interior.
The fl oor spirals
continuously upward
with art hung on the
walls. A large transparent
skylight is shaped
similarly to cathedral
rose windows.
FIGURE 6-7
Frank Lloyd Wright, Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York
City. 1957–1959.
This was the last great commission
for Wright, whose cast concrete
design was instantly controversial.
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The term cantilever refers to a structural principle in architecture in which one
end of a horizontal form is fi xed — usually in a wall — while the other end juts out
over space. Steel beam construction makes such forms pos sible; many modern build-
ings, like the Guggenheim Museum, have forms extending fl uidly into space.
PERCEPTION KEY Guggenheim Museum
1. How well does the exterior of the building harmonize with the interior?
2. Does the form reveal the building as an art museum?
3. The museum stands near much larger rectangular buildings. What would be the
point of such a sharp contrast with boxlike “post-and-beam” structures? What
would such a contrast reveal about the nature of art?
4. The Guggenheim Museum faces Fifth Avenue in New York City. Originally, it was
to have been located in Central Park. How much diff erence would that have made
to the revelatory qualities of the building?
Spatial Requirements of Architecture
Wright solved his technical problems (such as cantilevering) and his functional
problems (effi cient and commodious exhibition of works of art) with considerable
success. Moreover, the building reveals itself as a museum. What else could it be?
Yet perhaps Wright was not completely successful in relating the museum to the
surrounding buildings in a spatially satisfactory way. This, in turn, detracts from
some of the “rightness” of the building. In any case, the technical, functional, and
spatial necessities are obviously interdependent. If a building is going to be artis-
tically meaningful — if it is to be architecture — it must satisfy all four necessities:
technical requirements, functional fi tness, spatial relationships, and content. Oth-
erwise, its form will fail to be a form-content. There is, of course, the question of
the degree of success in satisfying each of the four necessities. Despite the apparent
problem of its siting, Wright’s museum is so successful otherwise that it would be
strange indeed to describe it as just a building, something less than architecture.
Revelatory Requirements of Architecture
The function or use of a building is an essential part of the subject matter of that
building, what the architect interprets or gives insight into by means of its form.
The function of the Seagram Building (Figure 6-6) is to house offi ces. The form
of that building reveals that function. But does this function exhaust the subject
matter of this building? Is only function revealed? Would we, perhaps, be closer to
the truth by claiming that involved with this offi ce function are values closely as-
sociated with, but nevertheless distinguishable from, this function? That somehow
other values, besides functional ones, are interpreted in architecture? That values
of the architect’s society somehow impose themselves, and the architect must be
sensitive to them? We think that even if architects criticize or react against the val-
ues of their time, they must take account of them. Otherwise, their buildings would
stand for little more than projections of their personal idiosyncrasies.
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We are claiming that the essential values of contemporary society are a part of
all artists’ subject matter, part of what they must interpret in their work, and this—
because of the public character of architecture—is especially so with architects. The
way architects (and artists generally) are infl uenced by the values of their society has
been given many explanations. According to art historian Walter Abell, the state of
mind of a society infl uences architects directly. Historical and social circumstances
generate psychosocial tensions and latent imagery in the minds of the members of a
culture. Architects, among the most sensitive members of a society, release this tension
by condensing this imagery in their art. The psyche of the artist, explained by Abell by
means of psychoanalytic theory and social psychology, creates the basic forms of art;
but this psyche is controlled by the state of mind of the artist’s society, which, in turn,
is controlled by the historical and social circumstances of which it is a part.
Art is a symbolical projection of collective psychic tensions. . . . Within the organism of a
culture, the artist functions as a kind of preconsciousness, providing a zone of infi ltration
through which the obscure stirrings of collective intuition can emerge into collective
consciousness. The artist is the personal transformer within whose sensitivity a collec-
tive psychic charge, latent in society, condenses into a cultural image. He is in short the
dreamer . . . of the collective dream.4
Whatever the explanation of the architect’s relationship to society, the forms of
architecture refl ect and interpret some of the fundamental values of the society of
the architect. Yet, even as these forms are settling, society changes.
Not only do the forms of architecture preserve the past more carefully than do
most things, for most architects build buildings to last, but these structures also
inform about the values of the artists’ society. Architects did the forming, of course,
but from beginning to end that forming, insofar as it succeeded artistically, brought
forth something of their society’s values. Thus architectural forms are weighted
with the past — a past that is more public than private. The past is preserved in the
forms as part of the content of architecture.
Every stone of the Parthenon, in the way it was cut and fi tted, reveals something
about the values of the Age of Pericles, the fi fth century BCE — for example, the
emphasis on moderation and harmony, the importance of mathematical measure-
ment and yet its subordination to the eminence of humans and their rationality, as
well as the immanence rather than the transcendence of the sacred.
Chartres Cathedral also is an exceptional example of the preservation of the past.
Chartres reveals three principal value areas of that medieval region: the special im-
portance of Mary, to whom the cathedral is dedicated; the doctrines of the cathedral
school, one of the most important centers of learning in Europe in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; and the value preferences of the main patrons — the royal fam-
ily, the lesser nobility, and the local guilds. The windows of the 175 surviving panels
and the sculpture, including more than 2,000 carved fi gures, were a bible in glass
and stone for the illiterate, but they were also a visual encyclopedia for the literate.
From these structures the iconographer — the decipherer of the meaning of icons
or symbols — can trace almost every fundamental value of the society that created
Chartres Cathedral: the conception of human history from Adam and Eve to the Last
4Walter Abell, The Collective Dream in Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 328.
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Judgment; the story of Christ from his ancestors to his Ascension; church history; an-
cient lore and contemporary history; the latest scientifi c knowledge; the curriculum
of the cathedral school as divided into the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and
the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music); the hierarchy of the
nobility and the guilds; the code of chivalry and manners; and the hopes and fears of
the time. Furthermore, the participator also becomes aware of a society that believed
God to be transcendent but the Virgin to be both transcendent and immanent, not
just a heavenly queen but also a mother. Chartres is Mary’s home. For, as Henry
Adams insisted, “You had better stop here, once for all, unless you are willing to feel
that Chartres was made what it was, not by the artist, but by the Virgin.”
PERCEPTION KEY Values and Architecture
1. Enumerate other values in addition to the functional that may be interpreted by
the form of the Seagram Building (Figure 6-6).
2. Do the same for Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame-du-Haut (Figure 3-4). Is it easier to
enumerate the values related to Le Corbusier’s church? If so, how is this explained?
Let us return again to architecture and space, for what most clearly distinguishes
architecture from painting and sculpture is the way it works in space. Works of
architecture separate an inside space from an outside space. They make that inside
space available for human use. And in interpreting their subject matter (functions
and the values of their society), architects make space “space.” They bring out the
power and embrace of the positioned interrelationships of things. Architecture
in this respect can be divided into four main types — the earth-rooted, the sky-
oriented, the earth-resting, and the earth-dominating.
Earth-Rooted Architecture
The earth is the securing agency that grounds the place of our existence, our center.
In many primitive cultures, it is believed that people are born from the earth. And
in many languages, people are the “Earth-born.” In countless myths, Mother Earth
is the bearer of humans from birth to death. Of all things, the expansive earth, with
its mineral resources and vegetative fecundity, most suggests or is symbolic of se-
curity. Moreover, since the solidity of the earth encloses its depth in darkness, the
earth is also suggestive of mystery and death.
The Earth Mother has a mysterious, nocturnal, even funerary aspect — she is also
often a goddess of death. But, as the theologian Mircea Eliade points out, “even in re-
spect of these negative aspects, one thing that must never be lost sight of, is that when
the Earth becomes a goddess of Death, it is simply because she is felt to be the universal
womb, the inexhaustible source of all creation.”5 Nothing in nature is more suggestive
5Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, trans. Philip Mairet (New York: Harper, 1961), p. 188.
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or symbolic of security and mystery than the earth. Earth-rooted architecture accentu-
ates this natural symbolism more than any other art.
Site
Architecture that is earth-rooted discloses the earth by drawing our attention to
the site of the building, its submission to gravity, its raw materials, and its central-
ity in outer and inner space. Sites whose surrounding environment can be seen
from great distances are especially favorable for helping a building to bring out
the earth. The site of the Parthenon (Figure 6-4), for example, is surely superior in
this respect to the site of Chartres (Figure 6-2), because the acropolis is a natural
center that dominates a widespread concave space. Thus the Parthenon emphasizes
by continuity both the sheer heavy stoniness of the limestone cliffs of the acropo-
lis and the gleaming whites of Athens. In contrast, it sets off the deep blue of the
Mediterranean sky and sea and the grayish greens of the encompassing mountains
that open out toward the weaving blue of the sea like the bent rims of a colossal
fl ower. All these elements of the earth would be present without the Parthenon, of
course, but the Parthenon, whose columns from a distance push up like stamens of
a fl ower, centers these elements more tightly so that their interrelationships add to
the vividness of each. Together they form the ground from which the Parthenon
slowly and majestically rises.
Gravity
The Parthenon is also exceptional in the way it manifests a gentle surrender to
gravity. The horizontal rectangularity of the entablature follows evenly along the
plain of the acropolis with the steady beat of its supporting columns and quiets their
upward thrust. Gravity is accepted and accentuated in this serene stability — the
hold of the earth is secure.
The site of Mont-Saint-Michel (Figure 6-9) can also be seen from great dis-
tances, especially from the sea; and the church, straining far up from the great rock
cliffs, organizes a vast scene of sand, sea, shallow hills, and sky. But the spiny, lonely
verticality of the church overwhelms the pull of the earth. We are lured to the sky,
to the world of light and open vastness, whereas the Parthenon draws us back into
the womb of the earth. The signifi cance of the earth is felt much more deeply at the
Parthenon than at Mont-Saint-Michel.
Rockefeller Center (Figure 6-10) in New York City is an exceptional example of
an architecture that allows for only a minimal submission to gravity. The surround-
ing buildings, unless we are high up in one nearby, block out the lower sections
of the Center. If we are able to see the lower sections by getting in close, we are
blocked from a clear and comprehensive view of the upper sections. The relation-
ships between the lower and upper sections are, therefore, somewhat disconnected,
and there is a sense of these tapering towers not only scraping but also being sus-
pended from the sky. The Seagram Building (Figure  6-6), not far away, carries
this feeling even further by the placement of the shaftlike box on stilts. Apparently
weightless, the Seagram Building mitigates but does not annihilate our feeling of
the earth, for despite its elegant soaring, we are aware of its base.
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FIGURE 6-9
Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy,
France. Ninth century.
The church itself was begun in the
ninth century and continued to the
twentieth century. Because it is on a
fortifi ed island, it can be seen from
a great distance.
FIGURE 6-10
Raymond Hood, Rockefeller
Center, New York City.
1931–1940.
Hood executed the project in Art
Deco style. At the time, it was the
largest private building project of
modern times.
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CHAPTER 6
Raw Materials
When the medium of architecture is made up totally or in large part of unfi nished
materials furnished by nature, especially when they are from the site, these ma-
terials tend to stand forth and help reveal the earthiness of the earth. In this re-
spect, stone, wood, and clay in a raw or relatively raw state are much more effective
than steel, concrete, and glass. If the Parthenon had been made in concrete rather
than in native Pentelic marble — the quarries can still be seen in the distance — the
building would not grow out of the soil so organically, and some of the feeling of
the earth would be dissipated. Also, if the paint that originally covered much of
the Parthenon had remained, the effect would be considerably less earthy than at
present. Note, however, that the dominant colors were terra-cotta reds, colors of
the earth. Wright’s Kaufmann house (Figure 6-11) is an excellent example of the
combined use of manufactured and raw materials that helps set forth the earth. The
concrete and glass bring out by contrast the textures of stone and wood taken from
the site, while the lacelike fl ow of the falling water is made even more graceful by
its refl ection in the smooth clear fl ow of concrete and glass. Like a wide-spreading
plant, drawing the sunlight and rain to its good earth, this home seems to breathe
within its homeland.
FIGURE 6-11
Frank Lloyd Wright, Edgar J.
Kaufmann House, known as
Fallingwater. 1937–1939.
Fifty miles southeast of Pittsburgh,
it was described by Time magazine
as Wright’s “most beautiful job.”
© Scott Frances/Esto
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Centrality
A building that is strongly centered, in both its outer and inner space, helps disclose
the earth. Perhaps no building is more centered in its site than the Parthenon, but
the weak centering of its inner space slackens somewhat the signifi cance of the earth.
Unlike Chartres, there is no strong pull into the Parthenon, and, when we get in-
side, the inner space, as we reconstruct it, is divided in such a way that no certain
center can be felt. There is no place to come to an unequivocal standstill as at Char-
tres. Even Versailles (Figure 6-12), despite its seemingly never-ending partitions of
inner space, brings us eventually to somewhat of a center at the bed in Louis XIV’s
bedroom. Yet this centering is made possible primarily by the view from the room
that focuses both the pivotal position of the room in the building and the place-
ment of the room on a straight-line axis to Paris in the far distance. Conversely,
the inner space of Chartres, most of which from the crossing can be taken in with a
sweep of the eyes, achieves centrality without this kind of dependence upon outside
orientation. Buildings such as the Parthenon and Versailles, which divide the inner
space with solid partitions, are weaker in inner centrality than buildings without
FIGURE 6-12
Louis le Vau and Jules Hardouin-
Mansart, Palace of Versailles,
France. 1661–1687.
France was governed from this
palace from 1682 until the French
Revolution of 1789. Its immensity
was designed to house the entire
Royal Court in a place several miles
from Paris, the offi cial capital of
France.
PERCEPTION KEY Architecture and Materials
In his Praise of Architecture, the Italian architect Giò Ponti writes, “Beautiful materials
do not exist. Only the right material exists. . . . Rough plaster in the right place is
the beautiful material for that place. . . . To replace it with a noble material would be
vulgar.”
1. Do you agree with Ponti?
2. If you agree, refer to examples that corroborate Ponti’s point.
3. If you disagree, refer to examples that do not corroborate.
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CHAPTER 6
such divisions. The endless boxes within boxes of the Seagram Building (Figure 6-6)
negate any possibility of signifi cant inner centering, adding to the unearthiness of
this cage of steel and glass.
Buildings in the round, other things being equal, are the most internally cen-
tered of all. In the Pantheon (Figure 6-13), almost all the inner space can be seen
with a turn of the head, and the grand and clear symmetry of the enclosing shell
FIGURE 6-13
Giovanni Paolo Panini, Interior of
the Pantheon, Rome. Circa 1734.
Oil on canvas, 50½ 3 39 inches.
The Pantheon dates from the
second century. It is notable for
being one of the only Roman
buildings still in use and still intact
as it originally was. The interior
space is overwhelming in part
because it contrasts dramatically
with a very plain exterior.
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ARCHITECTURE
draws us to the center of the circle, the privileged position, beneath the eye of the
dome opening to a bit of the sky. Few buildings root us more fi rmly in the earth.
The massive dome with its stony bluntness seems to be drawn down by the fun-
neled and dimly spreading light falling through the eye. This is a dome of destiny
pressing tightly down. We are driven earthward in this crushing ambience. Even on
the outside, the Pantheon seems to be forcing down (Figure 6-14). In the circular
interior of Wright’s Guggenheim Museum (Figure 6-8), not all of the inner space
can be seen from the privileged position, but the smoothly curving ramp that comes
down like a whirlpool makes us feel the earth beneath as our only support. Whereas
in buildings such as Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, mass seems to be overcome,
the weight lightened, and the downward motion thwarted, in buildings such as the
Pantheon and the Guggenheim Museum, mass comes out heavily and down.
Sky-Oriented Architecture
Architecture that is sky-oriented suggests or is symbolic of a world as the generating
agency that enables us to project our possibilities and realize some of them. A hori-
zon, always a necessary part of a world, is symbolic of the limitations placed upon
FIGURE 6-14
The Pantheon exterior. 117–125.
The Greek facade, eight Egyptian
marble Corinthian pillars, hides the
drumlike structure of the building,
which was used as a Christian
church starting in the seventh
century.
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CHAPTER 6
our possibilities and realizations. The light and heat of the sun are more symbolic
than anything else in nature of generative power. Dante declared, “There is no vis-
ible thing in the world more worthy to serve as symbol of God than the Sun; which
illuminates with visible life itself fi rst and then all the celestial and mundane bodies.”
Total darkness, at least until we can envision a world, is terrifying. That is why, as
the Preacher of Ecclesiastes proclaims, “The light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is
for the eyes to behold the sun.” Architecture organizes a world, usually more tightly
than nature, by centering that world on the earth by means of a building. By accen-
tuating the natural symbolism of sunlight, sky, and horizon, sky-oriented architec-
ture opens up a world that is symbolic of our projections into the future.
Such architecture discloses a world by drawing our attention to the sky bounded
by a horizon. It accomplishes this by means of making a building appear high and
centered within the sky, defying gravity, and tightly integrating the light of outer
with inner space. Negatively, architecture that accents a world de-emphasizes the
features that accent the earth. Thus the manufactured materials, such as the steel
and glass of the Seagram Building (Figure 6-6), help separate this building from the
earth. Positively, architects can accent a world by turning their structures toward
the sky in such a way that the horizon of the sky forms a spacious context. Ar ch i tec-
ture is an art of bounding as well as opening.
Barcelona’s Antonio Gaudí created one of the most striking modern buildings in
his Sagrada Família (Figures 6-15 to 6-17). Gaudí never lived to see the erection of the
four towers that dominate the facade. The interior space is not yet covered with a roof,
and this emphasizes the sky-orientation of the building. One’s eye is lifted upward
by almost every part of the building. Under construction for over a hundred years, it
may be at least another hundred years before the church is completed. Work proceeds
slowly, guided more or less by Gaudí’s general designs. Gaudí developed details and
structures based on organic forms of nature through irregular sweeping lines, shapes,
and volumes. Geometric designs are subordinated. Textures vary greatly, often with
strong contrasts between smooth and rough; and sometimes, especially in the towers,
brilliantly colored pieces of glass and ceramics are embedded, sparkling in the sunlight.
PERCEPTION KEY Sky-Oriented Architecture
1. Identify the most sky-oriented building in your local community. Photograph that
building from an angle or angles that support your choice.
Stained glass, usually framed within a wall, is activated by penetrating light. Outside,
the great western rose window of Chartres (Figure 6-3) is only of sculptural interest.
Inside, on a sunny day, the cascade of fl ashing colors, especially blues, is overwhelm-
ing. No photograph can capture the sublimity. There is a “strangeness.” Our sight is
wired to see light falling on objects rather than shining through them.
2. Try to fi nd in your local community any buildings with powerful stained glass. Do
you think stained glass is generally sky-oriented?
3. Do you think stained glass should be classifi ed as an independent art distinct from
painting?
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ARCHITECTURE
FIGURE 6-16
Sagrada Família, interior detail.
Gaudí merged traditional cathedral
details with fl owing modern forms.
FIGURE 6-15
Antonio Gaudí, Sagrada Família
(Church of the Holy Family,
interior), Barcelona. 1883–present.
Gaudí famously relied on organic
forms to create an idiosyncratic style.
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148
CHAPTER 6
Axis Mundi
Early civilizations often express a need for a world by centering themselves in rela-
tion to the sky by means of an axis mundi. Mircea Eliade cites many instances, for
example, among the nomadic Australians, whose economy is based on gathering
food and hunting small game:
According to the traditions of an Arunta tribe, the Achipla, in mythical times the di-
vine being Numbakula cosmicized their future territory, created their Ancestor, and
FIGURE 6-17
Sagrada Família, exterior detail.
Organic forms are clearly visible
on the exterior along with fi gures
typically found on the exteriors of
Gothic churches.
PERCEPTION KEY Sagrada Família
1. Compare Sagrada Família with Chartres (Figure 6-2). How do their sky- orientations
diff er? How are they similar? Compare Sagrada Família with any church well known
to you. What are the diff erences?
2. Chartres, St. Peter’s (Figure 6-1), Sagrada Família, and Notre Dame-du-Haut
(Figure 3-4) are all Catholic churches. Do they each reveal diff erent expressions of
religious values?
The effect is both sculptural — dense volumes activating the surrounding space — and
organic, as if a forest of plants were stretching into the sky searching for sunlight. The
earth, despite its necessity, is superseded. This is a building for heaven.
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ARCHITECTURE
established their institutions. From the trunk of a gum tree Numbakula fashioned the
sacred pole (kauwa-auwa) and, after anointing it with blood, climbed it and disappeared
into the sky. This pole (the axis mundi ) represents a cosmic axis, for it is around the
sacred pole that territory becomes habitable, hence is transformed into a world. The
sacred pole consequently plays an important role ritually. During their wanderings the
Achipla always carry it with them and choose the direction they are to take by the di-
rection toward which it bends. This allows them, while being continually on the move,
to be always in “their world” and, at the same time, in communication with the sky into
which Numbakula vanished. For the pole to be broken denotes catastrophe; it is like
“the end of the world,” reversion to chaos. Spencer and Gillen report that once, when
the pole was broken, “the entire clan were in consternation; they wandered about aim-
lessly for a time, and fi nally lay down on the ground together and waited for death to
overtake them.”6
Buildings that stretch up far above the land and nearby structures, such as
Mont-Saint-Michel (Figure 6-9), Chartres, Rockefeller Center (Figure 6-10),
and Sagrada Família (Figure 6-15), not only direct our eyes to the sky but also
act as a center that orders the sunlight in such a way that a world with a hori zon
comes into view. The sky both opens up and takes on limits. Such build ings reach
up like an axis mundi, and the sky reaches down to meet them in mutual embrace.
And we are blessed with an orienting center, our motion being given direction
and limits.
Defi ance of Gravity
The stony logic of the press of the fl ying buttresses of Chartres and the arched
roof, towers, and spires that carry on their upward thrust seem to overcome the
binding of the earth, just as the stone birds on the walls seem about to break their
bonds and fl y out into the world. The reach up is full of vital force and fi nally
comes to rest comfortably and securely in the bosom of the heavens. Mont-Saint-
Michel is even more impressive in this respect, mainly because of the advantages
of its site.
Perhaps Brunelleschi’s dome of the Cathedral of Florence (Figure 6-18) is the
most powerful structure ever built in seeming to defy gravity and achieving height
in relation to its site. The eight outside ribs spring up to the cupola with tremen-
dous energy, in part because they repeat the spring of the mountains that encir-
cle Florence. The dome, visible from almost everywhere in and around Florence,
appears to be precisely centered in the Arno Valley, precisely as high as it should
be in order to organize its sky. The world of Florence begins and ends at the still
point of this dome of aspiration. In contrast, Michelangelo’s dome of St. Peter’s,
although grander in proportions and over fi fty feet higher, fails to organize the sky
of Rome as fi rmly, mainly because the seven hills of Rome do not lend themselves
to centralized organization.
6Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959),
p. 32ff.
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Integration of Light
When the light of outer space suffuses the light of inner space, especially when the
light from the outside seems to dominate or draw the light from the inside, a world
is accented. Inside Chartres, the light through the stained glass is so majestic that
we cannot fail to imagine the light outside that is generating the transfi guration
inside. For a medieval man like Abbot Suger, the effect was mystical, separating the
earth from heaven:
When the house of God, many colored as the radiance of precious jewels, called me from
the cares of the world, then holy meditation led my mind to thoughts of piety, exalting
my soul from the material to the immaterial, and I seemed to fi nd myself, as it were, in
some strange part of the universe which was neither wholly of the baseness of the earth,
nor wholly of the serenity of heaven, but by the grace of God I seemed lifted in a mystic
manner from this lower toward the upper sphere.
For a contemporary person, the stained glass is likely to be felt more as integrating
rather than as separating us from a world. Hagia Sophia in Istan bul (Figure 6-19)
has no stained glass, and its glass areas are completely dominated by the walls and
dome. Yet the subtle placement of the relatively small windows, especially around
the perimeter of the dome, seems to draw the light of the inner space up and out.
Unlike the Pantheon (Figure 6-14), the great masses of Hagia Sophia seem to rise.
The dome fl oats gently, despite its diameter of 107 feet, and the great enfolded space
beneath is absorbed into the even greater open space outside. We imagine a world.
FIGURE 6-18
Filippo Brunelleschi, dome of the
Cathedral of Florence. 1420–1436.
One of the great architectural
achievements of the Renaissance,
the cathedral still dominates the
landscape of modern Florence.
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Sky-oriented architecture reveals the generative activity of a world. The energy
of the sun is the ultimate source of all life. The light of the sun enables us to see
the physical environment and guides our steps accordingly. “Arise, shine, for thy
light is come” (Isaiah 60:1). The sky with its horizon provides a spacious context for
our progress. The world of nature vaguely suggests the potentialities of the future.
Architecture, however, tightly centers a world on the earth by means of its struc-
tures. This unifi cation gives us orientation and security.
Earth-Resting Architecture
Most architecture accents neither earth nor sky but rests on the earth, using the
earth like a platform with the sky as background. Earth-resting buildings relate
more or less harmoniously to the earth. Mies van der Rohe’s residence for Edith
FIGURE 6-19
Hagia Sophia (Church of the
Holy Wisdom of God), Istanbul.
532–537; restored 558, 975.
Isadore and Anthemius were
nonprofessional architects who
used light materials to create a huge
well-lighted interior.
151
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CHAPTER 6
Farnsworth (Figure 6-20) in Plano, Illinois, is an example of a very harmonious rela-
tionship. Unlike sky-oriented architecture, the earth-resting type does not strongly
organize the sky around itself, as with Chartres (Figure 6-2) or the Cathedral of
Florence (Figure 6-18). The sky is involved with earth-resting architecture, of
course, but more as backdrop.
With earth-resting architecture — unlike earth-rooted architecture — the
earth does not appear as an organic part of the building, as in Wright’s Kaufmann
house (Figure 6-11). Rather, the earth appears as a stage. Earth- resting build-
ings, moreover, are usually cubes that avoid cantilevering structures, as in the
Kaufmann house, as well as curving lines, as in the Sagrada Família (Figure 6-15).
Earth-rooted architecture seems to “hug to” the earth, as with the Pantheon
(Figure  6-14), or to grow out of the earth, as with the Kaufmann house.
Earth-resting architecture, on the other hand, seems to “sit on” the earth. Thus,
because it does not relate to its environment quite as strongly as earth-rooted and
sky-oriented architecture, this kind of architecture usually tends to draw to itself
more isolated attention with reference to its shape, articulation of the elements
of its walls, lighting, and so on.
Earth-resting architecture is usually more appropriate than earth-rooted archi-
tecture when the site is severely bounded by other buildings. Perhaps this is a basic
defi ciency of Wright’s Guggenheim Museum (Figure 6-7). In any case, it is obvi-
ous that if buildings were constructed close to the Kaufmann house — especially
earth-resting or sky-oriented buildings— they would destroy much of the glory of
Wright’s creation.
FIGURE 6-20
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
Farnsworth Residence, Plano,
Illinois. 1950.
Mies insisted on building with the
interior structure visible from all
angles.
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ARCHITECTURE
Earth-Dominating Architecture
Unlike an earth-resting building, an earth-dominating building does not sit on
but “rules over” the earth. There is a sense of power and aggression. And unlike
earth-rooted buildings, such as the Pantheon (Figure 6-14) or the Kaufmann house
(Figure 6-11), there is no feeling of an organic relationship between the building
and the earth.
Earth-dominating buildings generally are easily identifi ed. Any work of archi-
tecture solicits attention. But earth-dominating buildings demand at tention. Usually,
earth-dominating buildings are large and massive, but those features do not nec-
essarily express earth-dominance. For example, Versailles is huge and heavy, but
its vast horizontal spread has, we think, the effect of earth-resting . The earth as a
platform holds its own with the palace. You can sense this much better from the
ground than from an aerial photograph (Figure 6-12). Study the East Wing of the
National Gallery of Art (Figure 6-21). Do you think the building is earth-resting
or earth-dominating? As you think about this, compare St. Peter’s (Figure 6-1).
In the West, St.  Peter’s is probably the supreme example of earth-dominating
architecture.
You may fi nd it diffi cult to locate earth-dominating buildings in your commu-
nity. Palaces are rare, except in very wealthy communities. Few churches exert
anything close to the power of St. Peter’s. Indeed, for many religious tra di tions
FIGURE 6-21
I. M. Pei, East Wing of the
National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C. 1974–1978.
The East Wing contains modern
and contemporary art. Pei’s design
features powerful geometric forms.
© Ezra Stoller/Esto
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CHAPTER 6
in the United States, such architectural display might be considered sacrilegious.
Public buildings such as courthouses tend to avoid aggressive appearance. They
are expected to be traditional and democratic. And build ings of commerce — from
banks to malls — are meant to invite.
Combinations of Types
PERCEPTION KEY Th e National Gallery and the Long Island
Federal Courthouse
1. Compare I. M. Pei’s East Wing addition to the National Gallery with Richard Meier’s
Courthouse. Which of these better respects the concept of form following function?
2. Which of these buildings is more earth-resting? Which is more earth-rooted?
3. I. M. Pei relies heavily on the geometric form of the triangle. How do the many trian-
gles visible in I. M. Pei’s East Wing (Figure 6-21) and the National Gallery of Art inte-
rior (Figure 6-22) express a source of power in the building? In terms of social values,
why are these forms revelatory?
4. Which geometric forms dominate Meier’s Courthouse (Figure 6-23)? In what way are
those forms revelatory of the function of the building? In what way are they revelatory of
social values?
FIGURE 6-22
National Gallery of Art interior.
The interior space of the walkway
connecting the two wings of the
museum is lighted by the triangular
skylights visible from the exterior.
© Ezra Stoller/Esto
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ARCHITECTURE
It seems to us that the Courthouse might best be described as a combination of the
earth-resting and the earth-rooted. The earth-resting features, such as the sky as a back-
drop and the platform character of the earth, are fairly obvious. The earth- rootedness
is also there, however, because of the powerful effect of the huge rotunda that rises at
the entrance like a giant tree anchoring the building into the earth. The Courthouse
does not just use the earth but seems to belong to it. Some critics have described the
rotunda as a huge ugly nose that defaces a handsome face. What do you think? Meier,
incidentally, is the architect of the famous Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The problem of when to use earth-rooted, -resting, or -dominating, or sky-
oriented structures, or some combination is usually resolved by making the func-
tion of the building paramount. Churches and large offi ce buildings, especially
in crowded cities, lend themselves to sky-orientation. Homes in surburbia lend
themselves to earth-orientation, usually resting but sometimes rooted. Homes in
crowded urban areas present special problems. Earth-rooted buildings, such as the
Kaufmann house, normally require relatively large open spaces, and to some ex-
tent the same is true of the earth-dominating. Most urban dwellings therefore are
earth-resting. But as our populations have become increasingly dense, sky-oriented
apartment buildings have become common.
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Sydney Opera House
Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, 1991–1997 (Figures 6-24
to  6-26), was the culminating architectural sensation of the twentieth century,
surpassing in interest even Wright’s Guggenheim of 1959. Gehry, like many
FIGURE 6-23
Richard Meier, Long Island
Federal Courthouse, Central Islip,
New York. 2000.
A stark white building, it is
one of the largest courthouses
in the nation. It is designed to
accommodate public gatherings as
well as numerous individual courts.
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CHAPTER 6
contemporary architects, often uses the computer to scan models and fl esh out the
possibilities of his designs. The titanium-swathed structure changes drastically and
yet harmoniously from every view: For example, from across the Nervion River that
cuts through Bilbao the Guggenheim looks something like a whale (Figure 6-24).
The locals say that from the bridge it looks like a colossal artichoke; from the south
a bulging, blooming fl ower. The billowing volumes, mainly cylindrical, spiral up-
ward, as if blown by gently sweeping winds.
FIGURE 6-25
Aerial view of Guggenheim
Museum Bilbao.
The view from the air reveals
powerful interrelationships of
geometric forms with the almost
fl oral organic forms that fl ow from
rectilinear “stems.”
FIGURE 6-24
Frank O. Gehry, Guggenheim
Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain.
1991–1997.
View from across the river. Gehry’s
titanium-clad free-fl owing forms
have been made possible by the
computer and have become his
signature style.
© Ralph Richter/archenova/Esto
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157
ARCHITECTURE
Inside (Figure 6-26), smooth curves dominate perpendiculars and right angles,
propelling visitors leisurely from each gallery or room to another with constantly
changing perspectives, orderly without conventional order.
PERCEPTION KEY Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
1. Is the Guggenheim earth-rooted, earth-resting, earth-dominating, or sky-oriented?
Could it be a combination? It would be helpful if you could examine more photo-
graphs (see, for instance, Frank O. Gehry: The Complete Works, by Francesco Dal Co
and Kurt W. Forster [New York: Monacelli Press, 1998]).
2. Identify a building in your community that is an example of a combination of types.
Photograph that building from the angle or angles that support your choice.
High-Rises and Skyscrapers
Some of the most dramatic examples of the combination of types occur when tradi-
tional architecture is fused with contemporary architecture, as happens quite often
in Shanghai. With a population of over 18 million and rapidly growing, closely
crowded around a huge and superb port, Shanghai in recent years has grown over
FIGURE 6-26
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao,
interior.
The sculpture is by Richard Serra.
© Christian Richters/Esto
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2,000 high-rises with 2,000 more on the way, for both offi ces and domestic hous-
ing. Many of the buildings visible in Figure 6-28 are fairly representative.
From outside, the buildings of Hong Kong as a conglomerate appear over-
whelmingly sky-oriented (Figure 6-29). Most of the skyscrapers appear to pene-
trate the heavens, aided in their thrust by the uplift of the background mountains.
Photographs cannot do justice to this effect. The earthly tops of the Shanghai
high-rise type are rare, and the Hong Kong buildings generally are consider-
ably higher than those of Shanghai. “Skyscraper” more than “high-rise” more
accurately describes these Hong Kong buildings. Sometimes verticality stretches
so powerfully that even the diagonal struts of I. M. Pei’s Bank of China Tower
(Figure 6-29)—one of the tallest buildings in Hong Kong—may appear to stretch
imaginatively beyond the top of the roof into vertical straight lines.
EXPERIENCING Sydney Opera House
1. Would you recognize the function of
the building if you did not know its
name?
2. Which type does this building ful-
fi ll, earth-resting, earth-rooted, or
sky-oriented?
In the late 1950s the design was a
sensation in part because no one
could know by looking at it that it
was a concert and opera hall. Its
swooping “sails” were so novel that
people were more amazed at its
construction than by its function.
Additionally, the fact that the build-
ing was fl oating in a harbor rather than being built on solid earth was all the
more mystifying. Today, however, with the innovations of computer-generated
plans for buildings like Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao (Figures 6-24 to 6-26), we
are accustomed to the extraordinary shapes that make these buildings possible.
In fact, now we are likely to associate the shape of the Sydney Opera House
(Figure 6-27) with a function related to the arts. This tells us that our percep-
tion of function in a building is established by tradition and our association with
a class of buildings. Therefore, the dogma that was so fi rmly established years
ago—“form follows function”—is capable of distinct revision.
The Sydney Opera House is resting on a reinforced concrete platform rather
than being built into the earth; so it cannot be considered earth-rooted. It is also
diffi cult to say that it is earth-resting, because it is resting on water. One can safely
say, however, that it appears to be earth-resting. Yet, it is not suffi cient to stop
there. The “sails,” or “wings,” are upward thrusting, like a church (see Figure 3-4,
Notre Dame-du-Haut), so it is appropriate to claim that it is in some ways sky-
oriented. If so, then this is an example of a building that satisfi es the requirements
of two types at the same time.
3. Have you seen other buildings that appear to satisfy two types at the same time?
4. Have you seen another building whose function is not clearly apparent from its
form?
FIGURE 6-27
Jørn Utzon, Opera House, Sydney,
Australia. 1973.
This is considered an expressionist
modern design. The precast
concrete shells house various
concert and performance halls.
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159
ARCHITECTURE
From inside the city, the architectural impressions of Hong Kong are gen-
erally another story (Figure 6-30). The skyscrapers usually abut, crowd, mirror,
and slant into each other, often from odd angles, blocking a full view, closing
and overwhelming the spaces between. Unlike New York City, where the grid of
FIGURE 6-28
High-rise buildings, Shanghai,
China.
High-rise buildings in Shanghai
emulate and echo traditional
Chinese buildings. Even offi ce
buildings sometimes reprise the
details of ancient pagodas.
PERCEPTION KEY High-Rises in Shanghai
1. Examine the top structures of the high-rises in Figure 6-28. Are these tops hor-
izontally oriented as with the Seagram Building (Figure 6-6), or are they more
vertically oriented as with Rockefeller Center (Figure 6-10)?
2. Are these top structures suggestive of structures normally built on and belonging
to the earth, such as temples, pagodas, restaurants, and porches?
3. The Chinese usually use the term “high-rise” rather than “skyscraper.” Is this sig-
nifi cant? If so, in what way?
4. A Chinese architect in Shanghai commented to one of the authors, “In our big cities we
build high for practical purposes, just as in the West. But the culture of China is much
more traditional than the culture of the West, especially in its arts. With painting, for
example, it often takes an expert to identify a twentieth- or twenty-fi rst-century work
from earlier centuries. The painter begins by imitating a style and then evolves a style
that never loses its roots. Likewise, the Chinese architect tends to be very sensitive to
the styles of the past, and that past is more reverent to the earth than to the sky.” Is
this comment relevant to the toppings of many of the Shanghai high-rises?
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160
CHAPTER 6
broad straight avenues provides breathing room for the skyscraper, the narrow
crooked streets that dominate Hong Kong rarely allow for more than truncated
views of the buildings. Except on the waterfront, only small patches of the sky are
usually visible. The skyscrapers press down. Gravity is overbearing. Sometimes
the atmosphere is claustrophobic. Inside Hong Kong, the skyscrapers are usually
more earth-dominating than sky-oriented. In New York City there are a few areas
of this kind (see Figure 6-38), but even there, Park Avenue provides an extensive
clearing.
The high-rise in Malmö, Sweden (Figure 6-31)—often described as the “Turn-
ing Torso”—by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, provides splendid views
for most of the 147 apartments. At the core of the building, stairs and elevators
provide internal communication. The service rooms—kitchen, bath, and utilities—
are grouped around that core, freeing the living-room spaces for the outside world.
The tallest building in Scandinavia, the Turning Torso is bound by struts forming
triangles, reducing the use of steel by about 20 percent compared to the conven-
tional box structure such as the Seagram Building (Figure 6-6).
FIGURE 6-29
I. M. Pei, Bank of China Tower,
Hong Kong. 1982–1990.
At seventy-two stories high, this is
Hong Kong’s tallest building. One
of Pei’s challenges was to satisfy
the needs of feng shui, the proper
positioning of the building and its
angles.
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161
ARCHITECTURE
It seems to the authors that the Turning Torso is a combination of sky- and
earth-orientation. The horizontal gaps that divide the building di sect powerful
sweeping vertical edges. The top of the building, unlike the Shanghai examples, has
no earthlike structures. Surely this building, especially with its spatial isolation, is
sky-oriented. And yet the aptly named Turning Torso seems to be twisting fantas-
tically on the earth as one walks around it. Or from the perspective of our photo-
graph, the building seems to be striding toward the right. Whatever the view, the
Turning Torso is horizontally kinetic, totally unlike the static Seagram Building
(Figure 6-6). The Turning Torso is an extraordinary example, we think, of a com-
bination of sky-orientation and earth-domination, unlike the Shanghai examples,
which are sky-oriented and earth-resting.
Study the photograph (Figure 6-32) of Norman Foster’s recently completed
Hearst Tower at Eighth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh Street, New York City. Check
the Internet for different views. Don’t miss this building if you are in New York
City, viewing it from different angles. The six lower fl oors of the original building
were gutted except for the four facades. Thus the tower seems to rise from the top
of the facades, which strangely appear to provide a platform.
FIGURE 6-30
Cityscape in Hong Kong. The crowding of buildings is typical in this small city.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Turning Torso
1. Is the building sky-oriented?
2. Is it earth-oriented?
3. Is it a combination?
FIGURE 6-31
Santiago Calatrava, “ Turning
Torso,” high-rise, Malmö, Sweden.
1999–2000.
The twisting design derived from
one of Calatrava’s own sculptures.
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162
CHAPTER 6
We suggest that the tower is most accurately described as sky-oriented. The plat-
form’s earth-resting effect is overwhelmed by the great soaring beautiful volumes of
triangular glass. The tower overwhelms the earth. Its fl at topping doesn’t penetrate the
sky, like the two fellow skyscrapers, but with its refl ecting glass mirrors, it merges with
the sky. The tower would seem to be most accurately described as sky-oriented.
PERCEPTION KEY Hearst Tower
1. Does the tower strike you as more or less interesting than the two adjoining sky-
scrapers? Why?
2. Would you describe the building as earth-rooted, earth-dominating, sky-oriented,
or some combination? As you think about this, notice how the great triangular
panels of glass refl ect the sky (at night, of course, there is the refl ection of lights).
FIGURE 6-32
Norman Foster, Hearst Tower,
New York City. 2006.
The project was to build on top of
a seventy-eight-year-old limestone
building whose interior was
essentially gutted to accommodate
the tower, which rises sharply and
suddenly above the conventional
lower section.
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163
FOCUS ON Fantasy Architecture
Some of the buildings we have already discussed may be
thought of as fantasy architecture, a term we are using to
mean architecture that pushes the limits of materials and
technology to produce a building unlike any seen before.
Gaudi’s Sagrada Família, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggen-
heim Museum, Calatrava’s “Turning Torso,” and Frank
Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao may all count
as fantasy architecture. However, the fi ve structures we
focus on here are even more daring and perhaps even a
little alarming. They range from the witty to the sublime,
and all are remarkable for their use of new technology
and remarkable materials.
The Crooked House in Sopot, Poland, (Figure 6-33)
is on the surface a comic structure, but when one con-
siders that it was inspired by the imagined architecture
of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, one sees it in a slightly diff erent light. The architect, Szotynscy
Zaleski, was infl uenced by Per Dahlberg and Jan Marcin Szancer, whose fantasy illus-
trations appeared in many books in Poland. The fl uid shapes of the building are made
possible by the poured concrete and the computer-aided designs of the windows and
doors. The building is part of a large shopping center and holds three levels of shops
and restaurants. From the front one sees that while the building may be classifi ed as
earth-resting, gravity seems to have it in its grip and is pulling it down. In some ways
the design seems to imply that the building is melting.
The Graz Museum (Kunsthaus Graz, Figure 6-34) was
designed by Peter Cook and Pierre Fournier and has be-
come a destination for art lovers in Austria. It has earned
a nickname, “The Friendly Alien,” because of its biomor-
phic shape, resembling a living being, almost like a blue
caterpillar. Computer-aided design made this building
possible. Its exterior is referred to as Bix, which is meant
to suggest pixels because the building’s skin is composed
of small segments lighted from within at night in a way
implying a media statement. The charge that the archi-
tects had was to enliven a part of Graz that had become
uninteresting and a bit run down. The result has been dra-
matic, with the museum becoming a “must-see” for tour-
ists from all over the world. The fi rst fl oor, slightly more
conventional, houses the entrances and shops and the foyer.
At fi rst glance the Longaberger Building (Figure 6-35) looks like an archi-
tectural joke. It has been called the biggest basket in the world, which is witty
because it is the Longaberger Company’s world headquarters in Newark, Ohio,
where Longaberger manufactures baskets. It is an offi ce building for 500 workers
that becomes less of a joke when one learns it is eco-friendly and something of
a “green” building. Most of the cherry wood used in its construction came from
trees harvested from the company’s golf course in Hanover, Ohio. The company
designed the building, harvested and shaped the wood, and constructed the build-
ing. It has eighty-four windows and a large natural atrium making it possible to
FIGURE 6-34
Graz Museum (Kunsthaus Graz),
Austria. 2003.
This remarkable building is known
as “The Friendly Alien” because
its shape suggests a living being. It
houses modern art and has become
a favorite tourist destination
in Austria. Its contrast with
surrounding buildings intensifi es its
effect on viewers.
FIGURE 6-33
The Crooked House in Sopot,
Poland. 2004.
Inspired by fairy-tale literature
and illustrations, this has become
one of the most visited buildings
in Poland. At fi rst glance it seems
almost to be melting into the earth.
continued
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use very little daytime electricity. The copper handles
are heated in order to prevent ice from forming on the
skylight over the atrium. Visually, it seems almost per-
fect as an example of an earth- resting building.
Like the Kunsthaus in Graz, Zaha Hadid’s Guang-
zhou Opera House (Figure 6-36) was sited in a drab
business section of Guangzhou as a way of brighten-
ing the daily life of one of the most important southern
Chinese cities. The building took fi ve years to con-
struct, with critical joints made of cast steel forged in
Shanghai. Jonathan Glancey, in England’s The Guardian
review, called it “the world’s most spectacular opera
house.” At night the building seems to take on a life of
its own, with fl uid shapes and brilliant lighting. It has
been called “pebbles” because it has two podlike sections separated by a “narrow
crevice.” The interior vistas are dramatic, asymmetrical, and welcoming. The acous-
tics have been described as nearly perfect. Puccini’s Asian-inspired opera, Turandot,
usually controversial in China, was among its fi rst presentations. Zaha Hadid, an
Iraqi architect, was delighted when she saw the fi nal project because she had been
frustrated a decade earlier by being rejected for a similar building, an opera house
in Wales.
Unlike most major opera houses, the Guangzhou Opera House is situated in an
environment with buildings of little or no distinction. Hadid’s radical structure is
made possible by modern developments in materials and computer-aided design.
It is fantastic in the sense that only fi fty years ago,
this kind of building would have been impossible to
construct. Given the power of the design of this opera
house, along with the striking innovations of the Sydney
Opera House in Australia, the idea of form and function
is being revised. Today the form of the Sydney struc-
ture says “opera house” to us, and the same will be true
of buildings that share the qualities of the Guangzhou
Opera House.
The Taj Mahal (Figure 6-37) is one of the most
famous buildings in the world. It was built as a monu-
ment to Shah Jehan’s third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who
died in 1631. When you look at the building its form is
dazzling and compelling, but what is its function? What
are the fi rst thoughts that come to mind? For one thing, the minarets at the corner
of the site were designed to be used for the call to prayer, so it is reasonable to think
of the building as a mosque. There is a separate mosque on the grounds of the Taj
Mahal, but the Taj Mahal itself is a mausoleum, a tomb that houses Shah Jehan and
his wife Mumtaz Mahal, fi nished in 1648. The main level holds two sarcophagi (mar-
ble burial vaults) that are richly decorated with Arabic religious scripts, but because
Islamic law prohibits elaborate decorations on the actual coffi ns, both Shah Jehan
and Mumtaz Mahal are buried in simpler sarcophagi on a lower level with their faces
turned toward Mecca.
FIGURE 6-35
The Longaberger Building,
Newark, Ohio. 1997.
At fi rst this witty offi ce
headquarters seems to be some
kind of joke. The company makes
baskets and designed the building
to be 160 times the scale of their
midsize model. The design actually
results in a relatively eco-friendly
structure.
FIGURE 6-36
Guangzhou Opera House,
Guangzhou, China. 2011.
This has been called “the world’s
most spectacular opera house.”
Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid created
a space for both Chinese and
Western operas, with “almost
perfect acoustics.” Hadid, whose
headquarters are in London, has
become famous for her dazzling
buildings, fi lled with visual surprise.
164
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Shah Jehan constructed many buildings during his
reign over the Mughal Empire in India. The Mughals,
descendants of Mongols living in Turkestan, became
Muslims in the fi fteenth century. Notable for their arts,
architecture, and respect for religious freedom, they
dominated India in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. Their infl uences were Persian, as illustrated in the
“onion” dome of the building, Islamic as illustrated by
the copious script acting as decorative features through-
out, and Indian as illustrated by the arched doors and
windows. The majority population, Hindu citizens, were
treated fairly, but the undoing of the great Mughal Em-
pire came with the rise of Shah Jehan’s son Aurangzeb,
who imposed strict Sharia law on the entire populace and
thus doomed the Mughals, whose empire was weakened
by revolts and internal decay lasting another century and
a half.
FIGURE 6-37
The Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. 1653.
Shah Jehan, the Mughal emperor, built the Taj in memory of his
wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631. One of the most visited
buildings in the world, it is in some danger because of the subsidence
of a nearby river. Its architect, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, was one of
thousands of craftsmen and designers who fi nished the primary
building in a little more than fi fteen years.
PERCEPTION KEY Fantasy Architecture
1. Does the appearance of the Crooked House (Figure 6-33) tell you that it is a shop-
ping center? Do its formal qualities result in a revelatory insight into Poland’s atti-
tudes toward shopping or commercial spaces?
2. Judging from the exterior of the Graz Museum (Figure 6-34), what kind of art do
you expect will be inside? Which painting or sculpture illustrated in this book would
be most likely to be in its collection? At fi rst glance, would you have assumed this
building was a museum? What else might it be? Have the architects paid attention
to the concept of form and function? Can you imagine how the interior spaces
might look?
3. What is the relation of form and function in the architecture of the Longaberger
Building (Figure 6-35)? In what ways is this building revelatory? How might its
formal qualities be revelatory of business or commerce in its community? What
function does humor play in the design of the building?
4. Compare Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House with the Sydney Opera House.
Which is more fantastic? Is the Guangzhou Opera House earth-rooted or
earth-resting? What do its forms, as presented in Figure 6-36, suggest to you? In
what ways could this building be revelatory of music and art?
5. The Taj Mahal (Figure 6-37) has been described as a monument to the love of Shah
Jehan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. What formal qualities suggest that this building
is revelatory of Shah Jehan’s love? Of what else might the form of the Taj Mahal
be considered revelatory? Because the Pyramid of Cheops (Figure 5-6) and the
Taj Mahal are both mausoleums, is it possible to think of both of these buildings
as revelatory of memorials to the dead? Which is more instantly recognizable as
functioning as a tomb?
165
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166
CHAPTER 6
Urban Planning
Nowhere has the use of space become more critical in our time than in the city. In
conclusion, therefore, the issues we have been discussing about space and architec-
ture take on special relevance with respect to city planning.
The conglomerate architecture visible in Figure 6-38, surrounding a large church
on Park Avenue, makes us aware that the setting of many interesting buildings so
completely overwhelms them that we hardly know how to respond. An urban planner
might decide to unify styles of buildings or to separate buildings so as to permit us
to participate with them more individually. The scene of Figure 6-38 suggests that
there has been little or no planning. Of course, some people might argue that such an
accidental conglomeration is part of the charm of urban centers. One might feel, for
example, that part of the pleasure of looking at a church is responding to its contrast
with its surroundings. For some people, a special energy is achieved in such a group-
ing. A consensus is unlikely. Other people are likely to fi nd the union of old and new
styles—without fi rst arranging some kind of happy marriage—a travesty. The dome of
a church capped by a skyscraper! The church completely subdued by business! What
do you think? These are the kinds of problems, along with political and social compli-
cations, that city planners must address.
Now study the former Pan-Am building on Park Avenue (Figure 6-39). The height
of certain structures can be limited so that only notable buildings are allowed to rise
to great heights, as in Florence, for example. Only a few sections in New York City
actually have been controlled. On Park Avenue, the buildings have height restrictions,
and in some cases, top stories have been removed from buildings under construction.
FIGURE 6-38
St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park
Avenue, New York City. 1902.
Once a dominant building, it now
seems dwarfed by nearby offi ce
buildings. Bertram Goodhue was
the architect, with the portico done
by McKim, Meade, and White.
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167
ARCHITECTURE
In certain areas, the buildings on both sides of an avenue can create darkness in the
middle of the day. The jam of taxis is only one symptom of the narrowness of the
avenues in New York City. The architecture along this section of Park Avenue has
created a space dominated by dark shadows, making the looming buildings appear
threatening. Now consider the contrast in a building in the Green wich Village section
of New York City (Figure 6-40), where most of the buildings are about as tall as this
one. Even though the building is by no means as sleek and elegant as the MetLife
Building, it has a human scale and a humble brightness.
FIGURE 6-39
Emery Roth and Sons, MetLife Building,
New York City. 1963.
Centered on Park Avenue, and originally
named the Pan-Am Building, this structure
reveals the way urban space can be
transformed by closure. Traffi c fl ows around
and through the building.
PERCEPTION KEY Urban Views
1. Would you prefer to live in a humble building, such as that in Figure 6-40, or in
one of the buildings that creates the shadows in the vicinity of the MetLife Build-
ing in Figure 6-39?
2. Do you fi nd the placement of the building in front of the MetLife Building visually
attractive? If so, why? Do you like the contrast between the pyra midal top and the
fl at top?
3. Suppose St. Bartholomew’s Church (Figure 6-38) was no longer being used for
religious purposes. As a city planner, would you preserve or destroy it? Explain.
continued
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168
CHAPTER 6
Suppose spacious parking lots were located around the fringes of the city, rapid
public transportation were readily available from those lots into the city, and in the
city only public and emergency transportation — most of it underground — were
permitted. In place of poisonous fumes, screeching noises, and jammed streets,
there could be fresh air, fountains, fl owers, sculpture, music, wide-open spaces to
walk and talk in and enjoy, benches, and open theaters. Without the danger of
being run over, all the diversifi ed characters of a city —theaters, opera, concert
halls, museums, shops, offi ces, restaurants, parks, squares — could take on some
spatial unity. Fur ther more, we could get to those various places without nervous
prostration and the risk of life and limb.
Most cities are planned either sporadically in segments or not at all. Natural
features, such as rivers and hills, often distinguish living spaces from working spaces.
In older cities, churches often dominate high ground. Human-made divisions, such
as aqueducts, railroad tracks and trestles, bridges, and highways, now largely defi ne
neighborhoods, sections, and functional spaces. The invasion of the suburban
mall has threatened the old downtown business sections, and, in order to preserve
those spaces from blight, imaginative schemes have been developed in some cities.
FIGURE 6-40
A typical facade on an anonymous building in
Greenwich Village, New York City.
The design is rudimentary and the buildings rarely
more than four stories high. This is an earth-
centered, humble structure.
4. Do you fi nd the scene around the church visually attractive? Compare this scene
with the main avenue of Dubai (Figure 6-41), a city audaciously built on the
Persian Gulf in a few recent decades. Dubai’s growth was planned and controlled,
New  York’s growth was largely unplanned and little controlled. Would you pre-
fer, other things being more or less equal, to live in a city with architecture like
New York or architecture like Dubai? Explain.
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169
ARCHITECTURE
San Antonio, Texas, has created a canal lined with shops and restaurants. Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Oregon, closed large areas to automobiles and
made them inviting for shoppers, especially those with strollers and children. Many
cities have remodeled their inner shopping areas and made plans to keep them
lively and attractive. Street music is now common in many downtown areas, such as
New York City, London, and Paris.
FIGURE 6-41
Main road, Dubai.
This nation has been building
high-rises and other structures in
a pristine environment, making
urban planning an absolute
necessity.
CONCEPTION KEY City Planning
1. Do you think the city ought to be saved? Why not just spread out, without the cen-
tra lized functions of a city? What advantages does the city alone have? What still
gives glamour to such cities as Florence, Venice, Rome, Paris, Vienna, and London?
2. Suppose you are a city planner for New York City, and assume that funds are
available to implement your plans. What would you propose? For example, would
you destroy all the old buildings? Joseph Hudnut has written, “There is in buildings
that have withstood the siege of centuries a magic which is irrespective of form
and technical experience . . . the wreckage of distant worlds are radioactive with a
long-gathered energy.”7 Do you agree?
3. Would you allow factories within the city limits? How would you handle transpor-
tation to and within the city? For instance, would you allow expressways to slice
through the city, as in Detroit and Los Angeles? If you banned private cars from
the city, what would you do with the streets? Would you concentrate on an eff ec-
tive subway system? Could the streets become a unifi er of the city?
7Joseph Hudnut, Architecture and the Spirit of Man (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949),
p. 15ff.
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Summary
Architecture is the creative conservation of centralized space — the power of the po-
sitioned interrelationships of things. The spatial centers of nature organize things
around them, and architecture enhances these centers. Architects carve apart an
inner space from an outer space in such a way that both spaces become more fully
perceptible, and especially the inner space can be used for practical purposes. A
work of architecture is a confi gurational center, a place of special value, a place to
dwell. Architects must account for four basic and closely interrelated necessities:
technical requirements, function, spatial relationships, and content. To succeed,
their forms must adjust to these necessities. Because of the public character of ar-
chitecture, moreover, the common or shared values of contemporary society usually
are in a direct way a part of architects’ subject matter. Architecture can be classifi ed
into four main types. Earth-rooted architecture brings out with special force the
earth and its symbolisms. Such architecture appears organically related to the site,
its materials, and gravity. Sky-oriented architecture brings out with special force
the sky and its symbolisms. Such architecture discloses a world by drawing our
attention to the sky bounded by a horizon. It accomplishes this positively by means
of making a building high and centered within the sky, defying gravity, and tightly
integrating the light of outer and inner space. Negatively, this kind of architecture
de-emphasizes the features that accent the earth. Earth-resting architecture accents
neither earth nor sky but rests on the earth, using the earth as a platform with the
sky as backdrop. Earth-dominating architecture rules over the earth. There is a
sense of aggression, and such buildings seem to say that humanity is the measure
of all things. In recent years, more and more combinations of these four types have
been built.
If we have been near the truth, architects are the shepherds of space. And if we
are sensitively aware of their buildings and their relationships, we help, in our hum-
ble way, to preserve their work. Architects can make space a welcoming place. Such
places, like a home, give us a center from which we can orient ourselves to the other
places around us. And then in a way we can feel at home anywhere.
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C h a p t e r 7
LITERATURE
Spoken Language and Literature
The basic medium of literature is spoken language. Eons before anyone thought
to write it down, literature was spoken and sung aloud. Homer’s great epics, The
Iliad and The Odyssey, may date from 800 BCE or earlier. They were memorized
by poets, who sang the epics to the plucking of a harplike instrument while enter-
taining royalty at feasts. The tradition of memorizing and reciting such immense
works survived into the twentieth century but seems to have disappeared after the
Second World War.
In the Middle Ages, St. Augustine was surprised to see Ambrose reading without
making a sound. Before the printing press was invented, monks copied books by
hand, and they would speak the words softly to themselves as they wrote. Thus the
room would be noisy with the sounds of a dozen or more people reading. Today we
are told to read without moving our lips or making a sound, but that may not be the
best way to read literature. We invite you to read aloud all the samples of literature
that follow.
In the fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote down his Canterbury Tales
for convenience, more than a century before the invention of the printing press.
But he read his tales out loud to an audience of courtly listeners who were much
more attuned to hearing a good story than to reading it. Today people interested
in literature are usually described as readers, which underscores the dependence we
have developed on the printed word for our literary experiences. Yet words “sound”
even when read silently, and the sound is an essential part of the sense, or meaning,
of the words.
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Literature—like music, dance, fi lm, and drama—is a serial art. In order to
perceive it, we must be aware of what is happening now, remember what happened
before, and anticipate what is to come. This is not so obvious with a short lyric
poem or with cummings’s “l(a” (page 12) because we are in the presence of some-
thing akin to a painting: It seems to be all there in front of us all at once. But one
word follows another; one sentence, one line, or one stanza another. There is no
way to perceive the all-at-onceness of a literary work as we sometimes perceive a
painting, although cummings’s poem comes close.
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” by Dylan Thomas, is an example
of harnessing deep emotion in the confi nes of a rigid form. Thomas wrote the
poem while his father was dying. Read it fi rst; then we will consider the issues that
go into making it a powerful poem. If possible, listen to a recording of the poem by
Thomas himself.
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in fl ight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fi erce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
PERCEPTION KEY Dylan Th omas
1. Which of the sounds of the poem are most sensuous for you?
2. What is the subject matter of the poem? What is its content?
3. The poem is built, in part, on a principle of repetition. How eff ective is this repeti-
tion? What is its infl uence on the emotional eff ect of the poem?
4. A student—whose father had just died—reported that the clusters of meaning
were so intense the words seemed to stand up on the page. Have you ever experi-
enced anything like that?
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LITERATURE
This poem is an address to the poet’s father, telling him not to die without a
struggle to hold on to life. The poet uses sounds to underscore his emotional pain,
especially the use of one g sound in “gentle” another in “good,” and yet another
g sound in “age” and “rage.” As you examine the opening stanza, you can see the
careful use of o sounds in “Do,” “go,” “good,” and “old,” which eventually give way
to the a sounds in “rage.” These are careful poetic devices called consonance in the
case of g and assonance in the cases of the o and a sounds. Excellent poets attempt
to soothe or stir a reader with a careful balance of such sounds.
The form of the poem—the villanelle—is one of the most diffi cult forms for
English-language poets to use. First, there must be fi ve three-line stanzas and one
fi nal four-line stanza. Line one must repeat in its entirety at lines six, twelve, and
eighteen. Line three must repeat at lines nine, fi fteen, and nineteen. There can be
only two rhyme sounds. The fi rst and third lines of each stanza rhyme with “light”
and the second line rhymes with “day.”
The miracle in this poem is that the burden of form does not weigh the poem
down. If anything, it intensifi es and focuses the powerful emotions that are its
source. In this case, sound and sense merge brilliantly in a form that emphasizes
the skill of the poet. The signifi cance of the poem lies in the blending of sound
and meaning because one cannot alter the sounds of this poem without altering its
meaning. We can talk easily about the subject matter of the poem. It is the com-
plaint of the poet regarding his father’s imminent death. But the content of the
poem goes beyond that into the experience of apprehending—both silently and
audibly—the poem itself. Before you move on, read the poem aloud to a friend and
talk about what the poem means to you both.
Ezra Pound once said, “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning
to the utmost possible degree.” The ways in which writers intensify their language
and “charge” it with meaning are many. First, they need to attend to the basic ele-
ments of literature because, like architecture, a work of literature is, in one sense, a
construction of separable elements. The details of a scene, a character or event, or a
group of symbols can be conceived of as the bricks in the wall of a literary structure.
If one of these details is imperfectly perceived, our understanding of the function
of that detail—and, in turn, of the total structure—will be incomplete. The theme
(main idea) of a literary work usually involves a structural decision, comparable to
an architectural decision about the kind of space being enclosed. Decisions about
the sound of the language, the characters, the events, the setting are comparable to
the decisions regarding the materials, size, shape, and landscape of architecture. It
is helpful to think of literature as works composed of elements that can be discussed
individually in order to gain a more thorough perception of them. And it is equally
important to realize that the discussion of these individual elements leads to a fuller
understanding of the whole structure. Details are organized into parts, and these,
in turn, are organized into structure.
Our structural emphasis in the following pages will be on the narrative—
both the episodic narrative, in which all or most of the parts are loosely inter-
related, and the organic narrative, in which the parts are tightly interrelated. Once
we have explored some of the basic structures of literature, we will examine some of
the more important details. In everyday language situations, what we say is usually
what we mean. But in a work of literature, language is rarely that simple. Lan-
guage has denotation, a literal level where words mean what they obviously say,
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CHAPTER 7
and connotation, a subtler level where words mean more than they obviously say.
When we are being denotative, we say the rose is sick and mean nothing more than
that. But if we are using language connotatively, we might mean any of several
things by such a statement. When the poet William Blake says the rose is sick,
he is describing a symbolic rose, something very different from a literal rose (see
page 194). Blake may mean that the rose is morally sick, spiritually defective, and
that in some ways we are like the rose. The image, metaphor, symbol, irony, and
diction (word choices) are the main details of literary language that will be exam-
ined. All are found in poetry, fi ction, drama, and even the essay.
Literary Structures
Th e Narrative and the Narrator
The narrative is a story told to an audience by a teller controlling the order of
events and the emphasis those events receive. Most narratives concentrate upon
the events. But some narratives have little action: They reveal depth of character
through responses to action. Sometimes the narrator is a character in the fi ction;
sometimes the narrator pretends an awareness of an audience other than the reader.
However, the author controls the narrator; and the narrator controls the reader.
Participate with the following narrative poem by Edgar Lee Masters.
LUCINDA MATLOCK
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fi elds where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a fl ower and medicinal weed—
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love life.
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LITERATURE
This poem is from Edgar Lee Masters’s famous collection, The Spoon River
Anthology, in which he imagined the lives of country people he knew in his native
Maine. Lucinda Matlock was his grandmother and her narrative is much like others
in the collection. Masters imagines what she might say to him and to his peers,
whose lives were clearly more comfortable and easy than hers. Lucinda Matlock
complicates the idea of narrative by telling us her story after her death, but that
detail implies the importance of what she has to say. If Masters had written this
poem specifi cally for you, what emotions do you think he would want you to feel?
What values does the poem seem to approve?
The following poem is a powerful example of the way in which Sylvia Plath uses
the fi rst-person narrator while creating an “I” character who is not herself. The
poem is told by someone in an iron lung:
PARALYTIC
It happens. Will it go on?—
My mind a rock,
No fi ngers to grip, no tongue,
My god the iron lung
That loves me, pumps
My two
Dust bags in and out,
Will not
Let me relapse
While the day outside glares by like ticker tape
The night brings violets,
Tapestries of eyes,
Lights,
The soft anonymous
Talkers: “You all right?”
The starched, inaccessible breast.
Dead egg, I lie
Whole
On a whole world I cannot touch,
At the white, tight
Drum of my sleeping couch
Photographs visit me—
My wife, dead and fl at, in 1920 furs,
Mouth full of pearls,
PERCEPTION KEY “Lucinda Matlock”
1. Who narrates this poem?
2. What do the events of the poem reveal about the narrator?
3. To whom is the narrator telling this story? Why?
4. Did the narrator have a happy life? Is having a happy life important for a full under-
standing of the poem?
5. Where is the narrator while telling this story?
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CHAPTER 7
Two girls
As fl at as she, who whisper “We’re your daughters.”
The still waters
Wrap my lips,
Eyes, nose and ears,
A clear
Cellophane I cannot crack.
On my bare back
I smile, a buddha, all
Wants, desire
Falling from me like rings
Hugging their lights.
The claw
Of the magnolia,
Drunk on its own scents,
Asks nothing of life.
PERCEPTION KEY “Paralytic”
1. Analyze the narrative. What are the limitations of telling a story from the point of
view of a person who is paralyzed?
2. What is the role of the magnolia claw—a living but not a moving instrument (unlike
people’s hands)—in the poem?
3. Explore some of the implications of the fact that the narrator of the poem is an
imaginary character invented by the poet. Is this information crucial to a full under-
standing of the poem?
4. Sylvia Plath committed suicide not long after writing this poem. Does that informa-
tion add intensity to your experience of the poem?
Th e Episodic Narrative
An episodic narrative describes one of the oldest kinds of literature, embodied by
epics such as Homer’s Odyssey. We are aware of the overall structure of the story cen-
tering on the adventures of Odysseus, but each adventure is almost a complete entity
in itself. We develop a clear sense of the character of Odysseus as we follow him in
his adventures, but this does not always happen in episodic literature. The adventures
sometimes are not only completely disconnected from one another, but the thread
that is intended to connect everything—the personality of the protagonist (the main
character)—also may not be strong enough to keep things together. Sometimes the
character may even seem to be a different person from one episode to the next. This
is often the case in oral literature, compositions by people who told or sang tradi-
tional stories rather than by people who wrote their narratives. In oral literature, the
tellers or singers may have gathered adventures from many sources and joined them
in one long narrative. The likelihood of disconnectedness in such a situation is quite
high. But disconnectedness is sometimes desirable. It may offer compression, speed
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LITERATURE
of pacing, and variety of action that sustains attention. Some of the most famous
episodic narratives are novels: Fielding’s Tom Jones, Defoe’s Moll Flanders, and Saul
Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. The following excerpt is an episode from
Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote.
CHAPTER VIII. OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH THE VALIANT DON
QUIXOTE HAD IN THE TERRIBLE AND UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE
OF THE WINDMILLS, WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY TO BE
FITLY RECORDED
At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that there are on plain, and
as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, “Fortune is arranging matters for
us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho
Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to
engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for
this is righteous warfare, and it is God’s good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the
face of the earth.”
“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.
“Those thou seest there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have
them nearly two leagues long.”
“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills,
and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone
go.”
“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of
adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake
thyself to prayer while I engage them in fi erce and unequal combat.”
So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries his squire
Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not
giants he was going to attack. He, however, was so positive they were giants that he nei-
ther heard the cries of Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were, but made
at them shouting, “Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for a single knight attacks you.”
A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to move, seeing
which Don Quixote exclaimed, “Though ye fl ourish more arms than the giant Briareus,
ye have to reckon with me.”
So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, implor-
ing her to support him in such a peril, with lance in rest and covered by his buckler, he
charged at Rocinante’s fullest gallop and fell upon the fi rst mill that stood in front of him;
but as he drove his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force that
it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider, who went rolling over on
the plain, in a sorry condition.
Sancho hastened to his assistance as fast as his ass could go, and when he came up
found him unable to move, with such a shock had Rocinante fallen with him. “God bless
me!” said Sancho, “did I not tell your worship to mind what you were about, for they
were only windmills? and no one could have made any mistake about it but one who had
something of the same kind in his head.”
“Hush, friend Sancho,” replied Don Quixote, “the fortunes of war more than any
other are liable to frequent fl uctuations; and moreover I think, and it is the truth, that that
same sage Friston who carried off my study and books, has turned these giants into mills
in order to rob me of the glory of vanquishing them, such is the enmity he bears me; but
in the end his wicked arts will avail but little against my good sword.”
“God order it as he may,” said Sancho Panza, and helping him to rise got him up again
on Rocinante, whose shoulder was half out; and then, discussing the late adventure, they
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CHAPTER 7
followed the road to Puerto Lapice, for there, said Don Quixote, they could not fail to
fi nd adventures in abundance and variety, as it was a great thoroughfare.
For all that, he was much grieved at the loss of his lance, and saying so to his squire, he
added, “I remember having read how a Spanish knight, Diego Perez de Vargas by name,
having broken his sword in battle, tore from an oak a ponderous bough or branch, and
with it did such things that day, and pounded so many Moors, that he got the surname of
Machuca, and he and his descendants from that day forth were called Vargas y Machuca.
I mention this because from the fi rst oak I see I mean to rend such another branch, large
and stout like that, with which I am determined and resolved to do such deeds that thou
mayest deem thyself very fortunate in being found worthy to come and see them, and be
an eyewitness of things that will with diffi culty be believed.”
“Be that as God will,” said Sancho, “I believe it all as your worship says it; but straighten
yourself a little, for you seem all on one side, may be from the shaking of the fall.”
“That is the truth,” said Don Quixote, “and if I make no complaint of the pain it is
because knights-errant are not permitted to complain of any wound, even though their
bowels be coming out through it.”
“If so,” said Sancho, “I have nothing to say; but God knows I would rather your
worship complained when anything ailed you. For my part, I confess I must complain
however small the ache may be; unless this rule about not complaining extends to the
squires of knights-errant also.”
Don Quixote could not help laughing at his squire’s simplicity, and he assured him he
might complain whenever and however he chose, just as he liked, for, so far, he had never
read of anything to the contrary in the order of knighthood.
—tr. John Ormsby, 1909
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra called this episode, the seventh in the fi rst book
of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha, “The Terrifying Adventure
of the Windmills.” It is one of more than a hundred episodes in the book, and it
is the most memorable and most famous. The excerpt here is only a small part of
that episode, but it gives a clear indication of the nature of the entire book. Quixote
has driven himself a bit crazy through his reading of the adventures of the old-style
knights and has imagined himself to be one. Therefore, if he is a knight he must
have adventures, so he goes out to seek his fortune and runs into what he thinks are
giants with long arms. Killing them will make him a hero, and he imagines that they
guard a fortune that will pay the way for the rest of their adventures.
Don Quixote rides the aging Rocinante and dreams of his heroine, the “lady
Dulcinea,” a local girl who hardly knows he is alive. Quixote’s squire, Sancho
Panza, is a simple man riding an ass. As the episodes go on he longs more and more
for home, but cannot persuade his aging and frail companion to stop looking for
more adventures.
Since Cervantes wrote this book in the seventeenth century (contemporary with
Shakespeare), literature has been drenched with adventurers and their sidekicks.
PERCEPTION KEY Episodic Narrative: Don Quixote
1. For which character is this action an adventure?
2. What tells you that there will be more adventures?
3. How well do we know the personality of Quixote? Of Sancho Panza?
4. What is the subject matter of the narrative? What is its content?
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LITERATURE
Hundreds of novels, fi lms, television shows, and radio plays have featured the
pattern of the heroic avenger righting wrongs with the aid of a devoted assistant.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, are only a few of
the incredible number spawned by the genius of Cervantes. The episodic narrative
works best when the character of the protagonist is clearly portrayed and consistent
throughout. Don Quixote is such a character, so clearly portrayed he has become a
part of folklore.
Th e Organic Narrative
The term organic implies a close relationship of all the details in a narrative. Unlike
episodic narratives, the organic narrative unifi es both the events of the narrative
and the nature of the character or characters in it. Everything relates to the center
of the narrative in a meaningful way so that there is a consistency to the story that is
not broken into separable narratives. An organic narrative can be a narrative poem
or a prose narrative of any length, so long as the material in the narrative coheres
and produces a sense of unity.
The following short story is third-person narration, in which the narrative is lim-
ited to what the boy Vanka thinks and knows. But Chekhov also permits Vanka to
imagine a story of his own, thus giving us interesting levels of narration. The organic
quality of the story is apparent in the many parallelisms and contrasts among the
characters—people and animals—in the story. The life led by Vanka and the life led
by his grandfather contrast in important ways, but the contrast tells us more about
Vanka and his hopes than it does about his grandfather Makarych. Much the same is
true of what we know about the dogs Chestnut and Eel and how they give us a better
understanding of Vanka. The structure of this story is considered organic because all
the details cohere and ultimately give us a deep understanding of the main character.
As you read, consider how the characters relate to one another and how Chekhov
uses the details of the narrative to build sympathy for Vanka’s situation.
VANKA
BY ANTON P. CHEKHOV
Nine-year-old Vanka Zhukov, who had been apprentice to the shoemaker Aliakhin for
three months, did not go to bed the night before Christmas. He waited till the master and
mistress and the assistants had gone out to an early church-service, to procure from his
employer’s cupboard a small vial of ink and a penholder with a rusty nib; then, spreading
a crumpled sheet of paper in front of him, he began to write. Before, however, deciding
to make the fi rst letter, he looked furtively at the door and at the window, glanced several
times at the somber ikon, on either side of which stretched shelves full of lasts, and heaved
a heart-rending sigh. The sheet of paper was spread on a bench, and he himself was on
his knees in front of it.
“Dear Grandfather Konstantin Makarych,” he wrote, “I am writing you a letter. I wish you
a Happy Christmas and all God’s holy best. I have no mamma or papa, you are all I have.”
Vanka gave a look towards the window in which shone the refl ection of his candle,
and vividly pictured to himself his grandfather, Konstantin Makarych, who was night-
watchman at Messrs. Zhivarev. He was a small, lean, unusually lively and active old man
of sixty-fi ve, always smiling and blear-eyed. All day he slept in the servants’ kitchen or
trifl ed with the cooks. At night, enveloped in an ample sheep-skin coat, he strayed round
the domain tapping with his cudgel. Behind him, each hanging its head, walked the old
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bitch Chestnut, and the dog Eel, so named because of his black coat and long body and
his resemblance to a weasel. Eel was an unusually civil and friendly dog, looking as kindly
at a stranger as at his masters, but he was not to be trusted. Beneath his deference and
humbleness was hid the most inquisitorial maliciousness. No one knew better than he
how to sneak up and take a bite at a leg, or slip into the larder or steal a peasant’s chicken.
More than once they had nearly broken his hind-legs, twice he had been hung up, every
week he was nearly fl ogged to death, but he always recovered.
At this moment, for certain, Vanka’s grandfather must be standing at the gate, blink-
ing his eyes at the bright red windows of the village church, stamping his feet in their
high-felt boots, and jesting with the people in the yard; his cudgel will be hanging from
his belt, he will be hugging himself with cold, giving a little dry, old man’s cough, and at
times pinching a servant-girl or a cook.
“Won’t we take some snuff?” he asks, holding out his snuff-box to the women.
The women take a pinch of snuff, and sneeze. The old man goes into indescribable
ecstasies, breaks into loud laughter, and cries: “Off with it, it will freeze to your nose!”
He gives his snuff to the dogs, too. Chestnut sneezes, twitches her nose, and walks
away offended. Eel deferentially refuses to sniff and wags his tail. It is glorious weather,
not a breath of wind, clear, and frosty; it is a dark night, but the whole village, its white
roofs and streaks of smoke from the chimneys, the trees silvered with hoar-frost, and
the snowdrifts, you can see it all. The sky scintillates with bright twinkling stars, and the
Milky Way stands out so clearly that it looks as if it had been polished and rubbed over
with snow for the holidays. . . .
Vanka sighs, dips his pen in the ink, and continues to write: “Last night I got a thrash-
ing, my master dragged me by my hair into the yard, and whipped me with a shoe-maker’s
stirrup, because, while I was rocking his brat in its cradle, I unfortunately fell asleep. And
during the week, my mistress told me to clean a herring, and I began by its tail, so she
took the herring and stuck its snout into my face. The assistants tease me, send me to the
tavern for vodka, make me steal the master’s cucumbers, and the master beats me with
whatever is handy. Food there is none; in the morning it’s bread, at dinner gruel, and in
the evening bread again. As for tea or sour-cabbage soup, the master and the mistress
themselves guzzle that. They make me sleep in the vestibule, and when their brat cries, I
don’t sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle. Dear Grandpapa, for Heaven’s sake, take me
away from here, home to our village, I can’t bear this any more. . . . I bow to the ground
to you, and will pray to God for ever and ever, take me from here or I shall die. . . .”
The corners of Vanka’s mouth went down, he rubbed his eyes with his dirty fi st, and
sobbed. “I’ll rub your tobacco for you,” he continued, “I’ll pray to God for you, and if
there is anything wrong, then fl og me like the gray goat. And if you really think I shan’t
fi nd work, then I’ll ask the manager, for Christ’s sake, to let me clean the boots, or I’ll go
instead of Fedya as underherdsman. Dear Grandpapa, I can’t bear this any more, it’ll kill
me. . . . I wanted to run away to our village, but I have no boots, and I was afraid of the
frost, and when I grow up I’ll look after you, no one shall harm you, and when you die I’ll
pray for the repose of your soul, just like I do for mamma Pelagueya.
“As for Moscow, it is a large town, there are all gentlemen’s houses, lots of horses, no
sheep, and the dogs are not vicious. The children don’t come round at Christmas with a
star, no one is allowed to sing in the choir, and once I saw in a shop window hooks on a
line and fi shing rods, all for sale, and for every kind of fi sh, awfully convenient. And there
was one hook which would catch a sheat-fi sh weighing a pound. And there are shops with
guns, like the master’s, and I am sure they must cost 100 rubles each. And in the meat-
shops there are woodcocks, partridges, and hares, but who shot them or where they come
from, the shopman won’t say.
“Dear Grandpapa, and when the masters give a Christmas tree, take a golden walnut
and hide it in my green box. Ask the young lady, Olga Ignatyevna, for it, say it’s for Vanka.”
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LITERATURE
Vanka sighed convulsively, and again stared at the window. He remembered that his
grandfather always went to the forest for the Christmas tree, and took his grandson with
him. What happy times! The frost crackled, his grandfather crackled, and as they both
did, Vanka did the same. Then before cutting down the Christmas tree his grandfather
smoked his pipe, took a long pinch of snuff, and made fun of poor frozen little Vanka. . . .
The young fi r trees, wrapt in hoar-frost, stood motionless, waiting for which of them
would die. Suddenly a hare springing from somewhere would dart over the snowdrift. . . .
His grandfather could not help shouting:
“Catch it, catch it, catch it! Ah, short-tailed devil!”
When the tree was down, his grandfather dragged it to the master’s house, and there
they set about decorating it. The young lady, Olga Ignatyevna, Vanka’s great friend,
busied herself most about it. When little Vanka’s mother, Pelagueya, was still alive, and
was servant-woman in the house, Olga Ignatyevna used to stuff him with sugar-candy,
and, having nothing to do, taught him to read, write, count up to one hundred, and
even to dance the quadrille. When Pelagueya died, they placed the orphan Vanka in the
kitchen with his grandfather, and from the kitchen he was sent to Moscow to Aliakhin,
the shoemaker.
“Come quick, dear Grandpapa,” continued Vanka, “I beseech you for Christ’s sake
take me from here. Have pity on a poor orphan, for here they beat me, and I am fright-
fully hungry, and so sad that I can’t tell you, I cry all the time. The other day the master
hit me on the head with a last; I fell to the ground, and only just returned to life. My life
is a misfortune, worse than any dog’s. . . . I send greetings to Aliona, to one-eyed Tegor,
and the coachman, and don’t let any one have my harmonica. I remain, your grandson,
Ivan Zhukov, dear Grandpapa, do come.”
Vanka folded his sheet of paper in four, and put it into an envelope purchased the
night before for a kopek. He thought a little, dipped the pen into the ink, and wrote the
address:
“The village, to my grandfather.”
He then scratched his head, thought again, and added: “Konstantin Makarych.”
Pleased at not having been interfered with in his writing, he put on his cap, and, without
putting on his sheep-skin coat, ran out in his shirt-sleeves into the street.
The shopman at the poulterer’s, from whom he had inquired the night before, had
told him that letters were to be put into post-boxes, and from there they were conveyed
over the whole earth in mail troikas by drunken post-boys and to the sound of bells.
Vanka ran to the fi rst post-box and slipped his precious letter into the slit.
An hour afterwards, lulled by hope, he was sleeping soundly. In his dreams he saw a
stove, by the stove his grandfather sitting with his legs dangling down, barefooted, and
reading a letter to the cooks, and Eel walking round the stove wagging his tail.
Chekhov uses the technique of the third-person narrator in Vanka. He begins by
telling us what Vanka is doing, writing a letter to his grandfather, and then Chekhov
lets Vanka’s thoughts take over. In essence, Vanka tells his own story. He is a young
orphan sent away from his comfortable home village up to Moscow to learn a trade
PERCEPTION KEY Narrator in Vanka
1. Who narrates the story of Vanka?
2. Who narrates the story of Vanka’s grandfather, Konstantin Makarych?
3. What does the narrator tell us about the dogs, Chestnut and Eel?
4. How many levels of narrative are in this story?
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182
CHAPTER 7
as a shoemaker and cobbler. His experiences are similar to those of many young
boys his age who are apprenticed to a harsh master. Vanka reveals himself to be a
sensitive boy who longs for nothing more than to be with his grandfather.
Chekhov uses several levels of narrative. He introduces us to the current action,
the writing of the letter. Then, Vanka’s memories of a beautiful and blissful past
in his home village narrate the details of the comfortable life that his grandfather
lives on his master’s estate. Vanka narrates in his imagination a marvelous scene
complete with servants, cooks, and dogs. He imagines the women taking snuff, the
“old man” giving snuff to the dogs, and then he paints a picture of a perfect winter
landscape at home. Vanka’s narration of the beatings of Eel the dog obviously par-
allel his own treatment and his own frequent thrashings by his master Aliakhin.
Vanka’s letter, “Last night I got a thrashing,” constitutes another level of narra-
tive, a sad story of his misfortune, his missing harmonica, and his sense that his life
is worse than any dog’s. The last level of narration ends the story by revealing the
images that people Vanka’s dream, the image of his grandfather reading his letter—
which we know will never reach him—to the cooks.
Chekhov uses many narrative techniques, such as irony, comparison and con-
trast, and the revelation of the psychological interior of his character. We are given
insight into Vanka’s thoughts, into his psychology, which is marked by hopeful-
ness. Vanka is the only character present in the action of the primary narrative. But
Vanka’s misery is contrasted with his image of his grandfather’s ease and content-
ment, a technique that induces us to feel all the more sympathy for Vanka. The
master irony in the story is that Vanka expects the post to carry his letter to his
grandfather, but because he fails to know how to address it, the letter will never
arrive. Yet the very act of writing has made him sleep “soundly” and has given both
relief and hope.
Most novels and almost all short stories are organically structured. For an exam-
ple of a fi ne short story—Boccaccio’s The Pot of Basil—go to this book’s website at
www.mhhe.com/hta9e for the complete text and accompanying Perception Key.
Th e Quest Narrative
The quest narrative is simple enough on the surface: A protagonist sets out in search
of something valuable that must be found at all cost. Such, in simple terms, is the
plot of almost every adventure yarn and adventure fi lm ever written. However, where
most such yarns and fi lms content themselves with erecting impossible obstacles that
the heroes overcome with courage, imagination, and skill, the quest narrative has
other virtues. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, the story of Ahab’s determination to fi nd
and kill the white whale that took his leg, is also a quest narrative. It achieves unity by
focusing on the quest and its object. But at the same time, it explores in great depth
the psychology of all those who take part in the adventure. Ahab becomes a mono-
maniac, a man who obsessively concentrates on one thing. The narrator, Ishmael, is
like an Old Testament prophet in that he has lived the experience, has looked into
the face of evil, and has come back to tell the story to anyone who will listen, hoping
to impart wisdom and sensibility to those who were not there. The novel is centered
on the question of good and evil. When the novel begins, those values seem fairly
clear and well defi ned. But as the novel progresses, the question becomes murkier
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183
LITERATURE
and murkier because the actions of the novel begin a reversal of values that is often a
hallmark of the quest narrative.
Because most humans feel uncertain about their own nature—where they have
come from, who they are, where they are going—it is natural that writers from all
cultures should invent fi ctions that string adventures and character development
on the thread of the quest for self-understanding. This quest attracts our imagi-
nations and sustains our attention. Then the author can broaden and deepen the
meaning of the quest until it engages our concepts of ourselves. As a result, the
reader usually identifi es with the protagonist.
The quest structure in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is so deeply rooted in the
novel that the protagonist has no name. We know a great deal about him because he
narrates the story and tells us about himself. He is black, Southern, and, as a young
college student, ambitious. His earliest heroes are George Washington Carver and
Booker T. Washington. He craves the dignity and the opportunity he associates with
their lives. But things go wrong. He is dismissed unjustly from his college in the South
and must leave home to seek his fortune. He imagines himself destined for better
things and eagerly pursues his fate, fi nding a place to live and work up North, begin-
ning to fi nd his identity as a black man. He discovers the sophisticated urban society of
New York City, the political incongruities of communism, the complexities of black
nationalism, and the subtleties of his relationship with white people, to whom he is an
invisible man. Yet he does not hate the whites, and in his own image of himself he re-
mains an invisible man. The novel ends with the protagonist in an underground place
he has found and which he has lighted, by tapping the lines of the electric company,
with almost 1400 electric lightbulbs. Despite this colossal illumination, he still cannot
think of himself as visible. He ends his quest without discovering who he is beyond
this fundamental fact: He is invisible. Black or white, we can identify in many ways
with this quest, for Ellison is showing us that invisibility is in all of us.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Quest Narrative
Read a quest narrative. Some suggestions: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Mark Twain, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the
Rye; Graham Greene, The Third Man; Franz Kafka, The Castle; Albert Camus, The Stranger;
and Toni Morrison, Beloved. How does the quest help the protagonist get to know him-
self or herself better? Does the quest help you understand yourself better? Is the quest
novel you have read basically episodic or organic in structure?
The quest narrative is central to American culture. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry
Finn is one of the most important examples in American literature. But, whereas
Invisible Man is an organic quest narrative, because the details of the novel are closely
interwoven, Huckleberry Finn is an episodic quest narrative. Huck’s travels along the
great Mississippi River qualify as episodic in the same sense that Don Quixote, to
which this novel is closely related, is episodic. Huck is questing for freedom for Jim,
but also for freedom from his own father. Like Don Quixote, Huck comes back from
his quest richer in the knowledge of who he is. One might say Don Quixote’s quest
is for the truth about who he is and was, since he is an old man when he begins. But
Huck is an adolescent, and so his quest is for knowledge of who he is and can be.
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184
CHAPTER 7
Th e Lyric
The lyric, usually a poem, primarily reveals a limited but deep feeling about some
thing or event. The lyric is often associated with the feelings of the poet, although
it is not uncommon for poets to create narrators distinct from themselves and to
explore hypothetical feelings, as in Plath’s “Paralytic.”
If we participate, we fi nd ourselves caught up in the emotional situation of the
lyric. It is usually revealed to us through a recounting of the circumstances the poet
refl ects on. T. S. Eliot speaks of an objective correlative: an object that correlates
with the poet’s feeling and helps express that feeling. Eliot has said that poets must
fi nd the image, situation, object, event, or person that “shall be the formula for that
particular emotion” so that readers can comprehend it. This may be too narrow
a view of the poet’s creative process, because poets can understand and interpret
emotions without necessarily undergoing them. Otherwise, it would seem that
Shakespeare, for example, and even Eliot would have blown up like overcompressed
boilers if they had had to experience directly all the feelings they interpreted in
their poems. But, in any case, it seems clear that the lyric has feeling—emotion,
passion, or mood—as basic in its subject matter.
The word “lyric” implies a personal statement by an involved writer who feels
deeply. In a limited sense, lyrics are poems to be sung to music. Most lyrics before
the seventeenth century were set to music—in fact, most medieval and Renaissance
lyrics were written to be sung with musical accompaniment. And the writers who
composed the words were usually the composers of the music—at least until the
seventeenth century, when specialization began to separate those functions.
John Keats (1795–1821), an English poet of the Romantic period, died of tu-
berculosis. The following sonnet,1 written in 1818, is grounded in his awareness of
early death:
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unrefl ecting love! then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
1A sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines typically in iambic pentameter with patterned rhyme, as with the
Keats. An iamb is a metrical unit, or foot, of two syllables, the fi rst unaccented and the second accented.
Pentameter is a line of fi ve metrical feet. Thus ̌ /ˇ/ˇ/ˇ/ˇ/. Rhyme is the regular reoccurrence of correspond-
ing sounds, especially at the end of lines.
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185
LITERATURE
Keats interprets a terrible personal feeling. He realizes he may die before he
can write his best poems. The epitaph Keats chose for his headstone just before
he died, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” is one of the most sor-
rowful lines of all poetry. He was wrong in believing that his poems would not be
read by posterity. Moreover, his work is so brilliant that we cannot help wonder-
ing what else he might have done. Had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Proust,
or Joyce died at twenty-six, we might not know their names, for their important
work was yet to come.
It is not diffi cult for us to imagine how Keats must have felt. The lyric mode
usually relies not on narrative but on our ability to respond to the circumstances
described. In this poem, Keats has important resources. One is the fact that since
we all will die, we can sympathize with the thought of death cutting a life’s work
short. The tone Keats establishes in the poem—one of direct speech, honestly said,
not overdone or melodramatic—helps him communicate his feelings. It gives the
poem an immediacy: one human being telling another something straight from
the heart. Keats modulates the tone slightly, slowing things down enough at the
end of the poem for us to sense and share the despairing contemplative mood “to
nothingness do sink.”
A very different treatment of the question of death dominates e. e. cummings’s
poem, which uses the line breaks to create a dynamic rhythm. Instead of imagining
or refl ecting upon his own death, he meditates on an instrument of death, the Wild
West gunman, Buffalo Bill. Our culture thinks of William Cody as something of
a hero, although ecologists remember him as a man who slaughtered thousands
of buffalo so that their tongues could be shipped to Chicago restaurants and their
bodies left to rot. Some of cummings’s contempt may be apparent in the tone of
the last three lines.
BUFFALO BILL’S DEFUNCT
Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfi ve pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
PERCEPTION KEY “When I have fears . . .”
1. This poem has no setting (environmental context), yet it establishes an atmosphere
of uncertainty and, possibly, of terror. How does Keats create this atmosphere?
2. The poet is dying and knows he is dying—why does he then labor so over the
rhyme and meter of this poem? What does the poem do for the dying narrator?
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186
CHAPTER 7
Numerous lyric poems are inspired by works of visual or musical art, such as
W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts,” which describes Brueghel’s (also spelled
Breughel) famous painting of Daedalus and his son Icarus. In the myth, Daedalus
and Icarus fashion wings with feathers and wax, and Icarus fl ies so close to the sun
that the wax melts and he falls to the earth. Thus, the myth became a metaphor for
overreaching. But what Auden saw is that great events, such as the fall of Icarus,
happen in a landscape in which no one notices. Not everyone wishes for or is aware
of martyrdom, suffering, or great achievement, even when those events change
their world.
PERCEPTION KEY “Buff alo Bill’s Defunct”
1. Read the poem aloud to a friend. Where do your emphases fall? Underline the em-
phatic words or syllables before you do the actual reading. Where do you rush the
words? How much control do cummings’s line breaks have over the way you read?
2. By comparison, read aloud any of the other lyrics in this section. How does the line
structure of that poem control the way you read the lines? Where do the empha-
ses fall? Try to characterize the diff erences between the line structures of the two
poems.
FIGURE 7-1
Peter van Brueghel, Landscape with
the Fall of Icarus. Circa 1558. Oil on
canvas mounted on wood, 28.9 3
41.1 inches. Royal Museum of Fine
Arts of Belgium.
Brueghel contrasts Icarus’s failed
adventure with the serious work of
ordinary men. He portrays a farmer
plowing, a shepherd watching his
sheep, a fi sherman (in the lower
right), and busy merchantmen in
their ships moving cargo to the
distant city above.
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187
LITERATURE
MUSÉE DES BEAUX ARTS
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
EXPERIENCING “Musée des Beaux Arts”
1. Auden has structured the poem in two parts. How are they related?
2. Auden wrote this poem in 1938, when the Germans had just invaded Poland, thus
beginning World War II. To what extent is this a lyric with political undertones?
3. How important is visual imagery in this poem?
W. H. Auden was profoundly aware of political events in his time, especially those lead-
ing up to the world war. He structures this poem in two parts. The fi rst thirteen lines
address the fact that suff ering is ancient and probably changeless enough that the Old
Masters—the great older painters in the Museum of Beaux Arts—portrayed it much
as it still is. In other words, the Old Masters provide us with the blueprints, the types
of suff ering. His fi rst line says it all: “About suff ering they were never wrong.” He then
goes on to tell us that it happens around us even when we are not aware, while we are
involved in daily chores, like the people in Brueghel’s paintings skating on a pond.
Then the second section of the poem focuses on a single painting in which, accord-
ing to the Roman poet Ovid, a major disaster occurred: Icarus fl ew too close to the
sun and fell to his death in the sea. Yet, in Brueghel’s painting no one notices. The
plowman has his work to do, and he keeps his eyes on his plow. Even some viewers
of the painting might miss the tiny splash that Icarus leaves. Put together with the
references to miracles, martyrdom, and torture, in the fi rst part of the poem, we can
appreciate the implication that ordinary people go on their ordinary ways even when
the most hideous events occur, as they did in 1938 when Poland was attacked and
the German concentration camps were being fi lled with Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals,
priests, and mentally handicapped citizens. The fi rst section of the poem consists of
generalities and references to general activities. The second section fastens itself to
the fi rst by introducing the specifi cs of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus by referring
to the visual image of the plowman in the foreground of the painting, and the death of
Icarus in the distant background far from the headland on which the plowman moves.
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188
CHAPTER 7
Emily Dickinson, like Keats and Auden, meditated on suffering and loss. She
lived in her family house for most of her life, never married, and kept most of her
personal romantic interests to herself, so that biographers can only speculate on the
kind of pain that she seems to be describing in “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling
Comes.” Her method is to be indirect and not to specify the issues at the heart of her
lyric. She uses metaphors, such as “A Quartz contentment,” which is both specifi c
and yet completely abstract and untranslatable. We have no idea what pain she is
talking about—perhaps the loss of a loved one, perhaps the loss of a love—but we
know that the pain is so great it can only be addressed from an angle and described
as “the Hour of Lead,” which seems to resemble something very close to death.
AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL FEELING COMES
After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round—
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought—
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone—
This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—
PERCEPTION KEY “Aft er Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes”
1. Read the poem aloud. To what extent do the open vowels and the rich rhymes give
a “musical” quality to your reading? Listen to someone else read the poem and ask
the same question: How musical is this poem?
2. The imagery and language seem designed to describe or produce an emotional qual-
ity in the poet’s or the reader’s experience. Describe as best you can the emotional
content of the poem.
3. Is this poem describing a positive experience or a negative experience?
4. Does the indirectness of the imagery enhance the eff ect of the poem, or limit it?
Literary Details
So far we have been analyzing literature with reference to structure, the overall
order. But within every structure are details that need close examination in order to
properly perceive the structure.
Language is used in literature in ways that differ from everyday uses. This is not
to say that literature is artifi cial and unrelated to the language we speak but, rather,
that we sometimes do not see the fullest implications of our speech and rarely take
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189
LITERATURE
full advantage of the opportunities language affords us. Literature uses language to
reveal meanings that are usually absent from daily speech.
Our examination of detail will include image, metaphor, symbol, irony, and dic-
tion. They are central to literature of all genres.
Image
An image in language asks us to imagine or “picture” what is referred to or being
described. An image appeals essentially to our sense of sight, but sound, taste, odor,
and touch are sometimes involved. One of the most striking resources of language
is its capacity to help us reconstruct in our imaginations the “reality” of perceptions.
This resource sometimes is as important in prose as in poetry. Consider, for exam-
ple, the following passage from Joseph Conrad’s Youth:
The boats, fast astern, lay in a deep shadow, and all around I could see the circle of the
sea lighted by the fi re. A gigantic fl ame arose forward straight and clear. It fl ares fi erce,
with noises like the whirr of wings, with rumbles as of thunder. There were cracks, deto-
nations, and from the cone of fl ame the sparks fl ew upwards, as man is born to trouble, to
leaky ships, and to ships that burn.
PERCEPTION KEY Conrad’s Youth and Imagery
1. What does Conrad ask us to see in this passage?
2. What does he ask us to hear?
3. What do his images make us feel?
4. Comment on the imageless second half of the last sentence.
In Youth, this scene is fl eeting, only an instant in the total structure of the book.
But the entire book is composed of such details, helping to engage the reader’s
participation.
Virginia Woolf, in the following passage from her novel To the Lighthouse, has
Lily thinking about Mrs. Ramsay’s thoughts on her philosopher-husband’s mind.
In the process, Lily constructs images that refl ect the activity of the bees in her
garden as well as the activity of Mr. Ramsay’s thoughts.
Nothing happened. Nothing! Nothing! as she leant her head against Mrs. Ramsay’s knee.
And yet, she knew knowledge and wisdom were stored up in Mrs. Ramsay’s heart. How
then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed
as they were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible
to touch or taste, one haunted the dome-shaped hive, ranged the wastes of the air over
the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with their murmurs and their
stirrings; the hives, which were people. Mrs. Ramsay rose. Lily rose. Mrs. Ramsay went.
For days there hung about her, as after a dream some subtle change is felt in the person
one has dreamt of, more vividly than anything she said, the sound of murmuring and, as
she sat in the wicker arm-chair in the drawing-room window she wore, to Lily’s eyes, an
august shape; the shape of a dome.
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In this passage, the dome-shaped hive is metaphorically related to the dome-
shaped head of Mr. Ramsay, whose thoughts, like bees, “range the wastes of the
air over the countries of the world alone.” The murmurings and stirrings of the
bees that sound in her garden are appropriate to the murmurings and stirrings of
the thoughts of the philosopher. The use of the verb “rose” in “Mrs. Ramsay rose.
Lily rose” also implies a garden image, just as does the name of Lily, Mrs. Ramsay’s
friend. Lily is a painter; and when she refl ects on this moment, she imagines
Mrs. Ramsay as “an august shape; the shape of a dome,” which for the reader of
the novel underscores Mrs. Ramsay’s own intelligence, which Mr. Ramsay usually
downplays. These images, like most of Woolf’s imagery, intensify the signifi cance
of the story, which helps us understand the values of the socially devalued world of
Mrs. Ramsay.
Because of its tendency toward the succinct, poetry usually contains stronger
images than prose, and poetry usually appeals more to our senses (Conrad’s prose
being an obvious exception). Listen to the following poem by T. S. Eliot:
I
PRELUDES
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
PERCEPTION KEY “Preludes”
1. Is there a signifi cant narrative? What does the title mean?
2. What senses are imaginatively stimulated?
3. Does the poem appeal to and evoke one particular sense more than the others? If
so, which one and why?
Archibald MacLeish, poet and critic, points out in Poetry and Experience that
not all images in poetry work metaphorically—that is, as a comparison of two
things. This may be the case even when the images are placed side by side. Thus
in a grave, in John Donne’s “The Relic,” “a loving couple lies,” and there is this
marvelous line: “A bracelet of bright hair about the bone. . . .” The image of a
bracelet of bright hair is coupled with an image of a bone. The images lie side by
side, tied by the b sounds. Their coupling is startling because of the immediacy of
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LITERATURE
their contrasting associations: vital life and inevitable death. There is no metaphor
here (something is like something else in some signifi cant way), simply two images
juxtaposed. We hear or read through the sounds—but never leave them—into their
references, through the references to the images they create, through the images
to their relationship, and fi nally to the poignant meaning: Even young girls with
golden hair die. We all know that, of course, but now we face it, and feel it, because
of the meaning generated by those images lying side by side: life, death, beauty, and
sorrow bound together in that unforgettable grave.
PERCEPTION KEY John Donne
1. Suppose the word “blonde” were substituted for “bright.” Would the meaning of the
line be enhanced or diminished? Why?
2. Suppose the word “white” were placed in front of “bone.” Would the meaning of the
line be enhanced or diminished? Why?
PERCEPTION KEY “Th e East Wind Sighs”
1. Which are the most interesting images in the poem? Which senses do they appeal to?
2. Is there a narrative implied in the poem?
3. What other poem in this chapter seems closely related to this one?
The imagery in Chinese and Japanese poetry was infl uential in English and
American poetry of the early twentieth century. The following is a poem from
China’s late T’ang dynasty (618–970). Li Shang-Yin (812?–858) rarely titled his
poems, but they are clearly derived from his awareness of the kind of Chinese
landscapes that dominate Chinese painting, such as Wang Yuanqi’s Landscape after
Wu Zhen (Figure 4-7).
The East wind sighs, the fi ne rains come:
Beyond the pool of water-lilies, the noise of faint thunder.
A gold toad gnaws the lock. Open it, burn the incense.
A tiger of jade pulls the rope. Draw from the well and escape.
Chia’s daughter peeped through the screen when Han the clerk was young,
The goddess of the river left her pillow for the great Prince of Wei.
Never let your heart open with the spring fl owers:
One inch of love is an inch of ashes.
Metaphor
Metaphor helps writers intensify language. Metaphor is a comparison designed to
heighten our perception of the things compared. Poets or writers will usually let us
know which of the things compared is the main object of their attention. For exam-
ple, in the following poem, Shakespeare compares his age to the autumn of the year
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and himself to a glowing fi re that consumes its vitality. The structure of this sonnet
is marked by developing one metaphor in each of three quatrains (a group of four
rhyming lines) and a couplet that offers a summation of the entire poem.
SONNET 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fi re
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
PERCEPTION KEY Shakespeare’s 73rd Sonnet
1. The fi rst metaphor compares the narrator’s age with autumn. How are “yellow
leaves, or none” appropriate for comparison with a man’s age? What is implied by
the comparison? The “bare ruined choirs” are the high place in the church—what
place, physically, would they compare with in a man’s body?
2. The second metaphor is the “sunset” fading “in the west.” What is this compared
with in a man’s life? Why is the imagery of the second quatrain so eff ective?
3. The third metaphor is the “glowing” fi re. What is the point of this metaphor? What
is meant by the fi re’s consuming “that which it was nourished by”? What is being
consumed here?
4. Why does the conclusion of the poem, which contains no metaphors, follow logically
from the metaphors developed in the fi rst three quatrains?
The standard defi nition of the metaphor is that it is a comparison made without
any explicit words to tell us a comparison is being made. The simile is the kind of
comparison that has explicit words: “like,” “as,” “than,” “as if,” and a few others.
We have no trouble recognizing the simile, and we may get so used to reading sim-
iles in literature that we recognize them without any special degree of awareness.
Although there is some difference between a metaphor and a simile, basically
both are forms of comparison for effect. Our discussion, then, will use the general
term “metaphor” and use the specifi c term “simile” only when necessary. However,
symbols, which are also metaphoric, will be treated separately, since their effect is
usually much more specialized than that of the nonsymbolic metaphor.
The use of metaphor pervades all cultures. Daily conversation—none too
literary—nevertheless is full of metaphoric language used to emphasize our points
and give color and feeling to our speech (check this for yourself ). The Chinese poet
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Li Ho (791–817) shows us the power of the metaphor in a poetic tradition very
different from that of the West.
THE GRAVE OF LITTLE SU
I ride a coach with lacquered sides,
My love rides a dark piebald horse.
Where shall we bind our hearts as one?
On West Mound, beneath the pines and cypresses.
(Ballad ascribed to the singing girl Little Su, circa 500 A.D.)
Dew on the secret orchid
No thing to bind the heart to.
Misted fl owers I cannot bear to cut.
Grass like a cushion,
The pine like a parasol:
The wind is a skirt,
The waters are tinkling pendants.
A coach with lacquered sides
Waits for someone in the evening.
Cold blue candle-fl ames
Strain to shine bright.
Beneath West Mound
The wind puffs the rain.
Little Su was important to the narrator, but the portrayal of his feeling for her is
oblique—which is, perhaps, why so many metaphors appear in such a short poem.
Instead of striking bluntly and immediately, the metaphoric language resounds
with nuances so that we are aware of its cumulative impact only after reading and
rereading.
Metaphor pervades poetry, but we do not always realize how extensive the device
is in other kinds of literature. Prose fi ction, drama, essays, and almost every other
form of writing use metaphors. Poetry in general, however, tends to have a higher
metaphoric density than other forms of writing, partly because poetry is somewhat
distilled and condensed to begin with. Rarely, however, is the density of metaphor
quite as thick as in “The Grave of Little Su.”
Since literature depends so heavily on metaphor, it is essential that we refl ect on
its use. One kind of metaphor tends to evoke an image and involves us mainly on
a perceptual level—because we perceive in our imaginations something of what we
would perceive were we there. This kind we shall call a perceptual metaphor. Another
kind of metaphor tends to evoke ideas, gives us information that is mainly conceptual.
This kind of metaphor we shall call a conceptual metaphor. To tell us the pine is like
a parasol is basically perceptual: Were we there, we would see that the cone shape of
the pine resembles that of a parasol. But to tell us the wind is a skirt is to go far beyond
perception and simple likeness. The metaphor lures us to refl ect upon the suggestion
that the wind resembles a skirt, and we begin to think about the ways in which this
might be true. Then we are lured further—this is an enticing metaphor—to explore
the implications of this truth. If the wind is like a skirt, what then is its signifi cance in
the poem? In what ways does this conceptual metaphor help us understand the poet’s
insights at the grave of Little Su? In what ways does the perceptual metaphor of the
pine and parasol help us?
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The answer to how the wind is a skirt is not simple. Its complexity is one of the
precious qualities of this poem. It is also one of the most precious possibilities of
strong conceptual metaphors generally, for then one goes beyond the relatively
simple perceptual comparison into the suggestive and signifi cant acts of under-
standing. We suggest, for instance, that if the wind is like a skirt, it clothes a girl:
Little Su. But Little Su is dead, so perhaps it clothes her spirit. The comparison
then is between the wind and the spirit. Both are impossible to see, but the relation-
ships between their meanings can be understood and felt.
Symbol
The symbol is a further use of metaphor. Being a metaphor, it is a comparison
between two things, but unlike most perceptual and conceptual metaphors, only
one of the things compared is clearly stated. The symbol is clearly stated, but
what it is compared with (sometimes a very broad range of meanings) is only
hinted at. For instance, the white whale in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick is
a symbol both in the novel and in the mind of Captain Ahab, who sees the whale
as a symbol of all the malevolence and evil in a world committed to evil. But we
may not necessarily share Ahab’s views. We may believe that the whale is simply
a beast and not a symbol at all. Or we may believe that the whale is a symbol for
nature, which is constantly being threatened by human misunderstanding. Such
a symbol can mean more than one thing. It is the peculiar quality of most sym-
bols that they do not sit still; even their basic meanings keep changing. Symbols
often are vague and ambiguous. The context in which they appear usually helps
guide us to their meaning. Many symbols are a product of the subconscious,
which is always treating things symbolically and always searching for implicit
meanings. If this is so, it helps account for the persistence of symbols in even the
oldest literature.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the symbol is that it
implies rather than explicitly states meaning. We sense that we are dealing with a
symbol in those linguistic situations in which we believe there is more being said
than meets the eye. Most writers are quite open about their symbols, as William
Blake was in his poetry. He saw God’s handiwork everywhere, but he also saw
forces of destruction everywhere. Thus his poetry discovers symbols in almost
every situation and/or thing, not just in those situations and things that are usually
accepted as meaningful. The following poem is an example of his technique. At fi rst
the poem may seem needlessly confusing, because we do not know how to interpret
the symbols. But a second reading begins to clarify their meaning.
THE SICK ROSE
O rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That fl ies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
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Blake used such symbols because he saw a richness of implication in them that linked
him to God. He thus shared in a minor way the creative act with God and helped oth-
ers understand the world in terms of symbolic meaningfulness. For most other writers,
the symbol is used more modestly to expand meaning, encompassing deep ranges of
suggestion. The symbol has been compared with a stone dropped into the still waters
of a lake: The stone itself is very small, but the effects radiate from its center to the
edges of the lake. The symbol is dropped into our imaginations, and it, too, radiates
with meaning. But the marvelous thing about the symbol is that it tends to be perma-
nently expansive: Who knows where the meaningfulness of Blake’s rose ends?
Prose fi ction has made extensive use of the symbol. In Melville’s Moby-Dick, the
white whale is a symbol, but so, too, is Ahab. The quest for Moby-Dick is itself a
symbolic quest. The albatross in Samuel Coleridge’s “The Ancient Mariner” is a
symbol, and so is the Ancient Mariner’s stopping one of the wedding guests to make
him hear the entire narrative. In these cases, the symbols operate both structurally,
in the entire narrative, and in the details.
The problem most readers have with symbols centers on either the question of
recognition—is this a symbol?—or the question of what the symbol stands for. Usu-
ally an author will use something symbolically in situations that are pretty clearly
identifi ed. Blake does not tell us that his rose and worm are symbolic, but we readily
realize that the poem says very little worth listening to if we do not begin to go beyond
its literal meaning. The fact that worms kill roses is more important to gardeners than
it is to readers of poetry. But that there is a secret evil that travels mysteriously to kill
beautiful things is not as important to gardeners as to readers of poetry.
In those instances in which there is no evident context to guide us, we should
interpret symbols with extreme care and tentativeness. Symbolic objects usually
have a well understood range of meaning that authors such as Blake depend on.
For instance, the rose is often thought of in connection with beauty, romance, love.
The worm is often thought of in connection with death, the grave, and—if we
include the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Blake had read Milton’s Paradise Lost)—
the  worm also suggests evil, sin, and perversion. Most of us know these things.
Thus the act of interpreting the symbol is usually an act of bringing this knowledge
to the forefront of our minds so that we can use it in our interpretations.
Irony
Irony implies contradiction of some kind. It may be a contradiction of expectation
or a contradiction of intention. For example, much sarcasm is ironic. Apparent
compliments are occasionally digs intended to be wickedly amusing. In literature,
PERCEPTION KEY “Th e Sick Rose”
1. The rose and the worm stand as opposites in this poem, symbolically antagonistic. In
discussion with other readers, explore possible meanings for the rose and the worm.
2. The bed of crimson joy and the dark secret love are also symbols. What are their
meanings? Consider them closely in relation to the rose and the worm.
3. What is not a symbol in this poem?
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irony can be one of the most potent of devices. For example, in Sophocles’s play
Oedipus Rex, the prophecy is that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother.
What Oedipus does not know is that he has been adopted and taken to another
country; so when he learns his fate he determines to leave home in order not to
harm his parents. Ironically, he heads to Thebes and challenges his true father, a
king, at a crossroads and kills him. He then answers the riddle of the Sphinx, lifting
the curse from the land—apparently a good outcome—but is then wed to the wife
of the man he has killed. That woman is his mother. These events are part of a pat-
tern of tragic irony, and in narrative literature this is a powerful device.
Sometimes irony is reinforced in drama when the audience knows the truth and
the character does not. This is the situation when Hamlet hesitates in killing Clau-
dius because he sees Claudius kneeling and praying. Hamlet thinks Claudius’s prayers
will get him into heaven, whereas the audience knows that Claudius is professing his
guilt and refusing to do penance.
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem “Richard Cory” is marked by regular meter,
simple rhyme, and a basic pattern of four four-line stanzas. There is very little if any
imagery in the poem, very little metaphor, and possibly no symbol, unless Richard
Cory is the symbol. What gives the poem its force is the use of irony.
RICHARD CORY
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fl uttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fi ne, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
The irony lies in the contrast between the wealthy, accomplished, polished Richard
Cory, and the struggling efforts of his admirers to keep up with him. Ultimately, the
most powerful irony is that the man everyone idolized did not love himself enough
to live. For an admired person to have everything and then “put a bullet through his
head” simply does not seem reasonable. And yet, that is what happened.
Diction
Diction refers to the choice of words. But because the entire act of writing involves
the choice of words, the term “diction” is usually reserved for literary acts (speech
as well as the written word) that use words chosen especially carefully for their
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impact. The diction of a work of literature will sometimes make that work seem
inevitable, as if there were no other way of saying the same thing, as in Hamlet’s
“To be or not to be.” Try saying that in other words.
Sometimes artifi cially formal diction is best, as it often is in the novels of Henry
James; other times conversational diction works best, as in the novels of Ernest
Hemingway. Usually, as Joseph Conrad asserts in one of his famous prefaces, there
is “the appeal through the senses”:
All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself
in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the
secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the plasticity of sculpture,
to the colour of painting, and to the magic suggestiveness of music—which is the art of arts.
And it is only through complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and
substance; it is only through an unremitting, never-discouraged care for the shape and ring
of sentences that an approach can be made to plasticity, to colour; and the light of magic sug-
gestiveness may be brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface
of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage.2
In Robert Herrick’s poem, we see an interesting example of the poet calculating the
effect of specifi c words in their context. Most of the words in “Upon Julia’s Clothes”
are single-syllable words, such as “then.” But the few polysyllables— “vibration”
with three syllables and the most unusual four-syllable word “liquefaction”—lend
an air of intensity and special meaning to themselves by means of their syllabic con-
trast. There may also be an unusual sense in which those words act out or imitate
what they describe.
UPON JULIA’S CLOTHES
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly fl ows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration, each way free,
O, how that glittering taketh me!
PERCEPTION KEY “Upon Julia’s Clothes”
1. The implications of the polysyllabic words in this poem may be quite diff erent for
diff erent people. Read the poem aloud with a few people. Ask for suggestions about
what the polysyllables do for the reader. Does their complexity enhance what is said
about Julia? Their sounds? Their rhythms?
2. Read the poem to some listeners who are not likely to know it beforehand. Do
they notice such words as “liquefaction” and “vibration”? When they talk about the
poem, do they observe the use of these words? Compare their observations with
those of students who have read the poem in this book.
2From The Nigger of the “Narcissus” (1897).
We have been giving examples of detailed diction. Structural diction produces a
sense of linguistic inevitability throughout the work. The careful use of structural
diction can sometimes conceal a writer’s immediate intention, making it important
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for us to be explicitly aware of the diction until it has made its point. Jonathan
Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal is a classic example. Swift most decorously suggests
that the solution to the poverty-stricken Irish farmer’s desperation is the sale of his
infant children—for the purpose of serving them up as plump, tender roasts for
Christmas dinners in England. The diction is so subtly ironic that it is with some
diffi culty that many readers fi nally realize Swift is writing satire. By the time we
reach the following passage, we should surely understand the irony:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a
young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and whole-
some food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will
equally serve in a fricasee or a ragout.
Many kinds of diction are available to the writer, from the casual and conversa-
tional to the archaic and the formal. Every literary writer is sensitive, consciously
or unconsciously, to the issues of diction, and every piece of writing solves the
problem in its own way. When the choice of words seems so exact and right that
the slightest tampering diminishes the value of the work, then we have literature
of high rank. Then, to paraphrase Robert Frost, “Like a piece of ice on a hot stove
the poem rides on its own melting.” No writer can tell you exactly how he or she
achieves “inevitability,” but much of it depends upon sound and rhythm as it relates
to sense.
Summary
Our emphasis throughout this chapter has been on literature as the wedding of
sound and sense. Literature is not passive; it does not sit on the page. It is engaged
actively in the lives of those who give it a chance. A reading aloud of some of the
literary samples in this chapter—especially the lyric—illustrates the point.
We have been especially interested in two aspects of literature: its structure and
its details. Any artifact is composed of an overall organization that gathers details
into some kind of unity. It is the same in literature, and before we can understand
how writers reveal the visions they have of their subject matters, we need to be aware
of how details are combined into structures. The use of image, metaphor, symbol,
and diction, as well as other details, determines in an essential sense the content of a
work of literature.
Structural strategies, such as the choice between a narrative or a lyric, will de-
termine to a large extent how details are used. There are many kinds of structures
besides the narrative and the lyric, although these two offer convenient polarities
that help indicate the nature of literary structure. It would be useful for any stu-
dent of literature to discover how many kinds of narrative structures—in addition
to the already discussed episodic, organic, and quest structures—can be used. And
it also would be useful to determine how the different structural strategies tend
toward the selection of different subject matters. We have made some suggestions
as starters: pointing out the capacity of the narrative for reaching into a vast range
of experience, especially for revealing psychological truths, and the capacity of the
lyric for revealing feeling.
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199
We sit in the darkened theater with many strangers. We sense an air of antic-ipation, an awareness of excitement. People cough, rustle about, then sud-
denly become still. Slowly the lights on the stage begin to come up, and we see
actors moving before us apparently unaware of our presence. They are in rooms
or spaces similar to those that we may be in ourselves at the end of the evening.
Eventually they begin speaking to one another much the way we might ourselves,
sometimes saying things so intimate that we are uneasy. They move about the stage,
conducting their lives in total disregard for us, only hinting occasionally that we
might be there in the same space with them.
At fi rst we feel that despite our being in the same building with the actors,
we are in a different world. Then slowly the distance between us and the actors
begins to diminish until, in a good play, our participation erases the distance. We
thrill with the actors, but we also suffer with them. We witness the illusion of an
action that has an emotional impact for us and changes the way we think about
our own lives. Great plays such as Hamlet, Othello, The Misanthrope, Death of a
Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Long Day’s Journey into Night can have
the power to transform our awareness of ourselves and our circumstances. It is a
mystery common to much art: that the illusion of reality can affect the reality of
our own lives.
C h a p t e r 8
THEATER
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Aristotle and the Elements of Drama
Drama is a collaborative art that represents events and situations, either realistic
and/or symbolic, that we witness happening through the actions of actors in a play
on a stage in front of a live audience. According to the greatest dramatic critic,
Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the elements of drama are as follows:
Plot: a series of events leading to disaster for the main characters who undergo
reversals in fortune and understanding but usually ending with a form of enlight-
enment — sometimes of the characters, sometimes of the audience, and some-
times of both.
Character: the presentation of a person or persons whose actions and the reason
for them are more or less revealed to the audience.
Diction: the language of the drama, which should be appropriate to the action.
Thought: the ideas that underlie the plot of the drama, expressed in terms of
dialogue and soliloquy.
Spectacle: the places of the action, the costumes, set designs, and visual elements
in the play.
Music: in Greek drama, the dialogue was sometimes sung or chanted by a
chorus, and often this music was of considerable emotional importance. In mod-
ern drama, music is rarely used in serious plays, but it is of fi rst importance in
the musical theater.
Aristotle conceived his theories in the great age of Greek tragedy, and therefore
much of what he has to say applies to tragedies by such dramatists as Aeschylus
(ca. 525–456 BCE), especially his trilogy, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The
Eumenides. Sophocles (ca. 496–406 BCE) wrote Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at
Colonus; and Euripides (ca. 485–406 BCE), the last of the greatest Greek tragedians,
wrote Andromache, Medea, and The Trojan Women. All of these plays are still per-
formed around the world, along with comedies by Aristophanes (ca. 448–385 BCE),
the greatest Greek writer of comedies. His plays include Lysistrata, The Birds, The
Wasps, and The Frogs. These plays often have a satirical and political purpose and set
a standard for much drama to come.
Plot involves rising action, climax, falling action, denouement. For Aristotle, the
tragic hero quests for truth. The moment of truth — the climax — is called recognition.
When the fortune of the protagonist turns from good to bad, the reversal follows.
The strongest effect of tragedy occurs when recognition and reversal happen at the
same time, as in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex (Figure 8-1).
The protagonist, or leading character, in the most powerful tragedies fails not
only because of fate, which is a powerful force in Greek thought, but also because
of a fl aw in character (hamartia), a disregard of human limitations. The protago-
nist in the best tragedies ironically brings his misfortune upon himself. In Oedipus
Rex, for example, the impetuous behavior of Oedipus works well for him until he
decides to leave “home.” Then his rash actions bring on disaster. Sophocles shows
us that something of what happens to Oedipus could happen to us. We pity Oedi-
pus and fear for him. Tragedy, Aristotle tells us, arouses pity and fear and by doing
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so produces in us a catharsis, a purging of those feelings, wiping out some of the
horror. The drama helps us understand the complexities of human nature and the
power of our inescapable destinies.
Dialogue and Soliloquy
The primary dramatic interchanges are achieved by dialogue, the exchange of con-
versation among the characters. In older plays, the individual speech of a char acter
might be relatively long, and then it is answered by another character in the same
way. In more-modern plays, the dialogue is often extremely short. Sometimes a few
minutes of dialogue will contain a succession of speeches only fi ve or six words in
length. The following is an example of a brief dialogue between Algernon and his
manservant, Lane, from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
Algernon: A glass of sherry, Lane.
Lane: Yes, sir.
Algernon: Tomorrow, Lane, I’m going Bunburying.
Lane: Yes, sir.
Algernon: I shall probably not be back till Monday. You can put up my dress clothes, my
smoking jacket, and all the Bunbury suits —
FIGURE 8-1
Oedipus Rex.
In the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre
production, 1973, the shepherd tells
Oedipus the truth about his birth
and how he was prophesied to kill his
father and marry his mother.
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Lane: Yes, sir. (Handing sherry.)
Algernon: I hope tomorrow will be a fi ne day, Lane.
Lane: It never is, sir.
Algernon: Lane, you’re a perfect pessimist.
Lane: I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.
In this passage, Algernon plans to visit an imaginary friend, Bunbury, an in-
vention designed to help him avoid dinners and meetings that he cannot stand.
The dialogue throughout the play is quick and witty, and the play is generally
regarded as one of the most amusing comedies. As in most plays, the dialogue
moves the action forward by telling us about the importance of the situations in
which the actors speak. This example is interesting because, while amusing, the
dialogue is shallow. We know very little if anything about the characters speak-
ing the lines.
The soliloquy, on the other hand, is designed to give us insight into the character
who speaks the lines. Usually the character is alone onstage and speaking apparently
to himself. In the best of soliloquies, we are given to understand that the character
is not speaking to the audience — the term “aside” is used to describe such speeches.
The character is alone, and therefore we can trust to the sincerity of the speech and
the truths that it reveals. Hamlet’s soliloquies in Shakespeare’s play are among the
most famous in literature. Here, Hamlet speaks at a moment in the play when the
tension is greatest:
Hamlet: To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep —
No more — and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That fl esh is heir to. [3.1.57–64]
There is nothing superfi cial about this speech, nor the many lines that come after
it. Hamlet considers suicide and, once having renounced it, considers what he must
do. The many soliloquies in Hamlet offer us insight into Hamlet’s character, show-
ing us an interiority, or psychological existence, that is rich and deep. In the Greek
tragedies, some of the function of the modern soliloquy was taken by the Chorus, a
group of citizens who frequently commented in philosophic fashion on the action
of the drama.
PERCEPTION KEY Soliloquy
A soliloquy occurs when a character alone onstage reveals his or her thoughts. Study
the use of the soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (3.3.73–96, 4.4.32–66) and in
Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (Tom’s opening speech; Tom’s long speech in
scene 5; and his opening speech in scene 6). What do these soliloquies accomplish? Is
their purpose diff erent in these two plays? Are soliloquies helpful in all drama? What
are their strengths and weaknesses?
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Archetypal Patt erns
Certain structural principles tend to govern the shape of dramatic narrative, just as
they do the narrative of fi ction. The discussion of episodic and organic structures
in the previous chapter has relevance for drama as well. However, drama originated
from ancient rituals and sometimes maintains a reference to those rites. For exam-
ple, the ritual of sacrifi ce — which implies that the individual must be sacrifi ced for
the commonweal of society — seems to fi nd its way into a great many dramas, both
old and new. Such a pattern is archetypal — a basic psychological pattern that people
apparently react to on a more or less subconscious level. These patterns, archetypes,
are deep in the myths that have permeated history. We feel their importance even if
we do not recognize them consciously.
Archetypal drama aims at symbolic or mythic interpretations of experience.
For instance, one’s search for personal identity, for self-evaluation, since it seems
to be a pattern repeated in all ages, can serve as a primary archetypal structure for
drama. This particular archetype is the driving force in Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex,
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, Arthur Miller’s Death
of a Salesman, and many more plays — notably, but by no means exclusively, in
tragedies. (As we shall see, comedy also often uses this archetype.) One reason
this archetype is so powerful is that it involves large risks. Many of us are content
to watch other people discover their identities, while we are satisfi ed to remain
undiscovered. There is fear of fi nding that we may not be the delightful, humane,
and wonderful people we want others to think we are.
The power of the archetype derives, in part, from our recognition of a pattern that
has been repeated by the human race throughout history. The psy chol o gist Carl Jung,
whose work spurred critical awareness of archetypal pat terns in all the arts, believed
that the greatest power of the archetype lies in its capacity to reveal through art the
“imprinting” of human experience. Maud Bodkin, a critic who developed Jung’s views,
explains the archetype this way:
The special emotional signifi cance going beyond any defi nite meaning conveyed attri-
butes to the stirring in the reader’s mind, within or beneath his conscious response, of
unconscious forces which he terms “primordial images” or ar che types. These archetypes
he describes as “psychic residua of numberless ex pe ri ences of the same type,” experiences
which have happened not to the individual but to his ancestors, and of which the results
are inherited in the structure of the brain.1
The quest narrative (Chapter 7) is an example of an archetypal structure, one
that recurs in drama frequently. For instance, Hamlet is seeking the truth about
his father’s death (Aristotle’s recognition), but in doing so, he is also trying to dis-
cover his own identity as it relates to his mother. Sophocles’s Oedipus is the story
of a man who kills his father, marries his mother, and suffers a plague on his lands.
He discovers the truth (recognition again), and doom follows (Aristotle’s reversal).
He blinds himself and is ostracized. Freud thought the play so archetypal that he
1Maud Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 1.
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saw in it a profound human psychological pattern, which he called the “Oedipus
complex”: the desire of a child to get rid of the same-sex parent and to have a sex-
ual union with the parent of the opposite sex. Not all archetypal patterns are so
shocking, but most reveal an aspect of basic human desires. Drama — because of
its immediacy and compression of presentation — is, perhaps, the most powerful
means of expression for such archetypes.
Some of the more important archetypes include those of an older man, usually
a king in ancient times, who is betrayed by a younger man, his trusted lieutenant,
with regard to a woman. This is the theme of Lady Gregory’s Grania. The loss
of innocence, a variation on the Garden of Eden theme, is another favorite, as in
August Strindberg’s Miss Julie and Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and The Wild Duck. Tom
Stoppard’s Arcadia combines two archetypes: loss of innocence and the quest for
knowledge. However, no archetype seems to rival the quest for self-identity. That
quest is so common that it is even parodied, as in Wilde’s The Importance of Being
Earnest.
The four seasons set temporal dimensions for the development of archetypes
because the seasons are intertwined with patterns of growth and decay. The ori-
gins of drama, which are obscure beyond recall, may have been linked with rituals
associated with the planting of seed, the reaping of crops, and the entire com-
plex issue of fertility and death. In Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye associ-
ates comedy with spring, romance with summer, tragedy with autumn, irony and
satire with winter. His associations suggest that some archetypal drama may be
rooted in connections between human destiny and the rhythms of nature. Such
origins may account for part of the power that archetypal drama has for our
imaginations, for the infl uences that derive from such origins presumably are
deeply pervasive in all of us. These infl uences may also help explain why trag-
edy usually involves the death of a hero — although, sometimes, as in the case of
Oedipus, death is withheld — and why comedy frequently ends with one or more
marriages, as in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Much Ado about Nothing, and A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, with their suggestions of fertility. Such drama seems
to thrive on seasonal patterns and on the capacity to excite in us a recognition
of events that on the surface may not seem important but that underneath have
profound meaning.
CONCEPTION KEY Archetypes
1. You may wish to supplement the comments above by reading the third chapter of
Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism or the Hamlet chapter in Francis Fergusson’s
The Idea of a Theater.
2. Whether or not you do additional reading, consider the recurrent patterns you
have observed in dramas—include television dramas or television adaptations of
drama. Can you fi nd any of the patterns we have described? Do you see other
patterns showing up? Do the patterns you have observed seem basic to human
experience? For example, do you associate gaiety with spring, love with summer,
death with fall, and bitterness with winter? What season seems most appropriate
for marriage?
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Genres of Drama: Tragedy
Carefully structured plots are basic for Aristotle, especially for tragedies. The action
must be probable or plausible, but not necessarily historically ac cu rate. Although
noble protagonists are essential for great tragedies, Aristotle allows for tragedies
with ordinary protagonists. In these, plot is much more the center of interest than
character. Then we have what may be called action dramas, never, according to
Aristotle, as powerful as character dramas, other things being equal. Action dramas
prevail on the popular stage and television. But when we turn to the great tragedies
that most defi ne the genre, we think immediately of great characters: Oedipus,
Agamemnon, Prometheus, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear.
Modern drama tends to avoid traditional tragic structures because modern
concepts of morality, sin, guilt, fate, and death have been greatly altered. Modern
psychology explains character in ways the ancients either would not have under-
stood or would have disputed. Critics have said that there is no modern tragedy
because there can be no character noble enough to engage our heartfelt sympathy.
Moreover, the acceptance of chance as a force equal to fate in our lives has also
reduced the power of tragedy in modern times. Even myth — which some modern
playwrights like Eugene O’Neill still use — has a diminished vitality in modern trag-
edy. It may be that the return of a strong integrating myth — a world vision that sees
the actions of humanity as tied into a large scheme of cosmic or sacred events — is a
prerequisite for producing a drama that we can recognize as truly tragic, at least in
the traditional sense. This may be an overstatement. What do you think?
Th e Tragic Stage
Our vision of tragedy focuses on two great ages — ancient Greece and Renaissance
England. These two historical periods share certain basic ideas: for instance, that
there is a “divine providence that shapes our ends,” as Hamlet says, and that fate
is immutable, as the Greek tragedies tell us. Both periods were marked by consid-
erable prosperity and public power, and both ages were deeply aware that sudden
reversals in prosperity could change everything. In addition, both ages had some-
what similar ideas about the way a stage should be constructed. The relatively tem-
perate climate of Greece permitted an open amphitheater, with seating on three
sides of the stage. The Greek architects often had the seats carved out of hillside
rock, and their attention to acoustics was so remarkable that even today in some of
the surviving Greek theaters, as at Epidaurus (Figure 8-2), a whisper on the stage
can be heard in the farthest rows. The Elizabethan stages were roofed wooden
structures jutting into open space enclosed by stalls in which the well-to-do sat (the
not-so-well-to-do stood around the stage), providing for sight lines from three
sides. Each kind of theater was similar to a modifi ed theater-in-the-round, such
as is used occasionally today. A glance at Figures 8-2, 8-3, and 8-4 shows that the
Greek and Elizabethan theaters were very different from the standard theater of
our time — the proscenium theater.
The proscenium acts as a transparent “frame” separating the action taking place
on the stage from the audience. The Greek and Elizabethan stages are not so ex-
plicitly framed, thus involving the audience more directly spatially and, in turn,
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FIGURE 8-2
Theater at Epidaurus, Greece,
ca. 350 BCE.
The theater, which has a capacity of
more than 10,000 patrons, was used
for early Greek tragedy and is still
used for performances.
FIGURE 8-3
Modern rendering of DeWitt’s
1596 drawing of the interior of an
Elizabethan theater in London.
This is typical of those in
which Shakespeare’s plays were
performed.
FIGURE 8-4
The auditorium and proscenium
of the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden, London.
The proscenium arch is typical
of theaters from the eighteenth
century to the present. It has been
compared with the fourth wall of
the drama within.
206
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THEATER
perhaps, emotionally. With the Greek theater, the area where the action took place
was a circle, called the “orchestra.” The absence of a separate stage put the actors
on the same level as those seated at the lowest level of the audience.
Stage Scenery and Costumes
Modern theater depends on the scenery and costumes for much of its effect on the
audience. Aristotle considered these ingredients as part of the spectacle, what we
actually see when we are in the theater. Greek drama used a basic set, as seen in
Figure 8-5, with an open space, the orchestra, and a building, the skene, against
which the actors played.
Greek actors wore simple clothing and distinguished their parts by the use of
elaborate masks, some of which included a megaphone to help project the voices.
The paraskenion provided entrances and exits, and the skene usually represented a
home or palace against which the action was set. The presence of the altar indicates
the religious nature of the festival of Dionysus, during which plays were presented.
Because the Greeks held their festivals in the daytime, no special lighting was nec-
essary. Shakespearean theaters were also open to daylight, and Elizabethan plays
were staged in the afternoon and used very little stage scenery. The words of the
play established the place and time of the action.
Elaborate lighting and painted fl ats to establish the locale of the action became
the norm in the late seventeenth century and after. Candlelight was used inge-
niously in the late seventeenth century, but by the eighteenth century oil lamps
replaced lights in the theater and onstage.
FIGURE 8-5
Eretria, Greece. Early Greek
theater.
The orchestra was the area for
the chorus to act in, and for the
primary actors. The paraskenion
was used for entrances and exits,
and the skene was a backdrop for
the actors.
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CHAPTER 8
The Drury Lane Theatre in London was the most popular theater of its time.
As seen in Figure 8-6, it made extensive use of artifi cial lighting, while the stage
was decorated with detailed painted sets simulating the environment in which the
actors moved. Such efforts at realistic staging had become the norm with impressive
speed, and even today we expect the stage to produce a sense of realism, whether we
expect to see a living room with all the details of everyday life, or to see the out-of-
doors complete with trees, and even snow—or in extreme situations, rain.
Scenery is usually left to the discretion of the producers of plays. Stage directions
by the author may suggest an environment for the performance, but the production
is carried out by stage designers and builders. In a preface to his play Overruled,
George Bernard Shaw commented: “For example, the main objection to the use of
illusive scenery (in most modern plays scenery is not illusive; everything visible is as
real as in your drawing room at home) is that it is unconvincing; whilst the imaginary
scenery with which the audience provides a platform or tribune like the Elizabethan
stage or the Greek stage used by Sophocles, is quite convincing. In fact, the more
scenery you have the less illusion you produce.” As if responding to Shaw, many
modern plays have used expressionist sets—those that interpret the environment
and distort it for emotional effect—in place of a representation of absolute reality.
Greek costumes may have been standardized long-sleeved tunics, and short
cloaks, but our knowledge comes from unreliable vase portraits and from only a
very few references in the texts themselves. Yet, costumes were important enough
for Aeschylus to design his own, usually including embroidery, ornaments, or
FIGURE 8-6
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1812.
London’s Drury Lane was the most
advanced and popular theater of
its time. Its lighting system was
advanced, and the stage scenery was
carefully painted and constructed to
produce an illusion of reality.
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markings. References in later texts imply that actors wore costumes indicating high
or low status or whether they are Greeks or foreigners, divine or human. Charac-
ters indicating death, for example, usually wore black garments. Several of Aristo-
phanes’s plays imply that some costumes must be ragged or torn for effect.
Shakespearean actors wore Elizabethan clothes on stage, even in productions of
Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra. However, the actors’ costumes were very im-
portant to the spectacle of the play because there was little or no scenery. Individual
actors usually had their own supply of costumes ranging from royalty to poverty.
Servants who inherited their masters’ wardrobe often sold the clothes to actors or
the actors’ company. Some costumes indicated Asian, Jewish, and clerical origins,
adding a sense of heightened realism to the drama. In Shakespeare’s time, some of
the most impressive and imaginative costumes were not on the public stage, but
in the special entertainments at the courts of Queen Elizabeth and King James, as
shown in Figure 8-7. They were called masques, entertainments with mythic narra-
tives, elaborate music and costumes, and much dancing. Masques were very expen-
sive to produce and were usually performed only once for special celebrations.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
For a contemporary audience, Romeo and Juliet is probably easier to participate with
than most Greek tragedies because, among other reasons, its tragic hero and her-
oine, although aristocratic, are not a king and a queen. Their youth and innocence
add to their remarkable appeal. The play pre sents the archetypal story of lovers
whose fate — mainly because of the hatred their families bear each other — is sealed
from the fi rst. The archetype of lovers who are not permitted to love enacts a basic
FIGURE 8-7
Spirit Torchbearer, costume design
by Inigo Jones, 1613.
Inigo Jones was an architect and
stage designer for entertainments
at court. His fanciful Spirit was
intended for a royal masque written
by Thomas Campion to honor
the marriage of King James I’s
daughter, Elizabeth.
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struggle among forces that lie so deep in our psyches that we need a drama such
as this to help reveal them. It is the struggle between light and dark, between the
world in which we live on the surface of the earth with its light and openness and
the world of darkness, the underworld of the Greeks and the Romans, and the hell
of the Christians. Young lovers represent life, the promise of fertility, and the con-
tinuity of the human race. Few subject matters could be more potentially tragic than
that of young lovers whose promise is plucked by death.
The play begins with some ominous observations by Montague, Romeo’s fa-
ther. He points out that when Romeo, through love of a girl named Rosaline (who
does not appear in the play), comes home just before dawn, he locks “fair daylight
out,” making for himself an “artifi cial night.” In other words, Montague tells us
that Romeo stays up all night, comes home, pulls down the shades, and converts
day into night. These observations seem innocent enough unless one is already fa-
miliar with the plot; then it seems a clear and tragic irony: that Romeo, by making
his day a night, is already foreshadowing his fate. After Juliet has been introduced,
her nurse wafts her offstage with an odd bit of advice aimed at persuading her of
the wisdom of marrying Count Paris, the man her mother has chosen. “Go, girl,
seek happy nights to happy days.” At fi rst glance, the advice seems innocent. But
with knowledge of the entire play, it is prophetic, for it echoes the day/night imag-
ery Montague has applied to Romeo. Shakespeare’s details invariably tie in closely
with the structure. Everything becomes relevant.
When Romeo fi rst speaks with Juliet, not only is it night but they are in Capulet’s
orchard: symbolically a place of fruitfulness and fulfi llment. Romeo sees her and
imagines her, not as chaste Diana of the moon, but as his own luminary sun: “But
soft! What light through yonder window breaks? / It is the East, and Juliet is the
sun!” He sees her as his “bright angel.” When she, unaware he is listening below,
asks, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse
thy name,” she is touching on profound concerns. She is, without fully realizing it,
asking the impossible: that he not be himself. The denial of identity often brings
great pain, as witness Oedipus, who at fi rst refused to believe he was his father’s child.
When Juliet asks innocently, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any
other name would smell as sweet,” she is asking that he ignore his heritage. The
mythic implications of this are serious and, in this play, fatal. Denying one’s identity
is rather like Romeo’s later attempt to deny day its sovereignty.
When they fi nally speak, Juliet explains ironically that she has “night’s cloak to
hide me” and that the “mask of night is upon my face.” We know, as she speaks,
that eternal night will be on that face, and all too soon. Their marriage, which
occurs offstage as act 2 ends, is also performed at night in Friar Lawrence’s cell,
with his hoping that the heavens will smile upon “this holy act.” But he is none too
sure. And before act 3 is well under way, the reversals begin. Mercutio, Romeo’s
friend, is slain because of Romeo’s intervention. Then Romeo slays Tybalt, Juliet’s
cousin, and fi nds himself doomed to exile from both Verona and Juliet. Grieving
for the dead Tybalt and the banished Romeo, Juliet misleads her father into think-
ing the only cure for her condition is a quick marriage to Paris, and Romeo comes
to spend their one night of love together before he leaves Verona. Naturally they
want the night to last and last — again an irony we are prepared for — and when
daylight springs, Romeo and Juliet have a playful argument over whether it is the
nightingale or the lark that sings. Juliet wants Romeo to stay, so she defends the
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nightingale; he knows he must go, so he points to the lark and the coming light.
Then both, fi nally, admit the truth. His line is “More light and light — more dark
and dark our woes.”
Another strange archetypal pattern, part of the complexity of the subject matter,
has begun here: the union of sex and death as if they were aspects of the same thing. In
Shakespeare’s time, death was a metaphor for making love, and often when a singer of
a love song protested that he was dying, he expected everyone to understand that he
was talking about the sexual act. In Romeo and Juliet, sex and death go together, both
literally and symbolically. The fi rst most profound sense of this appears in Juliet’s
pretending death in order to avoid marrying Paris. She takes a potion from Friar
Lawrence — who is himself afraid of a second marriage because of possible bigamy
charges — and she appears, despite all efforts of investigation, quite dead.
When Romeo hears that Juliet has been placed in the Capulet tomb, he deter-
mines to join her in death as he was only briefl y able to do in life. The message Friar
Lawrence had sent by way of another friar explaining the counterfeit death did not
get through to Romeo. And it did not get through because genuine death, in the
form of plague, had closed the roads to Friar John. When Romeo descends under-
ground into the tomb, he must ultimately fi ght Paris, although he does not wish
to. After killing Paris, Romeo sees the immobile Juliet. He fi lls his cup (a female
symbol) with poison and drinks. When Juliet awakes from her potion and sees both
Paris and Romeo dead, she can get no satisfactory answer for these happenings from
Friar Lawrence. His fear is so great that he runs off as the authorities bear down on
the tomb. This leaves Juliet to give Romeo one last kiss on his still warm lips, then
plunge his dagger (a male symbol) into her heart and die (Figure 8-8).
FIGURE 8-8
Romeo and Juliet in the tomb.
Worcester Foothills Theater
production, 2003, directed by
Edward Isser.
Juliet awakes to fi nd Romeo’s body
after he has drunk poison. She will
seize his dagger and follow him to
the grave.
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Earlier, when Capulet thought his daughter was dead, he exclaimed to Paris,
“O son, the night before thy wedding day / Hath Death lain with thy wife. There
she lies, / Flower as she was, defl owered by him. / Death is my son-in-law, Death
is my heir.” At the end of the play, both Juliet and his real son-in-law, Romeo,
are indeed married in death. The linkage of death and sex is ironically enacted in
their fi nal moments, which include the awful misunderstandings that the audience
beholds in sorrow, that make Romeo and Juliet take their own lives for love of each
other. And among the last lines is one that helps clarify one of the main themes:
“A glooming peace this morning with it brings. / The sun for sorrow will not show
his head.” Theatergoers have mourned these deaths for generations, and the prom-
ise that these two families will now fi nally try to get along together in a peaceful
manner does not seem strong enough to brighten the ending of the play.
PERCEPTION KEY Tragedy
1. While participating with Romeo and Juliet, did you experience pity and fear for the
protagonists? Catharsis (the purging of those emotions)?
2. Our discussion of the play did not treat the question of the tragic fl aw (hamartia):
the weakness of character that brings disaster to the main characters. One of
Romeo’s fl aws may be rashness—the rashness that led him to kill Tybalt and thus
be banished. But he may have other fl aws as well. What might they be? What are
Juliet’s tragic fl aws, if any?
3. In scenes such as that in which Romeo views the apparently dead Juliet, the fi lm
version focuses narrowly on the two and brings us close in. On the stage, the sur-
rounding space cannot be completely abolished (even with highly concentrated
lighting), and we cannot be brought as close in. In this respect, does this fl exibility
give fi lm a distinct advantage over the stage play? Discuss.
4. You may not have been able to see Romeo and Juliet, but perhaps other tragedies are
available. Try to see any of the tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Shakespeare;
Ibsen’s Ghosts; John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea; Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s
Journey into Night; Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie; or Arthur Miller’s Death
of a Salesman. Analyze the issues of tragedy we have raised. For example, decide
whether the play is archetypal. Are there tragic fl aws? Are there reversals and
recognitions of the sort Aristotle analyzed? Did the recognition and reversal occur
simultaneously? Are the characters important enough—if not noble enough—to
excite your compassion for their sorrow and suff ering?
5. If you were to write a tragedy, what modern fi gure could be a proper tragic protag-
onist? What archetypal antagonist would be appropriate for your tragedy? What
tragic fl aw or fl aws would such a modern antagonist exhibit?
Comedy: Old and New
Ancient Western comedies were performed at a time associated with wine making,
thus linking the genre with the wine god Bacchus and his relative Comus — from
whom the word “comedy” comes. Comedy, like tragedy, achieved institutional
status in ancient Greece. Some of the earliest comedies, along with satyr plays,
were frankly phallic in nature, and many of the plays of Aristophanes, the master
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213
THEATER
of Old Comedy, were raucous and coarse. Plutarch was offended by plays such
as The Clouds, The Frogs, The Wasps, and especially Lysistrata, the world’s best-
known phallic play, concerning a situation in which the women of a community
withhold sex until the men agree not to wage any more war. At one point in the
play, the humor centers on the men walking around with enormous erections
under their togas. Obviously Old Comedy is old in name only, since it is still
pres ent in the routines of nightclub comedians and the bawdy entertainment
halls of the world.
In contrast, the New Comedy of Menander, with titles such as The Flatterer, The
Lady from Andros, The Suspicious Man, and The Grouch, his only surviving complete
play, concentrated on common situations in the everyday life of the Athenian. It
also avoided the brutal attacks on individuals, such as Socrates, which characterize
much Old Comedy. Historians credit Menander with developing the comedy of
manners, the kind of drama that satirizes the manners of a society as the basic part
of its subject matter.
Old Comedy is associated with our modern farce, burlesque, and the broad
humor and make-believe violence of slapstick. New Comedy tends to be suave and
subtle. Concentrating on manners, New Comedy developed type characters, for
they helped focus upon the foibles of social behavior. Type characters, such as the
gruff and diffi cult man who turns out to have a heart of gold, the good cop, the
bad cop, the ingenue, the fi nicky person, or the sloppy person — all these work well
in comedies. Such characters can become stereotypes — with predictable behavior
patterns — although the best dramatists usually make them complex enough so that
they are not completely predictable.
The comic vision celebrates life and fecundity. Typically in comedy, all ends well;
confl icts are resolved; and, as often in Shakespeare’s comedies, the play concludes with
feasting, revelry, and a satisfying distribution of brides to the appropriate suitors. We
are encouraged to imagine that they will live happily ever after.
PERCEPTION KEY Type Characters
1. Neil Simon, who has written some of the most popular modern comedies, relies ex-
tensively on type characters. In The Odd Couple, Felix Unger, a fi nicky opera -loving
neatnik, lives with Oscar Madison, a slob whose life revolves around sports. What
is inherently funny about linking two characters like them?
2. Type characters exist in all drama. What types are Romeo, Juliet, the Nurse, and
Friar Lawrence? How close do they stay to their types?
3. To what extent is Hamlet a type character? Is it possible that the character of
Hamlet actually created the dark-hued melancholiac as a type that did not exist
before Shakespeare created him?
4. What type characters do you remember from your experiences with drama? What
are the strengths of such characters? What are their limitations?
Comedy, like tragedy, may use archetypal patterns. For example, there is the
pattern pointing toward marriage and the new life made possible by the hoped-
for fruitfulness of such a union. The forces of society, personifi ed often by a par-
ent or controlling older person, are usually pitted against the younger characters
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214
CHAPTER 8
who wish to be married. Thus one of the most powerful archetypal patterns of
comedy is a variant of the generation gap. The “parent” can be any older person
who blocks the younger people, usually by virtue of controlling their inheritance
or their wealth. When the older person wishes to stop a marriage, he or she be-
comes the blocking character. This character, for reasons that are usually social
or simply mercenary, does everything possible to stop the young people from
getting together.
Naturally, the blocking character fails. But the younger characters do not merely
win their own struggle. They usually go on to demonstrate the superiority of their
views over those of the blocking character. For example, they may demonstrate that
true love is a better reason for marrying than is merging two neighboring estates. One
common pattern is for two lovers to decide to marry regardless of their social classes.
The male, for instance, may be a soldier or a student but not belong to the upper class
to which the female belongs. But often at the last minute, through means such as a
birthmark (as in The Marriage of Figaro) or the admission of another character who
knew all along, the lower-class character will be shown to be a member of the upper
class in disguise. Often the character himself will not know the truth until the last
minute in the drama. This is a variant of Aristotle’s recognition in tragedy, although
it does not have the unhappy consequences. In all of this, New Comedy is usually
in tacit agreement with the ostensible standards of the society it entertains. It only
stretches the social standards and is thus evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Blocking characters may be misers, for example, whose entire lives are devoted to
mercenary goals, although they may not be able to enjoy the money they heap up;
or malcontents, forever looking on the dark side of humanity; or hypochondriacs,
whose every move is dictated by their imaginary illnesses. Such characters are so rigid
that their behavior is a form of vice. The effort of the younger characters is often to
reform the older characters, educating them away from their entrenched and narrow
values toward accepting the idealism and hopefulness of the young people who, after
all, are in line to inherit the world that the older people are reluctant to turn over.
Few generations give way without a struggle, and this archetypal struggle on the
comic stage may serve to give hope to the young when they most need it, as well as
possibly to help educate the old so as to make the real struggle less terrible.
PERCEPTION KEY Old and New Comedy
Studying comedy in the abstract is diffi cult. It is best for you to test what has been
discussed above by comparing our descriptions and interpretations with your own ob-
servations. If you have a chance to see some live comedy onstage, use that experience,
but if that is impossible, watch some television comedy.
1. Is there criticism of society? If so, is it savage or gentle?
2. Are there blocking characters? If so, do they function somewhat in the ways
described above? Are there any new twists?
3. See or read at least two comedies. How many type or stereotype characters can you
identify? Is there an example of the dumb blonde? The braggart tough guy? The big
lover? The poor but honest fellow? The dumb cop? The absentminded professor?
Do types or stereotypes dominate? Which do you fi nd more humorous? Why?
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215
THEATER
Tragicomedy: The Mixed Genre
On the walls beside many stages, especially the ancient, we fi nd two masks: the
tragic mask with a downturned mouth and the comic mask with an upturned mouth.
If there were a third mask, it would probably have an expression of bewilderment, as
if someone had just asked an unanswerable question. Mixing the genres of tragedy
and comedy in a drama may give such a feeling. Modern audiences are often left
with many unanswered questions when they leave the theater. They are not always
given resolutions that wrap things up neatly. Instead, tragicomedy tends, more than
either tragedy or comedy, to reveal the ambiguities of the world. It does not usually
end with the fi nality of death or the promise of a new beginning. It usually ends
somewhere in between.
The reason tragicomedy has taken some time to become established as a genre
may have had something to do with the fact that Aristotle did not provide an
analysis—an extraordinary example of a philosopher having great infl uence on the
arts. Thus, for a long time, tragicomedy was thought of as a mixing of two pure
genres and consequently inferior in kind. The mixing of tragedy and comedy is
surely justifi ed, if for no other reason than the mixture works so well, as proved
by most of the marvelous plays of Chekhov. This mixed genre is a way of making
drama truer to life. As playwright Sean O’Casey commented to a college student,
“As for the blending ‘Comedy with Tragedy,’ it’s no new practice — hundreds have
done it, including Shakespeare. . . . And, indeed, Life is always doing it, doing it,
doing it. Even when one lies dead, laughter is often heard in the next room. There’s
no tragedy that isn’t tinged with humour, no comedy that hasn’t its share of trag-
edy — if one has eyes to see, ears to hear.” Much of our best modern drama is mixed
in genre so that, as O’Casey points out, it is rare to fi nd a comedy that has no sadness
to it or a tragedy that is unrelieved by laughter.
A Play for Study: The Swan Song
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) is one of the giants of modern drama. His major
plays for the Moscow Art Theater, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, Ivanov,
and Uncle Vanya, are all part of the international repertory of modern theatrical
mainstays. The Swan Song (1889), his earliest produced play, can be thought of as
meta-drama, drama about the theater itself. Svietlovidoff is an old actor in perhaps
his last play—“swan song” is shorthand for one’s last performance or last appear-
ance. In his late age he is reduced to ridiculous roles, while Ivanitch is reduced to
being a prompter, calling out the lines that aged actors, like Svietlovidoff, forget.
Both are sad characters, but Chekhov reveals their true nature as they talk and as
they recall some of the great poetry and great speeches that animate theater and
theater life (Figure 8-9). They enact a few lines from King Lear, then from Hamlet
and Othello, all spoken with great authority and with the conviction of their charac-
ters, revealing to themselves that they still possess genius. Chekhov enlarges their
sense of themselves while praising the nature of drama through the representation
of some of its greatest moments.
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216
CHAPTER 8
FIGURE 8-9
Paul Rainville as Ivanitch and
Douglas Campbell as Svietlovidoff
in Chekhov’s The Swan Song. The
National Arts Centre’s English
Theatre (Canada) production,
2003.
THE SWAN SONG Anton Chekhov, tr. Marian Fell
Characters
vasili svietlovidoff, a comedian, 68 years old
nikita ivanitch, a prompter, an old man
The scene is laid on the stage of a country theatre, at night, after
the play. To the right a row of rough, unpainted doors leading
into the dressing-rooms. To the left and in the background the
stage is encumbered with all sorts of rubbish. In the middle of the
stage is an overturned stool.
svietlovidoff. [With a candle in his hand, comes out of a
dressing-room and laughs] Well, well, this is funny! Here’s
a good joke! I fell asleep in my dressing-room when
the play was over, and there I was calmly snoring after
everybody else had left the theatre. Ah! I’m a foolish old
man, a poor old dodderer! I have been drinking again,
and so I fell asleep in there, sitting up. That was clever!
Good for you, old boy! [Calls] Yegorka! Petrushka!
Where the devil are you? Petrushka! The scoundrels
must be asleep, and an earthquake wouldn’t wake them
now! Yegorka! [Picks up the stool, sits down, and puts the
candle on the fl oor] Not a sound! Only echos answer me.
I gave Yegorka and Petrushka each a tip to-day, and
now they have disappeared without leaving a trace be-
hind them. The rascals have gone off and have probably
locked up the theatre. [Turns his head about] I’m drunk!
Ugh! The play to-night was for my benefi t, and it is dis-
gusting to think how much beer and wine I have poured
down my throat in honour of the occasion. Gracious!
My body is burning all over, and I feel as if I had twenty
tongues in my mouth.
It is horrid! Idiotic! This poor old sinner is drunk again,
and doesn’t even know what he has been celebrating!
Ugh! My head is splitting, I am shivering all over, and
I feel as dark and cold inside as a cellar! Even if I don’t
mind ruining my health, I ought at least to remember
my age, old idiot that I am! Yes, my old age! It’s no
use! I can play the fool, and brag, and pretend to be
young, but my life is really over now, I kiss my hand to
the sixty-eight years that have gone by; I’ll never see
them again! I have drained the bottle, only a few little
drops are left at the bottom, nothing but the dregs. Yes,
yes, that’s the case, Vasili, old boy. The time has come
for you to rehearse the part of a mummy, whether you
like it or not. Death is on its way to you. [Stares ahead
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of him] It is strange, though, that I have been on the
stage now for forty-fi ve years, and this is the fi rst time
I have seen a theatre at night, after the lights have been
put out. The fi rst time. [Walks up to the foot-lights] How
dark it is! I can’t see a thing. Oh, yes, I can just make
out the prompter’s box, and his desk; the rest is in pitch
darkness, a black, bottomless pit, like a grave, in which
death itself might be hiding. . . . Brr. . . . How cold it
is! The wind blows out of the empty theatre as though
out of a stone fl ue. What a place for ghosts! The shiv-
ers are running up and down my back. [Calls] Yegorka!
Petrushka! Where are you both? What on earth makes
me think of such gruesome things here? I must give up
drinking; I’m an old man, I shan’t live much longer. At
sixty-eight people go to church and prepare for death,
but here I am—heavens! A profane old drunkard in this
fool’s dress—I’m simply not fi t to look at. I must go and
change it at once. . . . This is a dreadful place, I should
die of fright sitting here all night. [Goes toward his dress-
ing-room; at the same time NIKITA IVANITCH in a long
white coat comes out of the dressing-room at the farthest end
of the stage. SVIETLOVIDOFF sees IVANITCH—shrieks
with terror and steps back]
Who are you? What? What do you want? [Stamps his
foot] Who are you?
ivanitch. It is I, sir.
svietlovidoff. Who are you?
ivanitch [Comes slowly toward him] It is I, sir, the prompter,
Nikita Ivanitch. It is I, master, it is I!
svietlovidoff. [Sinks helplessly onto the stool, breathes heavily
and trembles violently] Heavens! Who are you? It is you . . .
you Nikitushka? What . . . what are you doing here?
ivanitch. I spend my nights here in the dressing-rooms.
Only please be good enough not to tell Alexi Fomitch,
sir. I have nowhere else to spend the night; indeed, I
haven’t.
svietlovidoff. Ah! It is you, Nikitushka, is it? Just think,
the audience called me out sixteen times; they brought
me three wreathes and lots of other things, too; they
were all wild with enthusiasm, and yet not a soul came
when it was all over to wake the poor, drunken old man
and take him home. And I am an old man, Nikitushka!
I am sixty-eight years old, and I am ill. I haven’t the
heart left to go on. [Falls on IVANITCH’S neck and
weeps] Don’t go away, Nikitushka; I am old and helpless,
and I feel it is time for me to die. Oh, it is dreadful,
dreadful!
ivanitch. [Tenderly and respectfully] Dear master! it is time
for you to go home, sir!
svietlovidoff. I won’t go home; I have no home—none!
none!—none!
ivanitch. Oh, dear! Have you forgotten where you live?
svietlovidoff. I won’t go there. I won’t! I am all alone
there. I have nobody, Nikitushka! No wife—no children.
I am like the wind blowing across the lonely fi elds. I
shall die, and no one will remember me. It is awful to
be alone—no one to cheer me, no one to caress me, no
one to help me to bed when I am drunk. Whom do I
belong to? Who needs me? Who loves me? Not a soul,
Nikitushka.
ivanitch. [Weeping] Your audience loves you, master.
svietlovidoff. My audience has gone home. They are all
asleep, and have forgotten their old clown. No, nobody
needs me, nobody loves me; I have no wife, no children.
ivanitch. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Don’t be so unhappy
about it.
svietlovidoff. But I am a man, I am still alive. Warm,
red blood is tingling in my veins, the blood of noble
ancestors. I am an aristocrat, Nikitushka; I served in
the army, in the artillery, before I fell as low as this,
and what a fi ne young chap I was! Handsome, dar-
ing, eager! Where has it all gone? What has become
of those old days? There’s the pit that has swallowed
them all! I remember it all now. Forty-fi ve years of
my life lie buried there, and what a life, Nikitushka!
I can see it as clearly as I see your face: the ecstasy
of youth, faith, passion, the love of women—women,
Nikitushka!
ivanitch. It is time you went to sleep, sir.
svietlovidoff. When I fi rst went on the stage, in the fi rst
glow of passionate youth, I remember a woman loved
me for my acting. She was beautiful, graceful as a poplar,
young, innocent, pure, and radiant as a summer dawn.
Her smile could charm away the darkest night. I remem-
ber, I stood before her once, as I am now standing before
you. She had never seemed so lovely to me as she did
then, and she spoke to me so with her eyes—such a look!
I shall never forget it, no, not even in the grave; so ten-
der, so soft, so deep, so bright and young! Enraptured,
intoxicated, I fell on my knees before her, I begged for
my happiness, and she said: “Give up the stage!” Give
up the stage! Do you understand? She could love an
actor, but marry him—never! I was acting that day,
I  remember—I had a foolish, clown’s part, and as I acted,
217
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I felt my eyes being opened; I saw that the worship of
the art I had held so sacred was a delusion and an empty
dream; that I was a slave, a fool, the plaything of the
idleness of strangers. I understood my audience at last,
and since that day I have not believed in their applause,
or in their wreathes, or in their enthusiasm. Yes,
Nikitushka! The people applaud me, they buy my pho-
tograph, but I am a stranger to them. They don’t know
me, I am as the dirt beneath their feet. They are willing
enough to meet me . . . but allow a daughter or a sister
to marry me, an outcast, never! I have no faith in them,
[sinks onto the stool] no faith in them.
Ivanitch. Oh, sir! you look dreadfully pale, you frighten me
to death! Come, go home, have mercy on me!
svietlovidoff. I saw through it all that day, and the
knowledge was dearly bought. Nikitushka! After that . . .
when that girl . . . well, I began to wander aimlessly
about, living from day to day without looking ahead.
I took the parts of buffoons and low comedians, letting
my mind go to wreck. Ah! but I was a great artist once,
till little by little I threw away my talents, played the
motley fool, lost my looks, lost the power of expressing
myself, and became in the end a Merry Andrew instead
of a man. I have been swallowed up in that great black
pit. I never felt it before, but to-night, when I woke
up, I looked back, and there behind me lay sixty-eight
years. I have just found out what it is to be old! It is all
over . . . [sobs] . . . all over.
ivanitch. There, there, dear master! Be quiet . . . gracious!
[Calls] Petrushka! Yegorka!
svietlovidoff. But what a genius I was! You
cannot imagine what power I had, what eloquence;
how graceful I was, how tender; how many strings
[beats his breast] quivered in this breast! It chokes
me to think of it! Listen now, wait, let me catch my
breath, there; now listen to this:
“The shade of bloody Ivan now returning
Fans through my lips rebellion to a flame,
I am the dead Dimitri! In the burning Boris shall
perish on the throne I claim. Enough! The heir
of Czars shall not be seen Kneeling to yonder
haughty Polish Queen!”1
Is that bad, eh? [Quickly] Wait, now, here’s something
from King Lear. The sky is black, see? Rain is pouring
down, thunder roars, lightning—zzz zzz zzz—splits the
whole sky, and then, listen:
“Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d
the cocks!
You sulphurous thought-executing fi res
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts
Singe my white head! And thou, all shaking thunder,
Strike fl at the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germons spill at once
That make ungrateful man!”2
[Impatiently] Now, the part of the fool. [Stamps his foot] Come
take the fool’s part! Be quick, I can’t wait!
ivanitch. [Takes the part of the fool ]
“O, Nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better
than this rain-water out o’ door. Good Nuncle, in;
ask thy daughter’s blessing: here’s a night pities nei-
ther wise men nor fools.”3
svietlovidoff.
“Rumble thy bellyful! spit, fi re! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fi re, are my daughters;
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children.”4
Ah! there is strength, there is talent for you! I’m a great
artist! Now, then, here’s something else of the same
kind, to bring back my youth to me. For instance, take
this, from Hamlet, I’ll begin . . . Let me see, how does it
go? Oh, yes, this is it. [Takes the part of Hamlet]5
“O! the recorders, let me see one.—To withdraw with
you. Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as
if you would drive me into a toil?”
ivanitch. “O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is
too unmannerly.”
svietlovidoff. “I do not well understand that. Will you
play upon this pipe?”
ivanitch. “My lord, I cannot.”
svietlovidoff. “I pray you.”
ivanitch. “Believe me, I cannot.”
1From Boris Godunoff, by Pushkin. [translator’s note]
2King Lear, Act 3, sc. 2
3King Lear, Act 3, sc. 2
4King Lear, Act 3, sc. 2
5The following dialogue is from Hamlet, Act 3, sc. 2.
218
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svietlovidoff. “I do beseech you.”
ivanitch. “I know no touch of it, my lord.”
svietlovidoff. “’Tis as easy as lying: govern these vantages
with your fi nger and thumb, give it breath with your
mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look
you, these are the stops.”
ivanitch. “But these I cannot command to any utterance
of harmony: I have not the skill.”
svietlovidoff. “Why, look you, how unworthy a thing you
make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem
to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my
mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to
the top of my compass; and there is much music, excel-
lent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it
speak. S’blood! Do you think I am easier to be played on
than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though
you can fret me, you cannot play upon me!” [laughs and
clasps] Bravo! Encore! Bravo! Where the devil is there any
old age in that? I’m not old, that is all nonsense, a torrent
of strength rushes over me; this is life, freshness, youth!
Old age and genius can’t exist together. You seem to be
struck dumb, Nikitushka. Wait a second, let me come to
my senses again. Oh! Good Lord! Now then, listen! Did
you ever hear such tenderness, such music? Sh! Softly;
“The moon had set. There was not any light,
Save of the lonely legion’d watch-stars pale
In outer air, and what by fi ts made bright
Hot oleanders in a rosy vale
Searched by the lamping fl y, whose little spark
Went in and out, like passion’s bashful hope.”6
[The noise of opening doors is heard] What’s that?
ivanitch. There are Petrushka and Yegorka coming back.
Yes, you have genius, genius, my master.
svietlovidoff. [Calls, turning toward the noise] Come
here to me, boys! [TO IVANITCH ] Let us go and get
dressed. I’m not old! All that is foolishness, nonsense!
[laughs gaily] What are you crying for? You poor old
granny, you, what’s the matter now? This won’t do!
There, there, this won’t do at all! Come, come, old
man, don’t stare so! What makes you stare like that?
There, there! [Embraces him in tears] Don’t cry! Where
there is art and genius there can never be such things
as old age or loneliness or sickness . . . and death itself
is half . . . [Weeps] No, no, Nikitushka! It is all over for
us now! What sort of a genius am I? I’m like a squeezed
lemon, a cracked bottle, and you—you are the old rat of
the theatre . . . a prompter! Come on! [They go] I’m no
genius, I’m only fi t to be in the suite of Fortinbras, and
even for that I am too old. . . . Yes. . . . Do you remem-
ber those lines from Othello, Nikitushka?
“Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fi fe,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!”7
ivanitch. Oh! You’re a genius, a genius
svietlovidoff. And again this:
“Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness
soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights
of heaven.”8
They go out together, the curtain falls slowly.
6From Edward Bulwer Lytton’s A Night in Italy
7Othello, Act 3, sc. 3
8From Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Remorse”
EXPERIENCING Anton Chekhov’s The Swan Song
1. Plot: What happens in this drama? Who changes in what way?
2. Ideas: What ideas are important in this drama? Could this be said to be a drama
of ideas rather than a drama of action? How does the fact that all the speeches
from Shakespeare come from the third act (of fi ve) contribute to the main idea
of the play?
219
continued
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220
CHAPTER 8
The question of plot in this play is diff erent from that in most plays. Instead of an
action that takes place outside the characters, the action in this play takes place
mostly inside the characters. It is their state of mind that changes in the process of
the scene, not their physical or fi nancial state that is altered. Things do not happen to
Svietlovidoff and Ivanitch, they happen within them. What stands in for plot is inter-
action. In some dramas an action involving two characters of separate types is called
an “agon,” and the interaction causes both these men to understand that Svietlovidoff
is a classically trained actor who was once great but who has suff ered the ravages of
age and of being forgotten.
If this is a drama of ideas, it is about the idea of theater. These characters enter
the stage feeling defeated by life, but as the evening goes on, each of them relives
moments of his youth, and each realizes that he has been in touch with greatness.
Shakespeare’s texts stimulate them to remember how magnifi cent are the dramas
they once dominated. The fact that the texts they choose are from the third acts of
plays points to the fact that they themselves are in the late stages of their own lives.
But it also implies that the moments they remember are from the points in the drama
when the arc of tension has grown highest and thus the level of drama is highest.
Chekhov, in this fi rst play, is paying tribute to the greatness of drama by taking these
two beaten men and showing how they transform themselves into important dramatic
fi gures.
3. Character: To what extent are Svietlovidoff and Ivanitch comic types? In what
ways do they surprise us? In what ways do they surprise themselves?
4. Setting: Where is the action set? Why is the setting of critical importance to the
ideas in the drama?
5. Genre: The main character is a comedian. Is this then a comedy? Svietlovidoff is
reduced to preposterous roles in old age. Is this then a tragedy?
FOCUS ON Musical Theater
Most of the plays discussed so far do not emphasize music, but in The Poetics, Aristotle
includes it as an essential part of the dramatic experience: “a very real factor in the plea-
sure of the drama.” The great Greek tragedies were chanted to musical instruments, and
the music had a signifi cant eff ect on the audiences. Most of the great Elizabethan plays
included music, some of which came at important moments in the action. Shakespeare’s
plays especially are noted for numerous beautiful and moving songs.
In modern times, the Broadway musical theater represents one of the most import-
ant contributions made by the United States to the stage. The musical plays that have
developed since the early part of the twentieth century have been produced around
the globe, and today they are being written and performed in many nations abroad.
The Broadway musical is now an international drama that is in most cases more pop-
ular than standard drama (Figures 8-10, 8-11, and 8-12). In the twenty-fi rst cen-
tury, musical plays attract much greater audiences over longer runs than virtually any
straight drama. The Fantasticks, for example — a simple love story featuring a blocking
character and two young lovers — ran for forty-two years with a piano accompani-
ment and essentially one hit song, “Try to Remember That Night in September.”
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Cats, based on T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s
Book of Practical Cats, stayed on Broadway
for almost 7,500 performances, longer
than Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line,
which lasted for 6,137 performances.
Other contemporary long-running musi-
cals are The Phantom of the Opera (8,700
on Broadway, 9,500 in London), Beauty
and the Beast, Chicago, and The Lion King.
On the one hand, these are extraordi-
nary commercial successes. In addition,
the quality of some musicals in terms of
drama has been recognized many times;
for example, the following are a few of
the musical plays that have won the Pulit-
zer Prize for Drama: Of Thee I Sing (1932);
South Pacifi c (1950); A Chorus Line (1976);
Sunday in the Park with George (1985); Rent
(1996).
Many of the most popular musicals have been adaptations of novels, short stories,
or other plays. Kiss Me! Kate is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the
Shrew. My Fair Lady is an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which
itself draws upon the Greek myth of the lovers Pygmalion and Galatea. Les Miserables
is based on French author Victor Hugo’s popular novel, and Rent is based on Puccini’s
opera La Bohème. West Side Story, by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sond-
heim, is an original musical, although it
essentially rewrites Romeo and Juliet for
modern urban dwellers.
Of Thee I Sing, the longest-running
drama of the 1930s, had an original book
by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Rys-
kind and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, whose
brother George wrote the music. It had a
serious Depression-era message that as-
sailed incompetent politicians, including
a bachelor president running for offi ce
on a ticket that promised to return love
to the White House. Stephen Sondheim
wrote the music for Sunday in the Park
with George, inspired by a famous painting
by Georges Seurat (Sunday Afternoon on
the Island of La Grande Jatte), and Into the
Woods, inspired by the most famous char-
acters from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. James
Lapine wrote the book for each of those
musicals. Obviously, the musical theater
is one of the most collaborationist of dra-
matic art forms. Most musicals include
extensive choreography, often by cele-
brated modern dancers, such as Agnes de
FIGURE 8-11
Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line, 1975.
The story of the lives of members of a chorus line in modern drama captivated audiences.
The play ran for 6,137 performances on Broadway.
FIGURE 8-10
The Phantom of the Opera, the
longest running of all current
musical plays.
Originating in France, the play was
then produced in London in 1985,
moving to Broadway in 1987.
221
continued
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PERCEPTION KEY Musical Th eater
1. If you have the chance to see either a live or fi lmed version of one of the musicals
mentioned above, explain what you feel has been added to the drama by the use of
music and song.
2. If possible, compare a musical play with its source, such as Edna Ferber’s novel
Show Boat. You might also try West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet or My Fair Lady and
Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.
3. Given that people generally do not communicate with one another in song, is it pos-
sible to consider musicals as being realistic and true to life? If not, why are musicals
so powerful and popular among audiences? Isn’t realism a chief desirable quality in
drama?
4. Try reading the book and lyrics of a major successful musical. How eff ective do
you think this work would be on the stage if there were no music with it? What is
missing besides the music?
5. Musical comedy dominates the popular stage. Why is there no such thing as musi-
cal tragedy? How could a composer-writer produce a successful musical based on,
say, Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, Macbeth, Medea, or Othello?
Mille in Oklahoma!, Jerome Robbins
in The King and I, Gower Champion
in 42nd Street, and Bob Fosse in Chi-
cago, Dancin’, and All That Jazz.
The musical theater can be espe-
cially rich in spectacle, with massed
dance scenes and popular songs that
have a life outside the drama, as in
the case of musicals by Cole Porter,
Jerome Kern, and Richard Rodgers.
But some musicals also treat seri-
ous subjects, as in Jerome Kern’s
and Oscar Hammerstein’s Show Boat,
which comes closer to being a drama
than a musical in part because of its
treatment of slavery in the South.
It was adapted from Edna Ferber’s
novel, and partly through the pow-
erful song “Ol’ Man River,” it has
become one of the most moving of
musicals. One interesting aspect of
Broadway musicals is that they have
often been successfully transformed
into excellent fi lms, bringing them to
audiences around the world.
FIGURE 8-12
Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, 1984.
This Pulitzer Prize–winning musical play starred Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.
It told of George Seurat’s effort to make his most famous painting and how his devotion to
his painting affected the lives of those closest to him.
222
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223
THEATER
Experimental Drama
We have seen exceptional experimentation in modern drama in the Western world.
Samuel Beckett wrote plays with no words at all, as with Acts without Words. One of
his plays, Not I, has an oversized mouth talking with a darkened, hooded fi gure, thus
reducing character to a minimum. In Waiting for Godot, plot is greatly reduced in
importance. In Endgame (Figure 8-13), two of the characters are immobilized in gar-
bage cans. Beckett’s experiments have demonstrated that even when the traditional
elements of drama are de-emphasized or removed, it is still possible for drama to
evoke intense participative experiences. Beckett has been the master of refi ning away.
Another important thrust of experimental drama has been to assault the audi-
ence. Antonin Artaud’s “Theater of Cruelty” has regarded audiences as comfort-
able, pampered groups of privileged people. Peter Weiss’s play — The Persecution
and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton under
the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (or Marat/Sade) — obviously was infl uenced by
Artaud’s radical antiestablishment thinking. Through a depiction of insane inmates
contemplating the audience at a very close range, it sought to break down the tradi-
tional security associated with the proscenium theater. Marat/Sade ideally was per-
formed in a theater-in-the-round with the audience sitting on all sides of the actors
and without the traditional fanfare of lights dimming for the beginning and lighting
up for the ending. The audience is deliberately made to feel uneasy throughout the
play. The depiction of intense cruelty within the drama is there because, according
to Weiss, cruelty underlies all human events, and the play attempts a revelation of
that all-pervasive cruelty. The audience’s own discomfort is a natural function of
this revelation.
FIGURE 8-13
Samuel Beckett’s Endgame. Elaine
Stritch, Nell, and Alvin Epstin,
Nagg, in the Brooklyn Academy of
Music’s Spring 2008 production.
First produced in 1957, Endgame
continues to be performed
worldwide. Nell and Nagg are
parents of Hamm, played by John
Turturro. Ostensibly, the play
suggests the end of the world, with
characters who are unable to move
or change.
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224
CHAPTER 8
Richard Schechner’s Dionysus in ’69 also did away with spatial separation. The
space of the theater was the stage space, with a design by Jerry Rojo that made play-
ers and audience indistinguishable. The play demanded that everyone become part
of the action; in some performances — and in the fi lmed performance — most of the
players and audience ended the drama with a modern-day orgiastic rite. Such ex-
perimentation, indeed, seems extreme. But it is analogous to other dramatic events
in other cultures, such as formal religious and celebratory rites.
PERCEPTION KEY Experimental Drama
Should you have the chance to experience a drama produced by any of the directors
or groups mentioned above, try to distinguish its features from those of the more
traditional forms of drama. What observations can you add to those made above?
Consider the kinds of satisfaction you can get as a participant. Is experimental drama
as satisfying as traditional drama? What are the diff erences? To what extent are the
diff erences to be found in the details? The structure? Are experimental dramas likely
to be episodic or organic? Why?
Summary
The subject matter of drama is the human condition as represented by action. By
emphasizing plot and character as the most important elements of drama, Aristotle
helps us understand the priorities of all drama, especially with reference to its for-
mal elements and their structuring. Aristotle’s theory of tragedy focuses on the
fatal fl aw of the protagonist. Tragedy and comedy both have archetypal patterns
that help defi ne them as genres. Some of the archetypes are related to the natural
rhythms of the seasons and focus, in the case of tragedy, on the endings of things,
such as death (winter) and, in the case of comedy, on the beginnings of things,
such as romance (spring). The subject matter of tragedy is the tragic — sorrow and
suffering. The subject matter of comedy is the comic — oddball behavior and joy.
Comedy has several distinct genres. Old Comedy revels in broad humor. New
Comedy satirizes the manners of a society; its commentary often depends on type
and stereotype characters. Tragicomedy combines both genres to create a third
genre. The ambiguity implied by tragedy joined with comedy makes this a par-
ticularly fl exible genre, suited to a modern world that lives in intense uncertainty.
Musical drama sometimes veers toward social commentary, or even social satire.
The success of musical drama in modern times suggests that Aristotle was correct
in assuming the importance of music in drama on an almost equal footing with its
other elements. The experiments in modern drama have broken away from tra-
ditional drama, creating fascinating insights into our time. The human condition
shifts from period to period in the history of drama, but somehow the constancy of
human concerns makes all great dramatists our contemporaries.
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225
Music is one of the most powerful of the arts partly because sounds—more than any other sensory stimulus — create in us involuntary reactions, pleasant or
unpleasant. Live concerts, whether of the Boston Symphony, Wynton Marsalis at
Lincoln Center, or Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on tour, usually excite
delight in their audiences. Yet, in all cases, the audiences rarely analyze the music.
It may seem diffi cult to connect analysis with the experience of listening to music,
but everyone’s listening, including the performer’s, benefi ts from a thorough un-
derstanding of some of the fundamentals of music.
Hearing and Listening
Music can be experienced in two basic ways: “hearing’’ or “listening.’’ Hearers do
not attempt to perceive accurately either the structure or the details of the form.
They hear a familiar melody such as the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields,’’ which may
trigger associations with John Lennon, early rock and roll, and perhaps even the
garden in Central Park dedicated to his memory. But aside from the melody, little
else — such as the details of chord progression, movement toward or away from
tonic and dominant — is heard sensitively. The case is much the same with classi-
cal music. Most hearers prefer richly melodic music, such as Tchaikovsky’s Fifth
Symphony, whose second movement especially contains lush melodies that can
trigger romantic associations. But when one asks hearers if the melody was repeated
exactly or varied, or whether the melody was moved from one instrumental family
C h a p t e r 9
MUSIC
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226
CHAPTER 9
to another, they cannot say. They are concentrating on the associations evoked by
the music rather than on the details and structure of the music. A hearer of hard
rock is likely to attend as much to the performer as to the sonic effects. Power-
ful repetitive rhythms and blasting sounds trigger visceral responses so strong that
dancing or motion — often wild — becomes imperative. Another kind of hearer is
“suffused’’ or “permeated’’ by music, bathing in sensuous sounds, as many people
will do with their earphones tuned to soft rock, new age, or easy-listening sounds.
In this nonanalytic but attractive state of mind, the music spreads through the body
rhythmically, soothingly. It feels great, and that is enough.
The listeners, conversely, concentrate their attention upon the form, details as
well as structure. They could answer questions about the structure of Tchaikovsky’s
Fifth Symphony. And a listener, unlike a hearer, would be aware of the details and
structure of works such as the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” Listeners
focus on the form that informs, that creates content. Listeners do not just listen:
They listen for something — the content.
PERCEPTION KEY Hearing and Listening
1. Play one of your favorite pieces of music. Describe its overall organization or struc-
ture. Is there a clear melody? Is there more than one melody? If so, are they similar
to one another or do they contrast with one another? Is the melody repeated? Is
it varied or the same? Do diff erent instruments play it? If there are lyrics, are they
repeated?
2. Describe details such as what kind of rhythm is used. Is it varied? If so, how? Is
there harmony? What kind of instruments are played? How do these details fi t into
the structure?
3. Play the fi rst movement of Beethoven’s Third Symphony (the Eroica). Answer the
same questions for this piece as were asked in questions 1 and 2. Later, we will ana-
lyze this movement. You may wish to compare your responses now with those you
have after studying the work.
The Elements of Music
Before trying to describe the subject matter of music, we will introduce some of the
important terms and concepts essential to a clear discussion of music. We begin with
some defi nitions and then analyze the basic musical elements of tone, consonance,
dissonance, rhythm, tempo, melody, counterpoint, harmony, dynamics, and con-
trast. A common language about music is prerequisite to any intelligible analysis.
Tone
A sound with one defi nite frequency or a sound dominated by one defi nite fre-
quency is a tone. Most music is composed of a succession of tones. We hear musi-
cal patterns because of our ability to hear and remember tones as they are played
in succession. Every musical instrument will produce overtones, called harmonic
partials, that, while sometimes faint, help us identify one instrument from another.
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227
MUSIC
Each of the notes on the piano is a tone whose sound vibrates at a specifi c number
of cycles per second (hertz, or Hz). The note A below middle C vibrates at 220 Hz;
middle C vibrates at 262.63 Hz; and the G above vibrates at 392. But each note will
also produce overtones that are fainter than the primary tone. For instance, the
note A below middle C produces these tones:
A: 220 Hz 1 440 Hz 1 660 Hz 1 880 Hz and possibly 1100 Hz
Each of the overtones will grow fainter than the primary tone, and the exact loud-
ness and quality of the overtones will defi ne for our ears whether we hear a saxo-
phone or a trumpet or a piano. All the blending of instruments will contribute to
the color (metaphorically) of the sounds we hear. Thus the tonal color of a jazz
group will differ from a heavy metal band, which will differ from a traditional
rock-and-roll group, which in turn will differ greatly from a major orchestra. Each
group may play the same sequence of tones, but we will hear the tones differently
because of the arrangement of instruments and their tonal qualities.
Consonance
When two or more tones are sounded simultaneously and the result is easeful and
pleasing to the ear, the resultant sound is said to be consonant. The phenomenon
of consonance may be qualifi ed by several things. For example, what sounds disso-
nant or produces tension often becomes more consonant after repeated hearings.
Thus the sounds of the music of a different culture may seem dissonant at fi rst but
consonant after some familiarity develops. Also, there is the infl uence of context:
A combination of notes or chords may seem dissonant in isolation or within one
set of surrounding notes while consonant within another set. In the C major scale,
the strongest consonances will be the eighth (C 1 C9) and the fi fth (C 1 G), with
the third (C 1 E), the fourth (C 1 F), and the sixth (C 1 A) being only slightly less
consonant. Use Figure 9-1 if helpful, and sound the chords above on a piano.
Dissonance
Just as some tones sounding together tend to be stable and pleasant, other tones
sounding together tend to be unstable and unpleasant. This unpleasantness is a
result of wave interference and a phenomenon called “beating,’’ which accounts
FIGURE 9-1
Notes of the piano keyboard.
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228
CHAPTER 9
for the instability we perceive in dissonance. The most powerful dissonance
is achieved when notes close to one another in pitch are sounded simultane-
ously. The second (C 1 D) and the seventh (B 1 C) are both strongly dissonant.
Dissonance is important in building musical tension, since the desire to resolve
dissonance with consonance is strong in almost everyone. There is a story that
Mozart’s wife would retaliate against her husband during or after some quarrel
by striking a dissonant chord on the piano. Wolfgang would be forced to come
from wherever he was and play a resounding consonant chord to relieve the
unbearable tension.
Rhythm
Rhythm refers to the temporal relationships of sounds. Our perception of rhythm
is controlled by the accent or stress on given notes and their duration. In the waltz,
the accent is heavy on the fi rst note (of three) in each musical measure. In most
jazz music, the stress falls on the second and fourth notes (of four) in each measure.
Marching music, which usually has six notes in each measure, emphasizes the fi rst
and fourth notes.
Tempo
Tempo is the speed at which a composition is played. We perceive tempo in terms
of beats, just as we perceive the tempo of our heartbeat as seventy-two pulses per
minute, approximately. Many tempos have descriptive names indicating the gen-
eral time value. Presto means “very fast’’; allegro means “fast’’; andante means “at a
walking pace’’; moderato means at a “moderate pace’’; lento and largo mean “slow.’’
Sometimes metronome markings are given in a score, but musicians rarely agree on
any exact time fi gure. Tension, anticipation, and one’s sense of musical security are
strongly affected by tempo.
Melodic Material: Melody, Th eme, and Motive
Melody is usually defi ned as a group of notes played one after another, having a
perceivable shape or having a perceivable beginning, middle, and end. Usually a
melody is easily recognizable when replayed. Vague as this defi nition is, we rarely
fi nd ourselves in doubt about what is or is not a melody. We not only recognize
melodies easily but also can say a great deal about them. Some melodies are brief,
others extensive; some slow, others fast; some playful, others somber. A melodic
line is a vague melody, without a clear beginning, middle, and end. A theme is a
melody that undergoes signifi cant modifi cations in later passages. Thus, in the fi rst
movement of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, the melodic material is more accu-
rately described as themes than melodies. On the other hand, the melodic material
of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (see Figure 9-4) is clear and singable. A motive is
the briefest intelligible and self-contained fragment or unit of a theme — for exam-
ple, the famous fi rst four notes of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5.
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229
MUSIC
Chords are particularly useful for establishing cadences: progressions to rest-
ing points that release tensions. Cadences move from relatively unstable chords
to stable ones. You can test this on a piano by fi rst playing the notes C-F-A to-
gether, then playing C-E-G (consult Figure 9-1 for the position of these notes on
the keyboard). The result will be obvious. The fi rst chord es tab lishes tension and
uncertainty, making the chord unstable, while the second chord resolves the ten-
sion and uncertainty, bringing the sequence to a stable conclusion. You probably
will recognize this progression as one you have heard in many compositions — for
example, the “Amen’’ that closes most hymns. The progression exists in every key
with the same sense of mov ing to stability.
Harmony is based on apparently universal psychological responses. All humans
seem to perceive the stability of consonance and the instability of dissonance. The
effects may be different due to cultural conditioning, but they are predictable within
a limited range. One anthropologist, when told about a Samoan ritual in which
he was assured he could hear original Samoan music — as it had existed from early
times — hauled his tape recorder to the site of the ceremonies, waited until dawn, and
when he heard the fi rst stirrings turned on his machine and captured the entire group
of Samoans singing “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.’’ The anthropologist
was disappointed, but his experience underscores the universality of music.
Counterpoint
In the Middle Ages, the monks composing and performing church music began
to realize that powerful musical effects could be obtained by staggering the me-
lodic lines. This is called counterpoint — playing one or more themes or melo-
dies or motives against each other, as in folk songs such as “Row, Row, Row Your
Boat.” Counterpoint implies an independence of simultaneous melodic lines, each
of which can, at times, be most clearly audible. Their opposition creates tension by
virtue of their competition for our attention.
Harmony
Harmony is the sounding of tones simultaneously. It is the vertical dimension, as
with a chord (Figure 9-2), as opposed to the horizontal dimension, of a melody.
The harmony that most of us hear is basically chordal. A chord is a group of notes
sounded together that has a specifi c relationship to a given key: The chord C-E-G,
for example, is a major triad in the key of C major. At the end of a composition in
the key of C, the major triad will emphasize the sense of fi nality — more than any
other technique we know.
FIGURE 9-2
Harmony — the vertical element.
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EXPERIENCING “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
1. How do the chords and harmony of
the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
aff ect our perception of the piece?
How do they contribute to producing
feelings in us as we listen?
2. To what extent might the association
of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
with historical events aff ect our
response to the melody?
In this simplifi ed version of the cho-
rus “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”
(Figure  9-3), the opening chords are
very stable and establish themselves
fi rmly, giving us a sense of a strong
beginning and a powerful grounding.
The fi rst chord, the octave C interval
in the bass clef and the third plus the
fi fth interval (E under G) in the treble clef, is the basic triad of the chord C major,
and thus establishes itself in our ears with great defi niteness. Thus at the outset of
the piece the harmony establishes a strong equilibrium. Whatever else happens in
the middle of the composition, we will expect the end to be just as stable. The tre-
ble part of the chord includes F and D, but is rooted by the C octave, producing a
slight sense of instability, but quickly the initial chord returns to comfort us. In the
fi rst two measures the progression of the bass clef never changes—the C octave
is a powerful root against which the treble changes only very slightly as it rises to
its highest point, now with the E higher than the G, held for a little longer than
the other chords, resolving into the fi nal chord of the second measure, C above E.
This very chord implies great stability and appears again at the end of the chorus.
So the pattern is a beginning that establishes a powerful musical base in the key of
C major, then a series of measures that include tones that diff er only slightly from
the basic chord of the key, thus establishing expectation and uncertainty in the
next to last measure, then providing us with total musical satisfaction in the fi nal
measure. Whereas the opening includes two Cs, an E, and a G, the fi nal harmony
dispenses with the G and substitutes another C, adding an even stronger sense of
closure to the ending.
Incidentally, this piece is closely connected to our historical memory because it was
sung by Union soldiers during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. For some listeners
it is a hymn to the freeing of the slaves in 1862. For other listeners it is a reminder
of the loss of the Antebellum South. The point is that our responses to this piece,
like many other pieces of music, will be aff ected by our understanding of its historical
implications and connections. Our position in this book is that we must omit historical
considerations and, rather, listen to the music itself, responding when we can to the
structure of the pieces that we feel reward us most.
3. Sing this piece to a friend or friends. Sing it with them if you can. Do they recog-
nize the moments of stability and instability in the piece? Do they fi nd its structure
satisfying musically?
4. Are you aware of a deeply felt response to the chorus of the “Battle Hymn of the
Republic”?
FIGURE 9-3
The words to the “Battle Hymn of
the Republic” were written in 1861
by Julia Ward Howe on a visit to
the Union troops during the Civil
War. The music may have been
composed by William Steffe. It is
one of the most popular abolitionist
songs of the period.
230
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Dynamics
One of the most easily perceived elements of music is dynamics: loudness and soft-
ness. Composers explore dynamics — as they explore keys, tone colors, melodies,
rhythms, and harmonies — to achieve variety, to establish a pattern against which
they can play, to build tension and release it, and to provide the surprise that can
delight an audience. Two terms, piano (“soft’’) and forte (“loud’’), with variations
such as pianissimo (“very soft’’) and fortissimo (“very loud’’), are used by composers
to identify the desired dynamics at a given moment in the composition. A gradual
buildup in loudness is called a crescendo, whereas a gradual reduction is called a
decrescendo. Most compositions will have some of each, as well as passages that sus-
tain a dynamic level.
Contrast
One thing that helps us value dynamics in a given composition is the composer’s
use of contrast. But contrast is of value in other ways. When more than one instru-
ment is involved, the composer can contrast timbres. The brasses, for example,
may be used to offer tonal contrast to a passage that may have been played by the
strings. The percussion section, in turn, can con trast with both those sections, with
high-pitched bells and low-pitched ket tle drums covering a wide range of pitch and
timbre. The woodwinds create very distinctive tone colors, and the composer writ-
ing for a large orchestra can use all of the families of instruments in ways designed
to exploit the dif fer ences in the sounds of these instruments even when playing the
same notes.
Composers may approach rhythm and tempo with the same attention to con-
trast. Most symphonies begin with a fast movement (usually labeled allegro) in the
major key, followed by a slow movement (usually labeled andante) in a related or
contrasting key, then a third movement with bright speed (usually labeled presto),
and a fi nal movement that resolves to some extent all that has gone before — again
at a fast tempo (molto allegro), although sometimes with some contrasting slow sec-
tions within it, as in Bee tho ven’s Eroica.
The Subject Matt er of Music
In music, as in other arts, content is achieved by the form’s transformation of sub-
ject matter. The question of music’s subject matter is dealt with in many ways by
critics. Our approach is to identify two kinds of subject matter: feelings (emotions,
passions, and moods) and sound.
Music cannot easily imitate nature, unless it does so the way bird songs and clocks
sometimes appear in Haydn’s symphonies or as Beethoven does in his Pastoral Sym-
phony when he suggests a thunderstorm through his music. Other musicians some-
times use sirens or other recognizable sounds as part of their composition.
Program music attempts to provide a musical “interpretation” of a literary
text, as in Tchaikovsky’s Overture: Romeo and Juliet, in which the opening clarinet
and oboe passages seem dark and forbidding, as if foreshadowing the tragedy to
come. La Mer, by Claude Debussy, is an interpretation of the sea. His subtitles for
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sections of his work are “From Dawn to Noon at Sea,” “Gambols of the Waves,”
and “Dialogue between the Wind and the Sea.” For many listeners, the swelling of
the music implies the swelling of the sea, just as the music’s peacefulness suggests
the pacifi c nature of the ocean.
However, our view is that while a listener who knows the program of La Mer
may experience thoughts about the sea, listeners who do not know the program
will still respond powerfully to the music on another level. It is not the sea, after
all, that is represented in the music, but the feelings Debussy evoked by his experi-
ence of the sea as mediated by his compo si tion. Thus the swelling moments of the
composition, along with the more lyr i cal and quiet moments, are perceived by the
listener in terms of sound, but sound that evokes an emotional response that pleases
both those who know the program and those who do not. This then means there
is no strict re lationship between the structures of our feelings and the structures of
music, but there is clearly a general and worthwhile relationship that pleases us.
Feelings
Feelings are composed of sensations, emotions, passions, and moods. Any stimulus
from any art produces a sensation. Emotions are strong sensations felt as related to
a specifi c stimulus. Passions are emotions elevated to great intensity. Moods some-
times arise from no apparent stimulus, as when we feel melancholy for no appar-
ent reason. In our experience, all these feelings mix together and can be evoked by
music. No art reaches into our life of feeling more deeply than music.
In some important ways, music is congruent with our feelings and is thus capa-
ble of clarifying and revealing them to us. Nervous-sounding music can make us
feel nervous, while calm, languorous music can relax us. A slow passage in a minor
key, such as a funeral march, will produce a response quite different from that of
a spritely dance. These extremes are obvious, of course, but they only indicate the
profound richness of the emotional resources of music in the hands of a great com-
poser. Things get most interesting when music begins to clarify and produce emo-
tional states that are not nameable. We name only a small number of the emotions
we feel: joy, sorrow, guilt, horror, alarm, fear, calm, and many more. But those that
can be named are only a scant few of those we feel. Music has an uncanny ability to
give us insight into the vast world of emotions we cannot name.
The philosopher Susanne Langer has said that music has the capacity to ed-
ucate our emotional life. She can say this because she believes, as we do, that
music has feeling as part of its subject matter. She maintains that
the tonal structures we call “music’’ bear a close logical similarity to the forms of human
feelings — forms of growth and attenuation, fl owing and stowing, confl ict and resolution,
speed, arrest, terrifi c excitement, calm, or subtle activation and dreamy lapses — not joy
and sorrow perhaps, but the poignancy of either and both — the greatness and brevity and
eternal passing of everything vitally felt. Such is the pattern, or logical form, of sentience,
and the pattern of music is that same form worked out in pure, measured sound and si-
lence. Music is a tonal analogue of emotive life.1
1Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Scribner’s, 1953), p. 27.
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Roger Scruton, a contemporary philosopher who has considered this problem
extensively, says this about emotion in music:
The use of the term “expression” to describe the content of music refl ects a widespread
view that music has meaning because it connects in some way with our states of mind.2
These examples of the close similarity between the structures of music and feel-
ings are fairly convincing because they are extreme. Most listeners agree that some
music has become associated with gloomy moods, while other music has become
associated with exhilaration. Much of this process of association undoubtedly is the
result of cultural conventions that we unconsciously accept. But presumably there is
something in the music that is the basis for these associations, and Langer has made
a convincing case that the basis is in the similarity of structures. It is unlikely, in-
deed, that a playful, dynamic trumpet passage would ever be associated with peace-
ful feelings. Such a passage is more likely to be associated with warlike alarms and
uncertainties. Soft vibrating string passages, on the other hand, are more likely to
be associated with less warlike anxieties. The associations of feelings with music, in
other words, do not seem to be entirely conventional or arbitrary. The associations
are made because music sounds the way feelings feel. Music is “shaped’’ like the
“shapes’’ of our feelings. Or, more precisely, the tonal structures of music and the
inner or subjective structures of feelings can be signifi cantly similar.
Music creates structures that are something like what we feel during nonmu-
sical experiences. We perceive outside something of what we usually perceive in-
side. When we listen to the anguish of the funeral march in the second movement
of Beethoven’s Eroica, we perceive the structures of anguish but not what evoked
the anguish. Beethoven interprets and, in turn, clarifi es those structures, gives
us insight into them. Understanding tragic music brings satisfaction, analogous
to the satisfaction that comes from understanding tragic drama. But there is a
fundamental difference: Tragic drama is about what causes painful feelings; tragic
music is about the structure of painful feelings. The subject matter of tragic drama
is the outside world; the subject matter of tragic music is the inside world.
PERCEPTION KEY Feelings and Music
1. Listen to a piece of instrumental music by Claude Debussy, such as La Mer, Claire de
Lune, Golliwogg’s Cake Walk, or a piece from Children’s Corner. Determine what, if any,
feelings the music excites in you. Compare your observations with other listeners.
Is there a consensus among your peers, or is there a wide variation in emotional
response?
2. Listen to an instrumental popular composition. Select a piece such as Duke Elling-
ton’s Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue, with Paul Gonsalves on saxophone
(YouTube). What range of feelings and emotions seem to be excited in the audi-
ence? In you?
3. Listen to a piece of church music, such as Sergey Rachmaninov’s Vespers (You-
Tube, Radio4nl). Describe your emotional reaction to the music. Is there such a
thing as religious music? If so, what are its identifying qualities?
2Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 346.
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Two Theories: Formalism and Expressionism
Music apparently not only evokes feelings in the listener but also reveals the struc-
tures of those feelings. Presumably, then, the form of La Mer not only evokes feel-
ings analogous to the feelings the sea arouses in us but also interprets those feelings
and gives us insight into them. The Formalists of music, such as Eduard Hanslick
and Edmund Gurney,3 deny this connection of music with nonmusical situations.
For them, the apprehension of the tonal structures of music is made possible by a
unique musical faculty that produces a unique and wondrous effect, and they refuse
to call that effect “feeling” since this suggests alliance with everyday feelings. They
consider the grasp of the form of music so intrinsically valuable that any attempt to
relate music to anything else is spurious.
As Igor Stravinsky, one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century,
insisted, “Music is by its very nature essentially powerless to express anything at
all.’’4 In other words, the Formalists deny that music has a subject matter, and, in
turn, this means that music has no content, that the form of music has no revelatory
meaning. We think that the theory of the Formalists is plainly inadequate, but it is an
important warning against thinking of music as a springboard for hearing, for non-
musical associations and sentimentalism. Moreover, much work remains — building
on the work of philosophers of art such as Langer and Scruton — to make clearer
the mechanism of how the form of music evokes feeling and yet at the same time
interprets or gives us insight into those feelings.
Much simpler — and more generally accepted than either the Formalist theory
of Hanslick and Gurney or our own theory — is the Expressionist theory: Music
evokes feelings. Composers express or communicate their feelings through their
music to their audiences. We should experience, more or less, the same feelings
as the composer. But Mozart was distraught both psychologically and physically
when he composed the Jupiter Symphony, one of his last and greatest works, and
melancholy was the pervading feeling of his life shortly before his untimely death.
Yet where is the melancholy in that symphony? Certainly there is melancholy in
his Requiem, also one of his last works. But do we simply undergo melancholy
in listening to the Requiem? Is it only evoked in us and nothing more? Is there
not a transformation of melancholy? Does not the structure of the music — “out
there’’ — allow us to perceive the structure of melancholy and thus understand it
better? If so, then the undoubted fact that the Requiem gives extraordinary satisfac-
tion to most listeners is given at least partial explication by our theory that music
reveals as well as evokes emotion.
Sound
Apart from feelings, sound might also be thought of as one of the subject mat ters of
music, because in some music it may be that the form gives us in sight into sounds.
This is somewhat similar to the claim that colors may be the subject matter of some
3Eduard Hanslick, The Beautiful in Music, trans. Gustav Cohen (London: Novello, 1891), and Edmund
Gurney, The Power of Sound (London: Smith, Elder, 1880).
4Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1936), p. 83.
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abstract painting (see page 82). The tone C in a musical composition, for example,
has its analogue in natural sounds, as in a bird song, somewhat the way the red in an
abstract painting has its ana logue in natural colors. However, the similarity of a tone
in music to a tone in the nonmusical world is rarely perceived in music that em-
phasizes tonal relationships. In such music, the individual tone usually is so caught
up in its relationships with other tones that any connection with sounds outside the
music seems irrelevant. It would be rare, indeed, for someone to hear the tone C in
a Mozart sonata and associate it with the tone C of some bird song.
Tonal relationships in most music are very different in their context from the
tones of the nonmusical world. Conversely, music that does not emphasize tonal
relationships — such as many of the works of John Cage — can perhaps give us in-
sight into sounds that are noises rather than tones. Since we are surrounded by
noises of all kinds — humming machines, talking people, screeching cars, and bang-
ing garbage cans, to name a few — we usually turn them off in our conscious minds
so as not to be distracted from more important matters. This is such an effective
turnoff that we may be surprised and sometimes delighted when a composer intro-
duces such noises into a musical composition. Then, for once, we listen to rather
than away from them, and then we may discover these noises to be intrinsically
interesting, at least briefl y.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Subject Matt er of Music
1. Select two brief musical compositions you enjoy. Choose one that you believe has
rec og niz able emotions as its primary musical content. Choose another that you
believe has sounds more than tones as its primary musical content. Listen to both
with a group of people to see if they agree with you. What is the result of your
experiment?
2. Choose one piece of popular music that evokes strong emotion in you. Listen to
it with people older or younger than you and determine whether they have similar
emotional reactions.
3. What piece of music convinces you that the content of music is related to the ex-
pres sion of feeling? What piece of music convinces you otherwise?
4. Find a piece of music that you and a friend disagree about in terms of its ap par ent
emotional content. If you think it expresses one kind of emotion, passion, or mood,
and your friend thinks it expresses a totally diff erent kind of emotion, pas sion, or
mood, would that then call into question the theory that the content of music is
connected to feelings?
5. To what extent do you think the emotional content of a piece of popular music may
result in great diff erences of opinion among listeners of diff erent generations? Do
you and your parents listen to the same music? Do your parents listen to the same
kind of music their parents listened to?
Tonal Center
A composition written mainly in one scale is said to be in the key that bears the
name of the tonic, or tonal center, of that scale. A piece in the key of F major uses
the scale of F major, although in longer, more complex works, such as symphonies,
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the piece may use other, related keys in order to achieve variety. The tonal center
of a composition in the key of F major is the tone F. We can usually expect such a
composition to begin on F, to end on it, and to re turn to it frequently to establish
stability. Each return to F builds a sense of security in the listener, while each move-
ment away usually builds a sense of insecurity or tension. The listener perceives
the tonic as the basic tone be cause it establishes itself as the anchor, the point of
reference for all the other tones.
After beginning with A in the familiar melody of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’’
(Figure 9-4), the melody immediately moves to F as a weighty rest point. The mel-
ody rises no higher than D and falls no lower than C. (For convenience, the notes
are labeled above the notation in the fi gure.) Most listeners will sense a feeling of
completeness in this brief composition as it comes to its end. But the movement in
the fi rst four bars, from A downward to C, then upward to C, passing through the
tonal center F, does not suggest such completeness; rather, it prepares us to expect
something more. If you sing or whistle the tune, you will see that the long tone, C,
in bar 4 sets up an anticipation that the next four bars attempt to satisfy. In bars 5
through 8, the movement downward from D to C, then upward to A, and fi nally
to the rest point at F suggests a temporary rest point. When the A sounds in bar 8,
however, we are ready to move on again with a pattern that is similar to the opening
passage: a movement from A to C and then downward through the tonal center, as
in the opening four bars. Bar 13 is structurally repetitious of bar 5, moving from D
FIGURE 9-4
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
is a Negro spiritual written by
Wallace Willis some time before
the emancipation of the slaves
in America (1862). Willis was
a freedman, a Choctaw, whose
music was recorded by the
Jubilee Singers, students at Fisk
University, in 1909. Both Anton
Dvořák and Eric Clapton are
credited with incorporating the
melody in their music.
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downward, establishing fi rmly the tonal center F in the last note of bar 13 and the
fi rst four tones of bar 14. Again, the melody continues downward to C, but when it
returns in measures 15 and 16 to the tonal center F, we have a sense of almost total
stability. It is as if the melody has taken us on a metaphoric journey: showing us at
the beginning where “home’’ is; the limits of our movement away from home; and
then the pleasure and security of returning to home.
The tonal center F is home, and when the lyrics actually join the word “home” in
bar 4 with the tone C, we are a bit unsettled. This is a moment of instability. We do
not become settled until bar 8, and then again in bar 16, where the word “home” falls
on the tonal center F, which we have already understood — simply by listening — as the
real home of the composition. This composition is very simple, but also subtle, using
the resources of tonality to excite our anticipations for instability and stability.
PERCEPTION KEY “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
1. What is the proportion of tonic notes (F) to the rest of the notes in the compo si-
tion? Can you make any judgments about the capacity of the piece to produce and
release tension in the listener on the basis of the recurrence of F?
2. Are there any places in the composition where you expect F to be the next note but
it is not? If F is always supplied when it is expected, what does that signify for the
level of tension the piece creates?
3. On the one hand, the ending of this piece produces a strong degree of fi nality. On
the other hand, in the middle section the sense of fi nality is not nearly as strong. Is
this diff erence between the middle section and the ending eff ective? Explain.
4. Does this music evoke feeling in you? If so, what kind of feeling? Does the music
in ter pret this feeling, help you understand it? If so, how does the music do this?
5. Would a piece that always produces what is expected be interesting? Or would it be
a musical cliché? What is a musical cliché?
Musical Structures
The most familiar musical structures are based on repetition — especially repetition
of melody, harmony, rhythm, and dynamics. Even the refusal to repeat any of these
may be effective mainly because the listener usually anticipates repetition. Repetition
in music is particularly important because of the serial nature of the medium. The ear
cannot retain sound patterns for very long, and thus it needs repetition to help hear
the musical relationships.
Th eme and Variations
A theme and variations on that theme constitute a favorite structure for compos-
ers, especially since the seventeenth century. We are usually presented with a clear
statement of the theme that is to be varied. The theme is sometimes repeated so
that we have a full understanding, and then modifi cations of the theme follow. “A”
being the original theme, the structure unfolds as A1-A2-A3-A4-A5 . . . and so on
to the end of the variations. Some marvelous examples of structures built on this
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principle are Bach’s Art of Fugue, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, Brahms’s Varia-
tions on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
Rondo
The fi rst section or refrain of a rondo will include a melody and perhaps a develop-
ment of that melody. Then, after a contrasting section or episode with a different
melody, the refrain is repeated. Occasionally, early episodes are also repeated, but
usually not so often as the refrain. The structure of the rondo is sometimes in the
pattern A-B-A-C-A — either B or D — and so on, ending with the refrain A. The
rondo may be slow, as in Mozart’s Hafner Serenade, or it may be played with blazing
speed, as in Weber’s Rondo Brillante.
Fugue
The fugue, a specialized structure of counterpoint, was developed in the sev en teenth
and eighteenth centuries and is closely connected with Bach and his Art of Fugue.
Most fugues feature a melody — called the “statement’’ — which is set forth clearly
at the beginning of the composition, usually with the fi rst note the tonic of its key.
Thus, if the fugue is in C major, the fi rst note of the state ment is likely to be C. Then
that same melody more or less — called the “an swer” — appears again, usually begin-
ning with the dominant note (the fi fth note) of that same key. The melodic lines of
the statements and answers rise to command our attention and then submerge into
the background as epi sodes of somewhat contrasting material intervene. Study the
diagram in Fig ure 9-5 as a suggestion of how the statement, answer, and episode at
the be gin ning of a fugue might interact. As the diagram indicates, the melodic lines
often overlap, as in the popular song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’’
FIGURE 9-5
The fugue.
Sonata Form
The eighteenth century brought the sonata form to full development, and many con-
temporary composers still fi nd it very useful. Its overall structure basically is A-B-A,
with these letters representing the main parts of the composition and not just mel-
odies. The fi rst A is the exposition, with a statement of the main theme in the tonic
key of the composition and usually a secondary theme or themes in the dominant
key (the key of G, for example, if the tonic key is C). A theme is a melody that is not
merely repeated, as it usually is in the rondo, but is instead developed in an important
way. In the A section, the themes are usually restated but not developed very far. This
full development of the themes occurs in the B, or development, section, with the
themes normally played in closely related keys. The development section explores
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contrasting dynamics, timbres, tempos, rhythms, and harmonic possibilities inherent
in the material of the exposition. In the third section, or recapitulation, the basic ma-
terial of the fi rst section, or exposition, is more or less repeated, usually in the tonic
key. After the contrasts of the development section, this repetition in the home key
has the quality of return and closure.
The sonata form is ideal for revealing the resources of melodic material. For
instance, when contrasted with a very different second theme, the principal theme
of the exposition may take on a surprisingly new quality, as in the opening move-
ment of Beethoven’s Eroica. We sense that we did not fully grasp the principal
theme the fi rst time. This is one of the major sources of satisfaction for the careful
listener. Statement, contrasting development, and restatement is a useful pattern
for exploring the resources of almost any basic musical material, especially the
melodic.
The symphony is usually a four-movement structure often employing the
sonata form for its opening and closing movements. The middle movement or
movements normally are contrasted with the fi rst and last movements in dynam-
ics, tempos, timbres, harmonies, and melodies. The listener’s ability to perceive
how the sonata form functions within most symphonies is essential if the total
structure of the symphony is to be comprehended.
PERCEPTION KEY Sonata Form
1. Listen to and then examine closely the fi rst movement of a symphony by Haydn
or Mozart. That movement with few exceptions will be a sonata form. If a score
is available, it can be helpful. (You do not have to be a musician to read a score.)
Identify the exposition section — which will come fi rst — and the beginning of the
development section. Then identify the end of the development and the beginning
of the recapitulation section. At these points, you should perceive some change in
dynamics, tempo, and movements from home key or tonic to contrasting keys and
back to the tonic. You need not know the names of those keys in order to be aware
of the changes. They are usually easily perceptible.
2. Once you have developed the capacity to identify these sections, describe the char-
ac ter is tics that make each of them diff erent. Note the diff erent character is tics of
melody, harmony, timbre, dynamics, rhythm, tempo, and contrapuntal usages.
3. Listen to Haydn’s Symphony no. 104, the London. It is available on YouTube played
by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Listen closely for the A-B-A patterns
within the fi rst movement. Identify the repeated melodic material and consider
the ways in which the orchestra varies the melodies as the piece progresses. How
diffi cult is it to identify the emotional content of the fi rst movement? Of any of the
movements? How does watching the orchestra play help you identify theme and
variation?
Fantasia
Romantic composers, especially in the period 1830–1900, began working with
structures much looser than those of earlier periods. We fi nd compositions with
terms such as “rhapsodies,” “nocturnes,” “aubades,” and “fantasias.” The names
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are impressionistic and vague, suggesting perhaps that their subject matter may be
moods. The fantasia may be the most helpful of these to examine, since it is to the
sonata form what free verse is to the sonnet. The word “fantasia” implies fancy or
imagination, which suggests, in turn, the fanciful and the unexpected. It is not a
stable structure, and its sections cannot be described in such conventional terms as
A-B-A. The fantasia usually offers some stability by means of a recognizable mel-
ody of a singable quality, but then it often shifts to material that is less identifi able,
tonally certain, and harmonically secure.
Symphony
The symphony marks one of the highest developments in the history of Western
instrumental music (Figure 9-6). The symphony has proved to be so fl exible a
structure that it has fl ourished in every musical era since the Baroque period in the
early eighteenth century. The word “symphony” implies a “sounding together.’’
From its beginnings, through its full and marvelous development in the works of
FIGURE 9-6
The BBC Symphony Orchestra.
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Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, the symphony was particularly noted
for its development of harmonic structures. Harmony is the sounding together of
tones that have an established relationship to one another. Because of its complex-
ity, harmony is a subject most composers must study in great depth during their
apprentice years.
Triadic harmony (which means the sounding of three tones of a specifi c chord,
such as the basic chord of the key C major, C-E-G, or the basic chord of the key
F major, F-A-C) is common to most symphonies, especially before the twentieth
cen tury. Even in classical symphonies, however, such as Mozart’s, the satis fac tion
that the listener has in triadic harmony is often withheld in order to develop musi-
cal ideas that will resolve their tensions only in a full, resounding chordal sequence
of triads.
The symphony usually depends on thematic development. All the struc-
tures that we have discussed — theme and variations, rondo, fugue, and sonata
form — develop melodic material, and some or all of them are often included in
the symphony. In general, as the symphony evolved into its conventional structure
in the time of Haydn and Mozart, the four movements were ordered as follows:
fi rst movement, sonata form; second movement, A-B-A or rondo; third move-
ment, minuet; fourth movement, sonata form or rondo. There were exceptions
to this order even in Haydn’s and Mozart’s symphonies, and in the Romantic
and following periods the exceptions increased as the concern for conventions
decreased.
The relationships between the movements of a symphony are flexible. On
the one hand, the same melodic or key or harmonic or rhythmic approach
may not prevail in all the movements. The sequence of movements may then
seem arbitrary. On the other hand, some symphonies develop similar material
through all movements, and then the sequence may seem less, if at all, arbitrary.
This commonality of material is relatively unusual because its use for three or
four movements can rapidly exhaust all but the most sustaining and profound
material. One’s ear can get tired of listening to the same material for an ex-
tended time. The preferred method, until the twentieth century, was to follow
the conventional patterns of tempo throughout, using appropriate melodies
and harmonies in each movement, which is to say material best suited for fast
or slow tempos.
A comparison of the tempo markings of several symphonies by important com-
posers usually shows several similarities: fast opening and closing movements with
at least one slower middle movement. An alteration of tempo can express a pro-
found change in the feeling of a movement. Our ears depend on the predictable
alteration of tempo for fi nding our way through the whole symphony. In such
large structures, we need all the signposts we can get, since it is easy to lose one’s
way through a piece that may last an hour or more. The following tempo markings
in Figures 9-7 and 9-8 are translated loosely:
Haydn, Symphony no. 104 in A Major, the London
1. Adagio, allegro (slowly, fast)
2. Andante (moderately slow)
3. Menuetto and trio: allegro (slow dance, fast)
4. Finale: Spiritoso (ending, lively)
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Mozart, Symphony no. 41 in C Major, the Jupiter
1. Allegro vivace (fast and lively)
2. Andante cantabile (slow and songlike)
3. Allegretto (dancelike)
4. Allegro molto (very fast)
The tempo markings, such as andante and allegro, in these and other symphonies,
including those of modern composers, such as Charles Ives and Igor Stravinsky,
suggest that each movement is designed with other movements in mind. That is,
each movement offers a contrast to those that come before or after it. Composers
of symphonies have many means besides tempo by which to achieve contrast, espe-
cially rhythm. The fi rst movement is often written in 4/4 time, which means that
there are four quarter notes in each measure, with the fi rst especially and the third
usually getting accents. The rhythms of the sec ond movement are so varied that no
general pattern is discernible. The third movement, especially in the early period
of the symphony (Haydn and Mozart), usually is a dancelike minuet — 3/4 time,
three quarter notes to a measure, with the fi rst note receiving the accent. Occasion-
ally in the second and third move ments, march time is used, either 6/8 time or 2/4
time. In 6/8 time, there are six eighth notes to a measure, with the fi rst and fourth
receiving the accent. In 2/4 time, the fi rst of the two quarter notes receives the
accent. Sometimes this produces the “oom-pah’’ sound we associate with marching
bands. The fourth movement, usually a sonata form or a rondo, normally returns
to 4/4 time.
Contrast is also achieved by varying the dynamics, with opposing loud and
soft passages likely to be found in any movement. We might expect the middle
movements, which are normally shorter than the fi rst and last, to use less dynamic
shifting. We usually expect the last movement to build to a climax that is smash-
ing and loud. Variations in the length of movements add to contrast. And since
FIGURE 9-7
The fi rst theme of movement 1 of
Haydn’s Symphony no. 104.
The fi rst theme of the symphony
is played by the strings alone after
a brief introduction by the entire
orchestra. The top line is played by
the fi rst violins, the second line by
the second violins, the third
line by the violas, and the bottom
line by the cellos. The Bavarian
Radio Symphony Orchestra
performs this symphony on
YouTube.
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mar23984_ch09_225-255.indd 242mar23984_ch09_225-255.indd 242 06/02/14 6:57 PM06/02/14 6:57 PM

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FIGURE 9-8
Opening bars of Mozart’s
Symphony no. 41 in C Major,
the Jupiter.
The opening bars are dynamic,
with the entire orchestra, loud in
bars 1, 5, and 9 contrasting soft
simple passages in bars 2, 3, and 4,
and bars 6, 7, and 8. You can watch
Nikolaus Harnoncourt conduct the
Chamber Orchestra of Europe on
YouTube using an orchestra similar
to Mozart’s.
the symphony is usually played by a large orchestra, the composer has a variety of
instrumental families to depend on for adding contrast of tone colors. A theme,
for instance, can be introduced by the violins, passed on to the woodwinds, then
passed on to the horns, only to return to the violins. Secondary themes can be
introduced by fl utes or piccolos so as to contrast with the primary themes devel-
oped by other families of instruments. A secondary theme is often very different
in length, pitch, and rhythmic character from a primary theme, thus achieving
further contrast. Sometimes a theme or a developmental passage is played by a
single instrument in a solo passage and then with all the instruments in that family
playing together. Once the theme has been introduced by a single instrument or a
243
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244
CHAPTER 9
small group, it may be played by the entire orchestra. These contrasts should hold
our attention — for otherwise we miss much of what is going on — helping us to
grasp the melodic material by showing us how it sounds in different timbres and
ranges of pitch (higher in the fl utes, lower in the cellos). The exceptional possi-
bilities for achieving contrast in the symphony account, in part, for its sustaining
success over the centuries.
We readily perceive contrasts in tempo, time signature, dynamics, and in-
strumentation, even if we are not trained and do not have access to the score
of the composition. But there are subtler means of achieving contrast. For one
thing, even within a specifi c movement, a composer will probably use a number
of different keys. Usually they are closely related keys, such as C major followed
by G major, or F major followed by C major. The dominant tone is the fi fth
tone, and one of the most convenient ways of moving from key to key is to fol-
low the cycle of fi fths, confi dent that each new key will clearly relate to the key
that precedes it. Distant keys, A major to, say, D minor, can produce a sense
of incoherence or uncertainty. Such motions between keys often are used to
achieve this effect.
The average listener cannot always tell just by listening that a passage is in a
new key, although practiced musicians can tell immediately. The exploration of
keys and their relationships is one of the more interesting aspects of the devel-
opment portions of most symphonies. The very concept of development, which
means the exploration of a given material, is sometimes best realized by playing
the same or similar material in different keys, fi nding new relationships among
them. Our awareness of an especially moving passage is often due to the subtle
manipulation of keys that analysis with a score might help us better understand.
For the moment, however, let us concentrate on what the average listener can
detect in the symphony.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Symphony
Listen to Haydn’s Symphony no. 104, the London, or to Mozart’s Symphony no. 41,
the Jupiter. Haydn and Mozart established the form. Both symphonies can be heard on
YouTube. Respond to each movement by keeping notes with the following questions
in mind.
1. Is the tempo fast, medium, or slow? Is it the same throughout? How much contrast
is there in tempo within the movement? Between movements?
2. Can you hear the diff erences in time signatures— such as the diff erence between
waltz time and marching time?
3. How much diff erence in dynamics is there in a given movement? From one move-
ment to the next? Are some movements more uniform in loudness than others?
4. Identify melodic material as treated by single instruments, groups of instruments,
or the entire orchestra.
5. Are you aware of the melodic material establishing a tonal center, moving away
from it, then returning? (Perhaps only practiced listeners will be able to answer this
in the affi rmative.)
6. As a movement is coming to an end, is your expectation of the fi nale carefully
prepared for by the composer? Is the fi nale sensed as surprising or inevitable?
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245
MUSIC
FOCUS ON Beethoven’s Symphony
in E♭ Major, No. 3, Eroica
Beethoven’s “heroic’’ symphony is universally acclaimed by musicians and critics as
a symphonic masterpiece. It has some of the most daring innovations for its time,
and it succeeds in powerfully unifying its movements by developing similar material
throughout, especially the melodic and the rhythmic. The symphony, fi nished in 1804,
was intended to celebrate the greatness of Napoleon, whom Beethoven regarded as a
champion of democracy and the common man. But when Napoleon declared himself
emperor in May 1804, Beethoven, his faith in Napoleon betrayed, was close to de-
stroying the manuscript. However, the surviving manuscript indicates that he simply
tore off the dedication page and substituted the general title Eroica.
The four movements of the symphony follow the tempo markings we would
expect of a classical symphony, but there are a number of important ways in which
the Eroica is unique in the history of musical structures. The fi rst movement, marked
allegro con brio (fast, breezy), is a sonata form with the main theme of the exposition
based on a triadic chord in the key of E♭ major that resoundingly opens the move-
ment. The development section introduces a number of related keys, and the reca-
pitulation ultimately returns to the home key of E♭ major. There is a coda (a section
added to the end of the recapitulation) so extended that it is a second development
section as well as a conclusion. After avoidance of the home key in the development,
the E♭ major fi nally dominates in the recapitulation and the coda. The movement is
at least twice as long as the usual fi rst movements of earlier symphonies, and no
composer before had used the coda in such a developmental way. Previously, the
coda was quite short and repetitive. The size of the movement, along with the tight
fusion of themes and their harmonic development into such a large structure, were
very infl uential on later composers. The feelings that are evoked and revealed are
profound and enigmatic.
The slow second movement is dominated by a funeral march in 2/4 time, with a very
plaintive melody and a painfully slow tempo (in some performances), and an extremely
tragic mood prevails. In contrast with the dramatic and vivid fi rst movement, the second
movement is sobering, diminishing the reaches of power explored in such depth in the
fi rst movement. The second movement uses a fugue in one of its later sections, even
though the tempo of the passage is so slow as to seem to “stretch time.’’ Despite its
exceptional slowness, the fugue, with its competing voices and constant, roiling motion,
seems appropriate for suggesting heroic, warlike feelings. The structure is a rondo: A-B-
A9-C-A0-B9-D-A–, A being the theme of the funeral march, the following A9s being vari-
ations. The other material, including the fugue in C, off ers some contrast, but because
of its close similarity to the march theme, it off ers no resolution.
The relief comes in the third movement, marked scherzo, which is both lively (scherzo
means “joke”) and dancelike. The movement is derivative from the fi rst movement,
closely linking the two in an unprecedented way. The time signature is the same as a
minuet, 3/4, and the melodic material is built on the same triadic chord as in the fi rst
movement. And there is the same rapid distribution from one group of instruments
to another. However, the third movement is much briefer than the fi rst, while only a
little briefer than the last.
The fi nale is marked allegro molto (very fast). A theme and variation movement, it
is a catchall. It includes two short fugues, a dance using a melody similar to the main
theme of the fi rst movement, which is not introduced until after a rather decorative
opening, and a brief march. Fast and slow passages are contrasted in such a fashion as
continued
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246
CHAPTER 9
to give us a sense of a recapitulation of the entire symphony. The movement brings us
triumphantly to a conclusion that is profoundly stable. At this point, we can most fully
appreciate the powerful potentialities of the apparently simple chord-based theme of
the fi rst movement. Every tonal pattern that follows is ultimately derivative, whether
by approximation or by contrast, and at the end of the symphony the last triumphal
chords are characterized by total inevitability and closure. The feelings evoked and
revealed defy description, although there surely is a progression from yearning to
sorrow to joy to triumph.
The following analysis will be of limited value without your listening carefully to
the symphony more than once. If possible, use a score, even if you have no musical
training. Ear and eye can coordinate with practice.
Listening Key: Th e Symphony
Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, OPUS 55, Eroica
Performed by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Listen to the symphony using the timings of this recording. Before reading the follow-
ing discussion, listen to the symphony. Then, study the analysis and listen again, this
time participatively. Your enjoyment will likely be much greater.
Movement I: Allegro Con Brio. Fast, Breezy.
Sonata form, 3/4 time, E♭ major: Timing: 14:46; Track 1.
The fi rst two chords are powerful, staccato, isolated, and compressed (Figure 9-9).
They are one of the basic chords of the home key of E♭ major: G-E♭-B♭-G. Then at the
third measure (Figure 9-10), the main theme, generated from the opening chord of
the symphony, is introduced. Because it is stated in the cellos, it is low in pitch and
somewhat portentous, although not threatening. Its statement is not quite complete,
for it unexpectedly ends on a C♯ (♯ is the sign for sharp). The horns and clarinets take
the theme at bar 15 (0:19), only to surrender it at bar 20 (0:23) to a group of ascend-
ing tones closely related to the main theme.
The second theme is in profound contrast to the fi rst. It is a very brief and in-
complete pattern (and thus could also be described as a motive) of three descending
tones moved from one instrument to another in the woodwinds, beginning with the
oboes at bar 45 (Figure 9-11). This theme is unstable, like a gesture that needs
something to complete its meaning. And the following motive of dotted eighth
FIGURE 9-9
Opening chords in E ♭ major (0:01).
FIGURE 9-10
Main theme, cellos (0:04).
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247
MUSIC
notes at bars 60 through 64 played by fl utes and bassoons (Figure 9-12) is also
unstable.
This is followed by a rugged rhythmic passage, primarily audible in the violins, pre-
paring us for a further incomplete thematic statement at bar 83, a very tentative, del-
icate interlude. The violin passage that preceded it (Figure 9-13) functions here and
elsewhere as a link in the movement between diff ering material. Getting this passage
fi rmly in your memory will help you follow the score, for it returns dependably.
Many passages have unsettling fragments, such as the dark, brooding qual ity of
the cello and contrabass motive shown in Figure 9-14, which sounds as a kind of warn-
ing, as if it were preparing us for something like the funeral march of the second
movement. It repeats much later in variation at bar 498, acting again as an unsettling
passage. Many other passages also appear to be developing into a fi nished statement,
only to trail off . Some commentators have described these passages as digressions,
but this is misleading, because they direct us to what is coming.
The exposition starts to end at bar 148 (3:03), with a long passage in B♭, the mea-
sures from 148 to 152 hinting at the opening theme, but they actually prepare us
for a dying-down action that joins with the development. In George Szell’s rendition,
as in most recordings, the repeat sign at 156 is ignored. Instead, the second ending
(bars 152 to 159) is played, and this passage tends to stretch and slow down, only to
FIGURE 9-12
Flutes and bassoons at bars 60 through 64 (1:14).
FIGURE 9-13
Violin passage preceding bar 83 (1:19).
FIGURE 9-14
Cello and contrabass motive (1:57).
FIGURE 9-11
Second theme, oboes at bar 45 (0:54).
continued
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248
CHAPTER 9
pick up when the second theme is played again in descending patterns from the fl utes
through all the woodwinds (3:16).
The development section is colossal, from bars 156 to 394, beginning at 3:18. The
main theme recurs fi rst at 178 (3:48) in shifting keys in the cellos, then is played again
in B♭ from 186 to 194 (3:55), very slow and drawn out. Contrasting passages mix in
so strongly that we must be especially alert or we will fail to hear the main theme. The
momentum speeds up around bar 200 (4:16), where the main theme is again played in
an extended form in the cellos and the contrabasses. The fragmented motives contrib-
ute to a sense of incompleteness, and we do not have the fullness of the main theme
to hold on to. The fragmentary character of the second theme is also emphasized,
especially between bars 220 and 230 (4:39). When we reach the crashing discords at
bar 275 (5:44), the following quieting down is a welcome relief. The subsequent pas-
sage is very peaceful and almost without direction until we hear again the main theme
in B♭ at bar 300 (6:21), then again at 312 (6:37) in the cellos and contrabasses. The
music builds in loudness, quiets down, and then the main theme is stated clearly in
the bassoons, preparing for an extended passage that includes the main theme in the
woodwinds building to a mild climax in the strings at bar 369 (Figure 9-15).
The remainder of this passage is marvelously mysterious, with the strings main-
taining a steady tremolo and the dynamics brought down almost to a whisper. The
horn enters in bar 394 (8:24), playing the main theme in virtually a solo passage.
Bars 394 and 395 are two of the most signifi cant measures of the movement because
of the way in which they boldly announce the beginning of the recapitulation. The
horns pick up the main theme again at bar 408 (8:32), loud and clear, and begin the
restatement of the exposition section. The recapitulation begins at bar 394 (8:24) and
extends to bar 575 (12:05). It includes a brief development passage, treating the main
theme in several unusual ways, such as the tremolo statement in the violins at bars
559 to 565 (Figure 9-16).
The long, slow, quiet passages after bar 575 (12:05) prepare us for the incredible
rush of power that is the coda — the “tail,” or fi nal section, of the movement. The
triumphal quality of the coda — which includes extended development, especially of
the main theme — is most perceptible, perhaps, in the juxtaposition of a delightful
running violin passage from bar 631 to bar 639 (13:31), with the main theme and a
minimal variation played in the horns. It is as if Beethoven is telling us that he has per-
ceived the musical problems that existed with his material, mastered them, and now is
celebrating with a bit of simple, passionate, and joyous music.
FIGURE 9-16
Violins at bars 559 to 565 (11:50).
FIGURE 9-15
Strings at bar 369 (7:53).
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249
MUSIC
PERCEPTION KEY Movement I of the Eroica
1. Describe the main theme and the second theme. What are their principal qualities
of length, “tunefulness,’’ range of pitch, rhythm, and completeness? Could either
be accurately described as a melody? Which is easier to whistle or hum? Why could
the second theme be plausibly described as a motive? Do the two themes con-
trast with each other in such a way that the musical quality of each is enhanced? If
so, how?
2. What are the eff ects of hearing the main theme played in diff erent keys, as in bars
3 to 7 (0:04), bars 184 to 194 (3:55), and bars 198 to 206 (4:16)? All these pas-
sages present the theme in the cellos and contrabasses. What are the eff ects of the
appearance of the theme in other instrumental families, such as the bassoons at
bar 338 (7:12) in the development section and the horns at bar 408 (8:32) in the
recapitulation section? Does the second theme appear in a new family of instru-
ments in the development section?
3. How clearly perceptible do you fi nd the exposition, development, recapitulation,
and coda sections? Describe, at least roughly, the feeling qualities of each of these
sections.
4. Many symphonies lack a coda. Do you think Beethoven was right in adding a coda,
especially such a long and involved one? If so, what does it add?
5. If possible, record the movement, but begin with the development section, then
follow with the recapitulation, exposition, and coda sections. Does listening to this
“reorganization’’ help clarify the function of each section? Does it off er a better
understanding of the movement as it was originally structured? Does this “reorga-
nization’’ produce signifi cantly diff erent feeling qualities in each section?
Before going on to the next Perception Key, give your ear a rest for a brief time.
Then come back to the symphony and listen to it all the way through. Sit back and
enjoy it. Then consider the following questions.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Eroica
1. In what ways are the four movements tied together? Does a sense of relatedness
de velop for you?
2. Is the symphony properly named? If so, what qualities do you perceive in it that
seem “heroic’’?
3. Comment on the use of dynamics throughout the whole work. Comment on vari-
ations in rhythms.
4. Is there a consistency in the thematic material used throughout the symphony?
Are there any inconsistencies?
5. Do you fi nd that fatigue aff ects your responses to the second movement or any
other portion of the symphony? The act of creative listening can be very tiring.
Could Beethoven have taken that into consideration?
6. Are you aware of a variety of feeling qualities in the music? Does there seem to be
an overall plan to the changes in these qualities as the symphony unfolds?
7. What kind of feelings (emotion, passion, or mood) did the Eroica arouse in you? Did
you make discoveries of your inner life of feeling because of your responses to the
Eroica?
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250
CHAPTER 9
Blues and Jazz: Popular American Music
So far, our emphasis is on classical music because its resources are virtually in-
exhaustible and its development, over many centuries and continuing today, has
reached a pitch of refi nement that matches that of painting, architecture, and lit-
erature. But other kinds of music in addition to opera, symphonies, and chamber
music affect modern listeners. The blues, which developed in the African American
communities in the southern United States, has given rise to a wide number of
styles, among them jazz, which has become an international phenomenon, with
players all over the world.
The term “blues” was used early to describe a form of music developed in
the black communities in the South, and it seems to describe a range of feelings,
although the blues was never a music implying depression or despair. Rather, it
implied a soulful feeling as expressed in the blue notes of the scale and in the lyrics
of the songs. The music that later developed from the blues is characterized by the
enthusiasm of its audiences and the intense emotional involvement that it demands,
especially in the great auditoriums and outdoor venues that mark the most memo-
rable concerts seen by thousands of fans.
The blues evolved into a novel musical form by relying on a slightly different scale
with blue notes: C E♭ F F♯ G B♭ C. Compare that with the standard C major scale:
C D E F G A B C. The standard C scale has no sharps or fl ats, so the blues scale has
a totally different feel. If you can play these scales, you will hear how different they
are. The structure of the blues is twelve measures with a constant pattern of chord
progressions that is then repeated for another twelve measures. Out of this original
pattern, jazz developed in the early years of the twentieth century.
Jazz began in New Orleans with the almost mythic fi gures of Buddy Bolden,
the great trumpet player in Lincoln Park in the fi rst years of 1900, and Jelly Roll
Morton, who claimed to have single-handedly invented jazz. King Oliver’s band
in New Orleans was enormously infl uential, and when New Orleans was “cleaned
up” by the U.S. Navy in 1917—drugs and prostitution were forced out of town—
jazz moved up the Mississippi river to Chicago, where Louis Armstrong’s power-
ful trumpet dominated jazz for more than a dozen years (Figure 9-17). The large,
primarily white society bands, such as Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, introduced jazz
to large radio audiences by employing great jazz stars such as Bix Beiderbecke,
Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Hoagy Carmichael, and Jack Teagarden. Fortunately,
all these orchestras recorded widely in the 1920s, and their music can be heard on-
line at any of a number of sources.
The hot jazz of the time is marked by an extensive use of the blues scale, a
powerful rhythm emphasizing the second and fourth beat of each measure, and a
delight in counterpoint ensemble playing and dynamic solos that show off the tal-
ent of virtuoso players. The rhythm section was usually drums, piano, and guitar
or bass. The horns, trumpet, clarinet, and trombone played most of the melodic
material, supplying complex harmonic support while individuals were soloing. In
general, all the players would begin with a rehearsed “head,” including the primary
tune that was being performed, and then they would improvise their solos and
their support of the melodic lines. The daring improvisation of the musicians cre-
ated an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation of something special at every
performance.
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MUSIC
Larger orchestras, such as the swing bands of Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Jimmy
Lunceford, and Duke Ellington, had to rely less on improvisation and counterpoint
and more on ensemble playing. Their music was smoother, more harmonically secure,
and less exciting except when a soloist stood for his improvised twelve or twenty-four
measures. But even in the big bands, the emphasis on the weak beats (the second and
fourth of each measure) and the use of syncopation and the anticipation of the beats
helped keep a sense of power and movement in the music, even though it may have
been played more or less the same way in concert after concert. Big band music was
originally designed for dancing, and the best of the jazz groups kept to that concept.
Miles Davis has been compared with Picasso because of his various stylistic
periods, from the early bop of the late 1940s to the cool jazz of the 1950s and
1960s and then the rock-fusion jazz of the Bitches Brew album in 1970 that intro-
duced electronic instruments. Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock,
Ron Carter, Bill Evans, Lee Konitz, Chick Corea, and many more giants of jazz
were among the members of Davis’s groups, including the late sextet. Sketches of
Spain, 1960, arranged by his friend Gil Evans, is an example of Davis’s use of folk
melodies to produce a classical jazz album.
Contemporary jazz musicians, such as Wynton Marsalis (Figure 9-18), Diana
Krall, Cyrus Chesnut, Marian McPartland, Geri Allen, Keith Jarrett, Joshua
Redman, Christian McBride, Wayne Shorter, and Chuchu Valdés, are all in the
tradition of the great improvisational players early in the twentieth century. The
essence of jazz is improvisation and, to an extent, competition. The early jazz bands
often competed with one another in “cutting contests” to see which band was better.
Players of the same instruments, such as the saxophone, have sometimes performed
onstage in intense competition to help raise the excitement level of the music.
FIGURE 9-17
Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five,
the dynamic mid-1920s band that
made some legendary recordings in
1927–1929.
Armstrong is seated at the piano,
although his wife, Lil Hardin, at
the right, was the pianist. Johnny
St. Cyr played banjo, Johnny
Dodds clarinet, and Kid Ory played
trombone. The group can be heard
at www.redhotjazz.com.
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252
CHAPTER 9
Blues and Rock and Roll
Rock and roll has its roots in R&B—rhythm and blues—popular in the 1940s in
the United States primarily among black radio audiences. Joe Turner, an early
R&B man, composed “Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” but it did not become a hit until
Bill Haley recorded it in 1955. Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five, Bo Diddley, and
Muddy Waters were some of the major predecessors of rock and roll, and Ike
Turner may have had the fi rst true rock-and-roll record in 1951. However, the
wide acceptance of rock and roll began only after white groups and singers began
to adopt the black style. Elvis Presley was the fi rst rock-and-roll star, with hit
records beginning in the mid-1950s. Bill Haley’s Comets, originally a country-
western band, adopted the new style in “Rock Around the Clock,” the fi rst rock
tune to be used in the popular 1955 fi lm Blackboard Jungle, in which rioting stu-
dents destroy a high school teacher’s collection of jazz records—obviously sym-
bolic of a period of musical revolution.
Rock music and jazz are essentially countercultural art forms with codes for
sexual behavior, and they usually went unobserved by general audiences. Rock
groups were aided by the invention of the electric guitar in 1931. Les Paul
popularized the Gibson solid-body electric guitar, and by the 1960s almost all
rock-and-roll music was amplifi ed, which made possible the great concerts of
FIGURE 9-18
Wynton Marsalis opens Jazz
Appreciation Month by performing
and lecturing at the Kimmel Center
for the Performing Arts. The
Grammy Award winner performed
with members of the Jazz at
Lincoln Center Orchestra.
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MUSIC
Led Zeppelin, the Who, Cream, Steve Miller Band, the Beatles, the Grateful
Dead, and the Rolling Stones, all of whom began to tour internationally. The
Beatles, a small group, were especially political during the 1960s and 1970s when
they condemned the Vietnam War and popularized Indian mysticism. Some
of these groups still appear, and all can be heard on the Internet and seen on
YouTube and other sharing sites.
One of the most enduring of the classic age of rock groups is the Rolling Stones,
whose tune “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” 1965, is still a hit when performed by
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Figure 9-19). Their band began in 1962, endures
today, and is widely available on Internet sharing sites. The Rolling Stones pre-
sented concerts marked by wild gyrations of Mick Jagger, while the cool and cere-
bral Keith Richards stayed behind playing complex riffs inspiring the band. Both
Jagger and Richards wrote most of their hits, and, unlike jazz groups, the Rolling
Stones helped establish the pattern of great rock bands writing their own material
rather than “covering” other people’s music.
Styles in popular music evolve almost seamlessly from earlier styles and be-
come apparent as a distinct form of music only when a major fi gure has a hit that
catches the attention of a wide audience. Hip-hop and rap music have their roots
in gospel, shout, and blues, just as do jazz and rock and roll. The use of ampli-
fi ed instruments, simple chord patterns—often the use of no more than three
chords—and a heavy back beat (great stress on beats two and four) throughout a
composition mark most of rock and later music. The lyrics are often personal, po-
litical, and usually countercultural—aimed at a youthful audience that sees itself
as naturally rebellious.
FIGURE 9-19
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of
the Rolling Stones, in concert.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
joined Ian Stewart and the original
leader Brian Jones in 1962 with
the Rolling Stones, adding the
drummer Charlie Watts and bassist
Bill Wyman. This band was part of
the “British Invasion” that solidifi ed
the international credentials of rock
and roll.
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CHAPTER 9
Today, popular music includes most styles derived from blues, and most of it is
strictly commercial, designed to make money. But some of it derives from a serious
artistic purpose that has little to do with making money. Serious lovers of popu-
lar music usually look for evidence of sincerity in the music they prefer. It is not
always easy to detect. But all that aside, the elements of popular music are those
of all music: tone, rhythm, tempo, consonance, dissonance, melody, counterpoint,
harmony, dynamics, and contrast.
PERCEPTION KEY Popular Music
1. Choose a number of popular pieces, and identify their style (blues, jazz, punk, rock,
rap, country, etc.). Decide whether this music seems to clarify a feeling state or
states for you.
2. Select a piece of popular music that does not satisfy you. Listen to it several times
and then explain what qualities the music has that you feel are insuffi cient for you
to consider it a successful composition.
3. Listen to a composition by the Rolling Stones or another rock group that inter-
ests you. Comment on the band’s respective use of rhythm, consonance and disso-
nance, melody, and harmony.
4. Select a popular composition and comment on its use of rhythm and tempo. Can
you see connections with the use of rhythm and tempo in classical music?
5. Which of the elements of music is most imaginatively used in the popular compo-
sition that you currently listen to most?
6. Listen to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was written for piano and jazz
band. Is Gershwin’s composition classical in style, or is it jazz? What qualifi es it as
belonging to or not belonging to popular music?
7. Do you fi nd structures in popular music like those of classical music—for example,
theme and variations, rondos, fugues, sonatas, and so on? Which structure, if any,
seems to dominate?
8. How closely related are popular music styles to those of classical music? How does
understanding classical music help in appreciating popular music?
Summary
We began this chapter by suggesting that feelings and sounds are the primary subject
matters of music. This implies that the content of music is a revelation of feelings
and sounds — that music gives us a more sensitive understanding of them. However,
as we indicated in our opening statements, there is considerable disagreement about
the subject matter of music, and so there is disagreement about the content of music.
If music does reveal feelings and sounds, the way it does so is still one of the most
baffl ing problems in the philosophy of art.
Even a brief survey of the theories about the content of music is beyond our
scope here, but given the basic theory of art as revelation, as we have been pre-
supposing in this book, a couple of examples of how that theory might be applied
to music are relevant. In the fi rst place, some music apparently clarifi es sounds
as noises. For example, John Cage, at times, uses devices such as a brick crashing
through glass. By putting such noises into a composition, Cage brackets out the
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255
MUSIC
everyday situation and helps us listen “to’’ rather than listen “through’’ such noises.
In this way, he clarifi es those noises. His musical form organizes sounds and some-
times silences before and after the noise of the breaking glass in such a way that our
perception of the noise of breaking glass is made more sensitive. Similar analyses
can be made of the sounds of musical instruments and their interrelationships in the
structures in which they are placed.
Second, there seems to be some evidence that music gives us insight into our
feelings. It is not ridiculous to claim, for example, that one is feeling joy like that
of the last movement of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, or sadness like the second
movement — the funeral march — of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. In fact, “joy”
and “sadness” are general terms that only very crudely describe our feelings. We
experience all kinds of different joys and different sadnesses, and the names language
gives to these are often imprecise. Music, with its capacity to evoke feelings, and
with a complexity of detail and structure that in many ways is greater than that of
language, may be able to reveal or interpret feeling with much more precision than
language. Perhaps the form of the last movement of the Jupiter Symphony — with
its clear-cut rising melodies, bright harmonies and timbres, brisk strings, and rapid
rhythms — is somehow analogous to the form of a certain kind of joy. Perhaps the
last movement of the Eroica is somehow analogous to a different kind of joy. And
if so, then perhaps we fi nd revealed in those musical forms clarifi cations or insights
about joy. Such explanations are highly speculative. However, they not only are the-
oretically interesting but also may intensify one’s interest in music. There is mystery
about music, unique among the arts; that is part of its fascination. In addition to
classical music, modern popular styles such as blues, jazz, rock and roll, and rap
all have capacity to evoke intense participation resulting from the use of standard
musical elements such as rhythm, tone color, melody, and harmony. They produce
feeling states that can be complex and subtle in proportion to the seriousness and
commitment of the art ists and composers.
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256
Dance — moving bodies shaping space — shares common ground with kinetic sculpture. In abstract dance, the center of interest is upon visual patterns,
and thus there is common ground with abstract painting. Dance, however, usually
includes a narrative, performed on a stage with scenic effects, and thus has com-
mon ground with drama. Dance is rhythmic, unfolding in time, and thus has
common ground with music. Most dance is accompanied by music, and dance
is often incorporated in opera. According to the psychologist Havelock Ellis:
“Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it
is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.”1
Subject Matt er of Dance
At its most basic level, the subject matter of dance is abstract motion, but a much
more pervasive subject matter of the dance is feeling. Our ability to identify with
other human bodies is so strong that the perception of feelings exhibited by the
dancer often evokes feelings in ourselves. The choreographer, creator of the dance,
interprets those feelings. And if we participate, we may understand those feel-
ings and ourselves with greater insight. In Paul Sanasardo’s Pain, for example, the
portrayal of this feeling is so powerful that few in any audience can avoid some
C h a p t e r 1 0
DANCE
1Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1923).
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257
DANCE
sense of pain. Yet the interpretation of pain by means of the dancing bodies gives
us an objective correlative, a shaping “out there” that makes it possible for us to
understand something about pain rather than simply undergoing it. Figure 10-1
shows Sanasardo’s depiction of pain, but only with the moving dance can its inter-
pretation occur.
States of mind are a further dimension that may be the subject matter of
dance. Feelings, such as pleasure and pain, are relatively transient, but a state of
mind is a disposition or habit that is not easily superseded. For example, jealousy
usually involves a feeling so strong that it is best described as a passion. Yet jeal-
ousy is more than just a passion, for it is an orientation of mind that is relatively
enduring. Thus José Limón’s The Moor’s Pavane explores the jealousy of Shake-
speare’s Othello. In Limón’s version, Iago and Othello dance around Desdemona
and seem to be directly vying for her affections. The Moor’s Pavane represents
an interpretation of the states of mind Shakespeare dramatized, although it can
stand independently of the play and make its own contribution to our under-
standing of jealousy.
Since states of mind are felt as enduring, the serial structure of the dance is an
appropriate vehicle for interpreting that endurance. The same can be said of music,
of course, and its serial structure, along with its rhythmic nature, is the fundamental
reason for the wedding of music with dance. Even si lence in some dances seems to
suggest music, since the dancer exhibits visual rhythms, something like the rhythms of
music. But the show ing of states of mind is achieved only partly through the elements
dance shares with music. More basic is the body language of the dancing bodies.
Per haps nothing — not even spoken language — exhibits states of mind more clearly
or strongly.
FIGURE 10-1
Judith Blackstone and Paul Sanasardo
in Pain, by the Paul Sanasardo Dance
Company.
One critic said, “Watching the dance
evokes an internal screaming the way
looking at pictures of . . . war victims
does.”
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EXPERIENCING Feeling and Dance
1. The claim that dance can interpret the
inner life of feeling with exceptional
power implies, perhaps, that no other
art surpasses dance in this respect.
Why would such a claim be made?
The fact that dance is usually considered
the fi rst art in the cultivation of culture
among all civilizations may have some-
thing to do with the possibility that dance
expresses and refi nes the emotional life
of the dancer. Religious circle dances
seem to be common in all civilizations,
just as spontaneous movement on the
part of individuals in a social setting will,
almost contagiously, attract participants
who would otherwise just stand around.
When one person starts dancing, usually
a great many will follow suit.
Dances of celebration are associated with weddings around the world, often with
precise movements and precise sections that seem to have an ancient pretext associ-
ated with fertility and the joy of love. Likewise, some dance simply celebrates the joy
of life, as in the Nrityagram performance (Figure 10-2), which reveals an elevation of
spirit that interprets an inner life of sheer delight. See Nrityagram on You Tube.
Social dances not only interpret the inner life of feeling, but at times they can both
produce an inner life of feeling in us, and also control that feeling. In ballroom dancing,
for example, the prescribed movements are designed to channel our sense of our body’s
motion and thus to help constrain our feelings while we dance. Alternatively, rock and
hip-hop dancing involve a high degree of improvisation and some of the movements will
depend on the feeling-state of the dancer at the moment of the dance.
Other arts may equal dance in this respect, but most of us have had experiences
in which we fi nd ourselves dancing expressively with friends or even alone as a way of
both producing and sustaining a feeling-state that we fi nd desirable and occasionally
overwhelming.
2. Compare dance and music in terms of their power to reveal the inner life of feeling.
3. Represent one of the following states of mind by bodily motion: love, jealousy,
self-confi dence, pride. Have others in your group do the same. Do you fi nd such
representations diffi cult to perceive when others do them?
4. Try to move in such a way as to represent no state of mind at all. Is it possible?
Dis cuss this with your group.
5. Representing or portraying a state of mind allows one to recognize that state.
In ter preting a state of mind gives one insight into that state. In any of the exper-
i ments above, did you fi nd any examples that went beyond representation and
interpretation? If so, what made this possible? What does artistic form have to do
with this?
6. Is it possible for you to recognize a state of mind such as jealousy being repre-
sented without having that state of mind being evoked in you? Is it possible for you
not only to recognize but also to gain insight about a state of mind without that
state of mind being evoked in you?
FIGURE 10-2
Pavithra Reddy and Bijayini
Satpathy in the Nrityagram Dance
ensemble’s production “Sriyah” at
the King’s Theatre as part of the
Edinburgh International Festival.
258
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259
DANCE
Form
The subject matter of dance can be moving visual patterns, feelings, states of
mind, narrative, or various combinations. The form of the dance — its details and
structure — gives us insight into the subject matter. But in dance, the form is not as
clearly perceptible as it usually is in painting, sculpture, and architecture. The visual
arts normally “sit still” long enough for us to reexamine everything. But dance
moves on relentlessly, like literature in recitation, drama, and music, preventing us
from reexamining its details and organization. We can only hope to hold in mem-
ory a detail for comparison with an ensuing detail, and those details as they help
create the structure.
Therefore, one prerequisite for thorough enjoyment of the dance is the develop-
ment of a memory for dance movements. The dance will usually help us in this task
by the use of repetitive movements and variations on them. It can do for us what
we cannot do for ourselves: present once again details for our renewed consider-
ation. Often the dance builds tension by withholding movements we want to have
repeated. Sometimes it creates unusual tension by refusing to repeat any movement
at all. Repetition or the lack of it — as in music or any serial art — becomes one of the
most important structural features of the dance.
Most dance will make use of a number of basic compositional principles. Careful
repetition of movements is often patterned on the repetition in the music to which
the dancers perform. The musical structure of A-B-A is common to the dance:
A  melody is played (A), followed by a period of development (B), fi nally ending
with a recapitulation of the melody (A). Movements performed at the beginning of
a dance, the A section, are often developed, enlarged, and modifi ed in the B section,
and are repeated at the end of the dance during the second A section.
The dance, furthermore, achieves a number of kinds of balance. In terms of
the entire stage, usually dancers in a company balance themselves across the space
allotted to them, moving forward, backward, left, and right as well as in circles.
Centrality of focus is important in most dances and helps us unify the shapes of the
overall dance. The most important dancers are usually at the center of the stage,
holding our attention while subordinate groups of dancers balance them on the sides
of the stage. Balance is also a structural consideration for both individual dancers
(see  Figure 10-5) and groups (see Figure 10-3).
The positions of the ballet dancer also imply basic movements for the dancer,
movements that can be maneuvered, interwoven, set in counterpoint, and modi-
fi ed as the dance progresses. As we experience the dance, we can develop an eye
for the ways in which these movements combine to create the dance. Modern
dance develops a different vocabulary of dance, as one can see from the illustra-
tions in Figures 10-1 and 10-7 to 10-14.
Dance and Ritual
Since the only requirement for dance is a body in motion and since all cultures have
this basic requirement, dance probably precedes all other arts. In this sense, dance
comes fi rst. And when it comes fi rst, it is usually connected to a ritual that demands
careful execution of movements in precise ways to achieve a precise goal. The dances
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CHAPTER 10
of most cultures were originally con nected with either religious or practical acts,
both often involving magic.
Some dance has sexual origins and often is a ritual of courtship. Since this phe-
nomenon has a correlative in nature — the courtship dances of birds and many
other animals — many cultures occasionally imitated animal dances. Certain move-
ments in Mandan Indian dances, for instance, can be traced to the leaps and falls of
western jays and mockingbirds who, in fi nding a place to rest, will stop, leap into
the air while spreading their wings for balance, then fall suddenly, only to rise
into the air again.
Dance of all kinds draws much of its inspiration from the movements and shapes
of nature: the motion of a stalk of wheat in a gentle breeze, the scurrying of a rabbit,
the curling of a contented cat, the soaring of a bird, the falling of leaves, the sway of
waves. These kinds of events have supplied dancers with ideas and examples for their
own movement. A favorite shape for the dance is that of the spiral nautilus, so often
seen in shells, plants, and insects:
This shape is often apparent in the movement of groups of dancers whose
floor pattern may follow the spiral pattern (Figure 10-3). The circle is an-
other of the most pervasive shapes of nature. The movements of planets and
stars suggest circular motion, and, more mundanely, so do the rings working
out from a stone dropped in water. In a magical-religious way, circular dances
sometimes have been thought to bring the dancers — and therefore humans in
FIGURE 10-3
A ritual circle dance performed by
Arapahoe and Shoshone dancers
in Ethete, Wyoming.
This is a Pow Wow grand entry
at the Windriver Reservation
held every year at the same
time. Traditionally it is a way
of committing themselves to the
community in peace.
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DANCE
general—into a significant harmony with divine forces in the universe. The
planets and stars are heavenly objects in circular motion, so it was reasonable
for early dancers to feel that they could align themselves with these divine
forces by means of dance.
Ritual Dance
Tourists can see rain dances in the American Southwest even today. The fl oor pat-
tern of the dance is not circular but a modifi ed spiral, as can be seen in Fig ure 10-3.
The dancers, properly costumed, form a line and are led by a priest, who at specifi c
moments spreads cornmeal on the ground, symbolizing his wish for the fertility of
the ground. The ritual character of the dance is clearly ob ser va ble in the pattern
of motion, with dancers beginning by moving toward the north, then turning west,
south, east, north, west, south, and ending to ward the east. The gestures of the
dancers, like the gestures in most rituals, have defi nite meanings and functions.
For example, the dancers’ loud screams are designed to awaken the gods and arrest
their attention, the drumbeat suggests thunder, and the dancers’ rattles suggest the
sound of rain.
PERCEPTION KEY Dance and Contemporary Rituals
1. Contemporary rituals such as some weddings and funerals involve motion that can
be thought of as dance motion. What other contemporary rituals involve dance
motion? Do we need to know the meanings of the ritual gestures in order to appre-
ciate the motion of the ritual?
2. How much common ground do we share with early dancers in trying to give mean-
ing to our gestures, either in a generally accepted dance situation or out of it?
3. Are there dances that can be considered as serving functions similar to those of the
dances we have described? Consider, for instance, the dancing that accompanied
the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or the dancing that sometimes sponta-
neously breaks out at rock concerts. Are there other instances?
Social Dance
Social dance is not dominated by religious or practical purposes, although it
may have secondary purposes such as meeting people or working off excess en-
ergy. More importantly, it is a form of recreation and social enjoyment. Country
dance — for example, the English Playford dances — is a species of folk dance that
has traces of ancient origins, because country people tended to perform dances in
specifi c relationship to special periods in the agricultural year, such as planting
and harvesting.
Folk dances are the dances of the people — whether ethnic or regional in
origin — and they are often carefully preserved, sometimes with contests designed
to keep the dances alive. The dancers often wear the peasant costumes of the region
they represent. Virtually every nation has its folk dance tradition.
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CHAPTER 10
Th e Court Dance
The court dances of the Middle Ages and Renaissance developed into more styl-
ized and less openly energetic modes than the folk dance, for the court dance was
performed by a different sort of person and served a different purpose. Participat-
ing in court dances signifi ed high social status. Some of the older dances were the
volta, a favorite at Queen Elizabeth’s court in the sixteenth century, with the male
dancer hoisting the female dancer in the air from time to time; the pavane, a stately
dance popular in the seventeenth century; the minuet, popular in the eighteenth
century, performed by groups of four dancers at a time; and the eighteenth-century
German allemande — a dance performed by couples who held both hands, turning
about one another without letting go. These dances and many others were favorites
at courts primarily because they were enjoyable — not because they performed a
religious or practical function. Because the dances were also pleasurable to look
at, it very quickly became a commonplace at court to have a group of onlookers as
large as or larger than the group of dancers. Soon professional dancers appeared at
more-signifi cant court functions, such as the Elizabethan and Jacobean masques,
which were mixed-media entertainments in which the audience usually took some
part — particularly in the dance sequences.
PERCEPTION KEY Social Dance
1. How would you evaluate rock dancing? Why does rock dancing demand loud
music? Does the performing and watching of spontaneous and powerful muscular
motions account for some of the popularity of rock dancing? If so, why? Is rock
dancing primarily a mode to be watched or danced? Or is it both? Explain what the
viewer and the dancer, respectively, might derive from the experience of rock danc-
ing. Substitute hip-hop for rock and answer the same questions.
2. Try to see an authentic folk dance. Describe the basic diff erences between folk
dance and rock dance. Is the basic subject matter of the folk-dance visual patterns,
or feelings, or states of mind, or narrative? Or some combination of these? If so,
what is the mix? Answer the same questions for rock dances and hip-hop.
3. Break and rock dancing for the young; square and ballroom dancing for the old.
Why the divided generational appeal? Country dance seems to appeal to both
young and old. Why?
Ballet
The origins of ballet usually are traced to the early seventeenth century, when danc-
ers performed interludes between scenes of an opera. Eventually, the interludes
grew more important, until fi nally ballets were performed independently.
A considerable repertory of ballets has been built up in the last three centuries.
Some of the ballets many of us are likely to see are Lully’s Giselle; Les Sylphides,
with music by Chopin; Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty;
Coppélia, with music by Delibes; and The Rite of Spring, with music by Stravin-
sky. All these ballets — like most ballets — have a pretext, a narrative line or story
around which the ballet is built (Figure 10-4). In this sense, the ballet has as its
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FIGURE 10-4
A scene from George Balanchine’s
Nutcracker, with music by
Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky, based
on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The
Nutcracker and the Mouse King.
Here, Clara has freed the Prince
and journeyed with him to
the world of the fairies as the
Snowfl akes gather in a blizzard
in the last scene of act 1 by the
New York City Ballet in 2008.
263
subject matter a story that is interpreted by means of stylized movements such as
the arabesque, the bourrée, and the relévé, to name a few. Our understanding of the
story is basically conditioned by our perception of the movements that present the
story to us. It is astounding how, without having to be obvious and without having
to resort very often to everyday gestures, ballet dancers can present a story to us in
an intelligible fashion. Yet it is not the story or the movement that constitutes the
ballet: It is the meld of story and movement.
PERCEPTION KEY Narrative and Bodily Movement
1. Without training, we cannot perform ballet movements, but all of us can per form
some dance movements. By way of experiment and to increase our under standing
of the meld of narrative and movement, try representing a narrative by bodily mo-
tion to a group of onlookers. Choose a narrative poem from our chapter on litera-
ture, or choose a scene from a play that may be familiar to you and your audience.
Let your audience know the pretext you are using, since this is the normal method
continued
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264
CHAPTER 10
Swan Lake
One of the most popular ballets of all time is Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (Le Lac des
Cygnes), composed from 1871 to 1877 and fi rst performed in 1894 (act 2) and 1895
(complete). The choreographers were Leon Ivanov and Marius Petipa. Tchaikovsky
originally composed the music for a ballet to be performed for children, but its fas-
cination has not been restricted to young au di ences. With Margot Fonteyn and
Rudolf Nureyev, the reigning dancers in this ballet in modern times, Swan Lake has
been a resounding favorite on tele vision and fi lm, not to mention repeated sellout
performances in dance the aters the world over.
Act 1 opens with the principal male dancer, the young Prince Siegfried, attend-
ing a village celebration. His mother, the Queen, fi nding Siegfried sporting with
the peasants, decides that it is time for him to marry someone of his own station and
settle into the nobility. After she leaves, a pas de trois — a dance with three dancers,
in this instance, Siegfried and two maids — is interrupted by the Prince’s slightly
drunk tutor, who tries to take part in some of the dancing but is not quite able.
When a fl ight of swans is seen overhead, the prince resolves to go hunting.
The opening scene of act 2 is on a moonlit lake, with the arch magician Rothbart
tending his swans. The swans, led by Odette, are maidens he has enchanted. They
can return to human form only at night. Odette’s movements are imitated by the
entire group of swans, movements that are clearly infl uenced by the motions of the
swan’s long neck and by the movements we associate with birds — for example, an un-
dulating motion executed by the dancers’ arms and a fl uttering executed by the legs.
Siegfried comes upon the swans and restrains his hunters from shooting at them. He
falls in love with Odette, now in her human form, all of whose motions are charac-
terized by the softness and grace of a swan (Figure 10-5). Siegfried learns that Odette
is enchanted and that she cannot come to the ball at which the Queen has planned
to arrange his marriage. Siegfried also learns that if he vows his love to her and keeps
his vow, he can free her from the enchantment. She warns him that Rothbart will
do everything to trick him into breaking the vow, but Siegfried is determined to be
steadfast. As dawn arrives, the lovers part and Rothbart retrieves his swans.
Act 3 commences with the ball the Queen has arranged for presenting to Siegfried
a group of princesses from whom he may choose. Each princess, introduced in
lavish native costume with a retinue of dancers and retainers, dances the folk dance
of her country, such as the allemande, the czardas, the tarantella. But suddenly
Rothbart enters in disguise with his own daughter, Odile, who looks exactly like
of most ballets. Avoid movements that rely exclusively on facial expressions or
simple mime to communicate story elements. After your presentation, discuss
with your audience their views about your success or failure in presenting the nar-
rative. Discuss, too, your problems as a dancer, what you felt you wanted your
movement to reveal about the narrative. Have others perform the experiment, and
discuss the same points.
2. Even the most rudimentary movement attempting to reveal a narrative will bring in
interpretations that go beyond the narrative alone. As a viewer, discuss what you
believe the other dancers added to the narrative.
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265
DANCE
Odette. Today, most performances require that Odette and Odile be the same
dancer, although the parts were originally written for two dancers. Siegfried and
Odile dance the famous Black Swan pas de deux, a dance notable for its virtuosity.
It features almost superhuman leaps on the part of Siegfried, and it also involves
thirty-two rapidly executed whipping turns (fouettés) on the part of Odile. Her
movement is considerably different in character from that of Odette. Odile is more
angular, less delicate, and in her black costume seems much less the picture of inno-
cence Odette had seemed in her soft white costume. Siegfried’s movements suggest
great joy at being with Odette, for he does not realize that this is really Odile, the
magician’s daughter.
When the time comes for Siegfried to choose among the princesses for his wife,
he rejects them all and presents Odile to the Queen as his choice. Once Siegfried
has committed himself to her, Rothbart exults and takes Odile from him and makes
her vanish. Siegfried, who has broken his vow to Odette, realizes he has been duped
and ends the act by rushing out to fi nd the real Odette.
Like a number of other sections of the ballet, act 4 has a variety of versions
that interpret what is essentially similar action (Figure 10-6). Siegfried, in fi nding
Odette by the lake at night, sacrifi ces himself for her and breaks the spell. They are
joined in death and are beyond the power of the magician. Some versions of the bal-
let aim for a happy ending and suggest that though Siegfried sacrifi ces himself for
Odette, he does not die. In this happy-ending version, Odette, upon realizing that
Siegfried had been tricked, forgives him. Rothbart raises a terrible storm in order
to drown all the swans, but Siegfried carries Odette to a hilltop, where he is willing
to die with her if necessary. This act of love and sacrifi ce breaks the spell, and the
two of them are together as dawn breaks.
Another version concentrates on spiritual victory and reward after death in a
better life than that which was left behind. Odette and the swans dance slowly and
FIGURE 10-5
Gillian Murphy (American Ballet
Theatre) and Andrian Fadeyev
(Mariinsky Theater) perform the
fantasy ballet “Swan Lake” during
VIII International ballet festival
Mariinsky in St. Petersburg.
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266
CHAPTER 10
sorrowfully together, with Odette rising in a stately fashion in their midst. When
Siegfried comes, he begs her to forgive him, but nothing can break the magician’s
spell. Odette and he dance, they embrace, she bids him farewell and casts her-
self mournfully into the lake, where she perishes. Siegfried, unable to live without
her, follows her into the lake. Then, once the lake vanishes, Odette and Siegfried
are revealed in the distance, moving away together as evidence that the spell was
broken in death.
The story of Swan Lake has archetypal overtones much in keeping with the
Romantic age in which it was conceived. John Keats, who wrote fi fty years before
this ballet was created, was fascinated by the ancient stories of men who fell in
love with supernatural spirits, which is what the swan-Odette is, once she has been
transformed by magic. Likewise, the later Romantics were fascinated by the possi-
bilities of magic and its implications for dealing with the forces of good and evil. In
his Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about a hypnotist who wove a
weird spell over a woman. The story of Svengali and his ward Trilby was popular
everywhere, seemingly attesting to the fact that strange spells could be maintained
over innocent people. This interest in magic and the supernatural is coupled with
the Wagnerian interest in heroism and the implications of the sacrifi ce of the hero
for the thing he loves. Much of the power of the idea of sacrifi ce derives from the
sacrifi ce of Christ on the cross. But Tchaikovsky — like Wagner, whose hero in the
Ring of the Niebelungs is also a Siegfried, whose end with Brünnhilde is similar to
the ending in Swan Lake — concentrates on the human valor of the prince and its
implication for transforming evil into good.
FIGURE 10-6
The Royal Ballet rehearses their
production of Swan Lake.
Here, Rothbart’s enchanted swans
dance together in a classic pose.
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DANCE
PERCEPTION KEY Swan Lake
1. If you can see a production or video of Swan Lake, focus on a specifi c act and com-
ment in a discussion with others on the suitability of the bodily movements for the
narrative subject matter of that act. Are feelings or states of mind interpreted as
well as the narrative? If so, when and how?
2. If someone who has had training in ballet is available, you might try to get him or
her to present a small portion of the ballet for your observation and discussion.
What would be the most important kinds of questions to ask such a person?
Modern Dance
The origins of modern dance are usually traced to the American dancers Isadora
Duncan and Ruth St. Denis. They rebelled against the stylization of ballet, with
ballerinas dancing on their toes and executing the same basic movements in every
performance. Duncan insisted on natural movement, often dancing in bare feet with
gossamer drapery that revealed her body and legs in motion (Figure 10-7). She felt
that the emphasis ballet places on the movement of the arms and legs was restrictive.
Her insistence on placing the center of motion just below the breastbone was based
on her feeling that the torso had been neglected in the development of ballet. She
believed, too, that the early Greek dancers, whom she wished to emulate, had placed
their center of energy at the solar plexus. Her intention was to return to natural
movement in dance, and this was one effective method of doing so.
The developers of modern dance who followed Duncan (she died in 1927) built
on her legacy. In her insistence on freedom with respect to clothes and conven-
tions, she infused energy into the dance that no one had ever seen before. Although
she was a native Californian, her successes and triumphs were primarily in foreign
lands, particularly in France and Russia. Her performances differed greatly from
the ballet. Instead of developing a dance built on a pretext of the sort that under-
lies Swan Lake, Duncan took more-abstract subject matters — especially moods and
states of mind — and expressed her understanding of them.
Duncan’s dances were lyrical, personal, and occasionally extemporaneous. Since,
she insisted, there were no angular shapes in nature, she would permit herself to
use none. Her movements rarely came to a complete rest. An interesting example
of her dance, one in which she does come to a full rest, is recounted by a friend. It
was performed in a salon for close friends, and its subject matter seems to be human
emergence on the planet:
Isadora was completely covered by a long loose robe with high draped neck and long
loose sleeves in a deep muted red. She crouched on the fl oor with her face resting on the
carpet. In slow motion with ineffable effort she managed to get up on her knees. Grad-
ually with titanic struggles she rose to her feet. She raised her arms toward heaven in a
gesture of praise and exultation. The mortal had emerged from primeval ooze to achieve
Man, upright, liberated, and triumphant.2
2From Kathleen Cannell, “Isadorable Duncan,” Christian Science Monitor, December 4, 1970. Reprinted
by permission from The Christian Science Monitor. © 1970 The Christian Science Publishing Society.
All rights reserved.
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268
CHAPTER 10
Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, José Limón, Doris Humphrey, and other
innovators who followed Duncan developed modern dance in a variety of directions.
Graham created some dances on themes of Greek tragedies, such as Medea. In addition
to his Moor’s Pavane, Limón is well known for his interpretation of Eugene O’Neill’s
play The Emperor Jones, in which a slave escapes to an island only to become a despised
and hunted tyrant. Humphrey, who was a little older than Graham and Limón, was
closer to the original Duncan tradition in such dances as Water Study, Life of the Bee,
and New Dance, a 1930s piece that was very successfully revived in 1972.
FIGURE 10-7
Isadora Duncan in La Marseillaise,
1915, one of her two most famous
dances.
During World War I, contemporary
critics said it found the “heart of
Paris.” In this dance and in Marche
Slave, 1915, Duncan pointed the way
to modern dance as distinct from
ballet and show dance.
PERCEPTION KEY Pretext and Movement
1. Devise a series of movements that will take about one minute to complete and that
you are fairly sure do not tell a story. Then perform these movements for a group
and question them on the apparent pretext of your movement. Do not tell them in
advance that your dance has no story. As a result of this experiment, ask yourself
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269
DANCE
Alvin Ailey’s Revelations
One of the classics of modern dance is Alvin Ailey’s Revelations (Figure 10-8),
based largely on African American spirituals and experience. It was fi rst per-
formed in January 1960, and hardly a year has gone by since without its having
been performed to highly enthusiastic crowds. Ailey refi ned Revelations some-
what over the years, but its impact has brought audiences to their feet for stand-
ing ovations at almost every performance. After Ailey’s untimely death at the
age of fi fty-eight, the company was directed by Judith Jamison, one of the great
dancers in Ailey’s company.
and the group whether it is possible to create a sequence of movements that will
not suggest a story line to some viewers. What would this mean for dances that try
to avoid pretexts? Can there really be abstract dance?
2. Without explaining that you are not dancing, represent a familiar human situation
to a group by using movements that you believe are not dance movements. Is the
group able to understand what you represented? Do they think you were using
dance movements? Do you believe it possible to have movements that cannot be
included in a dance? Are there, in other words, nondance movements?
FIGURE 10-8
The Alvin Ailey Dance Company
in Revelations, a suite of dances to
gospel music.
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CHAPTER 10
Some of the success of Revelations stems from Ailey’s choice of the deeply felt
music of the spirituals to which the dancers’ movements are closely attuned. But,
then, this is also one of the most noted qualities of a ballet like Swan Lake, which
has one of the richest orchestral scores in the history of ballet. Music, unless it is
program music, is not, strictly speaking, a pretext for a dance, but there is a percep-
tible connection between, say, the rhythmic characteristics of a given music and a
dance composed in such a way as to take advantage of those characteristics. Thus
in Revelations the energetic movements of the dancers often appear as visual, bodily
transformations of the rhythmically charged music.
Try to see Revelations. Several sites online present segments of the dance, but
none show it in its entirety. We will point out details and structures an awareness
of which may prove helpful for refi ning your experience not only of this dance but
of modern dance in general. Beyond the general pretext of Revelations — that of
African American experience as related by spirituals — each of its separate sections
has its own pretext. But none of them is as tightly or specifi cally narrative as is usu-
ally the case in ballet. In Revelations, generalized situations act as pretexts.
The fi rst section of the dance is called “Pilgrim of Sorrow,” with three parts:
“I Been Buked,” danced by the entire company (about twenty dancers, male and
female); “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” danced by only a few dancers; and “Fix
Me Jesus,” danced by one couple. The general pretext is the suffering of African
Americans, who are, like the Israelites of the Old Testament, taking refuge in their
faith in the Lord. The most dramatic moments in this section are in “Didn’t My
Lord Deliver Daniel,” a statement of overwhelming faith characterized by close
ensemble work. The in-line dancers parallel the rhythms of the last word of the
hymn: “Dan´-i-el´,” accenting the fi rst and last syllables with powerful rhythmic
movements.
The second section, titled “Take Me to the Water,” is divided into “Proces-
sional,” danced by eight dancers; “Wading in the Water,” danced by six dancers;
and “I Want to Be Ready,” danced by a single male dancer. The whole idea of
“Take Me to the Water” suggests baptism, a ritual that affi rms faith in God — the
source of energy of the spirituals. “Wading in the Water” is particularly exciting,
with dancers holding a stage-long bolt of light-colored fabric to represent the
water. The dancers shimmer the fabric to the rhythm of the music, and one dancer
after another crosses over the fabric, symbolizing at least two things: the waters
of baptism and the Mosaic waters of freedom. It is this episode that originally
featured the charismatic Judith Jamison in a long white gown and holding a huge
parasol as she danced.
The third section is called “Move, Members, Move,” with the subsections
titled “Sinner Man,” “The Day Is Past and Gone,” “You May Run Home,” and
the fi nale “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.” In this last episode, a sense
of triumph over suffering is projected, suggesting the redemption of a peo ple by
using the same kind of Old Testament imagery and musical material that opened
the dance. The entire section takes as its theme the lives of peo ple after they have
been received into the faith, with the possibilities of stray ing into sin. It ends with
a powerful rocking spiritual that emphasizes for give ness and the reception of the
people (the “members”) into the bosom of Abra ham, according to the prediction
of the Bible. This ending features a large amount of ensemble work and is danced
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271
DANCE
by the entire company, with rows of male dancers sliding forward on their out-
spread knees and then rising all in one sliding gesture, raising their hands high.
“Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” is powerfully sung again and again
until the effect is almost hypnotic.
The subject matter of Revelations is in part that of feelings and states of mind. But
it is also more obviously that of the struggle of a people as told — on one level — by
their music. The dance has the advantage of a powerfully engaging subject mat-
ter even before we witness the interpretation of that subject matter. And the way
in which the movements of the dance are closely attuned to the rhythms of the
music tends to evoke intense participation, since the visual qualities of the dance are
power fully reinforced by the aural qualities of the music.
PERCEPTION KEY Revelations
1. A profi table way of understanding the resources of Revelations is to take a well-
known African American spiritual such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (Figure 9-4)
and supply the movements that it suggests to you. Once you have done so, ask
yourself how diffi cult it was. Is it natural to move to such music?
2. Instead of spirituals, try the same experiment with popular music such as rock and
rap. What characteristics does such music have that stimulate motion?
3. Is there anything archetypal in the subject matter of Revelations?
Martha Graham
Quite different from the Ailey approach is the “Graham technique,” taught in
Graham’s own school in New York as well as in colleges and universities across
the country. Like Ailey, Graham was a virtuoso dancer and organized her own
company. After Isadora Duncan, no one has been more infl uential in modern
dance. Graham’s technique is reminiscent of ballet in its rigor and discipline.
Dancers learn specifi c kinds of movements and exercises designed to be used as
both preparation for and part of the dance. Graham’s contraction, for example,
is one of the most common movements one is likely to see: It is the sudden pull-
ing in of the diaphragm with the resultant relaxation of the rest of the body.
This builds on Duncan’s emphasis on the solar plexus and adds to that emphasis
the systolic and diastolic rhythms of heartbeat and pulse. The movement is very
effective visually as well as being particularly fl exible in depicting feelings and
states of mind. It is a movement unknown in ballet, from which Graham always
wished to remain distinct.
Graham’s dances at times have been very literal, with narrative pretexts quite
similar to those found in ballet. Night Journey, for instance, is an in ter pre ta-
tion of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. The lines of emotional force linking Jocasta
and her son-husband Oedipus are strongly accentuated by the move ments of
the dance as well as by certain props onstage, such as ribbons that link the two
at times. In Graham’s interpretation, Jocasta becomes much more important
than she is in the original drama. This is partly be cause Graham saw the female
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272
CHAPTER 10
fi gures in Greek drama — such as Phaedra (Fig ure 10-9) — as much more fully
dimensional than we have normally un der stood them. By means of dancing their
roles, she was able to reveal the com plex i ties of their characters. In dances such
as her El Penitente, Graham ex pe ri mented with states of mind as the subject
matter. Thus the featured male dancer in loose white trousers and tunic, moving
in slow circles about the stage with a large wooden cross, is a powerful interpre-
tation of penitence.
Pilobolus and Momix Dance Companies
The innovative modern dance companies, Pilobolus and Momix, perform around
the world and throughout the United States. They originated in 1970 at Dartmouth
College with four male dancers and choreographers Alison Chase and Martha
Clarke. Their specialty involves placing moving bodies in acrobatic positions.
Moses Pendleton, principal dancer in Pilobolus and director of the dance company
Momix, choreographed F.L.O.W. (For Love of Women) and had it performed by
Diana Vishneva, one of Russia’s fi nest Mariinsky ballerinas (Figure 10-10). Vish-
neva performs on a highly refl ective fl oor producing a complex visual dynamic that
complements other parts of the dance. Such intense moments characterize much
of the style that Pendleton has developed with Momix and echoes some of the
acrobatics of the Pilobolus company. Suspended, with dancers Renée Jaworski and
Jennifer Macavinta (Figure 10-11), shows the Pilobolus company’s commitment to
the principle that choreography is an art dependent on the body, not just on music,
pretext, or lighting.
FIGURE 10-9
Martha Graham in Phaedra, based
on the Greek myth concerning the
love of Phaedra for Hippolytus, the
son of her husband Theseus.
Graham performed numerous
dances based on Greek myths
because she felt energized by their
passion.
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Mark Morris Dance Group
The Mark Morris Dance Group was created — “reluctantly,” he has said — in 1980
because he found he could not do the dances he wanted with other existing companies.
Morris and his company were a sensation from the fi rst, performing in New York
from 1981 to 1988.
Morris’s fi rst major dance was a theatrical piece with an intricate interpreta-
tion of Handel’s music set to John Milton’s lyric poems: L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il
Moderato. The title refers to three moods: happiness, melancholy, and restfulness.
David Dougill commented on the “absolute rightness to moods and themes” with
Milton’s poems and Handel’s music. Morris’s Dido and Aeneas (Figure 10-12) was
fi rst performed in 1989, but continues to be produced because of its importance and
its impact. Based on Virgil’s Aeneid, it focuses on the tragic love affair of a king and
queen in ancient Rome. Morris continues to be one of the most forceful fi gures in
modern dance throughout the world.
FIGURE 10-10
Diana Vishneva, from Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet, dancing in Moses Pendleton’s F.L.O.W. (For the Love of Women) at the New York City Center
in 2008.
Pendleton’s emphasis on the body is intensifi ed here by the refl ective fl oor and the acrobatic position.
273
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CHAPTER 10
FIGURE 10-11
Renée Jaworski and Jennifer Macavinta in the Pilobolus
Dance Company’s Suspended, emphasizing the body
in space.
The Pilobolus Company is known for its highly
experimental and daring dances sometimes involving
nudity.
FIGURE 10-12
(at center, backs to camera) Amber
Star Merkens and Domingo Estrada
Jr. with fellow members of the Mark
Morris Dance Group performing
in “Dido and Aeneas” as part of
Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart
Festival at the Rose Theater. Set to
the music for Henry Purcell’s opera,
Dido and Aeneas, this is considered
Morris’ fi nest dance.
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FOCUS ON Theater Dance
Dance has taken a primary role in many live theater
productions throughout the world. In most cases,
dance supports a narrative and shares the stage
with spoken actors or, as in the case of opera and
in musicals, with singers and music. In the 1920s
the rage was for revues that showcased dance
teams or dance productions as in the London revue,
Blackbirds, which introduced “The Black Bottom”
dance. Lavish revues in the early 1930s, such as
the Ziegfeld Follies, staged lush dance productions,
while other revues like The Great Waltz featured
dance in the service of the biography of Johann
Strauss. The dancing was lavish, not original, but
the show was enormously successful.
The great dance piece for the postwar era was
Jerome Robbins’s staging of Leonard Bernstein’s
West Side Story in 1957 (Figure 10-13). The play was
innovative on many levels, but with the genius of Robbins, who was at home with ballet
as well as modern dance, it was a major moment in the history of dance on stage.
A loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, the play pitted the migrants from Puerto Rico,
who by 1957 had peopled New York’s West Side from 58th to 85th Street, replacing
the earlier immigrants and struggling to survive. The play not only told a love story but,
at the same time, introduced a sociological theme. The dances were central to
the story and remain the most memorable images from that fi rst production,
the following fi lm production, and the countless revivals of the drama.
In 2000, Susan Stroman introduced another major dance piece at
Lincoln Center, in the very same neighborhood portrayed by West Side Story.
In the 1960s Lincoln Center replaced the tenement areas that had housed
earlier Puerto Rican migrants. Contact (Figure 10-14) was an almost-pure
dance theater piece. It had no continuous narrative, but instead focused on
the idea of swing dance. It was inspired by Stroman’s experience in a late-
night New York club, seeing a woman in a yellow dress in a group of people
dancing to swing music. The dancing in Contact was set to three rudimentary
“stories” centering on love relationships, but there was no dialogue to carry
the narrative along.
The fi rst segment, “Swinging,” featured an eighteenth-century girl on a
real swing being pushed by two men. The sexual emblem of that era was a
swing, and the opening scene reproduced in tableau a famous French paint-
ing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard that was understood to symbolize infi delity.
The second segment, “Did You Move?,” was set in a restaurant with an
abusive husband and an unhappy wife who lives out her sexual fantasies
by dancing with a busboy, the headwaiter, and some diners. The third seg-
ment, “Contact,” featured the girl in the yellow dress choosing among a
number of men as dancing partners. One of them is a successful advertis-
ing man who has come to an after-hours pool hall nightclub with suicide
on his mind. The girl in the yellow dress enchants him, but as he reaches
out for her, she disappears, then reappears, keeping him suspended and
constantly searching.
FIGURE 10-13
A scene from the new Broadway
revival of “West Side Story” 2009.
West Side Story, 1957. Book by
Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard
Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen
Sondheim, choreography by
Jerome Robbins.
FIGURE 10-14
Debra Yates in Susan Stroman’s Contact, 2000.
Susan Stroman conceived this theatrical dance
event after seeing swing dancers in a New York
club. The show won several awards.
275
continued
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Popular Dance
Popular styles in dance change rapidly from generation to generation. Early
in the twentieth century, the Charleston was the exciting dance for young
people; then in the 1930s and 1940s, it was swing dancing and jitterbugging.
In the 1960s, rock dancing took over, then disco, and then in the 1980s break
dancing led into the 1990s hip-hop (Figure 10-15). Recently, a resurgence in ball-
room dancing has spawned not only competitions at a professional level but also
widespread competitions in urban middle schools across the United States.
In fi lms, great dancers like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as well as Donald
O’Connor, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, and many more, captivated wide audiences.
The Nicholas Brothers (Figure 10-16) were among the most dazzling tap dancers on
fi lm. Stormy Weather (1943) was their favorite fi lm, but one of their best dances was
in Orchestra Wives (1942). Some of Fred Astaire’s great fi lms are Flying Down to Rio
(1933), Swing Time (1936), Shall We Dance? (1937), and Daddy Long Legs (1955). Gene
Kelly and Cyd Charisse are famous for Singin’ in the Rain (1952), one of the best loved
of all dance fi lms.
Most of the music in Contact was taped contemporary songs, but the last section
of the piece featured the great Benny Goodman version of Sing, Sing, Sing from his
Carnegie Hall Concert in 1938. The reviews of Contact emphasized the sexiness of the
entire production. When it came time for Broadway to give out the Tony Awards in
2000, it was decided that Contact was unique, partly because it did not use original or
live music, and was given a special Tony as a theatrical dance production, rather than
as a standard musical.
FIGURE 10-15
A scene from the fi lm You Got
Served (2004).
Street dancing can still be seen on
the streets of many cities where
young dancers put out the hat
for tips. But it is also becoming a
mainline form of dance seen on the
stage and television. It is marked
by sheer energy and virtuoso
moves suggesting the one-time
competitiveness of jazz music.
276
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Fortunately, dance fi lms are almost universally available on DVD and video, and
as a result it is still possible for us to see the great work of our best dancers whatever
their style.
Summary
Through the medium of the moving human body, the form of dance can reveal
visual patterns or feelings or states of mind or narrative or, more probably, some
combination. The fi rst step in learning to participate with the dance is to learn the
nature of its movements. The second is to be aware of its different kinds of subject
matter. The content of dance gives us insights about our inner lives, especially states
of mind, that supplement the insights of music. Dance has the capacity to transform
a pretext, whether it be a story or a state of mind or a feeling. Our attention should
be drawn into participation with this transformation. The insight we get from the
dance experience depends on our awareness of this transformation.
Note: Many of the dance companies and their dances can be seen in full or in part
in online video-sharing services such as YouTube, Hulu, Veoh, Metacafe, Google
Videos, and others.
FIGURE 10-16
The Nicholas Brothers, Harold and
Fayard, were showstopping dancers
in fi lms such as this, Sun Valley
Serenade, 1941, during a time when
great dance was the staple of movies
throughout the world.
277
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278
Photography and Painting
The fi rst demonstration of photography took place in Paris in 1839, when Louis J. M.
Daguerre (1787–1851) astonished a group of French artists and scientists with the fi rst
Daguerreotypes. The process was almost instantaneous, producing a fi nely detailed
monochrome image on a silver-coated copper plate. At that demonstration, the noted
French painter Paul De laroche declared, “From today painting is dead.” An examina-
tion of his famous painting Execution of Lady Jane Grey (Figure 11-1) reveals the source
of his anx i ety. Delaroche’s reputation was built on doing what the photograph does
best — reproducing exact detail and exact perspective. However, the camera could not
yet reproduce the colors that make Delaroche’s painting powerful.
C h a p t e r 1 1
PHOTOGRAPHY
PERCEPTION KEY Execution of Lady Jane Grey
1. What aspects of Delaroche’s style of painting would have made him think of pho-
tography as a threat? In what ways is this painting similar to a photograph?
2. Is it surprising to learn that this painting was exhibited fi ve years before Delaroche
saw a photograph—actually before the invention of photography?
3. Examine Delaroche’s painting for attention to detail. This is a gigantic work, much
larger than any photograph could be at mid-nineteenth century. Every fi gure is
reproduced with the same sharpness, from foreground to background. To what
extent is that approach to sharpness of focus like or unlike what might have been
achieved by a photograph of this scene?
4. How does color focus our attention in Delaroche’s painting?
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Some early critics of photography complained that the camera does not offer the
control over the subject matter that painting does. But the camera does offer the
capacity to crop and select the area of the fi nal print, the capacity to alter the aper-
ture of the lens and thus control the focus in selective areas, as well as the capacity
to reveal movement in blurred scenes, all of which only suggest the ability of the
instrument to transform visual experience into art.
Many early photographs exhibit the capacity of the camera to capture and control
details in a manner that informs the viewer about the subject matter. For example,
in his portrait of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1857), a great builder of steamships
(Figure 11-2), Robert Howlett exposed the negative for a shorter time and widened
the aperture of his lens (letting in more light), thus controlling the depth of fi eld
(how much is in focus). Brunel’s fi gure is in focus, but surrounding objects are in
FIGURE 11-1
Paul Delaroche, Execution of Lady
Jane Grey. 1843. Oil on canvas,
97 3 117 inches.
Delaroche witnessed the fi rst
demonstration of photography in
1839 and declared, “From today
painting is dead.” His enormous
painting had great size and brilliant
color, two ways, for the time being,
in which photography could be
superseded.
279
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280
CHAPTER 11
FIGURE 11-2
Robert Howlett, Isambard Kingdom
Brunel. 1857.
This portrait of a great English
engineer reveals its subject without
fl attery, without a sense of romance,
and absolutely without a moment of
sentimentality. Yet the photograph is
a monument to power and industry.
soft focus, rendering them less signifi cant. The pile of anchor chains in the back-
ground is massive, but the soft focus makes them subservient to Brunel. The huge
chains make this image haunting, but if they were in sharp focus, they would have
distracted from Brunel. In Execution of Lady Jane Grey, almost everything is in sharp
focus, while the white of Jane’s dress and the red of the executioner’s leggings focus
our attention.
Brunel’s posture is typical of photographs of the mid-nineteenth century. We
have many examples of men lounging with hands in pockets and cigar in mouth,
but few paintings portray men this way. Few photographs of any age show us a face
quite like Brunel’s. It is relaxed, as much as Brunel could relax, but it is also impa-
tient, “bearing with” the photographer. And the eyes are sharp, businessman’s eyes.
The details of the rumpled clothing and jewelry do not compete with the sharply
rendered face and the expression of control and power. Howlett has done, by sim-
ple devices such as varying the focus, what many portrait painters do by much more
complex means — reveal something of the character of the model.
Julia Margaret Cameron’s portrait of Sir John Herschel (1867) (Figure 11-3),
and Étienne Carjat’s portrait of the French poet Charles Baudelaire (1870) (Fig-
ure 11-4), use a plain studio background. But their approaches are also different
from each other. Cameron, who reported being interested in the way her lens could
soften detail, isolates Herschel’s face and hair. She drapes his shoulders with a black
velvet shawl so that his clothing will not tell us anything about him or distract us
from his face. Cameron catches the stubble on his chin and permits his hair to
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“burn out,” so we perceive it as a luminous halo. The huge eyes, soft and bulbous
with their deep curves of surrounding fl esh, and the downward curve of the mouth
are depicted fully in the harsh lighting. While we do not know what he was think-
ing, the form of this photograph reveals him as a thinker of deep ruminations. He
was the chemist who fi rst learned how to permanently fi x a silver halide photograph
in 1839.
The portrait of Baudelaire, on the other hand, includes simple, severe clothing,
except for the poet’s foulard, tied in a dashing bow. Baudelaire’s intensity creates
the illusion that he is looking at us. Carjat’s lens was set for a depth of fi eld of only
a few inches. Thus, Baudelaire’s face is in focus, but not his shoulders. What Carjat
could not control, except by waiting for the right moment to uncover the  lens
(at this time, there was no shutter because there was no “fast” fi lm), was the exact
expression he could catch.
One irony of the Carjat portrait is that Baudelaire, in 1859, had condemned the
infl uence of photography on art, declaring it “art’s most mortal enemy.” He thought
that photography was adequate for preserving visual records of perishing things,
but that it could not reach into “anything whose value depends solely upon the
addition of something of a man’s soul.” Baudelaire was a champion of imagination
and an opponent of realistic art: “Each day art further diminishes its self- respect by
bowing down before external reality; each day the painter becomes more and more
given to painting not what he dreams but what he sees.”1
An impressive example of the capacity of the photographic representation
is Timothy O’Sullivan’s masterpiece, Canyon de Chelley, Arizona, made in 1873
(Figure 11-5). Many photographers have gone back to this scene, but none has
treated it quite the way O’Sullivan did. O’Sullivan chose a moment of intense
FIGURE 11-3 (left)
Julia Margaret Cameron, Sir John
Herschel. 1867.
One of the fi rst truly notable
portrait photographers, Cameron
was given a camera late in life and
began photographing her friends,
most of whom were prominent
in England. After a few years she
gave up the camera entirely, but
she left an indelible mark on early
photography.
FIGURE 11-4 (right)
Étienne Carjat, Charles Baudelaire.
1870.
The irony of this striking portrait
lies in the fact that the famous
French poet was totally opposed to
photography as an art.
1Charles Baudelaire, The Mirror of Art (London: Phaidon, 1955), p. 230.
281
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282
CHAPTER 11
FIGURE 11-5
Timothy O’Sullivan, Canyon de
Chelley, Arizona. 1873.
The American West lured
photographers with unwieldy
equipment to remote locations such
as this. Other photographers have
visited the site, but none has outdone
O’Sullivan, who permitted the rock
to speak for itself.
EXPERIENCING Photography and Art
1. Do you agree with Baudelaire that photography is “art’s most mortal enemy”?
What reasons might Baudelaire have had for expressing such a view?
For some time, photography was not considered an art. Indeed, some people today do
not see it as an art because they assume the photograph is an exact replica of what is
in front of the camera lens. On the other hand, realism in art had been an ideal since
the earliest times, and sculptures such as Aphrodite (Figure 5-8) aimed at an exact
replica of a human body, however idealized. Modern artists such as Duane Hanson,
Andy Warhol, and others blur the line of art by creating exact replicas of objects such
as Campbell’s soup cans, so the question of replication is not the fi nal question in art.
Baudelaire saw that painters might be out of work—especially portrait painters—
if photography were widespread. Yet, his own photographic portrait is of powerful
artistic interest today.
For Baudelaire, photographs were usually Daguerreotypes, which means they
were one of a kind. The “print” on silvered copper was the photograph. There was
no negative and no way of altering the tones in the print. Shortly after, when the
Daguerreotype process was superseded by inventions such as the glass plate negative,
it became possible to subtly alter details within the photograph much as a painter
might alter the highlights in a landscape or improve the facial details in a portrait.
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283
PHOTOGRAPHY
sidelighting, which falls on the rock wall but not on the nearest group of build-
ings. One question you might ask about this photograph is whether it reveals the
“stoniness” of this rock wall in a manner similar to the way Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-
Victoire (Figure 2-4) reveals the “mountainness” of the mountain.
The most detailed portions of the photograph are the striations of the rock face,
whose tactile qualities are emphasized by the strong sidelighting. The stone build-
ings in the distance have smoother textures, particularly as they show up against the
blackness of the cave. That the buildings are only twelve to fi fteen feet high is indi-
cated by comparison with the height of the barely visible men standing in the ruins.
Thus nature dwarfs the work of humans. By framing the canyon wall, and by wait-
ing for the right light, O’Sullivan has done more than create an ordinary “record”
photograph. He has concentrated on the subject matter of the puniness and softness
of humans, in contrast with the grandness and hardness of the canyon. The con-
tent centers on the extraordinary sense of stoniness — symbolic of permanence — as
opposed to the transience of humanity, made possible by the capacity of the camera
to transform realistic detail.
Photography and Painting: The Pictorialists
Pictorialists are photographers who use the achievements of painting, par tic u larly
realistic painting, in their effort to realize the potential of photog ra phy as art. The
early pictorialists tried to avoid the head-on directness of Howlett and Carjat, just
as they tried to avoid the amateur’s mistakes in com position, such as inclusion of
distracting details and imbalance. The pictorialists controlled details by subordi-
nating them to structure. They produced compositions that usually relied on the
same underlying structures found in most nineteenth-century paintings until the
dominance of the Impressionists in the 1880s. Normally, the most important part
of the subject matter was centered in the frame. Pictorial lighting, also borrowed
from painting, often was sharp and clearly directed, as in Alfred Stieglitz’s Paula
(Figure 11-6).
This is a matter of craft, but it became clear that in careful selection of what is in the
photographic print, along with the attention to manipulating the print, in the fashion
of Ansel Adams’s great photographs of Yosemite, the best photographers became
artists. Were Baudelaire alive to see how photography has evolved, he may well
have changed his opinion. The work of Julia Margaret Cameron, Timothy O’Sullivan,
Eugène Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Edward Weston changed the
world’s view of whether or not photography is an art.
2. Baudelaire’s writings suggest that he believed art depended on imagination and
that realistic art was the opponent of imagination. How valid do you feel this view
is? Is it not possible for imagination to have a role in making a photograph?
3. Read a poem from Baudelaire’s most celebrated volume, The Flowers of Evil. You
might choose “Twilight: Evening” from a group he called “Parisian Scenes.” In what
ways is his poem unlike a photograph?
4. Considering his attitude toward photography, why would he have sat for a portrait
such as Carjat’s? Would you classify this portrait as a work of art?
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284
CHAPTER 11
The pictorialist photograph was usually soft in focus, centrally weighted, and
carefully balanced symmetrically. By relying on the formalist characteristics of early
and mid-nineteenth-century paintings, pictorialist photographers often evoked
emotions that bordered on the sentimental. Indeed, one of the complaints modern
commentators have about the development of pictorialism is that it was emotionally
shallow.
Rarely criticized for sentimentalism, Alfred Stieglitz was, in his early work, a
master of the pictorial style. His Paula, done in 1889, places his subject at the center
in the act of writing. The top and bottom of the scene are printed in deep black.
The light, streaking through the venetian blind and creating lovely strip patterns,
centers on Paula. Her profi le is strong against the dark background partly because
Stieglitz removed during the printing process one of the strips that would have
fallen on her lower face. The strong vertical lines of the window frames reinforce
the verticality of the candle and echo the back of the chair.
A specifi cally photographic touch is present in the illustrations on the wall: pho-
tographs arranged symmetrically in a triangle (use a magnifying glass). Two prints of
the same lake-skyscape are on each side of a woman in a white dress and hat. The same
photograph of this woman is on the writing table in an oval frame. Is it Paula? The
light in the room echoes the light in the oval portrait. The three hearts in the arrange-
ment of photographs are balanced; one heart touches the portrait of a young man. We
wonder if Paula is writing to him. The cage on the wall has dominant vertical lines,
FIGURE 11-6
Alfred Stieglitz, Sunrays, Paula. 1889.
Stieglitz photographed Paula in such
a way as to suggest the composition
of a painting, framing her in darkness
while bathing her in window light.
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285
PHOTOGRAPHY
crossing the light lines cast by the venetian blind. Stieglitz may be suggesting that
Paula, despite the open window, may be in a cage of her own. Stieglitz has kept most
of the photograph in sharp focus because most of the details have something to tell us.
If this were a painting of the early nineteenth century, for example one by Delaroche,
we would expect much the same style. We see Paula in a dramatic moment, with dra-
matic light, and with an implied narrative suggested by the artifacts surrounding her.
It is up to the viewer to decide what, if anything, the drama implies.
One of pictorialism’s early giants is Edward Steichen, whose photographs of New
York City landmarks are still hailed as among the most beautiful ever made. His
Flatiron (Figure 11-7) uses several complex chemical techniques required to get its
delicate colors. The basic image uses the platinum process and the color is a product
of a process called gum-bichromate, one of his favorite combinations at that time.
He achieves a painterly look similar to the Japanese woodblocks whose popularity
at the turn of the twentieth century inspired a movement in art called Japonisme.
Steichen, Stieglitz, and Gertrude Kasebier, one of America’s fi rst professional
women photographers, created the Photo Secession group as a means to promote
photography as a fi ne art. At fi rst their work was consciously modeled on painting,
but in a few years Steichen began to develop a distinct photographic aesthetic.
PERCEPTION KEY Pictorialism and Sentimentality
1. Pictorialists are often condemned for their sentimentality. What is sentimentality?
Is it a positive or negative quality in a photograph?
2. Is Paula sentimental? What is its subject matter and what is its content?
continued
FIGURE 11-7
Edward Steichen, The Flatiron
Building, Evening. From: Camera
Work N814, April 1906, pl. VIII.
Heliogravure, 21.6 3 16.5 cm.
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286
CHAPTER 11
Both paintings and photographs, of course, can be sentimental in subject matter.
The severest critics of such works complain about their sentimentality: the falsi-
fying of feelings by demanding responses that are superfi cial or easy to come by.
Sentimentality is usually an oversimplifi cation of complex emotional issues. It also
tends to be mawkish and self-indulgent. The case of photography is special because
we are accustomed to the harshness of the camera. Thus, when the pictorialist fi nds
tenderness, romance, and beauty in everyday occurrences, we become suspicious.
We may be more tolerant of painting doing those things, but in fact we should be
wary of any such emotional “coloration” in any medium if it is not restricted to the
subject matter.
The pictorialist approach, when not guilty of sentimentalism, has great strengths.
The use of lighting that selectively emphasizes the most important features of the
subject matter often helps in creating meaning. Borrowing from the formal struc-
tures of painting also may help clarify subject matter. Structural harmony of the
kind we generally look for in representational painting is possible in photography.
Although it is not limited to the pictorialist approach, it is clearly fundamental to
that approach.
Straight Photography
In his later work, beginning around 1905, Alfred Stieglitz pioneered the movement
of straight photography, a reaction against pictorialism. The f/64 Group, working in
the 1930s, and a second school, the Documentarists, continue the tradition. Straight
photographers took the position that, as Aaron Siskind said in the 1950s, “ Pictorialism
is a kind of dead end making everything look beautiful.” The straight photographer
wanted things to look essentially as they do, even if they are ugly.
Straight photography aimed toward excellence in photographic techniques,
independent of painting. Susan Sontag summarizes: “For a brief time — say, from
Stieglitz through the reign of Weston — it appeared that a solid point of view had
been erected with which to evaluate photographs: impeccable lighting, skill of com-
position, clarity of subject, precision of focus, perfection of print quality.”2 Some of
these qualities are shared by pictorialists, but new principles of composition — not
derived from painting — and new attitudes toward subject matter helped straight
photography reveal the world straight, as it really is.
2Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1977), p. 136.
3. Does Steichen’s use of color and choice of twilight ambience imply sentimentality
in Flatiron? Comment on the choices Steichen made about the composition of the
vertical and horizontal elements in the photograph. This is one of the most famous
photographs of its century. Do you feel such judgment is valid?
4. To what extent is sentimentality present in the work of Cameron or Carjat? Which
photographs in this chapter could be considered sentimental?
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287
PHOTOGRAPHY
Stieglitz: Pioneer of Straight Photography
One of the most famous straight photographs leading to the f/64 Group was
Stieglitz’s The Steerage of 1907 (Figure 11-8). It was taken under conditions that
demanded quick action.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Steerage
1. How many of the qualities Susan Sontag lists can be found in this photograph?
2. What compositional qualities make this photograph diff erent from the pictorialist
examples we have discussed? How does the structural organization control the
details of the photograph?
3. What is the subject matter of the photograph? Is the subject matter made to seem
beautiful? Should it be?
4. Does the framing cut off important fi gural elements of the photograph? If so, is
this eff ective?
5. Does the photograph have content? If so, how does the form achieve it? And what
is the content?
The Steerage portrays poor travelers huddled in the “budget” quarters of the
Kaiser Wilhelm II, which is taking this group of immigrants, disappointed because
of economic hardship, back to their native lands. Ironically, the New York Public
FIGURE 11-8
Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage.
1907.
This is a portrait of émigrés in
the cheapest and most barren
section of a ship, and it is used
at Ellis Island to memorialize
generations of immigrants to the
United States. However, these
immigrants are actually returning
to Europe after failing to make
a living in the United States.
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288
CHAPTER 11
Library uses his photograph to celebrate the arrival of immigrants in America.
Stieglitz wrote that while strolling on deck, he was struck by a
round straw hat, the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right, the white drawbridge
with its railing made of circular chains, white suspenders crossing on the back of a
man in the steerage below, round shapes of iron machinery, a mast cutting into the sky,
making a triangular shape. . . . I saw a picture of shapes and underlying that the feeling
I had about life.3
The Steerage shares much with the pictorialist approach: dramatic lighting and soft
focus. But there is much that the pictorialist would probably avoid. For one thing,
the framing omits important parts of the funnel, the drawbridge, and the nearest
people in the lower-right quadrant. Moreover, the very clutter of people — part
of the subject matter of the photograph — would be diffi cult for the pictorialist to
tolerate. And the pictorialist certainly would be unhappy with the failure to use the
center of the photograph as the primary region of interest. Certain focal points
have been used by Stieglitz to stabilize the composition: the straw hat attracts our
eye, but so, too, does the white shawl of the woman below. The bold slicing of
the composition by the drawbridge sharpens the idea of the separation between
the well-to-do and the poor. On the other hand, the leaning funnel, the angled
drawbridge and chains, the angled ladder on the right, and the horizontal boom at
the top of the photograph are rhythmically interrelated. This rhythm is peculiarly
mechanical and modern. The stark metal structures are in opposition to the softer,
more random assortment of the people. Photographs like this can teach us how to
see and appreciate formal organizations.
Th e f/64 Group
The name of the group derives from the small aperture, f/64, which ensures that
the foreground, middle ground, and background will all be in sharp focus. The
group declared its principles through manifestos and shows by Edward Weston,
Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and others. It continued the reaction against
pictorialism, adding the kind of nonsentimental subject matter that interested the
later Stieglitz. Edward Weston, whose early work was in the soft-focus school, de-
veloped a special interest in formal organizations. He is famous for his nudes and
his portraits of vegetables, such as artichokes, eggplants, and green peppers. His
nudes rarely show the face, not because of modesty, but because the question of the
identity of the model can distract us from contemplating the formal relationships
of the human body.
Weston’s Nude (Figure 11-9) shows many characteristics of work by the f/64
Group. The fi gure is isolated and presented for its own sake, the sand being equiv-
alent to a photographer’s backdrop. The fi gure is presented not as a portrait of a
given woman but rather as a formal study. Weston wanted us to see the relationship
between legs and torso, to respond to the rhythms of line in the extended body,
3Quoted in Beaumont Newhall, The History of Photography (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1964),
p. 111.
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289
PHOTOGRAPHY
and to appreciate the counterpoint of the round, dark head against the long, light
linearity of the body. Weston enjoys some notoriety for his studies of peppers,
because his approach to vegetables was similar to his approach to nudes. We are to
appreciate the sensual curve, the counterpoints of line, the refl ectivity of skin, the
harmonious proportions of parts.
Weston demanded objectivity in his photographs. “I do not wish to impose
my personality upon nature (any of life’s manifestations), but without prejudice or
falsifi cation to become identifi ed with nature, to know things in their very essence, so
that what I record is not an interpretation — my ideas of what nature should be — but
a revelation.”4 One of Weston’s ideals was to capitalize on the capacity of the camera
to be objective and impersonal, an ideal that the pictorialists usually rejected.
The work of Ansel Adams establishes another ideal of the f/64 Group: the fi ne
print. Even some of the best early photographers were relatively casual in the act of
printing their negatives. Adams spent a great deal of energy and skill in producing
the fi nest print the negative would permit, sometimes spending days to print one
photograph. He developed a special system (the Zone System) to measure tonalities
in specifi c regions of the negative so as to control the fi nal print, keeping careful
records so that he could duplicate the print at a later time. In even the best of re-
productions, it is diffi cult to point to the qualities of tonal gradation that constitute
FIGURE 11-9
Edward Weston, Nude. 1936.
Weston’s approach to photography
was to make everything as sharp
as possible and to make the fi nest
print possible. He was aware he
was making photographs as works
of art.
4The Daybooks of Edward Weston, ed. Nancy Newhall, 2 vols. (New York: Aperture, 1966), vol. 2, p. 241.
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CHAPTER 11
the fi ne print. Only the original can yield the beauties that gradations of silver or
platinum can produce. His photograph of Yosemite’s Half Dome (Figure 11-10) is
made more dramatic by his including the partially full moon and the dramatic fore-
ground shadows in contrast with the snowy whiteness of the mountain itself. Like
Timothy O’Sullivan before him, Adams made every effort to intensify our sense
of the rockiness of the stone as well as its power by choosing the best moment of
natural light to reveal its character.
The Documentarists
Time is critical to the Documentarist, who portrays a world that is disappearing so
quickly we cannot see it go. Henri Cartier-Bresson used the phrase “the decisive
moment” to defi ne that crucial interaction of shapes and spaces, formed by people
FIGURE 11-10
Ansel Adams. Moon and Half Dome,
Yosemite Valley, California. 1960.
The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust/
Corbis
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291
PHOTOGRAPHY
and things, that tells him when to snap his shutter. Not all his photographs are
decisive; they do not all catch the action at its most intense point. But those that do
are pure Cartier-Bresson.
Many Documentarists agree with Stieglitz’s description of the effect of
shapes on his own feelings, as when he took The Steerage. Few contemporary
Documentarists, however, who are often journalists like Cartier-Bresson, can
compose the way Stieglitz could. But the best develop an instinct — usually
nurtured by years of visual education — for the powerful statement, as one can
see in Eddie Adams’s Execution in Saigon (Figure 2-2).
Eugène Atget spent much of his time photographing in Paris in the early morn-
ing, when no one would bother him. He must have been in love with Paris and its
surroundings because he photographed for many years, starting in the late 1800s
and continuing to his death in 1927. Generally there are no people in his views of
Paris, although he did an early series on some street traders, such as organ grinders,
peddlers, and even prostitutes. His photographs of important Parisian monuments,
such as his view of the Petit Trianon (Figure 11-11), are distinctive for their subtle
drama. Most commercial photographs of this building ignore the dramatic refl ec-
tion in the pond, and none of them permit the intense saturation of dark tones
in the surrounding trees and in the water refl ection. The more one ponders this
photograph, the more one feels a sense of dramatic uncertainty and perhaps even
urgency. The many ways in which Atget balances and contrasts the visual elements
at the same time make the experience of the image intense. Atget’s work did not
FIGURE 11-11
Eugène Atget, Trianon, Paris.
1923–1924.
Atget was rediscovered in the 1960s
when it became clear he was not
just making record photographs,
but fi nding ways of intensifying the
visual elements to make a statement
about how we see.
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CHAPTER 11
refer to painting: It created its own photographic reference. We see a photograph,
not just a thing photographed.
James Van Der Zee worked in a somewhat different tradition from Atget. His
studio in Harlem was so prominent that many important African American citizens
felt it essential that he take their portrait. Like Atget, he was fas ci nated with his
community, photographing public events and activities from the turn of the century
into the 1930s. Couple in Raccoon Coats (Figure 11-12) is reminiscent of Howlett as
well as of Atget. As with Howlett’s photographs, there is the contrast of soft focus
for the background and sharp focus for the foreground. Thus the couple and their
new car stand out brilliantly. Additionally, the interaction of formal elements is so
complex that it reminds us of Atget: There has been no reduction of shapes to a
simpler geometry. However, the car with its strong, bright horizontals helps accent
the verticals of the couple, accented further by the verticals of the buildings. The
style and elegance of the couple are what Van Der Zee was anxious to capture.
Our familiarity with the chief elements in the photograph — brownstones, car, and
fur-coated people — helps make it possible for him to avoid the soothing formal
order the pictorialist might have used. If anything, Van Der Zee is moving toward
the snapshot aesthetic that was another generation in the making. His directness of
approach puts him in the documentary tradition.
Unlike Atget and Van Der Zee, who used large cameras, Cartier-Bresson used
the 35-mm Leica and specialized in photographing people. He preset his camera in
order to work fast and instinctively. His Behind the Gare St. Lazare (Figure 11-13)
is a perfect example of his aim to capture an image at the “decisive moment.”
FIGURE 11-12
James Van Der Zee, Couple in
Raccoon Coats. 1932.
Van Der Zee made a career
photographing life in New York’s
Harlem in the fi rst part of the
twentieth century. This remains
one of the most remarkable of
urban photographs of the period.
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293
PHOTOGRAPHY
The fi gure leaping from the wooden ladder has not quite touched the water,
while his refl ection awaits him. The entire image is a tissue of refl ection, with
the spikes of the fence refl ecting the angles of the fallen ladder. The circles in the
foreground are repeated in the wheelbarrow’s refl ection and the white circles in
the poster. Moreover, the fi gure in the white poster appears to be a dancer leaping
in imitation of the man to the right. The focus of the entire image is somewhat
soft because Cartier-Bresson preset his camera so that he could take the shot
instantly without adjusting the aperture. The formal relationship of elements in
a photograph such as this can produce various kinds of signifi cance or apparent
lack of signifi cance. The best Documentarists search for the strongest coherency
FIGURE 11-13
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the
Gare St. Lazare. 1932.
This photograph illustrates
Bresson’s theories of the “decisive
moment.” This photograph was
made possible in part by the
small, handheld Leica camera
that permitted Bresson to shoot
instantly, without having to set up a
large camera on a tripod.
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294
CHAPTER 11
of elements while also searching for the decisive moment. That moment is the
split-second peak of intensity, and it is defi ned especially with reference to light,
spatial relationships, and expression.
Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans were Documentarists who took part in a
federal program to give work to photographers during the Depression of the 1930s.
Both created careful formal organizations. Lange (Figure 11-14) stresses centrality
and balance by placing the children’s heads next to the mother’s face, which is all
the more compelling because the children’s faces do not compete for our attention.
The mother’s arm leads upward to her face, emphasizing the other triangularities
FIGURE 11-14
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother.
1936.
This is one of the most poignant
records of the Great Depression in
which millions moved across the
nation looking for work. Lange did
a number of photographs of this
family in a very short time.
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295
PHOTOGRAPHY
of the photograph. Within ten minutes, Lange took four other photographs of this
woman and her children, but none could achieve the power of this photograph.
Lange caught the exact moment when the children’s faces turned and the mother’s
anxiety comes forth with utter clarity, although the lens mercifully softens its focus
on her face, while leaving her shabby clothes in sharp focus. This softness helps
humanize our relationship with the woman. Lange gives us an unforgettable image
that brutally and yet sympathetically imparts a deeper understanding of what the
Depression was for many.
Evans’s photograph (Figure 11-15) shows us a view of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
and the off-center white cross reminds us of what has become of the message of
Christ. The vertical lines are accentuated in the cemetery stones and repeated in
the telephone lines, the porch posts, and, fi nally, the steel-mill smokestacks. The
aspirations of the dominating verticals, however, are dampened by the strong hori-
zontals, which, because of the low angle of the shot, tend to merge from the cross to
the roofs. Evans equalizes focus, which helps compress the space so that we see the
cemetery on top of the living space, which is immediately adjacent to the steel mills
where some of the people who live in the tenements work and where some of those
now in the cemetery died. This compression of space suggests the closeness of life,
work, and death. We see a special kind of sadness in this steel town — and others
like it — that we may never have seen before. Evans caught the right moment for the
light, which intensifi es the white cross, and he aligned the verticals and horizontals
for their best effect.
FIGURE 11-15
Walker Evans, A Graveyard
and Steel Mill in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania. 1935.
Evans, like Lange, was part of the
Works Progress Administration
photographic project during the
Great Depression. His subject was
the nation itself.
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CHAPTER 11
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Documentary Photographers
1. Are any of these documentary photographs (Figures 11–11 through 11–15)
sentimental?
2. Some critics assert that these photographers have made interesting social doc-
uments, but not works of art. What arguments might support their views? What
arguments might contest their views?
3. Contemporary photographers and critics often highly value the work of Atget be-
cause it is “liberated” from the infl uence of painting. What does it mean to say that
his work is more photographic than it is painterly?
4. What is the subject matter of each photograph? What is the content of each pho-
tograph? Is the “RAILOWSKY” poster in Figure 11-13 a pun?
The Modern Eye
Photography has gone in so many directions that classifi cations tend to be mis-
leading. The snapshot style, however, has become somewhat identifi able, a kind
of rebellion against the earlier movements, especially the pictorial. Janet Malcolm
claims, “Photography went modernist not, as has been supposed, when it began
to imitate modern abstract art but when it began to study snapshots.”5 No school
of photography has established a snapshot canon. It seems to be a product of
amateurs, a kind of folk photography. The snapshot appears primitive, sponta-
neous, and accidental. But the snapshot may not be unplanned and accidental, as
is evidenced, for instance, in the powerful work of Garry Winogrand and Manuel
Álvarez Bravo.
Garry Winogrand respected Walker Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson enough
to concentrate on what he thought photography did best: describe the human
scene faithfully. Like Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand often walked the streets with his
35-mm Leica, with a wide-angle lens preset at a specifi c f-stop at a specifi c shutter
speed, allowing him to shoot quickly, without worrying about his equipment, just
concentrating on what he saw. He was the photographer of American cities much as
Atget was the photographer of Paris. His street scenes are fi lled with people, usually
unaware of his presence, and with action that is sometimes enigmatic but always
somehow signifi cant. His aesthetic is the snapshot, quick, instinctive, unplanned.
Los Angeles 1969 (Figure 11-16) was taken at an iconic location: the corner of Hol-
lywood and Vine, where countless starlets fl ocked in hope of being “discovered” by
Hollywood fi lmmakers. We see three carefully coifed young women, possibly fi lm
hopefuls, in the center lighted as if on a stage by the sun and its refl ections. But on
the periphery of the scene is another story, a young boy sitting waiting for a bus on
the right looks back to stare at an unfortunate young man slumped in a wheelchair
in a posture of desperation. It is a snapshot fi lled with signifi cance based on visual
and sociological high contrast.
5Janet Malcolm, Diana and Nikon: Essays on the Aesthetics of Photography (Boston: David Godine, 1980),
p. 113.
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Manuel Álvarez Bravo, a Mexican photographer, was not precisely given to the
snapshot, except when traveling with his small camera. The Man from Papantla
(Figure 11-17) has many of the qualities of the snapshot. It appears unplanned,
slightly off-center, as if Bravo had seen the man on the street and simply asked,
“May I take your picture?” The difference is that the photograph reveals a man
whose dignity is intact, despite his rudimentary clothes and his bare feet. The di-
agonal shadows suggest that it is late in the day and that the man has been walking
for some time. Yet his face is impassive and his posture erect.
Robert Mapplethorpe was arguably the best-known young photographer in
America when he died of AIDS in 1989 at age forty-two. Six months after his
death, he became even better known to the public because an exhibit of his work,
supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), caused
Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) to add an amendment to an important appropriations
bill that would make it almost impossible for the NEA to fund exhibitions of the
work of artists like Mapplethorpe. The amendment reads as follows:
None of the funds authorized to be appropriated pursuant to the Act may be used to
promote, disseminate, or produce — (1) obscene or indecent materials, including but not
limited to depictions of sadomasochism, homo-eroticism, the exploitation of children, or
FIGURE 11-16
Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles
1969. Gelatin-silver print. Width
31.7 cm � height 21.7 cm.
Winogrand has caught a moment
fi lled with energy and dramatic
potential. There is action, lighting,
and implied drama—a tinge
perhaps of both comedy and
tragedy all in an instant snapshot.
297
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CHAPTER 11
individuals engaged in sex acts; or (2) material which denigrates the objects or beliefs of
the adherents of a particular religion or non-religion; or (3) material which denigrates,
debases, or reviles a person, group, or class of citizens on the basis of race, creed, sex,
handicap, age, or national origin.
The provisions of this bill — which was defeated — would essentially have applied
to every federal granting or exhibition agency, including the National Gallery of
Art. The exhibit that triggered this response included Map plethorpe’s photographs
of the homosexual community of New York to which he belonged. Some of his
work portrays bondage, sadomasochistic accoutrements, and nudity. Such works
so angered Senator Helms that his proposed law would have made it diffi cult, if
not impossible, for photographers such as Mapplethorpe to get the government
support that artists of all kinds have been given since World War II. The decision
to withhold support would be made not by experts in the arts but by government
functionaries.
Despite the defeat of the bill, federal support to public radio, public television,
public institutions such as the most prominent museums in the United States, and
all the public programs designed to support the arts has been curtailed so pro-
foundly as to jeopardize the careers of dancers and composers as well as symphony
orchestras and virtually all arts organizations. Interestingly, similar pressure was put
on the arts by the governments of Franco, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. The outcome of
political control in the United States over the arts is very much in doubt.
FIGURE 11-17
Manuel Alvarez Bravo, The Man
from Papantla. 1934.
Bravo permits the subject of his
portrait to assume the simplest
pose possible, while still making a
statement.
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299
PHOTOGRAPHY
Mapplethorpe’s double portrait (Figure 11-18) might well be considered con-
troversial in the light of Helms’s amendment. Who is to say that this is not a
homosexual portrait? Are there racial implications to this photograph? These
are questions that may impinge on the photographic values of the portrait.
Mapplethorpe has interpreted these heads almost as if they were sculptured busts.
There is no hair. The surfaces are cool, almost stonelike. The tonal range of darks
and lights is a marvel, and one of the most important challenges of this photo-
graph was in making the print manifest the range of the paper from the brightest
white to the darkest black. Mapplethorpe portrayed the coolness and detachment
of his subjects. Instead of revealing their personalities, Mapplethorpe seems to
aim at revealing their physical qualities by inviting us to compare them not only
with each other but also with the images we have in our minds of conventional
portrait busts.
FIGURE 11-18
Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Moody
and Robert Sherman. 1984.
Mapplethorpe produced a body
of artistic work that explored the
subtleties of the photographic
medium. The range of tones in
this photograph is part of his
subject matter. He also had a very
successful career as a commercial
photographer.
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300
CHAPTER 11
CONCEPTION KEY Art and Censorship
1. Should government support the arts as a means of improving the life of the public?
The government supports education; is art a form of education?
2. Would you vote for the Helms amendment? Are there works in this book that you
be lieve would fall under one of the three categories for which it restricts support? Is
it right for the government of the United States to restrict support of art, however
presumably obscene, sacrilegious, or immoral? If a work of art enlightens, then are
not the obscene, the sacrilegious, and the immoral transformed? If so, then would
you agree that these undesirables may be the subject matter of a work of art?
3. Why would artists feel it appropriate to shock the public rather than to pander to
its tastes? Is it possible that artists who pander to public taste ought to be censored
on the basis that they are unoriginal, greedy, and socially destructive?
4. If the U.S. government has the right to reject art that off ends, should it not also
im prison the off ending artist (as was done in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and
China)?
5. What are the alternatives to censorship of the arts?
FOCUS ON Digital Photography
Traditional photography is very much about cameras and
lenses and shutter speeds, all of which controlled what
the photographer was likely to capture. Ansel Adams was
important for his contributions about how to produce a fi ne-
art print, establishing a system that aimed to get the best
image out of a negative. Today most fi ne-art photography is
the result of digital cameras and digital, chromogenic, prints.
Because digital images can be altered almost infi nitely, fi ne-
art photographers have largely abandoned the principles of
printing only what the camera saw. In some cases a single
image can be the product of dozens of photographs, all lay-
ered together to produce an image that might be impossible
in real life. Even in the cases in which we see a single image,
the photographer can easily alter the contrast and colors
of the original so as to produce an artistically eff ective print.
The result of all this is to free photographers from the limita-
tions of the equipment, while also permitting them to make
prints large enough to compete directly with paintings, as in
the case of Figure 11-19, Cindy Sherman’s eight-foot-high
portrait.
FIGURE 11-19
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #466, 2008.
Like Frida Kahlo, Cindy Sherman uses herself to create her images.
She chooses interesting locations, and changes her makeup to alter
her appearance and create a mystery about her.
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Joel Meyerowitz has been known as one
of America’s fi nest color photographers
since his book Cape Light was published
in 1977. He works with the large-format
camera that he used for a massive proj-
ect called Aftermath (2006), a study of the
wreckage after the terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center in New York on Sep-
tember 11, 2001. He is a fi ne-art photog-
rapher who rarely works in a journalistic
tradition, so his study of Ground Zero is
marked by a careful attention to color and
light as he captures images that evoke deep emotional responses. Figure 11-20 is a
night photo with a distant image of ruins standing like an ancient chapel. The cranes
establish a strong vertical line, as do the remains of the buildings in the background. The
rubble in the foreground seems almost fl uid, as if it had been poured over the site. This
image began on an eight by ten-inch sheet of fi lm and was printed digitally. Meyerowitz
has been a pioneer in fi ne-art digital photography.
Cindy Sherman is one of the few American photographers to have had a one-
woman show at the prestigious Whitney Museum in New York City. Her work has
annoyed, confounded, and alarmed many people both ignorant and well informed
about photography as an art. Some of Sherman’s work
is condemned because it seems designed to horrify the
audience with images of garbage, off al, vomit, and body
parts. For many years she photographed herself in vari-
ous costumes, with makeup and guises that showed her
almost limitless capacity to interpret her personality.
Those color photographs often had a snapshot qual-
ity and probably were most interesting when seen as a
group rather than individually.
Untitled #466 (Figure 11-19) is one of a series of
imagined wealthy and privileged modern women.
Sherman poses herself as if she were in a painting. The
background, the Cloisters in New York City, was pho-
tographed separately and the two images were layered
together. The contrast between the religious echoes of
the Cloisters and the sumptuous secular blue caftan,
richly decorated, with Sherman’s dangling gold earrings
and gold rings is designed to inform us about the sig-
nifi cance of the image. Because this is such large pho-
tograph, eight feet high, we can see every detail. The
reveal of the cheap plastic sandal and the low-quality
stocking implies that the surface is not entirely to be
trusted. Sherman has subtly transformed the apparent
subject matter and has produced a form-content that,
like much contemporary photography, is the result of
very careful staging. Color is also part of the subject
matter, as it is in Loretta Lux’s Isabella (Figure 11-21),
and can be appreciated somewhat the way one appreci-
ates the color of a Rothko (Figure 4-10).
FIGURE 11-20
Joel Meyerowitz, Assembled
Panorama of the World Trade Center
Looking East. 2001.
Meyerowitz, famous as a color
photographer, devoted months
to recording the aftermath of the
September 11, 2001, destruction
of the World Trade Center in
New York City.
FIGURE 11-21
Loretta Lux, Isabella. 2001. Digital print, 9½ 3 9½ inches.
Like Meyerowitz and many contemporary photographers, Lux uses the
resources of digital imagery to construct photographs that cannot be
simply “snapped” in nature. This image may have taken three months
to produce.
301
continued
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Loretta Lux, a German photographer,
uses a digital camera and digital printing
to achieve unusual eff ects through color
management. She has been photograph-
ing children and presenting them in ways
that are intentionally unsettling. Her pastel
colors tend to make the photograph look
unnatural and the fi gure in it look unreal.
Figure and background are fl attened by the
limited tonal range, and the eff ect is similar
to that which marks some fi fteenth-cen-
tury paintings in northern Europe. Diana
Stoll says, “Lux describes her pictures of
children as ‘imaginary portraits.’ She is
dedicated, she says, to the ‘creative will,
to making a reality that diff ers from what I
fi nd in memory and imagination’.”6 Lux has
also said she uses children in her photo-
graphs as a “metaphor for innocence and
lost paradise.” Each fi nished image takes
three months or so of careful work with
Adobe Photoshop, a computer program that permits her to elongate features, re-
move distracting details, and combine the child with a background of Lux’s choosing.
Her show in 2005 won her the International Center of Photography Prize for Photog-
raphy, previously won by Cindy Sherman.
Gregory Crewdson sets up his photographic subject matter in a manner reminis-
cent of preparation for a feature fi lm. At times, he needs cranes, lights, and as many
as thirty assistants to get the eff ect he wants. Like Lux, he spends months on a single
image. The photograph in Figure 11-22 alludes to the drowning of Ophelia in Hamlet.
Crewdson’s Ophelia has left her slippers on the stairs and has apparently entered the
water on purpose, as did Shake speare’s Ophelia. To get this eff ect, Crewdson appears to
have fl ooded an ordinary living room, positioned the artifi cial lights, and captured the
sunlight all at the same time. Ophelia’s eyes are open, her expression calm, and the colors
of the scene are carefully balanced. The level of drama in the photograph is intense, yet
the reclined, passive fi gure of Ophelia lends an almost peaceful quality to the image.
FIGURE 11-22
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled. 2001.
Like many contemporary art
photographers, Crewdson
sometimes spends days or weeks
assembling the material for his
work. His use of multiple light
sources helps give his work an
unsettling quality.
6Diana Stoll, “Loretta Lux’s Changelings,” Aperture 174 (Spring 2004): 70.
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Modern Eye
1. Compare the photographic values of Robert Mapplethorpe’s Ken Moody and Rob ert
Sherman with those of Garry Winogrand’s Los Angeles. In which are the gra da tions
of tone from light to dark more carefully modulated? In which is the se lec tiv ity
of the framing more consciously and apparently artistic? In which is the sub ject
matter more obviously transformed by the photographic image? In which is the
form more fully revealed?
302
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PHOTOGRAPHY
Summary
The capacity of photography to record reality faithfully is both a virtue and a fault.
It makes many viewers of photographs concerned only with what is presented (the
subject matter) and leaves them unaware of the way the subject matter has been
represented (the form). Because of its fi delity of presentation, photography seems
to some to have no transformation of subject matter. This did not bother early
photographers, who were delighted at the ease with which they could present their
subject matter. The pictorialists, on the other hand, relied on nineteenth-century
representational painting to guide them in their approach to form. Their care-
fully composed images are still valued by many photographers. But the reaction of
the straight photographers, who wished to shake off any dependence on painting
and disdained sentimental subject matter, began a revolution that emphasized the
special qualities of the medium: especially the tonal range of the silver or platinum
print (and now color print), the impersonality of the sharply defi ned object (and
consequent lack of sentimentality), spatial compression, and selective framing. The
revolution has not stopped there but has pushed on into unexpected areas, such as
the exploration of the snapshot and the rejection of the technical standards of the
straight photographers. Many contemporary photographers are searching for new
ways of photographic seeing based on the capacity of digital cameras and computers
to transform and manipulate images. They are more intent on altering rather than
recording reality. This is a very interesting prospect.
2. Which digital photograph more transforms its subject matter by the use of color?
What is the ultimate eff ect of that transformation on the viewer?
3. Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson both build sets to make their photographs.
Given that the sets are artifi cial, and to an extent their subject matter is ar ti fi cial,
can their work be said to be truly representational? What distinguishes their work
from, say, the work of Ansel Adams or other Documentarists?
4. Photocopy any of the color photographs to produce a black-and-white image. What
has been lost in the reproduction? Why is color important to those photographs?
5. We have suggested that both the Meyerowitz and the Sherman photographs could
be described as abstracts, as we also suggested with Parmigianino’s The Madonna
with the Long Neck (Figure 4-4) and Frankenthaler’s The Bay (Figure 4-6). These are
complicated issues, especially with respect to photographs, for they seem to be
inherently representational. What do you think?
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CINEMA
The history of cinema is, to an extent, dominated by technology. The earliest feature fi lms were black and white, usually projected at twenty-four frames
per second, and silent. In the fi rst few years of the twentieth century they were often
projected outdoors in town squares, or indoors in social clubs and general-purpose
public buildings, but soon special theaters appeared with incredible speed around the
world. In 1926 sound permitted both music and dialogue to accompany the visual
images. Some fi lms were in color in the 1920s and 1930s, but color fi lms did not
become standard until the 1940s and 1950s. Improvements in sound and image size,
as well as experiments in 3-D fi lms, followed and continue today. The most dramatic
recent change is the abandonment of celluloid fi lm in favor of digital production and
digital projection. Since 2013 the industry has been almost entirely digital, so the
term “fi lm,” while out of date, is still useful for us in discussing theatrical features.
The Subject Matt er of Film
Except in its most reductionist form, the subject matter of most great fi lms is diffi –
cult to isolate and restate in words. You could say that death is the subject matter of
Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (see Figure 12-1). But you would also need to observe
that the knight’s sacrifi ce to save the lives of others—which he accomplishes by
playing chess with Death—is also part of the subject matter of the fi lm. As David
Cook explains in A History of Narrative Film, there is a complexity of subject matter
in fi lm that is rivaled only by literature.
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It may be that the very popularity of fi lm and the ease with which we can access
it lead us to ignore the form and the insights form offers into subject matter. For
example, is it really possible to catch the subtleties of form of a great fi lm in one
viewing? Yet how many of us see a great fi lm more than once? Audiences generally
enjoy, but rarely analyze, fi lms. Some of the analysis that follows may help your
enjoyment as well as your analyses.
Except perhaps for opera, fi lm more than any of the other arts involves collaborative
effort. Most fi lms are written by a scriptwriter, then planned by a director, who may
make many changes. However, even if the director is also the scriptwriter, the fi lm
needs a producer, camera operators, an editor, designers, researchers, costumers,
actors, and actresses. Auteur criticism regards the director as equivalent to the auteur,
or author, of the fi lm. For most moviegoers, the most important persons involved
with the fi lm will almost surely be not the director but the stars who appear in the
fi lm. George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, and Denzel Washington are
more famous than such directors of stature as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini,
Lina Wertmuller, Akira Kurosawa, Jane Campion, or Alfred Hitchcock.
Directing and Editing
The two dominant fi gures in early fi lms were directors who did their own editing:
D. W. Griffi th and Sergei Eisenstein, unquestionably the great early geniuses of
fi lmmaking. They managed to gain control over the production of their works so
that they could craft their fi lms into a distinctive art. Some of their fi lms are still
FIGURE 12-1
Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh
Seal (1957).
The knight plays chess with death
in order to save the lives of the
traveling citizens in the distance.
The close shot balances the knight
and death in sharp focus, while
the citizens are in soft focus. In
chess, a knight sacrifi ce is often a
ploy designed to achieve a stronger
position, as in this fi lm.
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CHAPTER 12
considered among the fi nest ever made. The Birth of a Nation (1916) and Intolerance
(1918) by Griffi th, and Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Ivan the Terrible (1941–1946)
by Eisenstein, are still being shown and are still infl uencing contemporary fi lm-
makers. These men were more than just directors. With many of their fi lms,
they were responsible for almost everything: writing, casting, choosing locations,
handling the camera, directing, editing, and fi nancing.
Directing and editing are probably the most crucial phases of fi lmmaking. Today
most directors control the acting and supervise the photography, carried out by
skilled technicians who work with such problems as lighting, camera angles, and
focusing, as well as the motion of the camera itself (some sequences use a highly
mobile camera, while others use a fi xed camera). Among the resources available to
directors making choices about the use of the camera are the kinds of shots that may
eventually be edited together. A shot is a single exposure of the camera without a
break. Some of the most important kinds of shots follow:
Establishing shot: Usually a distant shot establishes important locations or fi gures
in the action.
Close-up: An important object, such as the face of a character, fi lls the screen.
Long shot: The camera is far distant from the most important characters, objects,
or scenes.
Medium shot: What the camera focuses on is neither up close nor far distant.
There can be medium close-ups and medium long shots, too.
Following shot: The camera keeps a moving fi gure in the frame, usually keeping
pace with the fi gure.
Point-of-view shot: The camera records what the character must be seeing;
when the camera moves, it implies that the character’s gaze moves.
Tracking shot: A shot in which the camera moves forward, backward, or sidewise.
Crane shot: The camera is on a crane or movable platform and moves upward or
downward.
Handheld shot: The camera is carried, sometimes on a special harness, by the
camera operator.
Recessional shot: The camera focuses on fi gures and objects moving away, as in
Figure 12-9. A processional shot focuses on fi gures and objects moving toward
the camera.
When you see fi lms, you probably see all these shots many times. Add to these
specifi c kinds of shots the variables of camera angles, types of camera lenses, vari-
ations in lighting, and variations in approach to sound, and you can see that the
technical resources of the director are enormous. The addition of script and actors
enriches the director’s range of choices so that they become almost dizzying.
The editor puts the shots in order after the fi lming is fi nished. This selective
process is highly complex and of supreme importance, for the structuring of the
shots forms the fi lm. The alternatives are often vast, and if the fi lm is to achieve
an artistic goal — insight into its subject matter — the shot succession must be cre-
atively accomplished. The editor trims the shots to an appropriate length, then
joins them with other shots to create the fi nal fi lm. Edited sequences sometimes
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shot far apart in time and place are organized into a unity. Films are rarely shot
sequentially, and only a part of the total footage is shown in a fi lm. The old saying
of the bit-part actor — “I was lost on the cutting-room fl oor” — attests to the fact
that sometimes interesting footage is omitted.
In a relatively short time, the choice and editing of shots have become almost
a kind of language. The parents on the left of the medium shot from Yasujiro–’s
Tokyo Story (Figure 12-2) seem an essential part of the family because the physical
space is so limited, but the irony is that later shots show them very much separated
emotionally and psychologically from their ungrateful, busy children.
It helps to know the resources of the editor, who cuts the fi lm to create the
relationships between takes. The way these cuts are related is at the core of the
director’s distinctive style. Some of the most familiar of the director’s and editor’s
choices follow:
Continuity cut: shots edited to produce a sense of narrative continuity, following
the action stage by stage. The editor can also use a discontinuity cut to break up
the narrative continuity for effect.
Jump cut: sometimes just called a “cut”; moves abruptly from one shot to the
next, with no preparation and often with a shock.
Cut-in: an immediate move from a wide shot to a very close shot of the same
scene; the editor may “cut out,” as well.
Cross-cutting: alternating shots of two or more distinct actions occurring in dif-
ferent places (but often at the same time).
FIGURE 12-2
Medium interior shot from Tokyo
Story (1953), by Yasujiro− Ozu.
Ozu is considered one of the fi nest
Japanese directors. Tokyo Story
tells of older parents visiting their
children in postwar Tokyo. The
older generation realizes it has
no place in the new Japan as their
children are too busy to spend time
with them.
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CHAPTER 12
Dissolve: one scene disappearing slowly while the next scene appears as if be-
neath it.
Fade: includes fade-in (a dark screen growing brighter to reveal the shot) and
fade-out (the screen darkens, effectively ending the shot).
Wipe: transition between shots, with a line moving across or through the screen
separating one shot from the next.
Graphic match: joining two shots that have similar composition, color, or scene.
Montage sequence: a sequence of images dramatically connected but physically
disconnected.
Shot, reverse shot: a pair of shots in which the fi rst shot shows a character looking
at something; reverse shot shows what the character sees.
Our responses to fi lm depend on the choices that directors and editors make
regarding shots and editing almost as much as on the nature of the narrative and
the appeal of the actors. In a relatively short time, fi lm editing has become a kind of
language—a language of imagery with close to universal signifi cance.
When the editing is handled well, it can be profoundly effective, because it is
impossible in real-life experience to achieve what the editor achieves. By eliminat-
ing the irrelevant, good editing accents the relevant. The montage — dramatically
connected but physically disconnected images — can be made without a word of
dialogue.
PERCEPTION KEY Editing
1. Study a fi lm such as The Bourne Identity and identify at least three kinds of shots
mentioned above. Find a point-of-view shot, a tracking shot, or a handheld shot.
Which is most dramatic?
2. In such a fi lm as The Bourne Identity, establish the eff ect on the viewer of shots that
last a long time as opposed to a rapid succession of very short shots. Which of
these two techniques more contributes to the participative experience of the fi lm?
3. Find at least one jump cut and comment on the editor’s decision to use it. How
shocking or jarring is the cut? Is it eff ective in context?
4. Which continuity cuts does the editor of the fi lm you have studied contribute most
to your understanding of the fi lm?
The Participative Experience and Film
Our participation with fi lm is often virtually involuntary. For one thing, most of us
know exactly what it means to lose our sense of place and time in a movie. This loss
seems to be achieved rapidly in all but the most awkwardly conceived fi lms.
Cinematic realism makes it easy for us to identify with actors who represent our
values (a kind of participation). For instance, in Forrest Gump (1994), Tom Hanks
plays what seems to be, on the surface, a mentally defective person. But Gump is more
than that— he is good at heart and positive in his thinking. He is a character in whom
cunning — not just intelligence — has been removed, and in him the viewers see their
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lost innocence. It would be very doubtful that anyone in the audience consciously
identifi ed with Gump, but it was clear from the reception of the fi lm that something
in him resonated with the audience and was, in the fi nal analysis, both appealing and
cheering. Gump is an unlikely hero primarily because he is trusting, innocent, and
good-hearted. When the audience participates with that fi lm, it is in part because the
audience sees in Gump something of what it would like to see in itself.
PERCEPTION KEY Participation and the Film
1. Identify three kinds of fi lm to discuss: an action fi lm, such as Die Hard (1988);
a romantic fi lm, such as When Harry Met Sally (1989); a dramatic fi lm, such as
Midnight in Paris (2012). Which kind of fi lm most invites you to have a participative
experience?
2. With which character in any recent fi lm you have seen do you most identify? Does
that identifi cation constitute for you a participative experience?
3. If you have seen any of the three fi lms mentioned in question 1, which most
produced a loss of self-awareness and made you feel fully engulfed in the fi lm
experience?
4. What are your critical principles in watching fi lms? Choose a most excellent fi lm.
What are your standards for establishing excellence in fi lms?
It may be that we naturally identify with heroes in fi lms, as we do in books. The
characters played by extremely charismatic actors, like Jennifer Lopez or Matt Damon,
almost always appeal to some aspect of our personalities, even if sometimes that aspect
is frightening. Such may be the source, for instance, of the appeal of Hannibal Lecter
in The Silence of the Lambs (1992), in which Anthony Hopkins not only appears as a
cannibal but actually gets away with it, identifying his former doctor as his next victim,
whose liver he plans to eat with some “fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
There are two kinds of participative experiences with fi lm. One is not princi-
pally fi lmic in nature and is represented by a kind of self-indulgence that depends on
self-justifying fantasies. We imagine ourselves as James Bond, for example, and ignore
the interrelationship of the major elements of the fi lm. The other kind of participa-
tion evolves from an acute awareness of the details and their interrelationships. This
second kind of participative experience means much more to us ultimately because it
is signifi cantly informative: We understand the content by means of the form.
The Film Image
The starting point of fi lm is the moving image. Just as still photographs and paint-
ings can move us profoundly by their organization of visual elements, so can such
images when they are set to motion. Indeed, many experts insist that no artistic
medium ever created has the power to move us as deeply as the medium of mov-
ing images. They base their claim not just on the mass audiences who have been
profoundly stirred, but also on the fact that the moving images of the fi lm are
similar to the moving images we perceive in life. We rarely perceive static images
except when viewing such things as paintings or photographs. Watching a fi lm
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310
CHAPTER 12
closely can help us perceive much more intensely the visual worth of many of the
images we experience outside fi lm. Charlie Chaplin is evoked in someone walking
in a jaunty, jumpy fashion with his feet turned out. There is a very long tracking
shot in Weekend (1967), by Jean-Luc Godard, of a road piled up with wrecked
or stalled cars. The camera glides along nervelessly imaging the gridlock with
fi res and smoke and seemingly endless corpses scattered here and there along the
roadsides — unattended. The stalled and living motorists are obsessed with getting
to their vacation resorts. The horns honk and honk. The unbelievable elongation
of the procession and the utter grotesqueness of the scenes evoke black humor at its
extreme. If in reality we have to face anything even remotely similar, the intensity
of our vision inevitably will be heightened if we have seen Weekend.
EXPERIENCING Still Frames and Photography
Study Figures 12-1 through 12-7. How
would you evaluate these stills with ref-
erence to tightness of composition? For
example, do the details and parts inter-
relate so that any change would disrupt
the unity of the totality? Compare with
Figure 2-2.
The still from Casablanca (Figure 12-3)
is not only a tightly composed frame, but
a revealing frame, typical of the power-
ful photography that characterizes the
fi lm and that contributes to its being one
of the most highly regarded fi lms ever
made. We naturally read the still from left
to right in part because Rick (Humphrey
Bogart) is its star and the setting of the
shot is in Rick’s Place. The way the shad-
ows fall on him, despite his wearing a
white tuxedo coat, we are not sure if he
is a thoroughly noble fi gure or a possibly shady one. We know the fi lm takes place in
wartime, so it is no surprise to see Captain Renault (Claude Rains) in a uniform, but we
are never sure where his interests lie. Up to this point in the fi lm, his sympathies seem to
be with the Allies, not the Germans who occupy his country. Yet, Renault is responsible
for administering this territory and the city of Casablanca, which is in northern Africa.
The brightest light falls on Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), the Czech patriot who has done
important work in fi ghting the Nazi takeover of Europe. He is the tallest fi gure here,
and the shadows are least evident on his portrayal. We are almost immediately made
aware that there is no doubt about his goodness, his heroism, or his value to the cause.
Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), in the lower right, is Victor’s wife, but she was also Rick’s woman
in Paris before the war. She is an ambiguous fi gure in this frame, and at this point in the
fi lm could either fi nd herself in love with Rick again, or go off with her husband, who,
while being a hero, is vastly less romantic and interesting than Rick. This still frame, with
the central fi gures and the table highlighted, and all the rest of the room in shadow, is
carefully structured to produce a controlled response from the viewer.
FIGURE 12-3
A still from Casablanca (1942) using
strong light and dark shadow to
intensify the dramatic meeting of
Rick (Humphrey Bogart) with his
former lover Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman)
introduced by Captain Renault
(Claude Rains) while Ilsa’s husband
Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid)
looks on. This chiaroscuro style
distinguishes the entire fi lm.
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Movement in motion pictures is caused by the physiological limitations of the
eye. It cannot perceive the black line between frames when they move rapidly.
All it sees is the succession of frames minus the lines that divide them, for the eye
cannot perceive separate images or frames that move faster than one-thirtieth
of a second. The images are usually projected at a speed of twenty-four frames
per second, and the persistence of vision merges them. This is the “language” of
the camera.
Because of this language, many fi lmmakers, both early and contemporary,
attempt to design each individual frame as carefully as they might a photograph.
(See “Photography and Painting: The Pictorialists” in Chapter 11.) Jean Renoir,
the famous French fi lmmaker and son of painter Pierre-Auguste, sometimes com-
posed frames like a tightly unifi ed painting, as in The Grand Illusion (1936) and The
Rules of the Game (1939). Sergei Eisenstein also framed many of his images espe-
cially carefully, notably in Battleship Potemkin (1925). David Lean, who directed
Brief Encounter (1945), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962,
rereleased 1988), Dr. Zhivago (1965), and Ryan’s Daughter (1970), also paid close
attention to the composition of individual frames.
Sam Worthington is Jake Sully in Avatar (Figure 12-4) and, despite being a spy
whose avatar is gathering intel that would fi nd the Na’vi weakness, falls in love
with Neytiri. He ultimately joins the Na’vi and his brain is placed in his avatar
permanently. In the still we see the tenderness in Neytiri and the strength in Jake’s
avatar. Their relationship is emphasized by their overlapping fi gures and their
isolation from the blurred fi gures in the background. By contrast, Figure 12-5
from Citizen Kane shows the emptiness of the relationship of Charles Foster Kane
and his wife, Emily, who seem almost unaware of each other. The angle of the
shot emphasizes their separation. The cluttered details in the background are
in sharp focus, reminding us that physical objects are of utmost importance in
Kane’s life.
FIGURE 12-4
Close-up shot from Avatar (2009),
written and directed by James
Cameron. Zoe Saldana as Neytiri
and Sam Worthington as Jake Sully.
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For some directors, the still frames of the fi lm must be as exactly composed as a
painting. The theory is that if the individual moments of the fi lm are each as perfect
as can be, the total fi lm will be a cumulative perfection. This seems to be the case
only for some fi lms. In fi lms that have long medi ta tive sequences, such as Orson
Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) or Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (1972), or sequences
in which characters or images are relatively unmoving for signifi cant periods of
time, such as Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It (1994), the carefully com-
posed still image may be of real signifi cance. Nevertheless, no matter how power-
ful, most stills from fi ne fi lms will reveal very little of the signifi cance of the entire
fi lm all by themselves: It is their sequential movement that brings out their effec-
tiveness. However, the still frame and the individual shot are the building blocks
of fi lm. Controlling the techniques that produce and interrelate these blocks is the
fi rst job of the fi lm artist.
Camera Point of View
The motion in the motion picture can come from numerous sources. The actors
can move toward, away from, or across the fi eld of cam era vision. When something
moves toward the camera, it moves with as ton ish ing speed, as we all know from
watching the images of a moving lo co mo tive (the favorite vehicle for this technique
so far) rush at us and then “cata pult over our heads.” The effect of the catapult is
noteworthy because it is a unique characteristic of the fi lm medium.
People move before us the way they move before the camera, but the camera (or
cameras) can achieve visual things that the unaided eye cannot: showing the same
moving action from a number of points of view simultaneously, for instance, or
FIGURE 12-5
Kane and his fi rst wife Emily (Ruth
Warrick), near the end of their
marriage in Citizen Kane (1941),
are seen in a shot that emphasizes
the distance between them both
physically and emotionally. Placing
the camera so far below the table
produced an unsettling moment in
the fi lm.
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showing it from a camera angle the eye cannot achieve. The realistic qualities of a
fi lm can be threatened, however, by being too sensational, with a profusion of shots
that would be impossible in a real-life situation. Although such virtuoso effects can
dazzle us at fi rst, the feeling of being dazzled can degenerate into being dazed.
Another way the fi lm portrays motion is by the movement or tracking of the cam-
era. In a sequence in John Huston’s The Misfi ts (1961), cowboys are round ing up wild
mustangs to sell for dog food, and some amazing scenes were fi lmed with the camera
mounted on a pickup truck chasing fast-running horses. The motion in these scenes
is overwhelming because Huston com bines two kinds of rapid motion — of trucks
and of horses. Moreover, the mo tion is further increased because of the narrow
focus of the camera and the limited boundary of the screen. The recorded action
excludes vision that might tend to distract or to dilute the motion we are permitted
to see. Much the same effect was achieved in the buffalo run in Dances with Wolves
(1990) thirty years later. The screen in motion pictures always constrains our vision,
even when we imagine the space beyond the screen that we do not see, as when
a character moves off the fi lmed space. Eliminating the space beyond the im ages
recorded by the camera circumscribes and fi xes our attention. And such attention
enhances the rapidity and intensity of the moving images.
A fi nal basic way fi lm can achieve motion is by means of the camera lens. Even
when the camera is fi xed in place, a lens that affords a much wider, narrower, larger,
or smaller fi eld of vision than the eye normally supplies will give the illusion of
motion, since we instinctively feel the urge to be in the physical position that would
supply that fi eld of vision. Zoom lenses, which change their focal length along a
smooth range — thus moving images gradually closer or farther away — are even
more effective for suggesting motion. One favorite shot is that of a fi gure walking
or moving in some fashion, which looks, at fi rst, as if it were a medium shot but
which is actually revealed as a long shot when the zoom is reversed. Since our own
eyes cannot imitate the action of the zoom lens, the effect can be quite dramatic
when used creatively. It is something like the effect that slow motion or stop motion
has on us. It interrupts our perceptions of something — something that had seemed
perfectly natural — in a way that makes us aware of the fi lm medium itself.
PERCEPTION KEY Camera Vision
1. Directors frequently examine a scene with a viewfi nder that “frames” the scene be-
fore their eyes. Make or fi nd a simple frame (or use your hands to create a “frame”)
and examine the visual world about you. To what extent can you frame it to make
it more interesting?
2. Using the frame technique, move your eyes and the frame simultaneously to alter
the fi eld of vision. Can you make any movements that the camera cannot? Do you
be come aware of any movements the camera can make that you cannot?
3. If the camera is the principal tool of fi lmmaking, do directors give up artistic con-
trol when they have cinematographers operate the machines? Does your exper-
i ment ing in the questions above suggest there may be a camera “language” that
di rec tors should be controlling themselves? Given your experience with fi lm and
cam eras, how might camera language be described?
continued
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Sometimes technique can take over a fi lm by becoming the most interesting aspect
of the cinematic experience. The Academy Award winner 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968), Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), ET (1982), and
the seven Star Trek fi lms of the 1970s and 1980s have similar themes, concentrating
on space, the future, and fantastic situations. All include shots of marvelous technical
achievements, such as the images of the computer-guided cameras that follow the
space vehicles of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in the dramatic conclusion of Star
Wars (Figure 12-6). But some critics have argued that these technical achievements
were ends rather than means to artistic revelation.
4. Using a video camera, experiment with shooting the same visual information with
the lens wide-angled, and then at diff erent stages of zoom until you reach the end
of your lens’s zoom range. Review the product and comment on the way the cam-
era treats visual space.
FIGURE 12-6
In Star Wars (1977), George Lucas
used a number of powerful special
effects, as in this duel with light
sabers between Darth Vader and
Obi-Wan Kenobi.
PERCEPTION KEY Technique and Film
1. Are the technical triumphs of fi lms such as Star Wars used as means or ends? If they
are the ends, then are they the subject matter? What kind of problem does such a
possibility raise for our appreciation of the fi lm?
2. In Tom Jones (1963), a technique called the “double take” was introduced. After
search ing for his wallet everywhere, Tom turns and looks at the audience and asks
whether we have seen his wallet. Is this technique a gimmick or artistically justifi –
able? Could you make a defensible judgment about this without seeing the fi lm?
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Violence and Film
Because it is so easy to shoot a scene in various ways, a good director is constantly
choosing the shot that he or she hopes has the most meaning within the total struc-
ture of the fi lm. When Luis Buñuel briefl y shows us the razoring of a woman’s
eyeball in Un Chien Andalou (1928) (it is really a slaughtered cow’s eyeball), he is
counting on our personal horror at actually seeing such an act, but the scene is
artistically justifi able because Buñuel carefully integrated the scene into the total
structure. Unfortunately, many fi lms show sheer violence without any attempt to
inform — for example, Nightmare on Elm Street (1985) and its many sequels, the
Arnold Schwarzenegger fi lm Predator (1988), and similar fi lms. Kill Bill (2003,
2004), both volumes, as well as A History of Violence (2005), move in a somewhat dif-
ferent direction, in that they are not specifi cally horror fi lms despite their depiction
of violence. These have been nominated for a number of awards in recognition of
their seriousness.
A fi lm that was ahead of its time in portraying violence, Reservoir Dogs (1992),
won Quentin Tarantino the respect of movie critics and the movie public.
Tarantino followed up with Pulp Fiction (1994), three related tales set in Los
Angeles and reminiscent of the pulp fi ction novels of Dashiell Hammett. While
somewhat cartoonish in places, and laced with unexpected comedic moments,
the fi lm was nominated for several awards, among them the Palme d’Or at
Cannes. Django Unchained (Figure 12-7) continues Tarantino’s commitment to
artful violence.
Clever directors can easily shock their audiences. But the more complex
responses, some of which are as diffi cult to control as they are to attain, are the
FIGURE 12-7
Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained
(2009).
Quentin Tarantino has made
violence central to his work. His
fi lms have also been widely praised.
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316
CHAPTER 12
aim of the enduring fi lmmakers. When Ingmar Bergman shows us the rape scene
in The Virgin Spring (1959), he does not saturate us with horror. And the murder
of the rapists by the girl’s father is preceded by an elaborate purifi cation ritual that
relates the violence and horror to profound meaning. In any art, control of audi-
ence response is vital. We can become emotionally saturated just as easily as we can
become bored. The result is indifference.
PERCEPTION KEY Violence and Film
1. Many groups condemn violent fi lms of the kind described as slasher fi lms or fi lms
that gratuitously portray torture and gore. Do you agree with these groups? Do
you feel that violent fi lms aff ect viewers’ behavior? How do they aff ect you? Is it
possible to participate with a violent fi lm?
2. Critics point to the fact that many of Shakespeare’s plays—and the plays of his
contemporaries—were often bloody and violent. They also say that violence in
Shakespeare’s plays is revelatory because it reveals the signifi cance of the morality
of his age. Do you feel that modern violent fi lms are revelatory of the morality of
our age?
3. Of the violent fi lms you have seen, which one is certainly a work of art? Is violence
the subject matter of that fi lm? In what ways is the fi lm revelatory?
Sound
Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927) introduced sound, although not everyone wel-
comed it. Sergei Eisenstein feared, as did many others, that sound might kill the
artistic integrity of fi lm because, with sound, no one would work with the images
that create a fi lm language and fi lm would once again become subservient to
drama. Eisenstein knew that images in motion could sustain the kind of dramatic
tension that was once thought to be limited to the stage. This is a point of con-
summate importance. First of all, a fi lm is images in motion. Great fi lmmakers
may exploit sound and other elements, but they will never make them the basic
ingredients of the fi lm.
Sound in fi lm involves much more than the addition of dialogue to the visual
track. Music had long been a supplement of the silent fi lms, and special portfolios
of piano and organ music were available to the accompanist who played in the
local theater while coordinating the music with the fi lm. These portfolios indi-
cated the kind of feelings that could be produced by merging special music with
scenes, such as chase, love, or suspense. D. W. Griffi th’s The Birth of a Nation
features a “rescue” charge by the Ku Klux Klan, which was cut to the dynamics of
Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre. Francis Ford Coppola may have had that in mind
when he made the incredible helicopter battle scene in Apocalypse Now (1979)
to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” Apocalypse Now, a fi lm about the Vietnam
War (Figure 12-8), uses sound in exceptionally effective ways, especially in scenes
such as the skyrocket fi reworks battle deep in the jungle. But perhaps the most
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317
CINEMA
powerful cinematic sound produced so far occurs in the opening scenes of Saving
Private Ryan (1999), directed by Steven Spielberg — the storming of the Nor-
mandy beach on D-day, June 6, 1944.
Surround sound may intensify our experience of fi lm. Not only do we expect to
hear dialogue, but we also expect to hear the sounds we associate with the action
on screen, whether it is the quiet chirping of crickets in a country scene in Sounder
(1972) or the dropping of bombs from a low-fl ying Japanese Zero in Empire of the
Sun (1987). Subtle uses of sound sometimes prepare us for action that is yet to
come, such as when in Rain Man (1989) we see Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise
walking toward a convertible, but we hear the dialogue and road sounds from the
next shot, when they are driving down the highway. That editing technique might
have been very unsettling in the 1930s, but fi lmmakers have had eighty years to get
our sensibilities accustomed to such disjunctions.
A famous disjunction occurs in the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey when,
watching images of one tribe of apes warring with another tribe of apes in prehis-
toric times, we hear the rich modern harmonies of Richard Strauss’s dramatic tone
poem Also Sprach Zarathustra. The music suggests one very sophisticated mode of
development inherent in the future of these primates — whom we see in the fi rst
phases of discovering how to use tools. They already show potential for creating
high art. Eventually, the sound and imagery coincide when the scene changes to
2001, with scientists on the moon discovering a monolithic structure identical to
one the apes had found on Earth.
FIGURE 12-8
Religious services are held in the
fi eld while a tank fl amethrower
destroys crops in the background
in Francis Ford Coppola’s antiwar
fi lm Apocalypse Now (1979).
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318
CHAPTER 12
PERCEPTION KEY Sight and Sound
1. In the next fi lm you see, compare the power of the visuals with the power of the
sound. Is there a reasonable balance between the two? Which one produces a more
intense experience in you?
2. With Dolby sound systems in many movie houses, the use of sound is sometimes
overwhelming. Which fi lm of those you have recently seen has the most intense
and powerful sound? Does it mesh well with the narrative line of the fi lm? Why?
3. View an important fi lm and turn off its sound for a period of time. Study the images
you see and comment on their ability to hold your attention. Then turn on the
sound and comment on how your experience of the fi lm is altered. Go beyond the
simple addition of dialogue. Try the experiment with a foreign fi lm that has English
subtitles.
4. View the same fi lm and block the visual image by turning your back to it. Concen-
trate on the sound. To what extent is the experience of the fi lm incomplete? How
would you rate the relationship of sound to the visual images?
Image and Action
These experiments probably indicate that most contemporary fi lm is a marriage of
sight and sound. Yet we must not forget that fi lm is a medium in which the moving
image — the action — is preeminent, as in Federico Fellini’s 8½ (1963). The title
refers to Fellini’s own career, ostensibly about himself and his making a new fi lm
after seven and a half previous fi lms. 8½ is about the artistic process. Guido, played
by Marcello Mastroianni, brings a group of people to a location to make a fi lm (see
Figure 12-9).
The fi lm centers on Guido’s loss of creative direction, his psychological problems
related to religion, sex, and his need to dominate women. As he convalesces from his
breakdown, he brings people together to make a fi lm, but he has no clear sense of
what he wants to do, no coherent story to tell. 8½ seems to mimic Fellini’s situation
so carefully that it is diffi cult to know whether Fellini planned out the fi lm or not.
He has said, “I appeared to have it all worked out in my head, but it was not like
that. For three months I continued working on the basis of a complete production,
in the hope that meanwhile my ideas would sort themselves out. Fifty times I nearly
gave up.”1 And yet, most of the fi lm is described in a single letter to Brunello Rondi
(a writer of the screenplay), written long before the start of production.
The fi lm is episodic, with memorable dream and nightmare sequences, some
of which are almost hallucinatory. Such scenes focus on the inward quest of the
fi lm: Guido’s search for the cause of his creative block so that he can resolve it. By
putting himself in the center of an artistic tempest, he mirrors his own psycho-
logical confusion in order to bring it under control. Indeed, he seems intent on
creating artistic tension by bringing both his wife and his mistress to the location
of the fi lm.
1John Kobal, The Top 100 Movies (New York: New American Library, 1988).
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The fi lm abandons continuous narrative structure in favor of episodic streams
of consciousness in the sequences that reveal the inner workings of Guido’s mind.
In a way, they may also reveal the inner workings of the creative mind if we assume
that Fellini projected his own anxieties into the fi lm. 8½ is revelatory of the psychic
turmoil of creativity.
Film Structure
Michael Cimino’s portrayal of three hometown men who fi ght together in Vietnam,
The Deer Hunter (1979), has serious structural problems because the fi lm takes place
in three radically different environments, and it is not always clear how they are
related. Yet it won several Academy Awards and has been proclaimed one of the
great antiwar fi lms. Cimino took great risks by dividing the fi lm into three large
sections: sequences of life in Clairton, Pennsylvania, with a Russian Orthodox wed-
ding and a last hunting expedition for deer; and sequences of war prisoners and
fi ghting in Vietnam; and sequences afterward in Clairton, where only one of the
three men, Mike, played by Robert DeNiro, is able to live effectively. Mike fi nally
sets out to get Steven to return from the wheelchair ward of the VA hospital to his
wife. Then he sets out to fi nd his best friend, Nick, a heroin addict still in Saigon,
playing Russian roulette for hardened Vietnamese gamblers. Russian roulette was
not an actual part of the Vietnam experience, but Cimino made it a metaphor for
the senselessness of war.
FIGURE 12-9
Gianni di Venanzo’s extraordinary
recessional shot for Federico
Fellini’s 8½ (1963), showing Guido
(Marcello Mastroianni) meeting his
mistress Carla (Sandra Milo) at the
spa where he has gone to refresh
his creative spirit.
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CHAPTER 12
Cimino relied in part on the model of Dante’s Divine Comedy, also divided into
three sections — Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. In The Deer Hunter, the rivers of
molten metal in the steel mills and, more obviously, the war scenes suggest the
ghastliness of Hell. The extensive and ecstatic scenes in the Russian Orthodox
church suggest Paradise, while life in Clairton represents an in-between, a kind
of Purgatory. In one of the most stirring episodes, when he is back in Saigon
during the American evacuation looking for Nick, Mike is shown standing up in
a small boat negotiating his way through the canals. The scene is a visual echo of
Eugène Delacroix’s Dante and Virgil in Hell, a famous nineteenth-century paint-
ing. For anyone who recognizes the allusion to Dante, Cimino’s structural tech-
niques become clearer, as do his views of war in general and of the Vietnam War
in particular.
The function of photography in fi lms such as 8½ and The Deer Hunter is some-
times diffi cult to assess. If we agree that the power of the moving image is central
to the ultimate meaning of the motion picture, we can see that the most important
structural qualities of any good fi lm develop from the choices made in the editing
stage. Sometimes different versions of a single action will be fi lmed; then the direc-
tor and the editor decide which will be in the fi nal mix after testing each version in
relation to the overall structure.
The episodic structure of Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise (1991) (Figure 12-10)
lends itself to contrasting the interiors of a seamy Arkansas nightclub and a cheap
motel with the magnifi cent open road and dramatic landscape of the Southwest.
Louise, played by Susan Sarandon, and Thelma, played by Geena Davis, are on
the run in Louise’s 1956 Thunderbird convertible after Louise shoots and kills
Harlan, who had attempted to rape Thelma. Knowing their story will not be
FIGURE 12-10
Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis
in Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise
(1991), a road-style fi lm with a
reversal—the people driving the
Thunderbird are women, not men,
racing away from the law.
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321
CINEMA
believed, they head for Mexico and freedom but never get there. Callie Khouri
wrote the script for this feminist fi lm and cast the women as deeply sympathetic
outcasts and desperadoes — roles tra di tion ally reserved for men. In one memora-
ble scene, a truck driver hauling a gasoline rig harasses and makes lecherous faces
at the women. The cross-cutting builds considerable tension, which is relieved,
at fi rst, when the women pull over as if they were interested in him. As the driver
leaves his truck to walk toward them, they shoot his rig, and it explodes like an
inferno. The editing in this fi lm is quite conventional, but everyone who has seen
it is very likely to remember this scene, the exceptional power of which depends
on the use of cross-cutting.
The editor’s work gives meaning to the fi lm just as surely as the scriptwriter’s
and the photographer’s. Observe, for instance, the fi nal scenes in Eisenstein’s Bat-
tleship Potemkin. The Potemkin is steaming to a confrontation with the Russian fl eet.
Eisenstein rapidly cuts from inside the ship to outside: showing a view of powerfully
moving engine pistons, then the ship cutting deeply into the water, then rapidly
back and forth, showing anxiety-ridden faces, all designed to raise the emotional
pitch of anyone watching the movie. This kind of cutting or montage was used by
Alfred Hitchcock in the shower murder scene of the 1960 horror thriller Psycho. He
demonstrated that the technique could be used to increase tension and terror, even
though no explicit murderous actions were shown on screen. Ironically, the scene
was so powerful that its star, Janet Leigh, avoided showers as much as possible,
always preferring the bath.
Cinematic Significance
We cannot completely translate fi lms into language. We can only approximate
a translation by describing the connections — emotional, narrative, symbolic, or
whatever — implied by the sequence of images. When we watch the overturning
coffi n in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957), for example, we are surprised to fi nd
that the fi gure in the coffi n has the same face as Professor Borg, the protagonist,
who is himself a witness to what we see. Borg is face to face with his own death.
That this scene has special meaning seems clear, yet we cannot completely articu-
late its signifi cance. The meaning is embodied in the moving images. The scene has
a strong tension and impact, and yet it is apparent that the full meaning depends on
the context of the whole fi lm in which it appears. The relation of detail to structure
exists in every art, of course, but that relation in its nuances often may more easily
be missed in our experiences of the fi lm. For one thing, we are not accustomed to
permitting images to build their own meanings apart from the meanings we already
associate with them. Second, we do not always observe the way one movement
or gesture will mean one thing in one context and an entirely different thing in
another context. Third, moving images generally are more diffi cult to remember
than still images, as in painting, and thus it is more diffi cult to become aware of
their connections.
The fi lmmaker must control contexts, especially with reference to the gesture.
In Eric Rohmer’s fi lm Claire’s Knee (1970), a totally absurd gesture—caressing the
knee of an indifferent and relatively insensitive young woman—becomes the funda-
mental focus of the fi lm. This gesture is loaded with meaning throughout the entire
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CHAPTER 12
fi lm, but loaded only for the main masculine character and us. The young woman
is unaware that her knee holds such power over the man. Although the gesture is
absurd, in a way it is plausible, for such fi xations can occur in anyone. But this fi lm
is not concerned solely with plausibility; it is mainly concerned with the gesture in
a context that reveals what is unclear in real-life experience — the complexities of
some kinds of obsessions. And this is done primarily through skillful photography
and editing rather than through spoken narrative.
PERCEPTION KEY Gesture
1. Watch a silent fi lm such as the Academy Award–winning The Artist (2011). Enu-
merate the most im portant gestures. If a gesture is repeated, does it accumulate
signifi cance? If so, why? Does the absence of dialogue increase the importance of
gesture?
2. Examine a few recent fi lms for their use of gesture. Are the gestures used in any
way to tie the images together, making them more coherent? Be specifi c. Did you
fi nd any fi lm in which gesture plays no signifi cant role?
3. Compare the gestures in fi lm with the gestures of sculpture. How do they diff er?
Do you see fi lm sometimes borrowing familiar gestures, such as the posture of
Mi chel angelo’s David (Figure 5-9)?
The Context of Film History
All meanings, linguistic or nonlinguistic, exist within some kind of context. Most
fi rst-rate fi lms exist in many contexts simultaneously, and it is our job as sensitive
viewers to be able to decide which are the most important. Film, like every art, has
a history, and this history is one of the more signifi cant contexts in which every fi lm
takes place. To make that historical context fruitful in our fi lmic experiences, we
must do more than just read about that history: We must accumulate a historical
sense of fi lm by seeing fi lms that have been important in the development of the
medium. Most of us have a rich personal backlog in fi lm; we have seen a great many
fi lms, some of which are memorable and many of which have been infl uenced by
landmark fi lms.
Furthermore, fi lm exists in a context that is meaningful for the life work of a
director and, in turn, for us. When we talk about the fi lms of Welles, Bergman,
or Fellini, we are talking about the achievements of artists just as much as when
we talk about the achievements of Rembrandt, Vermeer, or van Gogh. Today we
watch carefully for fi lms by Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen,
Oliver Stone, Joel and Ethan Coen, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee,
Jane Campion, Quentin Tarantino, and Lina Wertmuller — to name only a few of
the most active current directors — because their work has shown a steady develop-
ment and because they, in relation to the history of the fi lm, possess a vision that is
transforming the medium. In other words, these directors are altering the history
of fi lm in signifi cant ways. In turn, we should be interested in knowing what they
are doing because they are providing new contexts for increasing our understand-
ing of fi lm.
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Our concerns in this book have not been exclusively with one or another kind
of context, although we have assumed that the internal context of a work of art is
necessarily of fi rst importance. But no work can be properly understood without
resorting to external contextual ex am i na tion. To understand the content of a work
of art, we must understand some thing about the subject matter, and the subject
matter is always embedded in some external context. Even such a simple act as a
gesture may need ex pla na tion. For example, in Greece, to put the palm of your
hand in the face of someone is considered insulting. If we do not know that and are
watching a fi lm involving Greece that includes the gesture, we may be completely
misled. A visual image, a contemporary gesture, even a colloquial ex pres sion will
sometimes show up in a fi lm and need explication in order to be fully understood.
Just as we sometimes have to look up a word in a dic tion ary — which exists outside
a poem, for instance — we sometimes have to look outside a fi lm for explanations.
Even Terence Young’s James Bond thriller movies need such explication, although
we rarely think about that. If we failed to understand the political assumptions
underlying such fi lms, we would not fully understand what was going on.
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather
Coppola’s The Godfather (Figures 12-11 and 12-12), produced in 1972, is based
on Mario Puzo’s novel about an Italian immigrant fl eeing from Sicilian Mafi a
violence. He eventually became a don of a huge crime family in New York City.
FIGURE 12-11
Marlon Brando plays Don Vito
Corleone, the Godfather, conferring
with a wedding guest asking for an
important favor at the beginning of
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather
(1972).
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324
CHAPTER 12
FIGURE 12-12
Late in the fi lm The Godfather, Al
Pacino refl ects on his world now
that he is the Godfather after his
father’s death. The responsibilities
of the family have fallen on his
shoulders.
The fi lm details the gradual involvement of Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino,
in his father’s criminal activities during the years from 1945 to 1959. His father
Vito, played by Marlon Brando, suffers the loss of Sonny, an older son, and barely
survives an assassination attempt. As Michael becomes more and more a central
fi gure in his family’s “business,” he grows more frightening and more alienated
from those around him until, as Godfather, he becomes, it seems, totally evil.
Although some critics complained that the fi lm glorifi ed the Mafi a, almost all
have praised its technical mastery. A sequel, The Godfather: Part II, was produced
in 1974 and, while not as tightly constructed as the fi rst fi lm, fl eshes out the expe-
rience of Michael as he slowly develops into a mob boss. Both fi lms center on the
ambiguities involved in the conversion of the poverty -ridden Vito into a wealthy
and successful gangster and Michael’s conversion from innocence to heartless
criminality.
The Godfather fi lms both engage our sympathy with Michael and increasingly
horrify us with many of his actions. We admire Michael’s personal valor and his
respect for father, family, and friends. But we also see the corruption and violence
that are the bases of his power. Inevitably, we have to work out for ourselves the
ambiguities that Coppola sets out.
Th e Narrative Structure of Th e Godfather Films
The narrative structure of most fi lms supplies the framework on which the
fi lmmaker builds the artistry of the shots and sound. An overemphasis on the
artistry, however, can distract a viewer from the narrative, whereas a great fi lm
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CINEMA
avoids allowing technique to dominate a story. Such is the case with The God-
father and The Godfather: Part II, we believe, because the artistry produces a
cinematic lushness that helps tell the story.
The fi rst fi lm begins with Michael Corleone, as a returning war hero in 1945,
re fus ing to be part of his father’s criminal empire. The immediate fam ily enjoys
the spoils of criminal life — big cars, a large house in a guarded com pound, family
celebrations, and lavish weddings. Although Michael’s broth ers are active members
of the crime family, they respect his wishes to re main apart.
In a dispute over whether to add drug-running to the business of gambling,
prostitution, extortion, and labor racketeering, Vito is gunned down, but not killed.
Michael comes to the aid of his father and so begins his career in the Mafi a. It takes
him only a short time to rise to the position of God fa ther when Vito is too infi rm
to continue. When he marries Kay, played by Diane Kea ton, Michael explains that
the family will be totally legitimate in fi ve years. She believes him, but the audience
already knows better. It is no sur prise that seven years later, the family is more
powerful and ruthless than ever.
In a disturbing and deeply ironic sequence, Michael acts as godfather in the
church baptism of his nephew at the same time his lieutenants are murdering the
men who head the fi ve rival crime families. Coppola jump-cuts back and forth
from shots of Michael in the church promising to renounce the work of the devil
to shots of his men turning the streets of New York into a bloodbath. This per-
version of the sacrament of baptism illustrates the depths to which Michael has
sunk.
In the second fi lm, as the family grows in power, Michael moves to Tahoe, gain-
ing control of casino gambling in Nevada. He corrupts a senator, who even while
demanding kickbacks expresses contempt for Italians. When the senator is compro-
mised by killing a prostitute, however, he cooperates fully with the Corleones. The
point is made again and again that without such corrupt offi cials, the Mafi a would
be signifi cantly less powerful.
Michael survives an assassination attempt made possible by his brother
Fredo’s collusion with another gangster who is Michael’s nemesis. At fi rst,
Michael does nothing but refuse to talk to Fredo, but when their mother dies,
he has Fredo murdered. Meanwhile, Kay has left him, and those who were close
to him, except his stepbrother Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), have been driven
away or murdered. The last images we have of Michael show him alone in his
compound staring into a darkened room. We see how far he has fallen since his
early idealism.
Coppola’s Images
Coppola chooses his frames with great care, and many would make an interesting
still photograph. He balances his fi gures carefully, especially in the quieter scenes,
subtly using asymmetry to accent movement. Sometimes he uses harsh lighting that
radiates from the center of the shot, focusing attention and creating tension. He
rarely cuts rapidly from one shot to another but depends on conventional establish-
ing shots — such as showing a car arriving at a church, a hospital, a home — before
showing us shots of their interiors. This conventionality intensifi es our sense of the
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CHAPTER 12
period of the 1940s and 1950s, since most fi lms of that period relied on just such
techniques.
Darkness dominates, and interiors often have a tunnel-like quality, suggesting
passages to the underworld. Rooms in which Michael and others conduct their
business usually have only one source of light, and the resulting high contrast is dis-
orienting. Bright outdoor scenes are often marked by barren snow or winds driving
fallen leaves. The seasons of fall and winter predominate, suggesting loneliness and
death.
Coppola’s Use of Sound
The music in The Godfather helps Coppola evoke the mood of the time the fi lm
covers. Coppola used his own father, Carmine Coppola, as a composer of some of
the music. There are some snatches of Italian hill music from small villages near
Amalfi , but sentimental dance music from the big band period of the 1940s and
1950s predominates.
An ingenious and effective use of sound occurs in the baptism/murder scene
discussed earlier. Coppola keeps the sounds of the church scene — the priest recit-
ing the Latin liturgy, the organ music, the baby crying — on the soundtrack even
when he cuts to the murders being carried out. This accomplishes two important
functions: It reinforces the idea that these two scenes are actually occurring simul-
taneously, and it underscores the hypocrisy of Michael’s pious behavior in church.
Because such techniques are used sparingly, their usage in this scene works with
great power.
Th e Power of Th e Godfather
Those critics who felt the fi lm glorifi ed the Mafi a seem not to have taken into ac-
count the fated quality of Michael. He begins like Oedipus — running away from
his fate. He does not want to join the Mafi a, but when his father is al most killed,
his instincts push him toward assuming the role of God father. The process of self-
destruction consumes him as if it were completely out of his control. Moreover,
despite their power and wealth, Michael and the Corleones seem to have a good
time only at weddings, and even then the Godfather is doing business in the back
room. Everyone in the family suffers. No one can come and go in freedom. Every-
one lives in an armed camp. All the ele ments of the fi lm reinforce that view. The
houses are opulent, but vulnerable to machine guns. The cars are expensive, but
they blow up. Surely such a life is not a glory.
In shaping the fi lm in a way that helps us see Mafi a life as neither glamor-
ous nor desirable, Coppola forces us to examine our popular culture — one that
seems often to venerate criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James, Billy the
Kid, and John Dillinger. At the same time, Coppola’s refusal to treat his charac-
ters as simply loathsome, his acknowledgment that they are in some sense victims
as well as victimizers, creates an ambiguity that makes his fi lms an impressive
achievement.
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327
CINEMA
PERCEPTION KEY Th e Godfather
1. Watch The Godfather on a large screen if possible. Examine the ways in which the
pleasing quality of the visuals alters depending on what is being fi lmed. Are the
violent moments treated with any less visual care than the lyrical mo ments? What
happens on screen when the images are unbalanced or skewed enough to make you
feel uncomfortable?
2. The Godfather is sometimes ironic, as when church music is played while gangsters
are murdered. How many such moments can you fi nd in the fi lm in which irony is
achieved through the musical choices?
3. The name “Corleone” means lion-hearted, a term usually applied to England’s King
Richard the Lion-Hearted. Is it possible that the very name of the Godfather is
an ironic application? Or do you feel that the Godfather’s behavior is as noble as
Richard the Lion-Hearted’s? Why is there any confusion about this?
4. To what extent does The Godfather “lionize” the criminal enterprise of the Mafi a?
Does the fi lm lure the viewer into accepting as positive the values of the mob?
What does the fi lm do to reveal the moral failures of the mob? Why is there so
much reference to religion in the fi lm?
5. The Godfather was produced more than forty years ago, when the Mafi a was a seri-
ous power in the United States. If you take into account the social circumstances
surrounding the fi lm, would you say that today—with most organized crime
bosses in prison—our reactions to this fi lm would make it more or less diffi cult to
romanticize the Mafi a? Are you tempted to romanticize these criminals?
6. Is the structure of The Godfather episodic, tragic, or comic? Do we experience the
feelings of fear and pity? What feelings are engendered by the fi lm? What revela-
tory experience did you have from watching the fi lm?
FOCUS ON Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Britain’s most distinguished fi lm journal, Sight and Sound,
polls critics every ten years for their choices for best fi lms
ever made. In 2012 their number-one choice was Hitchcock’s
Vertigo (1957), a psychological thriller that has become one
of the most carefully analyzed fi lms. By modern standards
the pacing seems slow, but Hitchcock echoes the rhythm of
some European fi lms in a carefully timed exploration of the
inner life of the major character, John “Scottie” Ferguson,
played by James Stewart.
Before reading any further, view Alfred Hitchcock’s
Vertigo (1957) in the currently available restored 70mm
print. Once you have done that, consider this analysis.
Scottie (Figure 12-13) is a policeman whose acrophobia
(fear of heights) in the opening shots results in his letting his
partner fall from a roof to his death. Hitchcock uses a unique shot called a dolly-zoom,
in which the camera is dollied back while the lens is zoomed forward. The purpose of
the shot is to enact Scottie’s vertigo looking downward and to produce some vertigo
in the viewer of the fi lm. The same kind of shot is used later when Scottie looks down
fearfully from the tower at Mission San Juan Bautista.
FIGURE 12-13
Scottie (James Stewart) at Ernie’s
Restaurant, San Francisco.
Note how Hitchcock fi lms the
insecure Scottie slumped over and
trapped within his surroundings.
continued
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After losing his partner on the roof, Scottie, crippled
by guilt and disabled by acrophobia, retires from the force
and is at loose ends. His former fi ancée, Midge, played by
Barbara Bel Geddes, tries to console him. They were engaged
in college but she rejected the idea of marriage. Hitchcock
portrays her as a stable, functional adult, but he also casts
her in the role of a mother fi gure for Scottie. Thus, she is
not sexually attractive to him. She designs clothing, includ-
ing a “revolutionary uplift” bra, a symbol less of sex than of
motherliness.
Scottie, unlike Midge, is mentally unstable from the open-
ing of the fi lm. He is lost, dramatized by his insistence that
he is a wanderer spending his days wandering. Elster, another
college friend, asks him to use his detective skills to follow his
wife, Madeleine, who he says is possessed by Carlotta Valdes,
her great-grandmother, who committed suicide. Elster says he fears Madeleine will
also kill herself. From the opening shots, the theme of death haunts the entire fi lm.
Madeleine, whose color is green, poses later in a lush fl orist shop symbolizing plants
and rebirth.
Scottie is referred to by several names, John, Johnny-o, Scottie, and Mr. Ferguson,
a device Hitchcock uses to imply that his identity is unstable. Scottie, as a diminutive
name, implies that he is still becoming a man, but has not yet
achieved independence.
The instability of identity is reinforced by the idea that
Madeleine is not herself, but a victim of possession. Further,
when Madeleine fi rst appears (Figure 12-14) Hitchcock
shoots her as if she is a work of art, not just a woman.
Scottie’s initial idealization of Madeleine leads soon to obses-
sion as he follows her through the streets of San Francisco.
Hitchcock uses colors symbolically (Figure 12-15). Red
implies Hades, the underworld, while green, associated with
Madeleine, implies Persephone’s role in Greek myth as fl oral
goddess of the underworld (a favorite Hitchcockian myth).
Images of fl owers— Persephone’s emblems—are every-
where in the fi lm, in paintings on the walls, on clothing, on up-
holstery, and on bed linens. They symbolize death, but more
importantly, rebirth. Madeleine’s Jaguar is completely green; she poses under the red
Golden Gate Bridge before she jumps into the bay as a “suicide.” When Scottie jumps
in to rescue her, she is unconscious and he brings her back to life.
Hitchcock also uses a number of phallic symbols throughout, including frequent
shots of Coit Tower, seen outside Scottie’s apartment window, the San Francisco
Ferry Tower, and the tower at Mission San Juan Bautista. Ironically, the Mission
tower, from which Elster’s wife is thrown, did not exist and Hitchcock used a matte
painting to represent it.
Scottie becomes obsessed with Madeleine as he stalks her through San Francisco
(almost always driving downhill as he follows her). After he rescues her from the bay, he
realizes he is in love with her. But he cannot possess her. When he follows her to Mission
San Juan Bautista, he declares love for her and she for him, but as she races upstairs
apparently to commit suicide, he cannot follow her because of his fear of heights and
remains below, impotent as she apparently throws herself off the tower.
FIGURE 12-14
Madeleine (Kim Novak) at Ernie’s
Restaurant.
Madeleine presents a perfect profi le
against the red walls of Ernie’s
Restaurant. She appears objectifi ed
as art.
FIGURE 12-15
Madeleine at the fl orist shop.
Hitchcock uses lush colors
here, red fl owers on the right, a
green fl ower holder on the left.
Madeleine always wears a gray suit
during the day.
328
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What follows is Scottie’s nervous breakdown. Midge
mothers him (“Mother’s here”). She had suggested another
trauma as the cure for his disabling acrophobia. After his re-
lease from the sanitorium he sees Judy, a woman who resem-
bles Madeleine. Scottie’s obsession becomes overwhelming.
Because Judy had fallen in love with him when she imperson-
ated Madeleine, she reluctantly lets him into her life again.
Judy, in a fl ashback, reveals that Elster had thrown his mur-
dered wife off the Mission tower while Scottie stayed below.
In a controversial scene that was almost omitted, Judy sits
down to write a letter admitting her role in Madeleine’s mur-
der, and professing love for Scottie, but instead of leaving
town and sending the letter, she destroys it and stays to be
with him.
Scottie, driven by the idea of re-creating the dead Madeleine, becomes the con-
trolling male, like the sculptor Pygmalion who falls in love with his creation. He dresses
Judy as Madeleine and changes her hair color and makeup
until she looks exactly like Madeleine. In the transformation
scene (Figure 12-16), she emerges from a dressing closet in
a green mist as if she were a ghost.
Scottie notices that Judy wears the necklace Carlotta
Valdes wore in her museum portrait and Madeleine wore
when he was shadowing her. He is a detective, after all, and
now sees that he has been part of an elaborate charade. He
realizes he was duped by Elster and that Judy was part of the
plan to murder Elster’s wife for her money. Instead of taking
Judy out to dinner, Scottie races her to Mission San Juan
Bautista and this time overcomes his fear of heights to force
her to the very top of the tower (Figure 12-17). He discov-
ers that Judy impersonated Elster’s wife so that Elster could
throw Madeleine off the tower while Scottie, afraid to come
to the top, provided the perfect alibi. Now, he hesitates because Judy is an accomplice
and therefore guilty and he should arrest her. As they stand near the opening a nun
in total black—another death fi gure—startles them as she comes to ring the bell and
Judy/Madeleine loses her balance, falling to her death.
At the end of the fi lm, Scottie is cured of his acrophobia, but he has lost the woman
of his dreams.
FIGURE 12-16
The “transformation” scene.
Judy emerges from the closet as a
ghostly reincarnation of Madeleine.
FIGURE 12-17
Scottie looks down from the tower.
Scottie stands at the precipice in a
classic pose of loss.
PERCEPTION KEY Focus on Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
1. Examine the control Hitchcock uses over colors in the fi lm. What does he seem to
imply by his frequent use of blue? What character is it associated with?
2. Review the Persephone myth as it appears in Ovid’s Metamorphosis or as it is de-
scribed in a source of information on Greek myth. How eff ectively does Hitchcock
use the myth? What does it imply for you, and how does it help you see more
deeply into the signifi cance of the fi lm?
3. How eff ectively does Hitchcock develop the relationship between art and reality?
Why is there a confusion between appearance and reality in this fi lm?
329
continued
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330
CHAPTER 12
Experimentation
In the early days of fi lm, complex technical problems were at the forefront — lighting,
zooming, montage, and the like. Most of these problems now have answers, thanks
especially to early fi lmmakers such as Griffi th and Eisenstein. Today the problems
center on what to do with these answers. For example, Andy Warhol, primarily
a painter and sculptor, did some interesting work in raising questions about fi lm,
especially about the limits of realism, for realism is often praised in fi lms. But when
Warhol put a fi gure in front of a camera to sleep for a full eight hours, we got the
message: We want a transformation of reality that gives us insight into reality, not re-
ality itself. The difference is important because it is the difference between reality and
art. Except when unconscious or dreaming, we have reality in front of us all the time.
We have art much less frequently. Realistic art is a selection of elements that convey
the illusion of reality. When we see Warhol’s almost direct transcription of reality on
fi lm, we understand that selecting — through directing and editing — is crucial to fi lm
art. The power of most striking fi lms is often their ability to condense experience, to
take a year, for example, and portray it in ninety minutes. This condensation is what
Marcel Proust, one of the greatest of novelists, expected from the novel:
Every emotion is multiplied ten-fold, into which this book comes to disturb us as might a
dream, but a dream more lucid, and of a more lasting impression, than those which come to
us in sleep; why, then, for a space of an hour he sets free within us all the joys and sorrows
in the world, a few of which, only, we should have to spend years of our actual life in getting
to know, and the keenest, the most intense of which would never have been revealed to us
because the slow course of their development stops our perception of them. It is the same in
life; the heart changes . . . but we learn of it only from reading or by imagination; in reality
its alteration . . . is so gradual that . . . we are spared the actual sensation of change.2
4. Comment on the relationships of men and women in this fi lm. What does Hitch-
cock’s care in developing their characters reveal about how men regard women? Is
his focus limited to the way in which men and women related to each other in the
1950s, or is what he observes true today?
5. Originally, the audience of this fi lm was frequently puzzled by the mystery of the
plot. What is the point of trying to confuse the audience in the fi rst half of the
fi lm? What is the point of having Scottie try to reincarnate Madeleine in Judy in the
second half of the fi lm?
6. What do Scottie’s nightmares, after the apparent death of Madeleine, tell us about
his state of mind?
7. Part of the subject matter of Vertigo is women objectifi ed as works of art. Even
Midge paints a portrait of herself as Carlotta. What does the fi lm reveal to us about
the transformation of women as art? What is the signifi cance of Vertigo for the
modern viewer?
8. Mission San Juan Bautista refers to Saint John the Baptist. Scottie’s name is John.
The fl owers symbolize rebirth. To what extent does Hitchcock use religious sym-
bolism in Vertigo?
2Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (New York: Modern Library, 1928), p. 119.
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331
CINEMA
Some fi lms address the question of the portrayal of reality. Antonioni’s Blow
Up (1966), for example, has the thread of a narrative holding it together: a possi-
ble murder and the efforts of a magazine photographer, through the medium of
his own enlargements, to confi rm the reality of that murder. But anyone who saw
the fi lm might assume that the continuity of the narrative was not necessarily the
most important part of the fi lm. Much of the meaning seems to come out of what
were essentially disconnected moments: an odd party, some strange driving around
London, and some extraordinary tennis played without a ball. What seemed most
important, perhaps, was the role of the fi lm itself in suggesting certain realities. In
a sense, the murder was a reality only after the fi lm uncovered it. Is it possible that
Antonioni is saying something similar about the reality that surrounds the very fi lm
he is creating? There is a reality, but where? Is Blow Up more concerned with the
fi lm images as reality than it is with reality outside the fi lm? If you see this fascinat-
ing fi lm, be sure you ask that puzzling question.
Some more-extreme experimenters remove the narrative entirely and simply
present successions of images, almost in the manner of a nightmare or a drug ex-
perience. Sometimes the images are abstract, nothing more than visual patterns, as
with abstract painting. Some use familiar images, but modify them with unexpected
time-lapse photography and distortions of color and sound. Among the more
successful fi lms of this kind are Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and Brooklyn Bridge (1994). The
fact that we have very little abstract fi lm may have several explanations. Part of the
power of abstract painting seems to depend on its “all-at-onceness” (see “Abstract
Painting,” Chapter 4), pre cisely what is missing from cinema.
The public generally is convinced that fi lm, like literature and drama, must have
plots and characters. Thus even fi lmic cartoons are rarely abstract, although they
are not photographs but drawings. Such animated fi lms as Pi noc chio (1940), Fantasia
(1940), and Dumbo (1941) have yielded to enormously successful later fi lms such
as The Yellow Submarine (1968), Beauty and the Beast (1993), The Lion King (1994),
Toy Story (1995), Pocahontas (1995), and Shrek (2004). It may be unreasonable to
consider animated fi lms as experimental, and it is certainly unreasonable to think
of them as chil dren’s fi lms, since adult audiences have made them successful. What
they seem to offer an audience is a realistic approach to fantasy that has all the
ele ments of the traditional narrative fi lm. This may also be true of animated fi lms
using clay fi gures and puppets for actors. These have had a narrower au di ence than
cartoon and computer animations and have been restricted to fi lm festivals, which
is where most experimental fi lms are presented.
PERCEPTION KEY Make a Film
The easy availability of video recorders makes it possible for you to make a digital fi lm.
With a video camera, you may need to rerecord on a computer, reorganizing your visual
material to take advantage of the various shot and editing techniques.
1. Develop a short narrative plan for your shots. After shooting, edit your shots into
a meaningful sequence.
2. Instead of a narrative plan, choose a musical composition that is especially inter-
esting to you and then fuse moving images with the music.
continued
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332
CHAPTER 12
Summary
Cinema is a complex and challenging art because of the necessary and often diffi cult
collaboration required among many people, especially the director, scriptwriter,
actors, photographer, and editor. The range of possible subject matters is excep-
tionally extensive for cinema. The resources of the director in choosing shots and
the imagination of the editor in joining shots provide the primary control over the
material. Such choices translate into emotional responses evoked from the audi-
ence. The point of view that can be achieved with the camera is similar to that of the
unaided human eye, but because of technical refi nements, such as the wide-angle
zoom lens and moving multiple cameras, the dramatic effect of vision can be greatly
intensifi ed. Because it is easy to block out everything irrelevant to the fi lm in a dark
theater, our participative experiences with cinema tend to be especially strong and
much longer, of course, than with other visual arts. The temptation to identify
with a given actor or situation in a fi lm may distort the participative experience by
blocking our perception of the form of the fi lm, thus causing us to miss the content.
The combination of sound, both dialogue and music (or sound effects), with the
moving image helps engage our participation. Cinema is the most popular of our
modern arts.
3. Short of making a fi lm, try some editing by fi nding and clipping from twenty to
thirty “stills” from magazines, brochures, newspapers, or other sources. Choose
stills you believe may have some coherence and then arrange them in such a way
as to make a meaningful sequence. How are your stills aff ected by rearrangement?
This project might be more interesting if you use a PowerPoint presentation. Then
add a soundtrack to heighten interest by clarifying the meaning of the sequence.
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333
The Evolution of Television
Television, the most widely used artistic medium in contemporary culture, grew
out of the radio broadcasts of the early decades of the twentieth century and de-
veloped in part from the traditions of drama and fi lm. Because it was a product
of a commercial culture, and because the Federal Communications Commission
and governmental agencies that oversaw its early development insisted on its goals
being devoted more to entertainment than to education, television has been shaped
by the needs of advertisers. This was not inevitable, but a decision made by politi-
cians in the United States. Television developed differently in the United Kingdom
and other nations; but now, more than eighty years after the widespread introduc-
tion of television programming, the model established by the United States has
become the norm.
Television was originally ignored by fi lmmakers because the inherent limitations
of the medium held them back. Standard-defi nition television im ages are projected
at thirty frames per second, instead of twenty-four, in order to overcome limita-
tions of the low-resolution image itself. The pixels in a video screen do not admit
the range of contrast or the level of detail and resolution that are common to the
continuous imagery of fi lm. The interior of the cathode-ray tube has 525 vertical
by 740 horizontal lines of pixels (a pixel is a group of green, red, and blue light-
emitting phosphors), and because of technical limitations, the actual screen size is
close to 480 by 740 pixels.
Today the use of digital projection and digital cameras has made some of those
limitations less signifi cant. Current television screens are large enough to create
C h a p t e r 1 3
TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
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334
CHAPTER 13
home theaters. High-defi nition broadcast standards have closed the gap between
television and fi lm to a considerable extent. High-defi nition fl at screens can contain
1,080 vertical by 1,920 horizontal pixels, permitting vastly improved details from
both broadcast television and DVDs.
PERCEPTION KEY Television and Cinema
1. To what extent does watching a fi lm on television make it more diffi cult to have
a participatory experience as compared to watching the same fi lm in a the-
ater? Does the size of the moving image determine or limit your participatory
experience?
2. What kinds of shots dominate television programming: close-ups, midrange shots,
long shots? Are there any visual techniques used in television that are not used in
fi lm?
3. The video screen has less tonal range than fi lm and less ability to represent de-
tail. How do television programs try to accommodate these limitations? How pro-
nounced are the diff erences in visual quality between television and fi lm?
The Subject Matt er of Television and Video Art
The moving image is as much the subject matter of television and video art as it is
of fi lm. The power of the image to excite a viewer, combined with music and sound,
is more and more becoming an intense experience as the technology of the medium
develops. Surround sound, large projection screens and LCDs, and the development
of digital high defi nition have transformed the “small box” into an overwhelming
and encompassing television experience that can produce almost the same kind of
participation that we experience in a movie theater.
The subject matter of a given television program can range from the social
interaction of characters on programs such as Seinfeld (1990–1998), Friends (NBC,
1994–2004), and NCIS (CBS, 2003–present) (Figure 13-1) all the way to the polit-
ical and historical issues revealed in Roots (ABC, 1977) and Holocaust (NBC, 1978).
Programming can be realistic or surrealistic, animated or with living actors, but in
all cases the power of the moving image is as important in television as in cinema.
Video art is, however, the antithesis of commercial entertainment television.
Because broadcast television centers on the needs of advertisers and depends on
reaching specifi c demographics, it has become slick and predictable. There is little
room for experimentation in commercial television, but the opposite is true for
video art. Artists such as Nam June Paik and Bill Viola are distinct in that their
work has pioneered the use of video terminals, video imagery and sound, and video
projection as fundamental to the purposes of the video artist.
Instead of a single image to arrest our attention, Nam June Paik often uses
simultaneous multiple video monitors with different images whose intense move-
ment is rarely linear and sequential, as in conventional broadcast television. His
images appear and disappear rapidly, sometimes so rapidly that it is diffi cult to
know exactly what they are. Paik has inspired numerous contemporary artists who
work with and interact with monitors to achieve various effects. Bill Viola’s work is
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335
TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
often composed of multiple projected images using slow motion and low-volume
sound. His work is hypnotic and so profoundly anti commercial that it forces us to
look at the combination of visual and aural imagery in completely new ways. Video
art surprises us and teaches us patience at the same time.
Just as television programs and fi lms can be experienced on computer screens,
cell phones, and tablets, the same is true for video art because it is an international
movement. The Internet permits us to see the work of a great many leading video
artists from around the world at our convenience.
Commercial Television
For more than half a century in the United States, a few major networks— National
Broadcasting Corporation, Columbia Broadcasting System, American Broadcasting
Company, Public Broadcasting System, and more recently Fox Entertainment—
dominated commercial television. In the United Kingdom, the British Broadcasting
Corporation was the primary source of commercial television. Similar patterns ex-
isted in other nations. Since 2000, however, the spread of cable service has enlarged
the sources of programming and has begun a major shift in the habits of viewers,
who now have a much greater range of choices among hundreds of channels.
FIGURE 13-1
NCIS, Naval Crime Investigation
Service, set in Washington, D.C.,
has been popular since 2003.
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336
CHAPTER 13
Th e Television Series
Studying the content of early situation comedies reveals much about the social
structure of the family and the larger community. Early comedies were often eth-
nic in content: The Goldbergs (CBS, 1949–1955) portrayed a caring Jewish family in
New York City. The show ended when the family “moved” to the suburbs. The Life
of Riley (NBC, 1953–1958) starred William Bendix as a riveter in a comedy about
an Irish working-class family in Los Angeles. Amos and Andy (CBS, 1951–1953),
which moved from radio, was set in Harlem, but because of complaints about
black stereotypes, it was soon dropped by the network. Yet it had been a popu-
lar program even among some African Americans. These early shows, including
The Honeymooners (NBC, 1952–1956, specials in 1970) (Fig ure 13-2), with Jackie
Gleason, usually portrayed urban working-class families facing some of the same
everyday problems as did the audience.
FIGURE 13-2
A typical scene from The
Honeymooners with a smug Ralph
Kramden (Jackie Gleason) seriously
annoying his wife, Alice (Audrey
Meadows), while Ed Norton
(Art Carney) and Trixie Norton
(Jane Kean) stand by to see what
will happen.
PERCEPTION KEY Early Situation Comedies
Because early comedies are widely available from downloads, you may be able to view
a sample episode from one of the series mentioned above, as well as from Leave It to
Beaver, Gilligan’s Island, Father Knows Best, Happy Days, All in the Family, I Love Lucy, or
M*A*S*H, in order to respond to the following:
1. How does the structure of the situation comedy diff er from that of a standard fi lm?
2. Who are the characters in the comedy you have seen, and what is their social
status? Is there any awareness of the political environment in which they live?
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337
TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
Th e Structure of the Self-Contained Episode
The early television series programs were self-contained half- or one-hour nar ra-
tives that had a beginning, middle, and end. The episodes of each program were
broken by commercial in ter rup tion, so the writers made sure you wanted to see
what happened next by creating cliff-hangers. But each episode was complete in
itself. Because there was no background preparation needed, the viewer could see
the episodes in any order and be fully satisfi ed. Until late in the 1980s, that was the
stand ard for a series. In the popular western series Bonanza (NBC, 1959–1973),
the characters generally remained the same, the situations were familiar and ap-
propriate to the locale, and the sense of completion at the end of each episode was
satisfying, as it is, for instance, in most fi lms.
The pattern was constant in most genres of dramas. Current crime dramas, Law
and Order (NBC, 1989), CSI (CBS, 2000), and each of their “branded” versions, fol-
low the same pattern. Each of these successful series depends on a formula. Law and
Order, the most successful show of its kind, has relied on interpreting versions of
recent crimes (“ripped from the headlines”). There is a clear-cut division between
the police, who investigate a crime, and the prosecutors, who take the case to court.
CSI (Figure 13-3) in its several versions usually follows two separate killings in each
episode and spends a great deal of time in the lab analyzing fi ngerprints and other
forensic details. So far, these have held the attention of mass audiences. But the
structure of these shows is predictable, and each episode is, for the most part, com-
plete so that no one who comes to any episode needs to be “brought up to speed”
in order to appreciate the action.
The important thing about the usual series episode on television is that it is
self-contained. It does not need preparation in advance, nor does it need explanation.
It is a “one-off” each time the program airs. What does not change — usu ally — are
the characters, the locale, and the time when the program airs.
Th e Television Serial
One type of program with which commercial television has set itself apart from the
standard production fi lm is the serial. While the standard production fi lm is about
120 minutes long, a television serial production can be open-ended. Soap operas,
daytime television’s adaptation of radio’s ongoing series, were broadcast at the
3. What are the ambitions of the families in any of these situation comedies? What
are they trying to achieve in life? Are you sympathetic to the older characters? The
younger characters?
4. Compare any one of these situation comedies with a current comedy seen on TV. What
are the obvious diff erences? Based on your comparison, how has society changed since
the earlier situation comedy? Do any of the changes you note imply that these comedies
have a content that includes a commentary on the social life of their times?
5. What are the lasting values—if any—revealed in the early situation comedies?
If there are any, which ones seem to have changed profoundly?
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CHAPTER 13
same hour each weekday. Viewers could begin with any episode and be entertained,
even though each episode had only a minor resolution. Early television soap operas
such as Another World (NBC, 1964–1999), The Secret Storm (CBS, 1954–1974), and
Search for Tomorrow (CBS, 1951–1986) were continuing stories focusing on personal
problems involving money, sex, and questionable behavior in settings refl ecting the
current community. In Spanish-language programming, telenovelas do the same.
In a sense, the structure of the soap opera contributed to television’s develop-
ment of the distinctive serial structure that remains one of the greatest strengths
of the medium. Robert J. Thompson has said, “The series is, indeed, broadcast-
ing’s unique aesthetic contribution to Western art.”1 The British Broadcasting
FIGURE 13-3
Elizabeth Shue and Ted Danson
in “a meeting of the minds” from
an episode of CSI, Crime Scene
Investigation (CBS), one of the
longest-running police procedural
programs.
1Quoted in Glen Creeber, Serial Television (London: British Film Institute, 2004), p. 6.
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TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
Corporation can be said to have begun the development of the serial show with
historical epics such as the hugely popular open-ended Upstairs, Downstairs (BBC,
1971–1975) and twelve-part I, Claudius (BBC, 1976), both of which are now avail-
able from download sources and on DVD.
Roots: Th e Triumph of an American Family The fi rst important serial program
in the United States was Rich Man, Poor Man (ABC, 1976), a twelve-episode adap-
tation of a novel by Irwin Shaw. But the power of the serial was made most evident
by the production of Roots (ABC, 1977), which was seen by 130 million viewers, the
largest audience of any television series (Figure 13-4). More than 85 percent of all
television households were tuned to one or more of the episodes.
The subtitle of the serial, The Triumph of an American Family, focused the pub-
lic’s attention on family and family values. Alex Haley’s novel represented itself
as a search for roots, for the ancestors who shaped himself and his family. African
American slaves were ripped from their native soil, and the meager records of their
travel to the West did not include information about their families. But Haley
showed how, by his persistence, he was able to press far enough to fi nd his original
progenitor, Kunta Kinte, in Africa.
Roots, which lasted twelve hours, explored the moral issues relative to slavery as well
as racism and the damage it does. The network was uneasy about the production
and feared it might not be popular, which is the primary reason why the twelve
episodes were shown on successive nights. The opening scenes of the program, not
in Haley’s novel, show white actor Ed Asner, then a popular television fi gure, as
a conscience-stricken slave boat captain. This was intended to make the unpleas-
antness of the reality of slavery more tolerable to a white audience. The network
FIGURE 13-4
Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) in Alex Haley’s
television drama Roots, the most widely watched
television drama of its time. Kunta Kinte represents
Haley’s ancestor as he is brought in chains from
Africa.
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340
CHAPTER 13
executives were, as we know now, wrong to worry, because the series captured the
attention of the mass of American television viewers. Never had so many people
watched one program. Never had so many Americans faced questions related to the
institution of slavery in America and what it meant to those who were enslaved. Roots
changed the way many people thought about African Americans, and it also changed
the way most Americans thought about television as merely entertainment.
Home Box Offi ce: Th e Sopranos From 1999 to 2007, in eighty-six episodes, David
Chase’s epic portrait of Tony Soprano and his family riveted HBO viewers. Unlike
virtually all other shows in the gangster style, The Sopranos (Figure 13-5) portrayed
Tony as a fragile, haunted man seeing a psychiatrist. His dysfunctional family at-
tracted much more attention than any normal Mafi a activities would ordinarily have
done. Because of the show’s quirkiness, the major networks, ABC, CBS, and Fox,
rejected the series. Because HBO was a subscription service, and not available on the
airwaves, The Sopranos had the advantage of being able to use language characteristic
of mob characters, an advantage that made the series achieve more credibility.
The Sopranos’ narrative line was extended throughout the six-season run of the show.
The standard episodic self-contained structure was abandoned early on and, as a result,
HBO established new expectations on the part of its audience. The Sopranos was the
fi rst major extended serial to change the way in which viewers received their dramatic
entertainment. In 1999 that was completely new to television, but today it is common
for viewers to wait before watching all the episodes of a given season. The term “binge-
ing” was applied to viewers who watched the fi rst thirteen episodes of a Netfl ix release
of House of Cards, a study of British politics, all at a marathon single sitting.
HBO has produced several extended series since The Sopranos, including Deadwood
(2004–2006), Boardwalk Empire (2010– ), and Game of Thrones (2011– ). None of
these, however, rises to the artistic level of its fi nest production, The Wire (2002–2008).
FIGURE 13-5
Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) and
Tony Soprano (James Gandolfi ni)
in front of their meeting place,
Centanni’s Meat Market. Paulie is
getting a suntan.
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TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
Home Box Offi ce: Th e Wire While The Sopranos portrayed the life of a Mafi a fam-
ily, another crime drama aimed at portraying the city of Baltimore as a way of
demonstrating that all the segments of a community are interwoven. David Simon,
formerly a reporter for a Baltimore newspaper, and Ed Burns, a former homicide
detective, are responsible for creating the drama, drawing on their personal experi-
ence. The Wire is about the frustrations of a police unit that tries to use wiretapping
to track the progress of street criminals deep in the drug trade (Figure 13-6). Their
successes and failures are the primary material of the drama.
The Wire won many awards over its fi ve seasons (2002–2008), although it never
won an Emmy. Critics have described the drama as perhaps the best ever pro-
duced for television. Its success depended on a gritty realism that often introduced
uncomfortable material. The drama focused on six segments of the community:
the law, with police, both black and white, using sometimes illegal techniques in
response to frustration; the street drug trade, largely dominated by young black
men; the port of Baltimore, with its illegal immigration schemes and other criminal
activity, run essentially by white union workers; the politicians of the city, all with
their own compromises, both black and white; the public school system, which
houses some of the criminals for a while; and the newspapers, whose news coverage
turns out not always to be honestly produced.
The bleakness of the portrait of the city is a call to action. The real mayor of
Baltimore approved the project and gave considerable support for its production in
the face of a possibly damaging view of the city partly because cities like Baltimore
all face the same range of problems. Seeing these problems for what they are helps
to clarify the true values that all such cities must recognize. A true portrait is a fi rst
step in restitution.
FIGURE 13-6
Marlo Stanfi eld (Jamie Hector) and
Felicia “Snoop” Pearson (Felicia
Pearson) in a scene from the fi nal
season of The Wire.
These are the young drug lords
whose irrational violence alarms
their older criminal counterparts,
whose own behavior was murderous
enough.
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342
CHAPTER 13
Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar Little (Figure 13-7), a gun-wielding thief
who specializes in robbing criminals who cannot go to the police, stated in an in-
terview that “what The Wire is, is an American story, an American social problem.
There’s a Wire in every . . . city.” Not every city is willing to face the truth. Omar
Little is gay, dangerous, but living by a rigid code of his own design. He was in
many of the sixty episodes. The NAACP presented him an award for his acting in
The Wire.
The drama appeared, like The Sopranos, on Home Box Offi ce and is now avail-
able on DVD. Numerous websites detail the episodes and provide information on
each character in the drama as well as on the critical reception of the drama. The
extent of the drama, which is serial in nature rather than episodic, is much greater
than what could be achieved in a feature fi lm. The complexity of the issues that face
the law, the horror of criminal life in the streets, and the machinations of high-level
politicians facing the same problems most large American cities face needed an
extensive and far-reaching drama perfectly suited to television.
Video Art
Unlike commercial dramatic television, video art avoids a dramatic narrative line
of the kind that involves points of tension, climax, or resolution. In this sense, most
video art is the opposite of commercial dramatic television. While television pro-
gramming is often formulaic, predictable in structure, and designed to please a
mass audience, video art is more experimental and radical in structure, which often
results in its pleasing its audience in a very different way.
FIGURE 13-7
Omar Little (Michael Kenneth
Williams), an avenging spirit in The
Wire, intends to wreak vengeance
on Marlo and Snoop, who have
killed his lover and his close friend.
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FOCUS ON Downton Abbey
By 2013, in its third season, the British serial drama Down-
ton Abbey (PBS) became one of the most watched television
programs in the world. Almost the diametrical opposite of
The Sopranos and The Wire, it presents a historical period in
England in which the language is formal by comparison and
the manners impeccable. What we see is the upheaval of
the lives of the British aristocracy in the wake of historical
forces that cannot be ignored or stemmed.
The fi rst season began with a major historical event, the
sinking of the Titanic in 1912. With the ship went Patrick
Crawley, the young heir to Downton Abbey. The result is
that, much to the dismay of the Dowager Countess Vio-
let Crawley (Figure 13-8), the great house will now go to
the Earl of Grantham’s distant cousin, Matthew Crawley,
a person unknown to the family. Young Matthew enters as
a middle-class solicitor (lawyer) with little interest in the ways of the aristocracy. But
soon he fi nds himself in love with his distant cousin, Lady Mary Crawley, beginning
a long and complicated love interest that becomes one of the major centers of the
drama for three seasons. Lord Grantham and his wife Cora, Countess of Grantham,
have three daughters (Figure 13-9), and therefore the question of marriage is as im-
portant in this drama as in any Jane Austen novel.
The fate of Downton Abbey itself is a major center of interest in the drama—not only
because of the question of who is to inherit and live in the great house, but also because
in season 3 Lord Grantham announces that, as a result of bad investments, he has lost
most of the money that made life in the house possible. In the period in which the action
takes place, from 1912 to 1921, social changes caused wealthy families such as the
Crawleys to abandon their aristocratic ways and adopt a middle-class way of life.
The same was true for the servants who tended to
the needs of the aristocrats. Some of the most com-
pelling characters in the drama are servants such as the
butler, Mr. Carson (Figure 13-10), and the housekeeper,
Mrs. Hughes. The kitchen staff , Mrs.  Patmore and Anna,
as well as the rest of the staff all have their own complica-
tions to add to the mix. They too are aware of changes in
society and fear for what they might have to face outside
the safety of the great house. One of the great strengths
of the show is the attention it pays to the lives of the ser-
vants. The jealousies, anxieties personal diffi culties, as well
as the respect and aff ection that the servants have among
themselves, give us a deeper understanding of their situa-
tion. The complex relationship the servants have with the
members of the household they serve in Downton Abbey re-
veals the symbiotic relationship existing between them—a
mutual dependence not just on an economic level but on an emotional level as well.
The fascination of the drama centers on contemporary interest in the ways in which
entrenched society deals with massive social change that alters lives suddenly and with
completely unexpected results. Technological changes such as the introduction of the
telephone are met with comic reactions from those, among both the Crawleys and
the staff , who reject them and fail to adapt to them. Even more stressful, a major
FIGURE 13-8
Maggie Smith as Violet Crawley in
Downton Abbey. She is the Dowager
Countess of Grantham and the
series’ most stalwart character in
her resistance to change. She has
been a scene-stealer since season 1.
FIGURE 13-9
The Crawley sisters, Lady Edith,
Lady Sybil, Lady Mary. At different
times, Downton Abbey portrays the
sisters as victims of envy, rebellion,
and lust—but also as industrious,
loving, and ambitious.
343
continued
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Video art dates from the early 1950s. Its most important early artist is Nam June
Paik (1932–2006), whose work opened many avenues of experimentation and inspired
an entire generation of video artists. Paik’s Video Flag z http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=k66qFuGxrl8 is a large installation approximately six feet high by twelve feet
wide, with eighty-four video monitors with two channels of information constantly
changing, at a speed that makes it diffi cult to identify the specifi c images on each
monitor. The effect is hypnotic and strange, but viewers are usually captured by the
imagery and the dynamism of the several patterns that alternate in the monitors. Paik
experimented widely with video monitors, combining them, in one case, to produce
cello music, played by Charlotte Moorman, a musician and performance artist. In
another installation, Arc Double Face (1985), he produced a large doorway composed
of large monitors with three separate video channels showing simultaneously.
portion of season 2 takes place during and shortly after
World War  I. Lord Grantham, as a veteran of the earlier
Boer War in South Africa, appears in a ceremonial uniform,
but does not, like Matthew Crawley and some of the staff ,
go off to war in 1914. The great house becomes, for a while,
a military hospital, altering the pattern of life for everyone.
Immediately upon the end of hostilities, the Spanish in-
fl uenza, which killed more people than the war, sickens Lady
Cora and kills Lavinia, Matthew Crawley’s fi ancée. Fast upon
this historic event, the series introduces the formation of the
Irish Free State and the subsequent Irish civil war. One of
the strong attractions of Downton Abbey has been its capacity
to make the historical events of the period touch us through
their eff ects on the characters of the drama.
The attention to period detail has also been one of the
major attractions of the series. A great deal of care has been taken in reproducing
the furnishings of the rooms in Highclere Castle, the setting for most of the series.
The same is true of the costuming, which is authentic for the era; and, because the
Crawley’s are wealthy, the dresses and suits are elegant. For those interested in early
transportation the series employs a number of early automobiles, including one re-
markable Rolls Royce open touring car. History is alive in Downton Abbey.
FIGURE 13-10
Mr. Carson, the butler, and Lady
Mary Crawley try out their new
Gramophone. The introduction of
new technology—electricity, the
telephone, and the phonograph—
adds to the appeal of this series.
PERCEPTION KEY Focus on Downton Abbey
1. To what extent does Downton Abbey contribute to your education? Do you think
that part of the appeal of the series is linked to what you learn from it about the
early years of the twentieth century in England and America?
2. A great deal of attention is paid to the composition of individual frames of the
drama. Comment on the quality of individual images and on the nature of the
pacing of the drama. To what audience do you feel this series has the most appeal?
3. How accurate do you think the portrayal of society is in Downton Abbey? What
dramatic qualities lead you to think it accurate or inaccurate?
4. Some critics have called Downton Abbey a soap opera. Is this a fair assessment?
5. How would you compare Downton Abbey with another serial drama such as Home-
land, Lost, or 24?
344
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TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
FIGURE 13-11
Janine Antoni, Tear, 2008. Lead,
steel 4,182-pound, 33-inch-
diameter wrecking ball. 11 3
11-foot HD video projection with
surround sound.
Janine Antoni is a sculptor who
works in video. She uses both in
Tear.
Peter Campus (b. 1937) has been a seminal fi gure in video art. His Three
Transitions (1973) at New York’s Museum of Modern Art is a fi ve-minute
video of three transformations of his own image (http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Ar99AfOJ2o8). The fi rst shows himself projected on a paper partition.
He stands dressed in a yellow sport coat facing the partition. Slowly we see a knife
coming through from the other side of the partition and sticking out through his
back. Slowly the knife slices down through his back, and then we see the partition
sliced apart as his hand seems to reach through both the partition and his back
to make room for his head and body coming through. The effect is uncanny.
The second of the transitions shows him rubbing his face, and as he rubs we see
another face showing through, as if his face were layers and each time he rubs
he shows another layer. In the last transition we see him holding a large pho-
tograph of himself which he sets afi re. The fi re takes a long time to eat away at
the photograph, eventually, but slowly, burning his own moving image. Campus
specializes in mysterious video experiences in which his educational background,
experimental psychology, comes into play.
Some of the work of the video artists mentioned here can be viewed on YouTube
and other video sites online. For instance, Janine Antoni’s Tear (Figure 13-11) can
be seen on YouTube. Antoni is a performance artist and sculptor who walks a tight-
rope in her video Touch, also viewable online. As in most modern video art, the
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pacing and rhythms are very slow, especially compared to the rapid-cut commercial
television programs. Antoni has said that the slow movement of video art has the
purpose of engaging all the senses, but, curiously, the slow pacing sometimes be-
comes hypnotic, so that one participates with the work on a very different level even
as compared with looking at a painting.
Gary Hill’s (b. 1951) installation at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
City, Inasmuch As It Is Always Already Taking Place (1990) (Figure 13-12), is a col-
lection of sixteen video monitors of varying sizes positioned in a horizontal recess
in a wall. The monitors produce essentially a self-portrait, although a strange one.
They show parts of Hill’s body arranged haphazardly and projected in a seam-
less loop, each lasting from fi ve to thirty seconds. The sixteen channels operate
simultaneously with a low-volume soundtrack of rubbing skin, crinkling paper, and
whispered sounds. The commentary provided by the museum says that the unseen
“core” linking all the monitors mimics the unseen human soul.
Video art is international and growing. The Russian group known as AES1F,
composed of four artists, Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Evgeny Svyatsky,
and Vladimir Fridkes, formed their group in 1987 and have shown in several im-
portant exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale. In 2009 they showed their video
composition The Feast of Trimalchio (Figure  13-13) at the Sydney Biennale in
FIGURE 13-12
Gary Hill, Inasmuch As It Is
Always Already Taking Place. 1990.
Sixteen-channel video/sound
installation: sixteen modifi ed
½-inch to 23-inch black-and-white
video monitors, two speakers,
multichannel audio mixer with
equalizer, sixteen DVD players
and sixteen DVDs. Dimensions:
horizontal niche: 16 3 54 3
66 inches (413 137 3 167 cm).
Edition of two and one artist’s
proof.
This installation in the New
York Museum of Modern Art is
hypnotic, with sixteen television
channels on various sizes of
monitors in which different parts of
Hill’s body appear.
FIGURE 13-13
The Feast of Trimalchio (2009–2010),
AES1F Group. Multichannel
HD video installation (9-, 3-,
and 1-channel versions), series of
pictures, series of portfolios with
photographs and drawings.
346
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Australia. The Feast of Trimalchio fi gures in a Roman novel by Petronius Arbiter
called The Satyricon and it became a symbol for wasteful opulence and orgiastic
entertainment. The AES1F Group have used their imagery to satirize for today
what Petronius satirized for ancient Rome. They set their fi gures in a modern
luxury hotel on a fantasy island as a protest against the rampant commercialism of
modern Russia.
Doug Aitken mounted a gigantic video projection on the outside walls of the
Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2007 (Figure 13-14). Sleepwalkers
consists of fi ve thirteen-minute narratives of people of different social classes going
to work at different nighttime jobs. The evening projections were slightly altered
with each presentation. He said about his work,
I wanted to create very separate characters and explore their connections almost through
movement and place. The characters are as diverse as possible and, as these stories come
closer and closer together, you see the shared lines, the connections.2
Aitken has been working in the medium of video for some time and won the Inter-
national Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999 for Electric Earth.
FIGURE 13-14
Doug Aitken’s video projections
of Sleepwalkers on the walls of the
New York Museum of Modern
Art, 2007, attracted a considerable
crowd and critical responses from
the media.
2Quoted in Ellen Wulfhorst, “ ‘Sleepwalkers’ Exhibit Projected on NY’s MOMA,” Reuters, January 19,
2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1823442020070119.
347
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348
CHAPTER 13
The most celebrated video artist working today is Bill Viola (b. 1951), whose
work has been exhibited internationally with great acclaim. He is steeped in the
tradition of the old master painters, especially those of the fourteenth and fi fteenth
centuries in northern Europe and Italy. His techniques vary, but one of the most
effective is the slow-motion work that makes it possible to observe every action in
great detail. He uses high-defi nition video where available and achieves effects that
recall great paintings. His work is meditative and deeply thoughtful. The Greeting
(1995) (Figure 13-15) is a projection in heroic size of three women standing in a
cityscape reminiscent of a Renaissance painting. Indeed, the work was inspired
by Pontormo’s The Visitation, a sixteenth-century painting. In The Greeting, the
wind blows softly, moving the women’s draped clothing. Except for the wind, the
projection is almost soundless, the action pointedly slow, but ultimately fascinat-
ing. The resources of slow-motion video are greater than we would have thought
before seeing these images. Viola’s techniques produce a totally new means of
participation with the images, and our sense of time and space seems altered in a
manner that is revelatory of both the sensa of the work and the human content of
greeting and joy.
Another remarkable installation that moved from the Getty Museum in Los
Angeles to the National Gallery of Art in London is The Passions (2000–2002), a
study of the uncontrollable human emotions that Viola sees as the passions that
great artists of the past alluded to in their work. The Quintet of the Astonished (2000)
FIGURE 13-15
Bill Viola, The Greeting. 1995. Video/
sound installation projected some four
times life size.
The movement of the fi gures, which is
very, very slow, is extraordinary to watch
in part because we can examine every
moment with the same intensity as our
examination of a painting—which The
Greeting in many ways resembles.
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349
TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
(Figure 13-16), one of several video installations in the series The Passions, was pro-
jected on a fl at-screen monitor, revealing the wide range of emotions that these
fi gures were capable of. Figure 13-17, Dolorosa, also part of The Passions, shows the
panels as they were exhibited. The original footage was shot at 300 frames per sec-
ond but then exhibited at the standard television speed of 30 frames per second. At
times, it looks as if the fi gures are not moving at all, but eventually the viewer sees
FIGURE 13-16
Bill Viola, The Quintet of the
Astonished. 2000. Video/sound
installation, rear projected on a
screen mounted on a wall.
The work is a study in the
expression of feelings.
FIGURE 13-17
Bill Viola, Dolorosa. 2000. Color
video diptych on two freestanding
LCD panels.
The work portrays feelings
associated with the title, which
translates as “sadness.”
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350
CHAPTER 13
that the expressions on the faces change slowly and the detail by which they alter
is extremely observable, as it would not be at normal speed. The Passions consists of
several different installations, all exploring varieties of emotional expression.
Bill Viola’s work is informed by classical artists and by his own com mit ment to
a religious sensibility. In his comments about his work, he often observes the reli-
gious impulse as it has been expressed by the artists of the Renaissance whom he
admires, and as it has informed his awareness of spirituality in his own life.
PERCEPTION KEY Bill Viola and Other Video Artists
Most of us do not live near an installation by Bill Viola or other video artists, but there
is a great deal of video art online, including some of Viola’s. This Perception Key relies
on your having the opportunity to see some of the important online sites.
1. The online site www.jamescohan.com/artists/bill-viola contains a good deal of in-
formation about Viola and his work. It includes video excerpts of him talking about
what he does, and it includes video still samples of his work. Do you fi nd the non-
com mer cial approach he takes to art satisfying or unsatisfying? What do you feel
Viola expects of his audience?
2. You can see a still from Viola’s installation called City of Man (1989), composed
of three projections, at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, at www.artnet
.com/Magazine/reviews/moore/moore9-29-9.asp. In this installation, the images
move with speed. The three images are very diff erent and together form a triptych.
Which can you interpret best? Which seems most threatening? What seems to be
the vis ual message of this installation? How do you think the alternation of images
on and off would aff ect your concentration on the imagery?
3. Sample video art by going online to the following websites: www.billviola.com,
www.davidhallart.com, http://ukvideoart.tripod.com, www.tonkonow.com/campus
.html, www.kortermand.dk, or www.c3.hu/scca/butterfl y. Which work of art seems
most interesting and most successful? What qualities do you fi nd revealing in the
piece you most admire? In which was the participative experience most intense?
4. Video art is still in its infancy. If you have access to a video camera and a video mon-
i tor, try making a short piece of video art that avoids the techniques and clichés of
commercial television. How do your friends react to it? Describe the techniques you
relied upon to make your work distinct. If you wish, you can upload your work to
videoart.net at www.videoart.net for others to view.
Summary
Television is the most widely available artistic medium in our culture. The wide-
spread accessibility of video cameras and video monitors has brought television to
a new position as a medium available to numerous artists, both professional and
amateur. Television’s technical limitations, those of resolution and screen size,
have made it distinct from fi lm, but new technical developments are improving the
quality of its imagery and its sound. Commercial television dramas have evolved
their own structures, with episodic programs following a formulaic pattern of crisis
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TELEVISION AND VIDEO ART
points followed by commercial interruption. The British Broadcasting Corporation
helped begin a novel development that distinguishes television from the commer-
cial fi lm: the open-ended serial, which avoids crisis-point interruption and permits
the medium to explore richer resources of narrative. Video art is, by way of con-
trast, completely anticommercial. It avoids narrative structures and alters our sense
of time and expectation. Because it is in its infancy, the possibilities of video art are
unlike those of any other medium.
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352
P
art 3
I
N
T
E
R
R
E
L
A
T
I
O
N
S
H
I
P
S
Art and Artlike
In Chapter 2, we argued that a work of art is a form-content. The form of a work
of art is more than just an organization of media. Artistic form clarifi es, gives us
insight into some subject matter (something important in our world). A work of
art is revelatory of values. Conversely, an artlike work is not revelatory. It has form
but lacks a form-content. But what is revelatory to one person might not be to an-
other. What is revelatory to one culture might not be to another. As time passes, a
work that was originally not understood as art may become art for both critics and
the public—cave paintings, for example (Figure 1-1). It is highly unlikely that the
cave painters and their society thought of their works as art. If one argues that art
is entirely in the eye of the beholder, then it is useless to try to distinguish art from
the art like. But we do not agree that art is entirely in the eye of the beholder. And
we think it is of paramount importance to be able to distinguish art from the artlike.
To fail to do so leaves us in chaotic confusion, without any standards. Anything
goes. Joyce Kilmer’s poetry is just as valuable as Shakespeare’s; Norman Rockwell’s
painting (see Figure 14-5) is just as valuable as Raphael’s (see Figure 14-10).
It is surely important to keep the boundaries between art and the artlike fl exi-
ble, and the artlike should not be blindly disparaged. Undoubtedly, there are many
artlike works—much propaganda, pornography, and shock art, for example—that
may deserve condemnation. But to denigrate the artlike in order to praise art is
C h a p t e r 1 4
IS IT ART OR
SOMETHING LIKE IT?
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critical snobbery. For the most part, the artlike plays a very civilizing role, as does,
for instance, the often marvelous beauty of crafts. To be unaware, however, of the
differences between art and the artlike or to be confused about them weakens our
perceptive abilities. This is especially true in our time, for we are inundated with
myriad works that are labeled art, often on no better grounds than that the maker
says so. Concepts (beliefs) govern percepts to some extent. Confused concepts lead
to confused perceptions. The fundamental and common feature that is shared by art
and the artlike is the crafting—the skilled structuring of some medium. The funda-
mental feature that separates art from the artlike is the revelatory power of that craft-
ing, the form-content (pages 54–56), the clarifi cation of some subject matter. But we
may disagree about whether a particular work has revelatory power. The borderline
between art and the artlike can be very tenuous. In any case, our judgments should
always be understood as debatable.
We shall classify and briefl y describe some of the basic types of the artlike. We
will use examples mainly from the visual fi eld, not only because that fi eld usually
cannot be shut out, but also because that fi eld seems to be the most saturated with
what appears to be art. Our classifi cations will not be exhaustive, for the various
manifestations of the artlike, especially in recent years, appear endless. Nor will our
classifi cations be exclusive, for many kinds of the art like mix with others. For exam-
ple, folk art may be decoration and usually is a popular art.
We shall briefl y analyze six fundamental types of works that often are on or near
the boundary of art: illustration, decoration, idea art, performance art, shock art,
and virtual art (see the chart “General Guidelines for Types of ‘Artlike’ Creations”).
This schema omits, especially with respect to the avant-garde, other types and many
species. However, our schema provides a reasonable semblance of organization to a
very broad and confusing range of phenomena that rarely has been addressed. The
schema, furthermore, highlights the most important issues. The division between
the traditional and the avant-garde points up the powerful shift in the “new art”
General Guidelines for Types of “Artlike” Creations
Differences
C R A F T
Traditional Avant-Garde
I
Illustration
(Realism)
II
Decoration
III
Idea Art
IV
Performance
Art
V
Shock Art
VI
Virtual Art
Folk
Popular
Propaganda
Kitsch
Works closed
Establishment
Craft emphasized
Chance avoided
Makers separate from media
Audience separate from work
Works open
Antiestablishment
Craft de-emphasized
Chance invited
Makers may be part of media
Audience may be part of work
Dada
Duchampism
Conceptual Art
353
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CHAPTER 14
trends beginning with Dada during World War I. The avant-garde seems to exist
in every art tradition, but never has it been so radicalized as in our time. That is
one reason the art of our time is so extraordinarily interesting from a theoretical
perspective. We fl ock to exhibitions and hear, “What is going on here? This is art?
You’ve got to be kidding!” In this chapter, we can only begin to do justice to the
controversy and excitement the avant-garde continues to produce. Those who are
conservative in approaching the avant-garde should remember this caution by the
late Jean Dubuffet, the painter-sculptor: “The characteristic property of an inven-
tive art is that it bears no resemblance to art as it is generally recognized and in
consequence . . . does not seem like art at all.”
The two types placed under “Traditional” on the chart belong to the artlike.
Many centuries of professional criticism have made possible something of an ob-
jective perspective for such classifi cation. On the other hand, with the four types
placed under “Avant-Garde,” there has been much less time to develop an objective
perspective. Because of a natural instinct to shun the new, there is a tendency to
place all or most of the works of the avant-garde automatically with the artlike. This
is a mistake. Avant-garde works can be revelatory—they can be art, of course. But
they do it in different ways from traditional art, as is indicated by the listing under
“Differences” on the chart. The key: Does the work give us insight? This typology
is one way of classifying works that are not revelatory, but that does not mean they
cannot have useful and distinctive functions. The basic function of decoration, for
example, is the enhancement of something else, making it more interesting and
pleasing. The basic function of idea art is to make us think about art. Every work
should be judged by its unique merits. We should be in a much better position now
than before the study of this text to make distinctions, however tentative, between
art and the artlike. It can be a fascinating and illuminating study.
CONCEPTION KEY Th eories
Our theory of art as revelatory, as giving insight into values, may appear to be mired
in a tradition that cannot account for the amazing developments of the avant-garde.
Is the theory inadequate? As you proceed with this chapter, ask yourself whether
the distinction between art and artlike is valid. How about useful? If not, what theory
would you propose? Or would you be inclined to dismiss theories altogether?
The distinctions that we have listed in the chart are generalities, for exceptions
(sometimes many) exist. And often the opposition between the traditional and
the avant-garde is one of degree. For example, as indicated by the word “craft”
stretched out across all six types, craft is a prerequisite of both the traditional and
the avant-garde. But craft is usually less demanding in idea art, performance art,
and shock art. In virtual art, however, craft of the highest order is generally re-
quired. Note that a distinction is being made between craft, or crafting, and crafts,
or craftworks. Craft, or crafting, is the skillful use of some medium (even if, as in
some performance art and shock art, the medium includes the maker’s body). On
the other hand, crafts, or craftworks, are the products of the crafting.
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IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
LIKE IT?
FIGURE 14-1
Duane Hanson, Woman with a
Purse. 1974.
This is one of a group of life-size,
totally realistic fi berglass
“counterfeits” of real people. They
represent a sculptural trompe l’oeil
that blurs the line between art and
life.
Illustration
Realism
An illustration is almost always realistic; that is, the images closely resemble some
object or event. Because of this sharing of realistic features, the following are
grouped under “Illustration” in the chart: folk art, popular art, prop a ganda, and
kitsch.
The structure of an illustration portrays, presents, or depicts some object or
event as the subject matter. Accordingly, a basically abstract painting or sculpture—
for example, Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (Figure 4-9)—is never an illustra-
tion. Nor is Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Figure 3-3) illustrative, for although there
is a suggestion of an autumnal event, there is no close resemblance, and the sug-
gestion probably would not be noticed without the title. On the other hand, we
have no diffi culty rec ognizing that wax fi gures in a museum are meant to represent
famous people. But do realistic portrayals give us something more than presenta-
tion? Some signifi cant interpretation? If we are correct in thinking not, then the
forms of these wax fi gures only pre sent their subject matter. They do not interpret
their subject matter, which is to say they lack content or artistic meaning. Such
forms— providing their portrayals are realistic—produce illustration. They are not
artistic forms. They are not form-content (Chapter 2).
PERCEPTION KEY Woman with a Purse
Is Figure 14-1 a photograph of a real woman? An illustration? A work of art?
The following experience happened to one of the authors:
On entering a large room in the basement gallery of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in
Cologne, Germany, I noticed a woman standing by a large pillar staring at an abstract
painting by Frank Stella. She seemed to be having an exceptionally intense participative
experience with the Stella. After a few participative experiences of my own with the Stella
and some other paintings in that room, I was amazed to fi nd the lady still entranced. My
curiosity was aroused. Sum mon ing courage, I moved very close to fi nd that the “woman”
was in fact a sculpture—the trompe l’oeil was almost unbelievable, becoming recognizable
only within a few feet. Very few visitors in that gallery made my amusing discovery. And
when they did, they too were amazed and amused, but no one’s attention was held on this
lady very long. Any concentrated attention was given to the technical details of the fi gure.
Was the hair real? Were those real fi ngernails? We decided they were.
The form of the sculpture seemed to be less than artistic, apparently revealing
nothing about women or anything else, except for exceptional craftsmanship. The
late Duane Hanson’s Woman with a Purse is so extraordinarily realistic that it is a
“substitute,” a duplicate of the real thing. Is Woman with a Purse an example of art
or the artlike? We will return to this question (see Perception Key, page 359).
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CHAPTER 14
Folk Art
There is no universally accepted defi nition of folk art. Most experts agree, how-
ever, that folk art is outside fi ne art or what we simply have been calling art. Unfor-
tunately, the experts offer little agreement about why.
Folk artists usually are both self-taught and trained to some extent in a nonpro-
fessional tradition. Although not trained by “fi ne artists,” folk artists sometimes are
directly infl uenced by the fi ne-art tradition, as in the case of Henri Rousseau, who
was entranced by the works of Picasso. Folk art is never aristocratic or dictated by
the fashions of the artistic establishment, and it is rarely fostered by patrons. Folk
art is an expression of the folkways of the “plain society,” the average person, the
values of the unsophisticated. Often quite provincial, folk art generally is com-
monsensical, direct, naive, and earthy. Almost everything that is carefully made
and not mass-produced has a folk-art quality—dress, utensils, furniture, carpets,
quilts, crockery, toys, ad infi nitum. Often some pieces of folk art become more
valuable and more interesting to connoisseurs decades after their original compo-
sition or manufacture. The craft or skill that produces these things is often of the
highest order. The products of a high degree of skill can be described as craftwork,
although, of course, not all craftwork is folk art. Crafts do not necessarily express
folkways, and crafts per sons usually are professionally trained.
The folk artist, lacking the training of the professional artist, usually exhib-
its greater technical lim i ta tions. Picasso’s technical achievements far surpass
those of Rousseau. Awkwardness in a Picasso painting—Guernica, for example
(Figure  1-4)—always appears intentional. Nevertheless, Rousseau developed,
through “dogged work,” as he described it, some exceptional skills, especially with
color, light, and composition. Very few folk painters have been as skillful as Rous-
seau, although even his work shows lack of skill at times. Technical lim i ta tions are
a clue to identifying folk art. Another clue is the more or less obvious attempt at
realistic portrayals, especially in technologically developed so ci e ties. Because folk
painters of these cultures tend to share the values of the common person, they
usually paint with a commonsense directness things they see rather than ideas, and
try to make these things look as they really are. Intentional distortion in this kind
of folk art is usually frowned upon. Thus, when folk painting of technologically
developed cultures is less than art but is artlike, it is almost always an example of
illustration—the portrayal of easily identifi able objects and events. On the other
hand, the folk art of technologically undeveloped societies, such as the works of the
North American Indians—the totem pole, for example—tends more toward the
nonrealistic. What explains these different tendencies? Perhaps in developed soci-
eties, unlike the undeveloped, realistic images are everywhere. That is not to claim,
however, that in undeveloped societies realistic images are necessarily lacking; for
example, on the totem pole, animals often are very realistically portrayed, as they
are in the cave painting (Figure 1-1).
The snapshot aesthetic of photography is, in a sense, folk art because even
before Kodak’s Brownie Camera was introduced in 1900 people had been taking
photographs without any training about composition or balance and content.
The snapshot is an unmeditated “instant” image valued usually as a record of
a person or a place and not as a work of art. Richard Estes’s Baby Doll Lounge
(Figure 14-2) is not a photograph. This very large oil painting may be a copy of
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357
IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
LIKE IT?
a photograph that, if we saw it, we would consider a snapshot. It shows a simple
street scene with a car close to its center, but without the Baby Doll Lounge,
which, according to the title, is the subject of the original photo. Estes is not a
folk painter. He is highly skilled and well trained. The photograph is an accurate
rendering of the snapshot (and therefore also the scene). Is this painting art or
artlike?
Henri Rousseau painted seriously from age forty-nine, when he retired on a
small pension from the customs house to paint full time. He studied paintings
in French museums and made every effort to paint in the most realistic style
of the day. He was sometimes the butt of ironic comments that overpraised his
work, but instead of taking offense, he seems to have accepted such comments as
sincere. Picasso gave a dinner in his honor in 1908, two years before Rousseau
died, and some commentators feel Picasso may have been mildly ironic in his
praise. Rousseau painted animals he had seen only in zoos or in dioramas in
natural history museums, and sometimes he painted animals together that
could never have shared the same space. His sense of perspective was lacking
throughout his career, and his approach to painting was marked by odd habits,
such as painting all one color first, then bringing in the next color, and so on.
However, his lack of skill came at a time in art history when Surrealism was
under way, and his particular unrealities began to seem symbolic and significant
in ways that a realistic painting, such as Estes’s Baby Doll Lounge, could not.
This is especially true of The Sleeping Gypsy (Figure 14-3), which improbably
places a strange-looking lion next to a gypsy whose position is so uncertain as
to suggest that he or she may roll out of the painting. Rousseau’s intention was
to make the painting totally realistic, but the result is more schematic and sug-
gestive than realistic.
FIGURE 14-2
Richard Estes, Baby Doll Lounge.
1978. Oil on canvas, 3 3 5 feet.
Estes, who painted in oils, created
a style that emulated photography,
but tried to outdo it.
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CHAPTER 14
PERCEPTION KEY Richard Estes and Henry Rousseau
1. Which painting exhibits more skill? Is it skill that determines which of these paint-
ings is more artlike?
2. How important is accuracy of representation to deciding whether a painting is art?
3. Which painting is more useful as an illustration?
4. Does translating a snapshot into an oil painting make a work of art? Does the paint-
ing make the snapshot a work of art? How does this painting aff ect your valuation
of photography as an art form?
5. In each painting, decide what the subject matter is. Then decide whether the form
transforms the subject matter and creates content. Which painting has more-
interesting content? Why?
Popular Art
Popular art—a very imprecise category—encompasses contemporary works en-
joyed by the masses, who presumably lack artistic discrimination. The masses love
Norman Rockwell, dismiss Mondrian, and are puzzled by Picasso. Popular art
is looked down upon by the “highbrows.” Fine art is looked down upon by the
“lowbrows.”
The term “Pop” derives from the term “popular.” In the 1960s and 70s, Pop Art
was at the edge of the avant-garde, startling to the masses. But as usually happens,
time makes the avant-garde less controversial, and in this case the style quickly be-
came popular. The realistic showings of mundane objects were easily comprehended.
Here was an art people could understand without snobbish critics. We see the tomato
FIGURE 14-3
Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping
Gypsy. 1897. Oil on canvas,
51 3 79 inches.
Rousseau was a customs agent
during the day, but a painter in
his free time. Although without
training in art, he became one
of the most original fi gures in
modern art.
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359
IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
LIKE IT?
soup cans in supermarkets. Andy Warhol helps us look at them as objects worthy of
notice (Figure 14-4), especially their blatant repetitive colors, shapes, stacking, and
simplicity. For the masses, we fi nally have an art that seemingly is revelatory.
PERCEPTION KEY Pop Art
1. Is Warhol’s painting revelatory? If so, about what?
2. Go back to the discussion of Duane Hanson’s work (Figure 14-1). If you decide
that the Warhol work is art, then can you make a convincing argument that Woman
with a Purse helps us really see ordinary people and thus also is a work of art? These
are controversial questions.
PERCEPTION KEY Norman Rockwell’s Freedom fr om Want
Next to Andrew Wyeth, Rockwell is probably the most popular and beloved American
painter. A very modest man, Rockwell always insisted that he was only an illus tra-
tor. He frequently worked from photographs. Does the folksy piety appear senti-
mental in Freedom from Want (Figure 14-5)? Is the scene superfi cial? Does the scene
stir your imagination? Does the painting make any demand on you? Enhance your
sensitivity to anything? Enlarge your experience? Is Freedom from Want art or illustra-
tion? Despite his popularity, Rockwell is almost uni ver sally described as an illustrator
by the experts. They claim that his works are composed of pictorial clichés. Do you
agree? Who anoints the experts?
FIGURE 14-4
Andy Warhol, 200 Campbell’s
Soup Cans. 1962. Acrylic on canvas,
72 3 100 inches.
The leader of the Pop Art
movement, Warhol became famous
for signing cans of Campbell’s soup
and fabricating individual cans of
Campbell’s soup. For a time, the
soup can became an identifi er of
Pop Art.
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360
CHAPTER 14
Professional work can be much more realistic than folk art. Professional techni-
cal training usually is a prerequisite for achieving the goal of very accurate repre-
sentation, as anyone who has tried pictorial imitation can attest. Professionals who
are realists are better at representation than folk painters, as Richard Estes’s Baby
Doll Lounge (Figure 14-2) demonstrates. Realistic painting done by professionals
is one of the most popular kinds of painting, for it requires little or no training or
effort to enjoy. Usually, very realistic paintings are illustrations, examples of the
artlike. Sometimes, however, realistic painters not only imitate objects and events
but also interpret what they imitate, crossing the line from illustration to art.
FIGURE 14-5
Norman Rockwell, Freedom
from Want. 1943. Oil on canvas,
45¾ 3 35½ inches.
An iconic representation of the
American family during World
War II, this image was parodied in
the fi lm American Gangster, with
Denzel Washington at the head
of the table.
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361
IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
LIKE IT?
PERCEPTION KEY Estes and Rockwell
1. Does the sharp-focus realism (known as “photo-realism” because it is based on
pho tog ra phy) of Baby Doll Lounge make it an illustration?
2. Note the refl ections in the store windows. Do we ever see refl ections quite like
that? If not, then can one reasonably argue that by means of such transformation
Estes heightens our awareness of such “things as they are” in the cityscape?
3. Do you think that Norman Rockwell worked from a photograph to paint Freedom
from Want? Is cutting off the heads on each side of the painting typical of photo-
graphs of scenes such as this? How impressive is Rockwell’s artistic technique?
Does his technique make this a work of art?
4. In terms of realism, how realistic is this portrait of a family sitting down to a happy
Thanksgiving Day meal? Is it possible that this is more of a fantasy than a reality?
Is it possible that this painting might serve as propaganda for family values? How
would that aff ect its value as a work of art?
5. Compare Richard Estes’s Baby Doll Lounge with Norman Rock well’s Freedom from
Want. Which seems more representative of the world in which you live? Which
transforms its subject matter more? Which has a richer content?
Baby Doll Lounge, in our opinion, is a work of art. Estes worked from a series
of photographs, shifting them around in order to portray interesting relationships
of abstract shapes as well as the illusion of realism. Thus the buildings in the left
background are refl ected in the glass in the right foreground, helping—along with
the bright curving line on the dark roof of the building slightly left of center—to tie
the innumerable rectangles together. A geometrical order has been subtly imposed
on a very disorderly scene. Estes has retained so much realistic detail, totally unlike
Mondrian in Broadway Boogie Woogie (Figure 4-9), that initially we might think we
are looking at a photograph. Yet, with a second look, it becomes apparent that this
cannot be a photograph of an actual scene, for such a complete underlying geom-
etry does not occur in city scenes. Moreover, people are totally absent, a possible
but unlikely condition. An anxious, pervasive silence emanates from this painting.
Despite the realism, there is a dreamy unreality. Take an early Sunday morning
stroll in a large city, with the dwellers still asleep, and see if you do not perceive
more because of Estes.
The line between realistic painting that is illustration and realistic painting that
is art is particularly diffi cult to draw with respect to the paint ings of Andrew Wyeth,
hailed as the “people’s painter” and arguably the most popular American painter
of all time. His father, N. C. Wyeth, was a gifted professional illustrator, and he
rigorously trained his son in the fun da men tals of drawing and painting. Wyeth was
also carefully trained in the use of tempera, his favorite medium, by the professional
painter Peter Hurd, a brother-in-law. So, although a nonacademic and although
trained mainly “in the family,” Wyeth’s training was professional. Wyeth is not a
folk painter.
Among the great majority of critics, Wyeth is not highly appreciated, although
there are outstanding exceptions, such as Thomas Hoving, former di rec tor of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wyeth is not even mentioned, let alone discussed, in
Mahonri Young’s American Realists. Clement Greenberg, one of the most respected
critics of recent times, asserted that realistic works such as Wyeth’s are out of
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CHAPTER 14
date and “result in second-hand, second-rate paintings.” In 1987, an exhibition of
Wyeth’s work was held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Some
critics demurred: Wyeth makes superfi cial pictures that look like “the world as it
is,” except tidied up and sentimentalized. They claim that Wyeth is a fi ne illustrator,
like his father, but that the National Gallery of Art should be used for exhibitions of
art, not illustrations. Notice again, incidentally, the relevance of the question: What
is art?
Wyeth’s most beloved and famous painting is Christina’s World (Figure 14-6).
He tells us that
When I painted it in 1948, Christina’s World hung all summer in my house in Maine and
nobody particularly reacted to it. I thought is this one ever a fl at tire. Now I get at least a
letter a week from all over the world, usually wanting to know what she’s doing. Actually
there isn’t any defi nite story. The way this tempera happened, I was in an upstairs room in
the Olson house and saw Christina crawling in the fi eld. Later, I went down on the road
and made a pencil drawing of the house, but I never went down into the fi eld. You see, my
memory was more of a reality than the thing itself. I didn’t put Christina in till the very
end. I worked on the hill for months, that brown grass, and kept thinking about her in her
pink dress like a faded lobster shell I might fi nd on the beach, crumpled. Finally I got up
enough courage to say to her, “Would you mind if I made a drawing of you sitting out-
side?” and drew her crippled arms and hands. Finally, I was so shy about posing her, I got
my wife Betsy to pose for her fi gure. Then it came time to lay in Christina’s fi gure against
that planet I’d created for all those weeks. I put this pink tone on her shoulder—and it
almost blew me cross the room.1
FIGURE 14-6
Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World.
1948. Tempera on gessoed panel,
321⁄4 3 47¾ inches.
Wyeth was probably America’s
most popular artist of the second
half of the twentieth century. This
is his most famous painting.
1Wanda M. Corn, The Art of Andrew Wyeth (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1964),
p. 38.
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LIKE IT?
PERCEPTION KEY Christina’s World
1. Does Wyeth’s statement strike you as describing the crafting of an illustrator or
the “crafting-creating” of an artist? But is such a question relevant to distinguish ing
illustration from art? Is not what is made the issue, not the making (Chapter 2)?
2. Would you describe the painting as sentimental (Chapter 11)? Could it be that
some times critics tag works as sentimental because of snobbery?
3. Is this a pretty painting? If so, is such a description derogatory?
4. Is Christina’s World illustration or art? Until you see the original in the museum, keep
your judgment more tentative than usual.
Propaganda
No species of the artlike is likely to be as realistically illustrative as propaganda, for
mass persuasion requires the easy access of realism. The title of Figure 14-7—They
Are Writing about Us in Pravda—immediately suggests Soviet political propaganda,
for Pravda was the chief propaganda organ of the Russian Communists. Superfi –
cially, the painting—with its apparent innocence and realism—might appear to be
an example of folk art. And yet it is too well crafted (professionally executed) to be
folk. Note, for example, the skillful use of perspective.
Once the historical context of the painting is understood, one confronts political
propaganda of the most blatant kind. The fi ve young harvesters lunch on a beauti-
ful day amid the golden cornfi elds of Moldova (eastern Romania). A gleaming green
motorcycle is parked on the right side, and on the far left in the middle distance a com-
bine is reaping. Alexei Vasilev produced a picture that, in Stalin’s words, is “national in
form and socialist in content.” These happy peasants, blessed with modern machinery
and the Soviet government, are even happier because of their notice in Pravda.
FIGURE 14-7
Alexei Vasilev, They Are Writing
about Us in Pravda. 1951. Oil on
canvas, 39 3 61 inches.
Typical of Soviet propaganda art
during the cold war, this painting
idealizes the life of rural farmers,
using the highly realistic style
approved by the Communist Party.
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EXPERIENCING Propaganda Art
1. If you were a communist, do you think you would describe They Are Writing about
Us in Pravda as political propaganda?
The likelihood that a dedicated communist would see Vasilev’s painting as only
propaganda may not necessarily be great. Someone who works in that system and
believes as the system insists they believe may well think of this painting as a great
work of art because it praises the work of the people in the fi elds—those who sup-
port the system. That person may also praise the work for its carefully drawn and
composed realistic portrayal of farm workers reading Pravda during their lunch
break. The motorbike implies that these workers have access to up-to-date trans-
portation. The combine in the distance also implies that these farmers are up-to-
date. For those reasons alone, that person may think this a fi ne work of art.
For someone interested in other systems, however, certain issues may call the
work into question. For one thing, all political systems produce art praising them-
selves, and virtually all of them insist on producing absolutely realistic art. Nazi
Germany fl ooded Europe with posters of heroic SS men and saluting soldiers prais-
ing Hitler, all in realistic detail. The same was true in China during the rule of Mao
Tse-Tung. Even today, huge posters of Mao stand in public places. Abstract art was
condemned in Nazi Germany as decadent because it could not be turned into good
propaganda for the system. The problem with propaganda art is not that it is realis-
tic, but that it is limited. Its form does not inform because the message is primarily
political, not primarily artistic. Vasilev’s painting is overly sentimental and portrays
workers who are obviously not working. They are not sweaty, not tired, not realistic.
They are puppets. This is art for people who are trained not to take art seriously.
2. Some propaganda artifacts are not so easily dismissed. Try to see either
Triumph of the Will (1936) or Olympia (1938), by Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003),
a popular actress and fi lm director who worked for Hitler. The camera work
is extraordinarily imaginative. These fi lms glorify Nazism. Can these fi lms be
considered art?
FOCUS ON Kitsch
Kitsch refers to works that realistically depict easily identifi able objects and events
in a pretentiously vulgar, awkward, sentimental, and often obscene manner. Kitsch
triggers disgust at worst and stock emotions at best, trivializing rather than enriching
our understanding of the subject matter. The crafting of kitsch is sometimes striking,
but Kitsch is the epitome of bad taste.
Of course, it is also true that kitsch is a matter of taste. There is no adequate
defi nition of kitsch other than to cite the critic Clement Greenberg, who called kitsch
sometime vulgar and popular with great mass appeal. He might have been thinking of
the paintings, sometimes on velvet, of girls with huge pitying eyes, of performances of
Elvis Presley imitators, and cheap reproductions of paintings in the form of souvenir
key chains and mouse pads. But he was also thinking about the work of painters such
as William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905), whose technique and craftsmanship is
impeccable, but whose paintings are to some extent empty, yet very appealing.
Bouguereau is often cited as producing kitsch, which means paintings that appeal
to the masses in part because they are easy to respond to and their skill in presentation
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implies that they must be important. They are completely without
irony because they obviously expect to be taken seriously. They are
designed to awaken in the viewer a sense of sweetness, pity, and senti-
mentality. Critics describe kitsch as pretentious, demanding from the
viewer responses that the work itself really does not earn. Kitsch is
work that says, “I am very impressive, so I must be very important.” In
looking at Bouguereau’s Cupid and Psyche (Figure 14-8), what response
do you feel it asks you to give to it? What is its importance?
Yet, no matter what one might say about Cupid and Psyche as an
example of bad taste, there is a wide audience that fi nds it quite de-
lightful. Who can resist the cherubic pair and their childlike aff ection
for each other? Who can say that there might not be room for such
appreciation even if the painting does not have the same kind of aes-
thetic value as, say, Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Figure 4-14)?
Jeff Koons’s sculpture Michael Jackson and Bubbles (Figure 14-9)
portrays a garishly dressed Michael Jackson with his chimpanzee Bub-
bles. This sculpture, which was produced in an edition of three in a
workshop in Germany, has been described as “tacky” kitsch primarily
because it seems to be in such bad taste. Yet, one of the copies sold
for more than $5 million, and the other two are in museums in San
Francisco and Los Angeles.
Koons presented sculptures of vacuum cleaners, basketballs, infl at-
able toys, and other everyday items with such seriousness as to attempt
to convince his audience that they were high art. Late in his career he
even made essentially pornographic representations of himself and his
wife, a former porn star. In the case of Bouguereau, there may have
been no conscious intention to produce kitsch, but Koons certainly
knew the traditions of kitsch and seems to have been intentionally pro-
ducing it with a sense of irony and awareness. He seems to have been challenging his
audience to appreciate the work not as kitsch, but because it is kitsch and that the audi-
ence knows it is kitsch. Bouguereau’s audience, by contrast, would appreciate his work
without an awareness that it is considered kitsch by respected art critics.
What all this demonstrates is that
kitsch is a complex issue in art. Because
it is essentially a description that relies on
a theory of taste, we must keep in mind
that taste is highly individual. Yet, we must
also recognize that one develops a taste in
the arts by studying them and expanding
one’s experience of the arts. A person with
FIGURE 14-8
William-Adolphe Bougereau,
Cupid and Psyche as Children. Oil
on Canvas, 1890. 277⁄8 inches by
47 inches. Private Collection.
FIGURE 14-9
Jeff Koons (b. 1955), Michael Jackson and Bubbles.
Ceramic glaze and paint. 1988. 42 inches 3 701⁄2
inches 3 321⁄2 inches. San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art. Purchased through the Marian and
Bernard Messenger Fund and restricted funds
© Jeff Koons.
365
continued
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PERCEPTION KEY Kitsch
1. Do you agree that there is something such as good taste and bad taste in the arts?
What are the problems in making any judgment about someone’s taste? Are you
aware of your own taste in the arts? Is it changing, or is it static?
2. Why might it be reasonable to describe a person who calls Bouguereau’s painting
kitsch as an art snob?
3. What is the form-content of Bouguereau’s painting? What is the form-content of
Koons’s sculpture? To what extent does either work reveal important values?
4. What does it mean to say that either of these works is ironic? Does irony elevate
their value as a work of art? Is either of these, in your estimation, a true work
of art?
Decoration
Decoration is something added to enhance something else, to make it more prom-
inent or attractive or suitable. Decoration should be subordinate to what it deco-
rates. Good decoration rarely calls attention to itself. If the decoration dominates a
work of art, then as decoration it is inappropriate. Works of art usually control dec-
oration, because the power of their content defi es subordination. Sometimes some-
thing that often is decorated—such as the frame of a painting—may be an integral
part of the painting. For example, Georges Seurat, the French Impressionist of the
late nineteenth century, sometimes painted tiny dots on his frames closely matching
the dotting on his canvases. To describe the painting on the frames as decoration
would be misleading. As you think about this, look at Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia
(Figure 14-10). The frame obviously is strikingly beautiful. But is it an integral part
of the painting? Or is it decoration? Or is it unsuitable decoration, because its bril-
liance competes rather than harmonizes with the painting?
Good decoration is always modest. Only when what is decorated is especially
powerful can the decoration also be powerful, providing it still remains second-
ary in attraction. Examine the radiant patterns of the gold-gilt frame of Madonna
della Sedia—made long after Raphael’s death and one of the fi nest frames of
all time. In this case the painting is so overwhelming that the frame remains
completely subordinate, and properly so. Its beauty enhances the beauty of the
a wide experience of music or painting will develop a diff erent sense of taste than a
person who has only a meager experience.
Kitsch has been around for centuries, especially since the 1700s, but now it seems
to have invaded every aspect of our society. Bad taste greets us everywhere— tasteless
advertisements, silly sitcoms and soap operas, vile music, superfi cial novels, por-
nographic images, and on and on. Where, except in virgin nature, is kitsch completely
absent? According to Milan Kundera, “The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible
only on the base of kitsch.” Jacques Sternberg says, “It’s long ago taken over the world.
If Martians were to take a look at the world they might rename it kitsch.” Are these
overstatements? As you think about this, take a hard look at the world around you.
366
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367
IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
LIKE IT?
painting. Over the years, one of the authors has taken a large number of stu-
dents to the Pitti Palace in Florence to see this work. Afterward, they were asked
whether there were any portrayals of human faces in the frame. There are four.
No student noticed.
A more modern form of decorative arts is often unwanted and uncelebrated be-
cause it is produced anonymously in public spaces. Yet, a few graffi ti artists have
become recognized in the last twenty-fi ve years. Keith Haring, Robert McGee,
and Jean-Michel Basquiat are the best known because they moved their work into
galleries where it could be bought. But most graffi ti artists work anonymously and
scorn the offi cial art world (Figure 14-11). Their mission is to leave a mark, much
FIGURE 14-10
Raphael, Madonna della Sedia. Circa
1516. Oil on panel.
The frame was added almost two
hundred years later. By then the
painting itself had become known
worldwide.
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368
CHAPTER 14
like some of the paintings in the caves in France and the markings found on stone
walls in the American Southwest. The urge of such artists is satisfi ed by making
a statement, even if some of the time the statement involves defacing important
buildings or illegally painting subway cars, train cars, and commercial trucks. The
extent to which such painting is anti-art or antisocial is diffi cult to gauge in part
because the artists themselves rarely comment on what they have done. Currently,
mobile electronic devices, such as tablets and phones, have apps that permit them
to make graffi ti wallpaper and graffi ti designs, demonstrating the public interest in
this form of expression.
PERCEPTION KEY Decoration
1. Is the frame on Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia (Figure 14-10) a separate work of
art? Or is it a decorative work? If it is a separate work of art, what should be its
title?
2. Do you consider the graffi ti (Figure 14-11) to be a work of art? If so, what should
be its title?
3. What are the revelatory qualities of either of these pieces? What values do you
understand better for your participation with these works?
4. What does the fact that you can download graffi ti to use as wallpaper on your com-
puter tell you about its decorative values?
FIGURE 14-11
Wall graffi ti. Anonymous. London,
South Bank, ca. 2009.
The South Bank Arts Center on the
Thames River preserves a space for
graffi ti artists. This segment of a
heavily painted wall is typical of the
mix of lettering, forms, and color of
the South Bank graffi ti.
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IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
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Idea Art
Idea art began with the Dadaists around 1916. Although never dominant, idea
art has survived by spawning “isms”—Duchampism, Conceptualism, Lettrism,
New Dadaism, to name just a few—with little consensus about an umbrella name
that indicates a common denominator. Idea art raises questions about the pre-
suppositions of traditional art and the art establishment—that is, the traditional
artists, critics, philosophers of art, historians, museum keepers, textbook writers,
and everyone involved with the understanding, preservation, restoration, selling,
and buying of traditional art. Sometimes this questioning is hostile, as with the
Dadaists. Sometimes it is humorous, as with Marcel Duchamp. And sometimes it is
more of an intellectual game, as with many of the conceptual artists. We will limit
our discussion to these three species.
Dada
The infantile sound of “dada,” chosen for its meaninglessness, became the bat-
tle cry of a group of disenchanted young artists who fl ed their countries during
World War I and met, mainly by chance, in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916. Led
by the poet Hugo Ball, they assembled at the Cabaret Voltaire. In their view,
humanity had forsaken reason—utterly. The mission of Dadaism was to shock a
crazed world with expressions of outrageous nonsense, negating every traditional
value.
Civilization was the subject of their violent attack, for it had produced maniacs
murdering millions in World War I. The movement was joined by such outstand-
ing artists as Jean Arp, Sophie Tauber, Hans Richter, Paul Klee, Francis Picabia,
and Duchamp. Except for their talent and hatred of the bourgeoisie and the status
quo, they had little in common. Yet the Dada movement held together for about
seven years, spreading rapidly beyond Zurich, especially to Paris and New York
City. During those years, the Dadaists for the most part tried to make works that
were not art, at least in the traditional sense, for such art was part of civilization.
They usually succeeded, but sometimes they made art in spite of themselves. The
infl uence of the Dadaists on succeeding styles—such as surrealist, abstract, envi-
ronmental, pop, performance, body, shock, outsider, and conceptual art—has been
enormous. Picabia announced:
Dada itself wants nothing, nothing, nothing, it’s doing something so that the public can
say: “We understand nothing, nothing, nothing.” The Dadaists are nothing, nothing,
nothing—certainly they will come to nothing, nothing, nothing.
Francis Picabia
Who knows nothing, nothing, nothing.
But there is a dilemma: To express nothing is something. Unless one re mains
silent (sometimes the Dadaists thought of their revolt as “nothing” but a state of
mind), there has to be a crafted medium. Picabia’s proclamation required the me-
dium of language, and he obviously formed it to say something about “nothing,”
emphasized by its triadic repetition.
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CHAPTER 14
PERCEPTION KEY Picabia
1. Is The Blessed Virgin (Figure 14-12) about nothing? Is the title signifi cant? Is the
work anticivilization? Is it a work of art according to the theory of art proposed in
this text? Compare this with Figure 3-7 by Chris Ofi li.
2. If religious organizations protested Chris Ofi li’s painting, would they be likely to
protest Picabia’s? On what grounds would they do so? Would their protest be
anti-art?
Picabia dropped ink on paper, and the resulting form is mainly one of chance,
one of the earliest examples of a technique later to be exploited by artists such as
Jackson Pollock (Figure 3-3). The height of the drop, the type of ink, and the color,
texture, and dimensions of the paper were controlled, and the result is not entirely
formless. Then there is the title. Is it entirely meaningless? If not, is the Virgin to
be identifi ed with the ink splash or the white paper? Is this blasphemy? An image
of a bursting bomb? Splattered fl esh and blood? Chance murder? Meanings gather.
Given the sociopolitical context of 1920, this work is surely anticivilization. It de-
fi ed both social and artistic conventions. Yet its very defi ance obviously conveyed
meanings. Unlike a traditional work of art, however, the meanings of The Blessed
Virgin are suggested rather than embodied in the work. A glance or two suffi ces,
and that triggers ideas. The form is too loose to hold attention. There is no invita-
tion to participate with The Blessed Virgin. According to the theory of art proposed
in this text, The Blessed Virgin is not a work of art but a work that makes us think
about what is art. It is a clear example of idea art.
Idea art does not mix or embody its ideas in the medium. Rather, the medium is
used to suggest ideas. Medium and ideas are experienced as separate. In turn, idea
art tends increasingly to depend on language for its communication. And in recent
years, idea art has even generated a species called Lettrism, or word art—see, for
example, Keith Arnatt Is an Artist (Figure 14-13).
FIGURE 14-12
Francis Picabia, The Blessed Virgin.
1920. Ink.
Picabia, one of the Dadaist
painters, pushed the concept of
art in directions that few could
follow. Like all Dadaists, he showed
contempt for bourgeois society
after World War I.
FIGURE 14-13
Keith Arnatt, Keith Arnatt Is an
Artist. 1972. Wall inscription
exhibited in 1972 at the Tate
Gallery in London.
Letters on a wall constitute the
entire work of art, including the
ideas behind the words.
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PERCEPTION KEY Keith Arnatt
1. Is Figure 14-13 art or artlike?
2. Is it well crafted? If so, would it be better classifi ed as a craftwork?
3. Why would the curators of the highly respected Tate Gallery in London include
such a work, especially one that requires such a large space?
Duchamp and His Legacy
Dada, the earliest species of idea art, is characterized by its anger at our so-called
civilization. Although Duchamp cooperated with the Dadaists, his work and the
work of those who followed his style (a widespread infl uence) are more anti-art and
antiestablishment than anticivilization. Duchamp’s work is usually characterized by
humor.
PERCEPTION KEY L.H.O.O.Q.
1. Is L.H.O.O.Q. (Figure 14-14) an example of idea art?
2. Is L.H.O.O.Q. a work of art?
FIGURE 14-14
Marcel Duchamp, L. H. O. O. Q.
1919. Drawing, 73⁄4 3 41⁄8 inches.
In several different ways, Duchamp
commits an act of desecration of the
Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous
painting in the West.
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CHAPTER 14
L.H.O.O.Q. is hardly anticivilization, but it is surely anti-art and anti-
establishment, funny rather than angry. It is a hilarious comment on the tendency
to glorify certain works beyond their artistic value. To desecrate one of the most
famous paintings of the Western world was surely a great idea if you wanted to taunt
the art establishment. And ideas gather. Sexual ambiguity, part of both Leonardo’s
and Duchamp’s legends, is evident in Le o nardo’s Mona Lisa (Figure 1-6). By pencil-
ing in a mustache and beard, Duchamp accents the masculine. By adding the title, he
accents the feminine. L.H.O.O.Q. is an obscene pun, reading phonetically in French,
“Elle a chaud au cul” (“She has a hot ass”).
Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) example of Duchamp’s idea art is the
ready-made titled Fountain. In 1917, in New York City, a group of avant-garde artists,
the Society of Independent Artists, put on an exhibition in which anyone could enter
two works merely by paying six dollars. Duchamp submitted a porcelain urinal that
he had bought, placed it on its back on a pedestal, and signed it “R. Mutt.” Duchamp
was claiming, with marvelous irony, that any object could be turned into a work of
art merely by the artist labeling it as such. How amusing to nettle the jurors by chal-
lenging their libertarian principles! Predictably, the jury refused to display Fountain.
Anti-art conquered even the avant-garde. And the ready-made—Du champ selected
and placed on pedestals such things as bottle racks and bicycle wheels—posed the
ever-recurring question: What is a work of art? For the art establishment, the whole
issue has been destabilizing ever since the rejection of Fountain in 1917. Many of
Duchamp’s ready-mades, including Fountain, are now ensconced in museums of art,
the ultimate irony. They have great historical interest because of the originality of
Duchamp’s ideas, their humor, and the questions they raise; and for these reasons,
their placement in museums seems to be justifi ed. But are they works of art?
Conceptual Art
Conceptual art became a movement in the 1960s, led by Sol LeWitt, Jenny Holzer,
Carl Andre, Christo, Robert Morris, Walter De Maria, Keith Arnatt, Terry
Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, David Bainbridge, and Joseph Kosuth. There was a
strategy behind the movement: Bring the audience into direct con tact with the cre-
ative concepts of the artist. LeWitt claimed that “a work of art may be understood
as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s,” and the less material used the
better. The world is so overloaded with traditional art that most museums stash the
bulk of their collections in storage bins. Now if we can get along without the mate-
rial object, then the spaces of museums will not be jammed with this new art, and it
will need no conservation, restoration, or any of the other expensive paraphernalia
necessitated by the material work of art. Conceptual art fl oats free from material
limitations, can occur anywhere, like a poem, and often costs practically nothing.
In recent years, LeWitt modifi ed his early Conceptualism. In an exhibition in
2001 involving a whole fl oor of the Whitney Museum in New York City, a vast
array of color fi elds, mainly within large geometrical shapes, blazed out from the
walls. LeWitt provided exact detailed blueprints to guide a dozen or so craftspeople.
LeWitt did none of the work and very little supervising. He provided the ideas—
the rest can be done by anyone with a little skill. The creativity is in the conceptual
process that produced the blueprints. The crafting is completely secondary.
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IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
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Christo and Jeanne-Claude have produced huge public projects such as Wrapped
Reichstag (Figure 14-15), in which they wrapped a sprawling government building in
Berlin. They have fi nanced their projects directly through the sale of drawings, col-
lages, and scale models of their work. When they erected Running Fence in Sonoma
and Marin Counties in Northern California in 1975, they constructed an 18-foot-
high canvas fence that stretched for 24.5 miles across the properties of 49 farmers,
all of whom gave permission for the project. After 14 days, it was dismantled. The
farmers kept the materials on their land if they wanted them. The effect was striking
as can be seen from a YouTube video discussing the project in which those who
worked on it report on their memories. Wrapped Reichstag, a much later project than
Running Fence, made Berlin a destination for international art lovers because such a
complete transformation of a major building such as this was a surprise. The mystery
of the project was part of its appeal.
Christo has said of other projects that the wrapped object itself is not necessarily
the art object, but that the entire environment in which the object appears is essential
to the aesthetic experience. In this sense, projects of this sort are conceptual. They
are impermanent, lasting only a matter of days, and they are based on ideas.
CONCEPTION KEY Conceptual Art
1. Some conceptual artists assert that their work raises for the fi rst time truly basic
ques tions about the nature of art. Do you agree?
2. Is idea art, in general, art or artlike? More specifi cally, in general, is Dada art or
art like? Duchampism? Conceptual art?
FIGURE 14-15
Christo and Jeanne-Claude,
Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin,
1971–1995.
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CHAPTER 14
Performance Art
Unlike conceptual art, performance art (as distinct from the traditional performing
arts) brings back physicality, stressing material things as much as or more than it
does concepts. There are innumerable kinds of performances, but generally they
tend to be site-specifi c, the site being either constructed or simply found. There
rarely is a stage in the traditional style. But performances, as the name suggests, are
related to drama. They clearly differ, however, especially from traditional drama,
because usually there is no logical or sustained narrative, and perhaps no narrative
at all. Sometimes there is an effort to allow for the expression of the subconscious,
as in Surrealism. Sometimes provocative antiestablishment social and political
views are expressed. Generally, however, performances are about the values of the
disinherited, the outsiders.
Chance is an essential element of the form, which is to say the form is open.
The factor of chance may weaken the crafting; for crafting is ordering, and
chance is likely to be disordering in a performance situation. Interaction be-
tween artist and audience is often encouraged. According to the performance
artist Barbara Smith, “I turn to question the audience to see if their experiences
might enlighten mine and break the isolation of my experience, to see if my
Performance puts them into the same dilemma.” The performance is an open
event, full of suggestive potentialities rather than a self-contained whole, deter-
mined and fi nal.
Visual effects are usually strongly emphasized in a performance, often involving
expressive movements of the body, bringing performance close to dance. In early
performances, language was generally limited. In recent performances, however,
language has often come to the fore. Thus Taylor Woodrow, a British performer,
and two collaborators covered themselves with spray paint, attached themselves to
separate painted canvases by means of harnesses, stood there for about six hours, and
talked with the curious.
Karen Finley became famous for a performance work called We Keep Our Victims
Ready, a piece that anatomized aspects of American society in 1990, when the femi-
nist movement was strong and when many efforts were being made to censor artists
whose work was critical of American culture. Typical of many performance pieces,
Finley used nudity, profanity, and an alarming attack on heterosexual white males,
who, in her view, controlled society. In one section of her piece, she stripped to her
panties and smeared chocolate over her body in an effort to represent what she felt
was a woman’s battered self-image resulting in a sense of disgust at her own body.
It was no surprise that she was one of four performance artists whose work was
denied support from the National Endowment for the Arts despite huge audiences
and what became a national tour of her work. Ordinarily, performance art does not
repeat itself, nor does it produce a tour. But the resultant uproar from the power-
ful politicians in the community essentially guaranteed a widespread audience for
Finley and has led to continued success (Figure 14-16). Like all performance art,
We Keep Our Victims Ready was designed to be memorable and sometimes shocking.
Because there are no rules for performance art and usually no way to buy it, the
experience is what counts; and whether it is art may depend on whether you agree
with the performer, who says it is art. For us, ultimately, the question is whether
the experience informs through its form.
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PERCEPTION KEY Performance Art
1. Does the fact that there are no rules to performance art aff ect our view of whether
we can legitimately consider it art? One critic says that performance art is art be-
cause the performer says so. How valid is that argument?
2. If you were to strip down and cover yourself with chocolate, would you then be an artist?
3. William Pope.L, wearing only shorts and shoes, chained himself for six hours to an
ATM in protest against capitalism, conversing with passersby all the while. Under
what conditions might that constitute performance art?
4. Were you to attempt performance art, what would your strategies be? What would
you do as a performer? Would it be obvious that your performance would be art?
Shock Art
In recent years, works of a bewildering variety have been made that attract and then
often astonish, scandalize, or repel. These works have been displayed—presumably
as art—both inside and outside of museums. Many performances could also be clas-
sifi ed as shock art.
FIGURE 14-16
Karen Finley, a performance
artist, uses her own body to make
statements, often covering herself
with various food products or other
substances, such as feathers.
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The antiestablishment career of Paul McCarthy began with anti-Vietnam per-
formances in the 1960s and 70s, and in recent years he has become one of the
best known of the “shockers.” McCarthy’s work has gradually expanded to in-
clude painting, sculpture, architecture (installations), drama, photography, fi lm,
and combined media, including his own body. He attacks the saccharine, Disney-
fi ed view of the world with a vengeance, often with horrifying, stomach-churning
repulsion. McCarthy probes the depths of the darkest side of the American psyche:
fears, terrors, and obsessions. Since September 11, 2001, his work would seem to
be increasingly relevant. Taboos, especially the erotic, and even excretion, incest,
and bestiality, are portrayed with primal violence. In the carnage of his works—an
ugliness that perhaps has never been surpassed—humor occasionally may glint with
parody. But McCarthy’s works nauseate most people. Short videos of his work are
available online at Art21. However evaluated, his creations are so powerful that
they cannot be dismissed as merely clever. And, surely, no one will be bored.
Much shock art seems to involve little more than clever gimmickry, grabbing but
not holding our attention. We love to be shocked, as long as there is no danger. We
look with curiosity and often bewilderment. For example, who would place on dis-
play a crucifi x in a bottle of his urine? The answer is Andres Serrano. Why? And at
a recent exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, someone neatly
packaged a piece of his own excrement in a little box, carefully signed, dated, and
authenticated. It was placed on a pedestal. Why? One answer might be that these
makers lacked the craftsmanship and creativity to make anything better, and the
making gains them money and notice, as in a book such as this. But why would
the museum directors display such objects? Perhaps because shock art draws crowds.
Furthermore, much shock art challenges common assumptions about what is art
and may serve an educational function. But usually, after the initial draw, we do not
participate. After the fi rst excited seizure, we turn away and perhaps think (or joke)
about the possible meanings. Shock art often works as conversation pieces.
CONCEPTION KEY Shock Art
In 2001, the Brooklyn Museum of Art presented an exhibition of photography that in-
cluded the fi fteen-foot panel Yo Mama’s Last Supper, a color photograph of a nude black
woman as Christ at the Last Supper. The woman shown is the artist herself, Re nee
Cox, and she is surrounded by twelve black apostles. The exhibition elicited a strong
response from then Mayor Rudy Giuliani (remember his reaction to the museum’s
1999 show Sensation: Young British Artists, Figure 3-7). Mayor Giuliani de clared that he
would appoint a commission to set decency stand ards—basically “Culture Cops.” Do
you agree or disagree with the mayor? Why? These kinds of in ci dents and issues are
becoming more prevalent.
Virtual Art
Virtual art is based on computer technology, often producing a mixture of the
imaginary and the real. For example, imagine a world in which sculptures act in
unpredictable ways: taking on different shapes and colors, stiffening or dancing,
talking back or ignoring you, or maybe just dissolving. At a very sophisticated
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377
IS IT ART OR SOMETHING
LIKE IT?
computer laboratory at Boston University, a team of artists and computer crafts-
people have created a fascinating installation called Spiritual Ruins. One dons a pair
of 3-D goggles and grabs a wand. On a large screen, a computer projects a vast
three-dimensional space into which we appear to be plunged. Sensors pick up and
react to the speed and angle of the wand. With this magical instrument, we swoop
and soar like a bird over an imaginary, or virtual, park of sculpture. We are in the
scene, part of the work. We have little idea of what the wand will discover next. We
may feel anxiety and confrontation, recalling bumping into hostile strangers in the
streets. Or the happenings may be peaceful, even pastoral. Embedded microchips
may play sculptures like musical instruments. Or sometimes the space around a
sculpture may resound with the sounds of nature. Exact repetition never seems to
occur. Obviously we are in an imaginary world, and yet because of our activity it
also seems real. Our participation is highly playful.
The most popular form of virtual art is video games, which are played by hun-
dreds of millions of people around the world. Video games have a reasonable claim
to being today’s most popular form of entertainment. Books have been written
about video art, and the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum hosted an exhibition
beginning in March, 2012, called The Art of Video Games that lasted almost seven
months. In 2013 the Museum of Modern Art announced that it is collecting video
games, acquiring forty titles such as Pac-Man, Tetris, Myst, SimCity, Minecraft, and
others. The museum’s curators agree that video games are art, but they also insist
that they are valued for their design. Many of the games involve elaborate fantasy-
world art, such as Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath; Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil
Saga; and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. While the earliest games needed no narrative,
many modern games have attracted fi lm writers and novelists to supply the narra-
tives and characters used in games such as Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfl y; Alone in
the Dark: The New Nightmare; and the Legend of Zelda.
Violent or antisocial games, such as Halo 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II
(Figure 14-17), as well as Brothers in Arms and the several Grand Theft Auto games,
have created a fear that they contribute to antisocial behavior in some players.
FIGURE 14-17
Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Video
Game. Activision, 2012.
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Defenders of these games point to developing quick wits, quick reactions, and
judgment under pressure as being advantageous. Very few defenders or attackers
comment on the artistic qualities of the virtual landscapes, realistic characters, or
colorful interiors.
PERCEPTION KEY Video Games
1. If you feel video games are a form of art, how would you defend them against those
who feel they are merely artlike?
2. Which video game of those you are familiar with has the best video art? What dis-
tinguishes it from inferior games?
3. How legitimate is it to compare narrative video games with narrative cinema pro-
duction? How does the use of violence in cinema compare with the use of violence
in video games?
4. Many people praise a work of art for its realism. Is video game art better when it
is realistic? Or is realism a nonessential criterion for video game art? What are the
essential qualities that made video game art satisfying to you?
5. Comment on the artistic values of Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Figure 14-17).
Summary
Artlike works share many basic features with art, unlike works of non-art. But the
artlike lacks a revealed subject matter, a content that brings fresh mean ing into
our lives. The artlike can be attention-holding, as with illustration; or fi tting, as
with decoration; or beautiful, as with craftwork; or thought-provoking, as with idea
art; or attention -grabbing, as with performance art; or scandalizing, as with shock
art; or fantasy-absorbing, as with virtual art. Art may have these features also, but
what “works” fundamentally in a work of art is revelation. Because it lacks reve-
latory power, the artlike generally does not lend itself to sustained participation
(Chapter 2). Yet what sustains participation varies from person to person. Dogmatic
judgments about what is art and what is artlike are counterproductive. We hope
that our approach provides a stimulus for open-minded but guided discussions.
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379
C h a p t e r 1 5
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE ARTS
Close ties among the arts occur because artists share a special purpose: the reve-lation of values. Furthermore, every artist must use some medium, some kind
of “stuff” that can be formed to communicate that rev e la tion (content) about some-
thing (subject matter). All artists share some ele ments of media, and this sharing
encourages their interaction. For example, painters, sculptors, and architects use
color, line, and texture. Sculptors and architects work with the density of materials.
Rhythm is basic to the com poser, choreographer, and poet. Words are elemental
for the poet, nov el ist, dramatist, and composer of songs and operas. Images are
basic to the painter, fi lmmaker, videographer, and photographer. Artists constitute
a commonwealth — they share the same end and similar means.
The interrelationships among the arts are enormously complex. We hope the
following classifi cation of appropriation, synthesis, and interpretation will clear some
paths through the maze.
Appropriation
Artistic appropriation occurs when (1) artists combine their basic medium with the
medium of another art or arts but (2) keep their basic medium clearly dominant. For
example, music is the basic medium for composers of op era. The staging may include
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CHAPTER 15
architecture, painting, and sculpture. The lan guage of the drama may include poetry.
The dance, so dependent on music, is often incorporated in opera, and sometimes
in contemporary opera so are photography and even fi lm. Yet music almost always
dominates in opera. We may listen to Beethoven’s Fidelio or Bizet’s Carmen time
after time. Yet it is hard to imagine anyone reading the librettos over and over again.
Although essential to opera, the drama, along with the staging, rarely dom i nates the
music. Often the librettos by themselves are downright silly. Nev er the less, drama and
the other appropriated arts generally enhance the feel ings interpreted by the music.
PERCEPTION KEY Opera
Attend an opera or watch a video of an opera by Puccini, perhaps La Bohème.
1. Read the libretto. Is it interesting enough to achieve participation, as with a good
poem or novel? Would you want to read it again?
2. Have you experienced any opera in which the drama dominates the music? Wagner
claimed that in The Ring he wedded music and drama (and other arts as well) so
closely that neither dominates the Gesamtkunstwerk (complete artwork). Read the
libretto of one of the four operas that constitute The Ring, and then go to or listen
to the opera. Do you agree with Wagner’s claim?
3. Go to Verdi’s Otello, one of his last operas, or watch a video. Shakespeare’s drama
is of the highest order, although much of it is lost, not only in the very condensed
libretto, but also in the translation into Italian. Does either the music or the drama
dominate? Or is there a synthesis?
Except for opera, architecture is the art that appropriates the most. Its cen ter ing
of space makes room for the placement of sculpture, painting, and pho tog ra phy;
the reading of poetry; and the performance of drama, music, and dance. The sheer
size of architecture tends to make it prevail over any of the in cor po rated arts, the
container prevailing over the contents. The obvious ex cep tions occur when the
architecture functions mainly as a place to show painting or sculpture.
The architecture of Gaudí’s Sagrada Família (Figures 6-15 to 6-17) is cer tainly
not nondescript. Yet, despite its great size and powerful vertical stretches — surely a
sky-oriented building — a good case can be made, perhaps, that the sculpture is just
as compelling.
PERCEPTION KEY Architecture
1. Review the photographs of buildings in Chapter 6. Are there any in which the
included arts appear to dominate the architecture?
2. Try to visit Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York City (Figures 6-7 and 6-8)
or study more pho to graphs of the interior. Does the architecture tend to dominate
the exhibited paint ings and sculpture? If so, is that a proper function for the archi-
tecture of a mu seum? Note that as you walk on the ramps, you view the paintings
and sculptures from a slanted position. Note also that often you can easily view the
paintings and sculptures that are both near and far across the whirling space.
3. Do you know of any works of architecture that are completely free of the other
arts and would seem to resist the incorporation of the other arts? Any buildings
that are pure, so to speak?
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381
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE ARTS
Synthesis
By synthesis, we mean relatively equal combining of the media of one or more
arts — for example, architecture and sculpture in Gaudí’s Sagrada Família. Perhaps
the most obvious synthesis occurs with dance and music. Very few dances work
without music. And many times, the music is just as important as the dance.
Stravinsky’s music for the Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring of fers marvelous
revelations of feelings and states of mind, but so do the dances. The music supports
the dance and vice versa. On the other hand, the pretexts of the narratives are not
very interesting, more appropriated than synthesized.
Music and poetry sometimes are combined synthetically. The old Cathedral of
Coventry, destroyed in World War II, was redesigned, rebuilt, and dedicated in 1959.
For that dedication, Benjamin Britten composed the famous War Requiem, basing his
music on the bitterly sad poems of Wilfred Owen, killed in the trenches just before
the end of World War I. The music and poems, we think, are inextricably melded.
PERCEPTION KEY Music and Poetry
1. Listen to Britten’s War Requiem. Do you agree that the music and the poetry are a
syn the sis?
2. Listen to Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, which includes Blake’s
“The Sick Rose” (page 194). Does Britten appropriate Blake’s poem, or is there a
synthesis?
3. Read Goethe’s poem “Erlkonig” (“The Earl King”) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Der_Erlk%C3%B6nig and then hear Jessye Norman sing it in German at http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8noeFpdfWcQ. Comment on the synthesis of words
and music in this song. Do you experience a sense of participation once you know
the meaning of the poem and see Norman’s expression of the music?
4. See if you can fi nd a synthesis of music and words in any of the species of popular
music, such as folk, jazz, country, soul, rock, and rap.
PERCEPTION KEY Literature
Examine the poems in Chapter 7.
1. Would any be enriched by the inclusion of other arts? For example, do any of the
poems lend themselves to song or dance? If so, would such mixing be more of an
appropri a tion or a synthesis? Explain.
2. Emily Dickinson’s “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” (page 188) would
seem to be a good candidate for a song. Or do you think musical accompaniment
would distract from the power of the poem? Explain.
Painting and sculpture have been combined more and more in recent years.
Synthesis, however, is rarely achieved. Despite the sharing of line, color, and tex-
ture, the imaginary space created by painters tends to resist equal mixing with the
enlivening of real space created by sculptors. Thus there is a strong tendency toward
appropriation by either art. Despite the use of the lovely white in Hepworth’s
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CHAPTER 15
Pelagos (Figure 5-14), it would be strange to describe the work as a painting. The
grain and density of the wood and the push and pull of curved “real space” subordi-
nate any suggestion of “imaginary space.” And this would seem to remain true even
if Hepworth had painted a beautiful landscape on the white.
The photographer’s media — light, line, texture, shapes, and color — are close
to the painter’s. And the interaction between these two arts also is close. For exam-
ple, the pictorial tradition in photography was directly infl uenced by painting, and
painting was directly infl uenced by the realistic detail produced by photography
(see Chapter 11).
Interpretation
When a work of art takes another work of art as its subject matter, the former is an
interpretation of the latter. Thus Zeffi relli’s fi lm Romeo and Juliet takes Shakespeare’s
drama for its subject matter. The fi lm interprets the play. It is fascinating to observe
how the contents — the meanings — differ because of the different media. We will
analyze a few interesting examples. Bring to mind other examples as you read the text.
Film Interprets Literature: Howards End
E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End (1910) was made into a remarkable fi lm in 1992
(Figures 15-1 and 15-2) by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote the screenplay. The fi lm stars Anth ony Hopkins and
FIGURE 15-1
Anthony Hopkins and Emma
Thompson in Howards End.
Henry Wilcox (Hopkins) and
Margaret Schlegel (Thompson),
now  married, react to bad news.
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383
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE ARTS
Emma Thompson who, along with Jhabvala, won an Acad emy Award. The fi lm was
nominated as best picture, and its third Acad emy Award went to the design direction
of Luciana Arrighi and Ian Whit taker.
The team of Merchant-Ivory, producer and director, has become distinguished
for period fi lms set in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Part
of the reputation won by Merchant-Ivory fi lms is due to their detailed designs.
Thus in a Merchant-Ivory fi lm one expects to see Ed war dian costumes meticulously
reproduced, period interiors with prints and paintings, authentic architecture, both
interior and exterior, and details sumptuously photographed so that the colors are
rich and saturated and the atmosphere appropriately refl ecting the era just before
and after 1900.
All of that is true of the production of Howards End. But the subtlety of the
interplay of the arts in the fi lm is intensifi ed because of the subtlety of the interplay
of the arts in the novel. Forster wrote his novel in a way that emulates contemporary
drama, at least in part. His scenes are dramatically conceived, with characters acting
in carefully described settings, speaking in ways that suggest the stage. Moreover,
Forster’s special interest in music and the role culture in general plays in the lives of
his characters makes the novel especially challenging for interpretation by moving
images.
The fi lm follows Forster’s story faithfully. Three families at the center of the
story stand in contrast: the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen; a rich businessman,
Henry Wilcox, his frail wife Ruth, and their superfi cial, conventional children; and a
poor, young, unhappily married bank clerk, Leonard Bast, whom the Schlegel sisters
befriend. Margaret and Helen are idealistic and cultured. The Wilcoxes, except for
Ruth, are uncultured snobs. When Ruth dies, Henry proposes to and is accepted
FIGURE 15-2
Emma Thompson and Helena
Bonham Carter in Howards End.
Margaret Schlegel (Thompson)
tries to understand her
sister Helen’s ( Bonham
Carter)  motives in helping
Leonard Bast.
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384
CHAPTER 15
by Margaret. Her sister Helen, who detests Henry, is devastated by this marriage
and turns to Leonard Bast. The story becomes a tangle of opposites and, because of
the stupidity of Henry’s son Charles, turns tragic. In the end, thanks to the moral
strength of Margaret, reconciliation becomes possible.
Read the novel fi rst, and then see the fi lm. In one scene early in the novel, some
of the protagonists are in Queen’s Hall in London listening to Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony. Here is Forster’s wonderful description:
It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise
that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfi ed by
it. Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come — of
course, not so as to disturb the others; or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks
in the music’s fl ood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is
profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like their
cousin, Fräulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is “echt Deutsch”
[pure German]; or like Fräulein Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but
Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are
bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings.
Now that is a passage surely worth recording. But how could you get it into a fi lm
unless by a “voiceover,” an awkward technique in this context. Observe how this
scene is portrayed in the fi lm. Also observe in the fi lm the awkward drawn-out scenes
of Leonard Bast pursuing Helen in the rain (she inadvertently had taken his umbrella
when leaving the concert hall). One keeps wondering why the soaking Leonard does
not simply run and catch up with Helen. In the novel, these events are much more
smoothly handled. In such portrayals, written language has the advantage.
Conversely, the fi lm captures something in 1992 that the novel could not have
achieved in its own time — the sense of loss for an elegant way of life in the period
before World War I. The moving images create nostalgia for a past totally unrecov-
erable. Nostalgia for that past is, of course, also created by Forster’s fi ne prose, but
not with the power of moving images. Coming back to the novel after its interpreta-
tion by the fi lm surely makes our participation more complete.
PERCEPTION KEY Howards End
1. Do the fi lmic presentations of Margaret Schlegel and Henry Wilcox “ring true” to
For ster’s characterizations? If not, what are the defi ciencies?
2. Is the background music eff ective?
3. What kind or kinds of cuts are used in the fi lm (page 307)? Are they eff ectively
used? Explain.
4. In which work, the novel or the fi lm, are the social issues of greater importance?
Which puts more stress on the class distinctions between the Basts and both the
Schlegels and the Wilcoxes? Which seems to have a stronger social message?
5. How does the fi lm — by supplying the images your imagination can only invent
in read ing the novel — aff ect your understanding of the lives of the Schlegels,
Wilcoxes, and Basts?
6. Is it better to see the fi lm fi rst, or to read the novel fi rst? What informs your
decision?
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385
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE ARTS
Music Interprets Drama: Th e Marriage of Figaro
Perhaps in the age of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), the opera per-
formed a function for literature somewhat equivalent to what the fi lm does today.
Opera — in combining music, drama, sets, and sometimes dance — was held in
highest esteem in Europe in the eighteenth century. And despite the increasing
competition from fi lm and musical comedy, opera is still performed to large au-
diences in theaters and larger audiences on television. Among the world’s greatest
operas, few are more popular than Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (1786), written
when Mozart was only thirty.
Mozart’s play interprets the French play The Marriage of Figaro (1784), by Pierre
Augustin de Beaumarchais, a highly successful playwright friendly with Madame
Pompadour, mistress of Louis XVI at the time of the American Revolution. Beau-
marchais began as an ordinary citizen, bought his way into the aristocracy, survived
the French Revolution, went into exile, and later died in France. His plays were the
product of, yet comically critical of, the aristocracy. The Marriage of Figaro, written
in 1780, was held back by censors as an attack on the government. Eventually pro-
duced to great acclaim, it was seditious enough for later commentators to claim that
it was an essential ingredient in fomenting the French Revolution of 1789.
Mozart, with Lorenzo Da Ponte, who wrote the libretto, remained generally
faithful to the play, although changing some names and the occupations of some
characters. They reduced the opera from Beaumarchais’s fi ve acts to four, although
the entire opera is three hours long.
In brief, it is the story of Figaro, servant to Count Almaviva, and his intention of
marrying the countess’s maid Susanna. The count has given up the feudal tradition,
which would have permitted him to sleep with Susanna fi rst, before her husband.
However, he regrets his decision because he has fallen in love with Susanna and
now tries to seduce her. When his wife, the countess, young and still in love with
him, discovers his plans, she throws in with Figaro and Susanna to thwart him.
Cherubino, a very young man — sung by a female soprano — feels the fi rst stirrings
of love and desires both the countess and Susanna in turn. He is a page in the
count’s employ, and when his intentions are discovered, he is sent into the army.
One of the greatest arias in the opera is “Non più andrai” (“From now on, no
more gallivanting”), which Figaro sings to Cherubino, telling him that his amorous
escapades are now over. The nine-page aria is derived from part of a single speech
of Beaumarchais’s Figaro:
No more hanging around all day with the girls, no more cream buns and custard tarts,
no more charades and blind-man’s-bluff; just good soldiers, by God: weatherbeaten and
ragged-assed, weighed down with their muskets, right face, left face, forward march.1
Mozart’s treatment of the speech demonstrates one of the resources of opera
as opposed to straight drama. In the drama, it would be very diffi cult to expand
Figaro’s speech to intensify its emotional content, but in the opera the speech
1Pierre Augustin de Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro, trans. Bernard Sahlins. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee,
1994), p. 29.
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or parts of it can be repeated frequently and with pleasure, since the music that
underpins the words is delightful to hear and rehear. Mozart’s opera changes the
emotional content of the play because it intensifi es feelings associated with key
moments in the action.
The aria contains a very simple musical fi gure that has nonetheless great power
in the listening. Just as Mozart is able to repeat parts of the dialogue, he is able to
repeat notes, passages, and patterns. The pattern repeated most conspicuously is
that of the arpeggio, a chord whose notes are played in quick succession instead of
simultaneously. The passage of three chords in the key of C expresses a lifting feel-
ing of exuberance (Figure 15-3). Mozart’s genius was marked by a way of fi nding
the simplest, yet most unexpected, solutions to musical problems. The arpeggio is
practiced by almost every student of a musical instrument, yet it is thought of as
something appropriate to practice rather than performance. Thus Mozart’s usage
comes as a surprise.
The essence of the arpeggio in the eighteenth century was constant rep e ti tion,
and in using that pattern, Mozart fi nds yet another way to repeat ele ments to inten-
sify the emotional effects of the music. The listener hears the passage, is captured,
yet hardly knows why it is as im pres sive and as memorable as it is. There are ways
of doing similar things in drama — repeating gestures, for example — but there are
very few ways of re peat ing elements in such close proximity as the arpeggio does
without risk ing boredom.
The plot of the opera, like that of the play, is based on thwarting the plans of
the count with the use of disguise and mix-ups. Characters are hidden in bed rooms,
thus overhearing conversations they should not hear. They leap from bedroom
windows, hide in closets, and generally create a comic confusion. The much older
Marcellina and her lawyer Bartolo introduce the com pli ca tion of a breach of prom-
ise suit between her and Figaro just as Figaro is about to marry. The count uses it
to his advantage while he can, but the dif fi culty is resolved in a marvelously comic
way: Marcellina sees a birthmark on Figaro and realizes he is her son and the son
of Bartolo, with whom she had an affair. That fi nally clears the way for Figaro and
Susanna, who, once they have shamed the count into attending to the countess, can
marry.
Mozart’s musical resources include techniques that cannot easily be du pli cated
in straight drama. For example, his extended use of duets, quartets, and sextets, in
which characters interact and sing together, would be impos si ble in the original
drama. The libretto gave Mozart a chance to have one char ac ter sing a passage
while another fi lled in with an aside. Thus there are moments when one character
sings what he thinks others want him to say, while another character sings his or her
inner thoughts, specifi cally designed for the audience to hear. Mozart reveals the
duplicity of characters by having them sing one passage “publicly’’ while revealing
their secret motives “privately.’’
FIGURE 15-3
An arpeggio from “Non più
andrai” (“From now on, no more
gallivanting”), from the end of act 1
of The Marriage of Figaro.
Figaro sings a farewell aria to
Cherubino, who has been sent
to the army because of his skirt
chasing. It can be heard on
YouTube.
386
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The force of the quartets and the sextets in The Marriage of Figaro is enormous,
adding wonderfully to the comic effect that this opera always achieves. Their musical
force, in terms of sheer beauty and subtle complexity, is one of the hallmarks of the
opera. In the play, it would be impossible to have six char ac ters speaking simultane-
ously, but with the characters singing, such a sit u a tion becomes quite possible.
The resources that Mozart had in orchestration helped him achieve effects that
the stage could not produce. The horns, for example, are sometimes used for the
purpose of poking fun at the pretentious count, who is a hunter. The discords found
in some of the early arias resolve themselves in later arias when the countess smooths
them out, as in the opening aria in act 2: “Porgi Amor” (“Pour forth, O Love”). The
capacity of the music to emulate the emotional condition of the characters is a further
resource that permits Mozart to emphasize tension, as when, for example, dissonant
chords seem to stab the air to refl ect the anxiety of the count. Further, the capacity to
bring the music quite low (pianissimo) and then contrast it with brilliant loud passages
(fortissimo) adds a dimension of feeling that the play can barely even suggest.
Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro also has been successful because of its political mes-
sage, which is essentially democratic. The opera presents us with a delightful character,
Figaro, a barber become a servant, who is level-headed, somewhat innocent of the
evil ways of the world, and a smart man when he needs to be. He loves Susanna, who
is much more worldly-wise than he, but who is also a thoughtful, intelligent young
woman. In contrast, the count is an unsympathetic man who resents the fact that his
servant Figaro can have what he himself wants but cannot possess. The count is out-
witted by his servant and his wife at almost every turn. The countess is a sympathetic
character. She loves her husband, knows he wants to be unfaithful, but plays along with
Susanna and Figaro in a scheme involving assignations and disguises in order to shame
him into doing the right thing. The audiences of the late 1700s loved the play because
they reveled in the amusing way that Figaro manipulates his aristocratic master. Beau-
marchais’s play was as clear about this as the opera. Mozart’s interpretation of the play
(his subject matter) reveals such a breadth and depth of feeling that now the opera is far
more appreciated than the play.
PERCEPTION KEY Beaumarchais’s and Mozart’s Th e Marriage
of Figaro
Read Beaumarchais’s play and Da Ponte’s libretto, and see or listen to Mozart’s opera.
Several videos are available of the Beaumarchais play as well as of Mozart’s opera. The
Deutsche Grammophon version of the opera, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the count,
is excellent and has English subtitles. Listening to the op era while following the libretto is
also of great value. Listen for the use of individual instruments, such as the clarinets on
the off -beat, the power of horns and drums, and the repetition of phrases. Pay attention
especially to the fi nale, with its power, sim pli city, and matchless humor.
1. Compare the clarity of the development of character in both play and opera. What
diff erences in feelings do the respective works produce?
2. Is character or plot foremost in Beaumarchais’s work? Which is foremost in
Mozart’s?
3. Suppose you know nothing about the drama and listen only to the music. Would
your participation be signifi cantly weakened?
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388
CHAPTER 15
Poetry Interprets Painting: Th e Starry Night
Poets often use paintings, especially famous ones, for their subject matters. Since
paintings are wordless, they tend to invite commentary. Vincent van Gogh was a
tormented man whose slide into insanity has been chronicled in letters, biographies,
romantic novels, and fi lms. His painting The Starry Night (Figure 15-4) is an elo-
quent, tortured image fi lled with dynamic swirls and rich colors, portraying a night
that is intensely threatening. He wrote, “Exaggerate the essential and leave the ob-
vious vague.”
The fi rst poem, by Robert Fagles (1933–2008), speaks from the point of view of
van Gogh, imagining a psychic pain that has somehow been relieved by the act of
painting:
THE STARRY NIGHT
Long as I paint
I feel myself
less mad
the brush in my hand
a lightning rod to madness
But never ground that madness
execute it ride the lightning up
FIGURE 15-4
Vincent van Gogh, The Starry
Night. 1889. Oil on canvas,
29 3 361⁄4 inches (73.7 3 92.1 cm).
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss
Bequest.
Van Gogh’s most famous painting
represents the view outside the
window of his sanitarium room—
painted in daylight as a night scene.
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THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
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from these benighted streets and steeple up
with the cypress look its black is burning green
I am that I am it cries
it lifts me up the nightfall up
the cloudrack coiling like a dragon’s fl anks
a third of the stars of heaven wheeling in its wake
wheels in wheels around the moon that cradles round the sun
and if I can only trail these whirling eternal stars
with one sweep of the brush like Michael’s sword if I can
cut the life out of the beast — safeguard the mother and the son
all heaven will hymn in confl agration blazing down
the night the mountain ranges down
the claustrophobic valleys of the mad
Madness
is what I have instead of heaven
God deliver me — help me now deliver
all this frenzy back into your hands
our brushstrokes burning clearer into dawn
Anne Sexton (1928–1975) is one of America’s most powerful poets, but her
life was cut short by insanity and then suicide. She may have seen the painting as
an emblem of madness from a perspective that most sane people cannot. In light
of her personal journey, it is especially fascinating to see how she interprets the
painting:
THE STARRY NIGHT
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of — shall I say the word — reli gion. Then I go
out at night to paint the stars.
Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo.
The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no fl ag,
no belly,
no cry.
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CHAPTER 15
Both poets offer only the briefest description of the painting. A reader who
had not seen it could not know quite what the painting looks like. Yet both poets
move directly to the emotional core of the painting, its connection with madness
and psychic pain. For Fagles, the effort was intensely imaginative. For Sexton,
perhaps less so. Shortly before she wrote her poem, her father died and she had
an illegal abortion because she feared the baby she was about to have was not
fathered by her husband. Her personal life was terribly tormented for several
months before she wrote the poem, but she continued to write all the time, pro-
ducing her most widely read volume, All My Pretty Ones, which, for a book of
modern poetry, had extraordinary sales and popularity. Interestingly, both poets
see in the painting the form of a dragon, the biblical beast that hounded humanity
to make a hell of life.
PERCEPTION KEY Fagles’s and Sexton’s “Th e Starry Night”
1. How relevant is the imagery of the beast in the poems to an understanding of the
con tent of the painting?
2. Do the poems help you interpret the imagery of the painting in ways that are richer
than before you read the poems? Or do the poems distract you from the painting?
3. How eff ective would the poems be if there were no painting for their subject matter?
Could they stand on their own, or must they always be referenced to the painting?
4. Do you understand the painting better because of these poems?
5. Don McLean wrote music and lyrics for a song inspired by van Gogh’s painting.
The lyrics and music for “Vincent (Starry Starry Night)” can be heard on
YouTube: search Don McLean Starry Starry Night. What eff ect does the addition
of music have on you? How does it help you interpret the painting bet ter or more
fully?
6. Try writing your own song or your own poem as an interpretation of van Gogh’s
painting.
Sculpture Interprets Poetry: Apollo and Daphne
The Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE) has inspired artists even into modern
times. His masterpiece, The Metamorphoses, includes a large number of myths that
were of interest to his own time and that have inspired readers of all ages. The title
implies changes, virtually all kinds of changes imaginable in the natural and divine
worlds. The sense that the world of Roman deities intersected with humankind had
its Greek counterpart in Homer, whose heroes often had to deal with the interfer-
ence of the gods in their lives. Ovid inspired Shakespeare in literature, Botticelli
in painting, and, perhaps most impressively, the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini
(1598–1680).
Bernini’s technique as a sculptor was without peer in his era. His purposes were
quite different from those of most modern sculptors in that he was not particularly
interested in “truth to materials” (pages 109–110). If anything, he was more inter-
ested in showing how he could defy his materials and make marble, for example,
appear to be fl esh in motion.
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THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
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Apollo and Daphne (1622–1625) represents a section of The Meta mor pho ses in
which the god Apollo falls in love with the nymph Daphne (Figure 15-5). Cupid
had previously hit Apollo’s heart with an arrow to infl ame him, while he hit Daphne
with an arrow designed to make her reject love entirely. Cupid did this in revenge
for Apollo’s having killed the Python with a bow and arrow. Apollo woos Daphne
fruitlessly, she resists, and he attempts to rape her. As she fl ees from him, she pleads
with her father, the river god Peneius, to rescue her, and he turns her into a laurel
tree just as Apollo reaches his prey. Here is the moment in Ovid:
The god by grace of hope, the girl, despair,
Still kept their increasing pace until his lips
Breathed at her shoulder; and almost spent,
The girl saw waves of a familiar river,
Her father’s home, and in a trembling voice
Called, “Father, if your waters still hold charms
To save your daughter, cover with green earth
This body I wear too well,’’ and as she spoke
A soaring drowsiness possessed her; growing
In earth she stood, white thighs embraced by climbing
Bark, her white arms branches, her fair head swaying
In a cloud of leaves; all that was Daphne bowed
In the stirring of the wind, the glittering green
Leaf twined within her hair and she was laurel.
FIGURE 15-5
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Apollo and
Daphne. 1622–1625. Marble, 8 feet
high. Galleria Borghese, Rome.
The sculpture portrays Ovid’s story
of Apollo’s foiled attempt to rape
the nymph Daphne.
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CHAPTER 15
Ovid portrays the moment of metamorphosis as a moment of drowsiness as
Daphne becomes rooted and sprouts leaves. It is this instant that Bernini has cho-
sen, an instant during which we can see the normal human form of Apollo, while
Daphne’s thighs are almost enclosed in bark, her hair and hands growing leaves.
The details of this sculpture, whose fi gures are life-size, are extraordinary. In the
Galleria Borghese in Rome, one can walk around the sculpture and examine it up
close. The moment of change is so astonishingly wrought, one virtually forgets that
it is a sculpture. Bernini has converted the poem into a moment of drama through
the medium of sculpture.
Certainly, Bernini’s sculpture is an “illustration’’ of a specifi c moment in The
Metamorphoses, but it goes beyond illustration. Bernini has brought the moment into
EXPERIENCING Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s
The Metamorphoses
1. If you had not read Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, what would you believe to be the
subject matter of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne? Do you believe it is a less interest-
ing work if you do not know Ovid?
One obvious issue in looking at this sculpture and considering Ovid’s treatment
of Apollo and Daphne is that today very few people will have read Ovid before
seeing the sculpture. In the era in which Bernini created the work, he expected
it to be seen primarily by well-educated people, and in the seventeenth century,
most educated people would have been steeped in Ovid from a young age. Con-
sequently, Bernini worked in a classical tradition that he could easily rely on to
inform his audience.
Today that classical tradition is essentially gone. Few people, comparatively, read
Roman poets, yet the people who see this sculpture in the Galleria Borghese in Rome
respond powerfully to it, even without knowing the story it portrays. Standing be-
fore this work, one is immediately struck by its size, eight feet high, with the fi gures
fully life-size. The incredible skill of the sculptor is apparent in the ways in which the
fi ngers of Daphne are becoming the leaves of the plant that now bears her name—
she is metamorphosing before our eyes, even if we do not know the reference to
Ovid’s The Metamorphoses. The question aesthetically is how much diff erence does
our knowledge of the source text for the sculpture make for our responses to and
participation with the sculpture? The interesting thing about knowledge is that once
one has it, one cannot “unhave” it. Is it possible to set apart enough of our knowl-
edge of Ovid to look at the sculpture the way we might look at a sculpture by Henry
Moore or David Smith? Without knowledge of Ovid one would see fi gures in action
impressively represented in marble, mixed with important but perhaps baffl ing vege-
tation. Visitors to the sculpture seem genuinely awed by its brilliance, and just being
told that it portrays a moment in Ovid hardly alters their response to the work. Only
when they read Ovid and refl ect on the relationship of text to sculpture do they fi nd
their responses altered.
2. What does Bernini add to your responses to Ovid’s poetry? What is the value
of a sculptural representation of a poetic action? What are the benefi ts to your
appreciation of either Bernini or Ovid?
3. Bernini’s sculpture is famous for its virtuoso perfection of carving. Yet in this
work, “truth to materials” is largely bypassed. (Compare Michelangelo’s Pietà,
Figure 5-5.) Does that fact diminish the eff ectiveness of the work?
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393
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE ARTS
a three-dimensional space, with the illusion of the wind blowing Apollo’s garments
and with the pattern of swooping lines producing a sense of motion. From almost
any angle, this is an arresting interpretation, even for those who do not recognize
the reference to Ovid.
FOCUS ON Photography Interprets Fiction
Although a great many classic paintings were stimulated
by narratives, such as Bible stories, Homeric epics, and
Ovidian romances, the modern tradition of visual art in-
terpreting fi ction has been limited to illustration. Illustra-
tions in novels usually provided visual information to help
the reader imagine what the characters look like and what
the setting of the novel contributes to the experience of
reading. The traditional novelist usually provided plenty of
description to help the reader. However, in recent years
the profusion of cinema and television interpretations of
novels, both historical and contemporary, has led writers
to provide fewer descriptive passages to help the reader
visualize the scenes. The cinema and television images have
substituted for the traditional illustrations because people
know what England, France, Ireland, Asia, and Africa look
like, and the actors playing the roles of Heathcliff , Anne
Elliot, Cleopatra, Hamlet, Macbeth, Jane Eyre, Anna Karen-
ina, and many more have provided indelible images that
make book illustration superfl uous.
The tradition, common in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, of producing adult fi ction that in-
cluded plentiful illustrations has virtually stopped. One of
the most famous early-twentieth-century illustrators of
fi ction was N. C. Wyeth, the father of Andrew Wyeth (see
Christina’s World, Figure 14-6).
Book illustrators attempted to capture the dramatic
moment that would stimulate the reader to imagine a scene with more emotional in-
tensity. N. C. Wyeth’s illustrations were such that they out-did the authors of the
books he interpreted. When readers visualized Treasure Island, they were not referring
to the book but, rather, to Wyeth’s paintings (Figure 15-6). Brilliant as they are, with-
out the texts to which they refer, the illustrations are less than revelatory. They are
realistic and almost photographic in their detail, but they need the texts in order to be
meaningful. It is likely that if you were not told Wyeth was illustrating Treasure Island,
you would have no way of knowing how the subject matter was being transformed into
a form-content. What is Wyeth revealing in One More Step, Mr. Hands?
Jeff Wall, a Canadian photographer, is known for his careful preparation of the
scenes that he photographs. For example, he spent almost two years putting together
the materials for his photograph of After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue
(Figure 15-7). Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man (1952), concerns a character known
only as the invisible man. The invisible man is a young African American who realizes,
in the 1940s, that he is invisible to the general American public. He explains in the
prologue to his story that after beating a white man who insulted him, he relents, re-
alizing that the man probably never even saw him. As an African American, he realizes
FIGURE 15-6
One More Step, Mr. Hands, by N. C.
Wyeth, 1911, for the novel Treasure
Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
N. C. Wyeth created some
thirty illustrations for Treasure
Island. They introduced the
main characters in the story and
provided the visual experience for
generations of readers.
continued
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that he has no status in the community, no real
place in his own country because of the power
of racism. Ellison’s novel, widely considered the
best American novel of the mid-twentieth cen-
tury, exposes the depth of racism and how it
distorts those who are its victims.
Jeff Wall concentrates on a single moment in
the book, in the prologue in which the invisible
man explains how he has tried to make himself
visible to his community.
Without light I am not only invisible, but form-
less as well; and to be unaware of one’s form
is to live a death. I myself after existing some
twenty years, did not become alive until I dis-
covered my invisibility.
That is why I fi ght my battle with Monop-
olated Light & Power. The deeper reason, I
mean: It allows me to feel my vital aliveness. I also fi ght them for taking so much of my
money before I learned to protect myself. In my hole in the basement there are exactly
1,369 lights. I’ve wired the entire ceiling, every inch of it. And not with fl uorescent
bulbs, but with the older, more-expensive-to-operate kind, the fi lament type. An act of
sabotage, you know. I’ve already begun to wire the wall. A junk man I know, a man of
vision, has supplied me with wire and sockets. Nothing, storm or fl ood, must get in the
way of our need for light and ever more and brighter light. The truth is the light and the
light is the truth.
Jeff Wall has done what the invisible man has done. He has installed 1,369 fi lament
lights in the space he has constructed to replicate the basement that the invisible man
refers to as his “hole.” It is his safe place, where he can go to write down the story
that is the novel, Invisible Man. Critics at the Museum of Modern Art contend that Wall
has completely rewritten the rules for illustrating fi ction by his eff orts at making us
come close to feeling what the invisible man’s lighted place means to him. Illustrators
usually select moments and aspects of the fi ction’s description, but Wall tries to in-
clude everything in the basement, even beyond the text’s detail. Photography is cele-
brated often for its ability to document reality; Wall uses photography to document
unreality, the only partly described basement room. In this sense, the photograph is
hyper-real and thereby reveals the values in the novel in a new way.
PERCEPTION KEY Focus on Photography Interprets Fiction
1. What are the chief diff erences between Wyeth’s painting of a scene from a novel
and Wall’s photograph of a scene from a novel?
2. The Museum of Modern Art says that Wall’s approach to illustrating fi ction es-
sentially reinvents the entire idea of illustration. To what extent do you agree or
disagree? Could the same be said of Wyeth’s painting?
FIGURE 15-7
Jeff Wall, After “Invisible Man”
by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue.
1999–2000. Museum of Modern
Art 1999–2000, printed 2001. Silver
dye bleach transparency; aluminum
light box, 5 feet 81⁄2 inches 3 8 feet
23⁄4 inches (174 × 250.8 cm).
The invisible man sits in his
underground room where even
all the lighting he has assembled
cannot make him visible to the
community of which he is an
important part.
394
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THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE ARTS
Architecture Interprets Dance: National
Nederlanden Building
In what may be one of the most extraordinary interactions between the arts,
the celebrated National Nederlanden Building in Prague, Czech Republic, by
the modernist architect Frank Gehry, seems to have almost replicated a duet
between Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. The building in Prague has been called
“Ginger and Fred” since it was fi nished in 1996 (Figure 15-8). It has also been
called “the dancing building,” but everyone who has commented on the struc-
ture points to its rhythms, particularly the windows, which are on different levels
throughout the exterior. The building defi nitely refl ects the postures of Ginger
Rogers and Fred Astaire as they appeared in nine extraordinary fi lms from 1933
to 1939 (Figure 15-9). Gehry is known for taking considerable chances in design
FIGURE 15-8 ( left)
Frank Gehry, National
Nederlanden Building,
Prague. 1992–1996.
Widely known as “Ginger and
Fred,” the building’s design
was inspired by the dancers
Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire,
whose fi lmed dance scenes are
internationally respected.
FIGURE 15-9 (right)
Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire
in one of their nine fi lms together.
Their confi guration closely
resembles the form of the building
in Prague known as “Ginger and
Fred.”
3. We suggested that Wyeth’s painting needs Stevenson’s novel for it to be fully un-
derstood. Is the same true of Wall’s photograph? Assuming that you have not read
either novel, which of these visual images could better stand on its own?
4. Wall’s photograph does not have all the bulbs lighted. In fact, he has chosen to
light only some of the bulbs in order to improve the lighting for his photograph. Is
that decision a defect in his eff ort to interpret the novel, or is it the very thing that
makes his interpretation more dramatic and more likely to produce a response in
the viewer? Comment on the formal qualities of the photograph, the organization
of visual elements, the control of color, the position of the fi gure of the invisible
man. How strong is this photograph?
5. After reading Invisible Man (if you have the opportunity), what do you feel the
photograph adds to your understanding of Ellison’s character and his situation?
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396
CHAPTER 15
of buildings (such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Figures 6-24 to 6-26).
The result of his effort in generally staid Prague has been a controversial success
largely because of its connection with Rogers’ and Astaire’s image as dancers.
Painting Interprets Dance and Music: Th e Dance and Music
Henri Matisse (1869–1954) was commissioned to paint The Dance and Music (both
1910) by Sergey Shchukin, a wealthy Russian businessman in Moscow who had been
a longtime patron. The works were murals for a monumental staircase and, since
the Russian Revolution of 1917, have been at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.
In Matisse’s time, Shchukin entertained lavishly, and his guests were sophisticated,
well-traveled, beautifully clothed patrons of the arts who went regularly to the
ballet, opera, and lavish orchestral concerts. Matisse made his work stand in stark
contrast to the aristocratic world of his potential viewers.
According to Matisse, The Dance (Figure 15-10) derived originally from observa-
tion of local men and women dancing on the beach in a fi shing village in southern
France where Matisse lived for a short time. Their sardana was a stylized and staid
traditional circle dance, but in the Matisse the energy and joy are wild. The Dance
interprets the idea of dance rather than any particular dance. Moreover, it is clear
that Matisse reaches into the earliest history of dance, portraying naked women
and a man dancing with abandon on a green mound against a dark blue sky. Their
sense of movement is implied in the gesture of each leg, the posture of each fi gure,
and the instability of pose. The fi gures have been described as primitive, but their
hairdos suggest that they might be contemporary dancers returning to nature and
dancing in accord with an instinctual sense of motion.
FIGURE 15-10
Henri Matisse, The Dance. 1910.
Decorative panel, oil on canvas,
1021⁄4 3 1251⁄2 inches. The
Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
Painted for a Russian businessman,
this hymn to the idea of dance has
become an iconographic symbol of
the power of dance.
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THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
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Music is similarly primitive, with a fi ddler and a pipes player (who look as if they
were borrowed from a Picasso painting) and three singers sitting on a mound of
earth against a dark blue sky (Figure 15-11). They are painted in the same fl at red-
dish tones as the dancers, and it seems as if they are playing and singing the music
that the dancers are themselves hearing. Again, the approach to the art of music is
as basic as the approach to the art of dance, except that a violin, of course, would
not exist in a primitive society. The violin represents the strings and the pipes the
woodwinds of the modern orchestra, whereas the other musicians use the most
basic of instruments, the human voice. The fi gures are placed linearly as if they
were notes on a staff, a musical phrase with three rising tones and one falling tone
(perhaps C A B C G). Music is interpreted as belonging to a later period than that
of the dance.
The two panels, The Dance and Music, seem designed to work together to imply an
ideal for each art. Instead of interpreting a specifi c artistic moment, Matisse appears
to be striving to interpret the essential nature of both arts.
FIGURE 15-11
Henri Matisse, Music. 1910.
Decorative panel, oil on canvas,
1021⁄4 3 153 inches. The Hermitage,
St. Petersburg.
This painting hangs near Matisse’s
The Dance in the Hermitage. The
fi ve fi gures are placed as if they were
notes on a music staff.
PERCEPTION KEY Painting and the Interpretation
of Th e Dance and Music
1. Must these paintings (Figures 15-10 and 15-11)—which are close in size—be hung
near each other for both to achieve their complete eff ect? If they are hung next to
each other, would they need to have their titles evident for the viewer to respond
fully to them?
2. What qualities of The Dance make you feel that kinetic motion is somehow present
in the painting? What is dancelike here?
continued
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398
CHAPTER 15
It is fi tting to close this chapter with questions arising from a fi lm and an opera
that take as their subject matter the same source: Thomas Mann’s famous novella
Death in Venice, published in 1911. Luchino Visconti’s 1971 fi lm interprets the story
in one way; Benjamin Britten’s 1973 opera interprets the story in a signifi cantly
different way. Both, however, are faithful to the story. The difference in media has
much to do with why the two interpretations of Mann’s story are so different de-
spite their basically common subject matter.
3. What does Matisse do to make Music somehow congruent with our ideas of music?
Which shapes within the painting most suggest music?
4. Suppose the fi gures and the setting were painted more realistically. How would that
stylistic change aff ect our perception of the essential nature of dance and music?
5. Does participating with these paintings and refl ecting on their achievement help
you understand and, in turn, enjoy dance and music?
EXPERIENCING Death in Venice: Th ree Versions
Read Mann’s novella Death in Venice. This is a haunting tale — one of the greatest
short stories of the twentieth century — of a very disciplined, fa mous writer who,
in his fi fties, is physically and mentally exhausted. Gustav von As chen bach seeks
rest by means of a vacation, eventually coming to Venice. On the beach there, he
becomes obsessed with the beauty of a boy. Despite Aschenbach’s knowl edge of a
spreading epidemic of cholera, he remains, and being afraid the boy will be taken
away, withholds information about the epidemic from the boy’s mother. Casting
aside restraint and shame, Aschenbach even attempts, with the help of a barber,
to appear youthful again. Yet Aschenbach, a master of language, never speaks to
the boy, nor can he fi nd words to articulate the origins of his obsession and love.
Collapsing in his chair with a heart attack, he dies as he watches the boy walk-
ing off into the sea. Try to see Visconti’s fi lm, starring Dirk Bogarde. And listen
to Brit ten’s opera with the libretto by Myfanwy Piper, as recorded by London
Records, New York City, and starring Peter Pears.
1. Which of these three versions do you fi nd most interesting? Why?
2. Does the fi lm reveal insights about Aschenbach (and ourselves) that are missed
in the novella? Does the opera reveal insights that escape both the novella and
the fi lm? Be specifi c. What are the special powers and limitations of these three
media?
3. In both the novella and the opera, the opening scene has Aschenbach walking
by a cemetery in a suburb of Munich. The fi lm opens, however, with shots of
As chen bach coming into Venice in a gondola. Why do you think Visconti did not
use Mann’s opening? Why, on the other hand, did Britten use Mann’s opening?
4. In the fi lm, Aschenbach is portrayed as a composer rather than a writer. Why?
5. In the opera, unlike the fi lm, the dance plays a major role. Why?
6. The hold of a boy over a mature, sophisticated man such as Aschenbach may
seem at fi rst highly improbable and contrived. How does Mann make this im prob-
a bil ity seem plausible? Visconti? Britten?
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THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE ARTS
Summary
The arts closely interrelate because artists have the same purpose: the revelation of
values. They also must use some medium that can be formed to communicate that
revelation, and all artists use some elements of media. Furthermore, in the forming
of their media, artists use the same principles of composition. Thus interaction
among the arts is easily accomplished. The arts mix in many ways. Appropriation
occurs when an artist combines his or her medium with the medium of another art
or arts but keeps the basic medium clearly dominant. Synthesis occurs when an artist
combines his or her medium in more or less of a balance with the medium of another
art or arts. Interpretation occurs when an artist uses another work of art as the subject
matter. Artists constitute a commonwealth — sharing the same end and using similar
means.
7. Is Britten able to articulate the hidden deeper feelings of Aschenbach more
vividly than Mann or Visconti? If so, how? What can music do that these other
two media cannot do in this respect? Note Aschenbach’s thought in the novella:
“Language could but extol, not reproduce, the beauties of the sense.” Note also
that Vis conti often uses the music of Gustav Mahler to help give us insight into
the depths of Aschenbach’s character. Does this music, as it meshes with the
moving images, do so as eff ectively as Britten’s music?
8. Do you think that seeing Britten’s opera performed would add signifi cantly to
your participation? Note that some opera lovers prefer only to hear the music
and shut their eyes most of the time in the opera house.
9. Do these three works complement one another? After seeing the fi lm or listening
to the opera, does the novella become richer for you? If so, explain.
10. In the novella, Socrates tells Phaedrus, “For beauty, my Phaedrus, beauty alone,
is lovely and visible at once. For, mark you, it is the sole aspect of the spiritual
which we can perceive through our senses, or bear so to perceive.” But in the
opera, Socrates asks, “Does beauty lead to wisdom, Phaedrus?” Socrates an-
swers his own question: “Yes, but through the senses . . . and senses lead to pas-
sion . . . and passion to the abyss.” Why do you think Britten made such a drastic
change in emphasis?
11. What insights into our lives are brought to us by these works? For example, do
you have a better understanding of the tragedy of beauty and of the connection
be tween beauty and death? Again, do we have an archetype?
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400
The Humanities and the Sciences
In the opening pages of Chapter 1 we defi ned the humanities as that broad range of
creative activities and studies that are usually contrasted with mathematics and the
advanced sciences, mainly because in the humanities strictly objective or scientifi c
standards typically do not dominate.
Most college and university catalogs contain a grouping of courses called
“the humanities.” First, studies such as literature, the visual arts, music, history,
philosophy, and theology are almost invariably included. Second, studies such
as psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, business
administration, and education may or may not be included. Third, studies such as
physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and engineering are never included. The
reason the last group is excluded is obvious — strict scientifi c or objective standards
are clearly applicable. With the second group, these standards are not always so
clearly applicable. There is uncertainty about whether they belong with the sci-
ences or the humanities. For example, most psychologists who experiment with
animals apply the scientifi c method as rigorously as any biologist. But there are also
psychologists—C. G. Jung, for instance — who speculate about such phenomena
as the “collective unconscious’’ and the role of myth (Chapter 8). To judge their
work strictly by scientifi c methods is to miss much of their contributions. Where
C h a p t e r 1 6
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE HUMANITIES
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401
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE HUMANITIES
then should psychology and the subjects in this group be placed? In the case of the
fi rst group, fi nally, the arts are invariably placed with the humanities. But then so
are history, philosophy, and theology. Thus, as the title of this book implies, the
humanities include subjects other than the arts. Then how are the arts distinguished
from the other humanities? And what is the relationship between the arts and these
other humanities?
These are broad and complex questions. Rigorous objective standards may be
applied in any of the humanities. Thus painting can be approached as a science — by
the historian of medieval painting, for example, who measures, as precisely as any
engineer, the evolving sizes of halos. On the other hand, the beauty of mathematics—
its economy and elegance of proof — can excite the lover of mathematics as much
as, if not more than, painting. Edna St. Vincent Millay proclaimed that “Euclid
alone has looked on beauty bare.’’ And so the separation of the humanities and the
sciences should not be observed rigidly. The separation is useful mainly because it
indicates the dominance or the subordinance of the strict scientifi c method in the
various disciplines.
The Arts and the Other Humanities
Artists are humanists. But artists differ from the other humanists primarily because
they create works that reveal values. Artists are sensitive to the important concerns
of their societies. That is their subject matter in the broadest sense. They create
artistic forms that clarify these values. The other humanists — such as historians,
philosophers, and theologians — refl ect upon, rather than reveal, values. They study
values as given, as they fi nd them. They try to describe and explain values — their
causes and consequences. Furthermore, they may judge these values as good or bad.
Thus, like artists, they try to clarify values, but they do this by means of analysis (see
Chapter 3) rather than artistic revelation.
In their studies, the other humanists do not reveal values. However, they may
take advantage of the revealing role of the arts. Their studies will be enhanced be-
cause they will have a deeper understanding of the values they are studying. This is
basically the help that the artists give to the other hu man ists. Suppose, for example,
a historian is trying to understand the bomb ing of Guernica by the Fascists in the
Spanish Civil War. Suppose he or she has ex plored all factual resources. Even then,
something very important may be left out: a vivid awareness of the suffering of the
noncombatants. To gain insight into that pain, Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4) may
be very helpful.
CONCEPTION KEY Other Humanists and Artists
1. Is there anything that Picasso may have learned from historians that he used in
painting Guernica?
2. Picasso painted a night bombing, but the actual bombing occurred in daylight. Why
the change? As you think about this, remember that the artist transforms in order
to inform.
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EXPERIENCING The Humanities and Students of Medicine
Study the following report by Joann Loviglio for the
Associated Press, published March 20, 2007.
Modern medicine provides doctors with an array
of sophisticated machines that collect and present
data about their patients, but the human eye is an
invaluable yet often underappreciated diagnostic
tool.
To address that, a new collaboration of Jeff erson
Medical College and the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts has been created to teach aspiring
doctors to closely observe, describe and interpret
the subtlest details with the eye of an artist.
The art-and-medicine program kicked off its fi rst
workshop Friday with a group of 18 white-coated
medical students visiting the academy’s museum
and a dynamic representation of their chosen
profession: Thomas Eakins’s masterwork The Gross
Clinic, which depicts an operation in progress.
The fi rst- and second-year med students heard
how to take a “visual inventory”—paying attention
to overall elements of the painting, like texture and
brightness, and specifi cs such as body language
and facial expressions.
Besides the two-hour Visual Perception work-
shop, others slated for the 2007–2008 school
year are Accuracy and Perception, Hand-Eye
Coordination, Art in Healing, and Sculpture and
Surgery. The courses are a mix of demonstrations,
lectures and hands-on art lessons.
A 2001 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that medical
students in a similar Yale University program acquired more astute observational
skills than their colleagues who didn’t take the courses. In addition to assessing a
patient’s well-being during an offi ce visit, fi nely honed visual abilities can also allow
doctors to spot subtle changes in a patient’s X-rays over time, for example.
Increasingly, medical schools nationwide are incorporating humanities courses
to their curricula.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 89 of the coun-
try’s 125 medical schools have humanities as an educational element included in
a required course, and 66 have it as an elective. (There’s overlap because some
schools have both.) The fi gures include all humanities, not just visual arts, spokes-
woman Nicole Buckley said. Other humanities studies in medical schools include
literature, performing arts, and music.1
1. Eakins’s The Gross Clinic portrays Samuel D. Gross, a famous surgeon, supervising
an operation on a man’s left thigh (Figure 16-1). Judging from the expressions on
the faces of those involved in the operation, what might a medical student learn
about the values that most interested the painter? You can see this painting in
greater detail at www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/299524.html.
FIGURE 16-1
Thomas Eakins, Portrait of
Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross
Clinic). 1875. Oil on canvas,
8 feet 3 6 feet 6 inches.
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Gross Clinic honors Samuel
D. Gross, Philadelphia’s most
famous surgeon. He stands ready
to comment on the surgery being
performed on a nameless man’s
thigh. Eakins has caught Gross in a
moment confi dent of great success.
Many of the fi gures in the painting
were known to his audience, and
Eakins himself is portrayed in
the upper right, in the shadows.
Critics have claimed this is one of
the greatest nineteenth-century
American paintings.
1Joann Loviglio, “Getting Medical Students to See,” The Associated Press, March 20, 2007. Copyright 2007
by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
402
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Other humanists, such as critics and sociologists, may aid artists by their study of
values. For example, we have concerned ourselves in some detail with criticism — the
description, interpretation, and evaluation of works of art. Criticism is a humanistic
discipline because it usually studies values — those revealed in works of art — without
strictly applying scientifi c or objective standards. Good critics aid our understand-
ing of works of art. We become more sensitively aware of the revealed values. This
deeper understanding brings us into closer rapport with artists, and such rapport
helps sustain their confi dence in their work.
Artists reveal values; the other humanists study values. That does not mean, of
course, that artists may not study values but, rather, that such study, if any, is sub-
ordinated to revealing values in an artistic form that attracts our participation.
Values
A value is something we care about, something that matters. A value is an object of
an interest. The term “object,” however, should be understood as including events
or states of affairs. Positive values are those objects of interest that satisfy us or give
us pleasure, such as good health. Negative values are those objects of interest that
dissatisfy us or give us pain, such as bad health.
When the term “value’’ is used alone, it usually refers to positive values only,
but it may also include negative values. In our value decisions, we generally seek
to obtain positive values and avoid negative values. But except for the very young
child, these decisions usually involve highly complex activities. To have a tooth
pulled is painful, a negative value, but doing so leads to the possibility of better
health, a positive value. Intrinsic values involve the feelings — such as pleasure and
pain — we have of some value activity, such as enjoying good food or experiencing
nausea from overeating. Extrinsic values are the means to intrinsic values, such as
making the money that pays for the food. Intrinsic-extrinsic values not only evoke
immediate feelings but also are means to further values, such as the enjoyable food
that leads to future good health.
Values, we propose, involve a valuer and something that excites an interest in the
valuer. Subjectivist theories of value claim, however, that it is the interest that proj-
ects the value on something. The painting, for example, is positively valuable only
because it satisfi es the interest of someone. If no one is around to project interest,
then there are no valuable objects. Value is entirely relative to the valuer. Beauty
2. It seems clear that painting can be important to the humanities education of medi-
cal students. However, it is also clear that other arts can contribute to the medical
students’ program. Which of the arts do you think would be most eff ective in
revealing humanistic values for a medical doctor?
3. What values does Thomas Eakins’s The Gross Clinic reveal that could have an impact
on students of medicine?
4. How might historians of medicine interpret Eakins’s The Gross Clinic?
5. What might a medical student learn from this painting that could make the student
a better doctor?
403
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CHAPTER 16
is in the eye of the beholder. Objectivist theories of value claim, conversely, that it
is the object that excites the interest. The painting is positively valuable even if no
one has any interest in it. Value is in the object independently of any subject. Jane
is beautiful even if no one is aware of her beauty.
The relational theory of value — which is the one we have been presupposing
throughout this book — claims that value emerges from the relation between an
interest and an object. A good painting that is satisfying no one’s interest at the
moment nevertheless possesses potential value. A good painting possesses prop-
erties that under proper conditions are likely to stimulate the interest of a valuer.
The subjectivist would say that this painting has no value whatsoever until someone
projects value on it. The objectivist would say that this painting has actualized value
inherent in it whether anyone enjoys it or not. The relationalist would say that this
painting has potential value, that when it is experienced under proper conditions,
a sensitive, informed participant will actualize the potential value. To describe a
painting as “good’’ is the same as saying that the painting has positive potential
value. For the relationalist, value is realized only when objects with potential value
connect with the interests of someone.
Values are usually studied with reference to the interaction of various kinds of
potential value with human interests. For example, criticism tends to focus on the
intrinsic values of works of art; economics focuses on commodities as basically ex-
trinsic values; and ethics focuses on intrinsic-extrinsic values as they are or ought to
be chosen by moral agents.
Values that are described scientifi cally as they are found we shall call value
facts. Values that are set forth as norms or ideals or what ought to be we shall call
CONCEPTION KEY Participation with Art and Values
1. Do you think the value of a participative experience with a work of art is basically
intrinsic, extrinsic, or intrinsic–extrinsic? Explain.
2. Dr. Victor Frankl, a medical doctor and psychiatrist, writes in The Doctor and the Soul,
The higher meaning of a given moment in human existence can be fulfi lled by the
mere intensity with which it is experienced, and independent of any action. If anyone
doubts this, let him consider the following situation. Imagine a music lover sitting in
the concert hall while the most noble measures of his favorite symphony resound
in his ears. He feels that shiver of emotion which we experience in the presence of
the purest beauty. Suppose now that at such a moment we should ask this person
whether his life has meaning. He would have to reply that it had been worthwhile
living if only to experience this ecstatic moment.2
Do you agree with Frankl, or do you consider this an overstatement? Why?
3. It has been reported that some of the most sadistic guards and high-ranking offi cers
in the Nazi concentration camps played classical music during or after torturings
and killings. Goering was a great lover of excellent paintings. Hit ler loved architec-
ture and the music of Wagner. What do you make of this?
2Victor E. Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Knopf, 1955),
p. 49.
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405
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE HUMANITIES
normative values. Smoking cigarettes is, for some people, a source of satisfaction,
both physically and socially. The value facts known about smoking cigarettes tell us
that they are destructive to one’s health. They damage one’s lungs and ultimately
cause heart attacks and several forms of cancer. Smoking cigarettes conjures a con-
fl ict between the intrinsic value of satisfaction and the extrinsic value of early, pain-
ful death. Normative values tell us what our behavior should be. An ideal position
on the smoking of cigarettes would tell us that good health in the future is to be
preferred to pleasant satisfaction in the present.
The arts and the other humanities often have normative relevance. They may
clarify the possibilities for value decisions, thus clarifying what ought to be and
what we ought to do. And this is an invaluable function, for we are beings who must
constantly choose among various value possibilities. Paradoxically, even not choos-
ing is often a choice. The humanities can help enlighten our choices. Artists help
by revealing aspects and consequences of value phenomena that escape scientists.
The other humanists help by clarifying aspects and consequences of value phenom-
ena that escape both artists and scientists. For example, the historian or sociologist
might trace the consequences of value choices in past societies. Moreover, the other
humanists—especially philosophers — can take account of the whole value fi eld, in-
cluding the relationships between factual and normative values. This is something
we are trying to do, however briefl y and oversimply, right here.
CONCEPTION KEY Value Decisions
1. You may have made a judgment about whether or not to smoke cigarettes. Was
there any kind of evidence — other than the scientifi c — that was relevant to your
de ci sion? Explain.
2. Refl ect about the works of art we have discussed in this book. Have any of them
clarifi ed value possibilities for you in a way that might helpfully infl uence your value
decisions? If so, how? Be as specifi c as possible. Do some arts seem more rel e vant
than others in this respect? If so, why? Discuss with others. Do you fi nd that people
diff er a great deal with respect to the arts that are most relevant to their value de-
cisions? If so, how is this to be explained?
3. Do you think that in choosing its political leaders, a society is likely to be helped if
the arts are fl ourishing? As you think about this, consider the state of the arts in
so ci e ties that have chosen wise leaders, as well as the state of the arts in societies
that have chosen unwise leaders.
4. Do you think that political leaders are more likely to make wise decisions if they
are sensitive to the arts? Back up your answer with reference to spe cifi c leaders.
5. Do you think there is any correlation between a fl ourishing state of the arts and a
democracy? A tyranny? Back up your answers with reference to specifi c leaders.
Factual values can be verifi ed experimentally, put through the tests of the sci-
entifi c method. Normative values are verifi ed experientially, put through the tests
of good or bad consequences. Satisfaction, for ourselves and the others involved,
is an experiential test that the normative values we chose in a given instance were
probably right. Suffering, for ourselves and the others involved, is an experiential
test that the normative values we chose were probably wrong. Experiential testing
of normative values involves not only the immediacy of experience but also the
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406
CHAPTER 16
consequences that follow. Science can also point out these consequences, of course,
but science cannot make them so forcefully clear and present as the arts, thus so
thoroughly understandable.
The arts are closely related to the other humanities, especially history, philos-
ophy, and theology. In conclusion, we shall give only a brief sketch of these rela-
tionships, for they are very complex and require extensive analyses that we can only
suggest.
FOCUS ON The Arts and History, The Arts and Philosophy,
The Arts and Theology
Th e Arts and History
Historians try to discover the what and the why of the past. They need as many rel-
evant facts as possible in order to describe and explain the events that happened.
Often they may be able to use the scientifi c method in their gathering and verifi cation
of facts. But in attempting to give as full an explanation as possible as to why some
of the events they are tracing happened, they function as humanists, for here they
need understanding of the normative values or ideals of the society they are studying.
Among their main resources are works of art. Often such works will reveal people’s
hopes and fears — their views of birth and death, blessing and disaster, victory and
disgrace, endurance and decline, themselves and God, fate and what ought to be. Only
with the understanding of such values can history become something more than a
catalog of events.
In one of his most famous sonnets, John Milton immortalized a moment in 1655
by reference to history and the horrors of single event. In “On the Late Massacre in
Piedmont,” Milton refers to a mass killing in a religious war in northern Italy carried out
by the Catholic Duke of Savoy. He attacked a Protestant group called Waldensians,
who had lived in the region peacefully for almost two hundred years. The slaughter
took place on April 24, 1655, close to Easter.
ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O’er all the Italian fi elds, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fl y the Babylonian woe.
[Note: “The triple Tyrant” refers to the Pope, who wore a three-sectioned tiara; “the Babylonian woe” is
Milton’s reference to the Catholic Church.]
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THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE HUMANITIES
Milton’s role in this historical event was as a representative of the British Protestant
government, drafting and sending an offi cial protest to the Duke of Savoy. Milton’s
poem was designed for his immediate English audience and ultimately for us. His detail
and his metaphors reveal the signifi cance, to him, of this terrible massacre of people,
like sheep, who were unaware that the Duke’s soldiers had come to kill them or con-
vert them.
Th e Arts and Philosophy
Philosophy is, among other things, an attempt to give reasoned answers to funda-
mental questions that, because of their generality, are not treated by any of the more
specialized disciplines. Ethics, aesthetics, and metaphysics (or speculative philosophy),
three of the main divisions of philosophy, are closely related to the arts. Ethics is
often the inquiry into the presuppositions or principles operative in our moral judg-
ments and the study of norms or standards for value decisions. If we are correct,
an ethic dealing with norms that fails to take advantage of the insights of the arts is
inadequate. John Dewey even argued that
Art is more moral than moralities. For the latter either are, or tend to become, conse-
crations of the status quo, refl ections of custom, reenforcements of the established
order. The moral prophets of humanity have always been poets even though they spoke
in free verse or by parable.3
Sarah Norcliff e Cleghorn (1876–1959) was a friend of Robert Frost and a
Vermonter most of her life. She was also an activist and deeply concerned with social
issues. The New England in which she lived was fi lled with mills like those Lewis Hine
photographed in North Carolina (Figure 16-2), producing the clothing and necessaries
FIGURE 16-2
Lewis Hine (1874–1940), Rhodes Mfg. Co., Lincolnton, NC. Spinner. A moment’s
glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 10 years old. Been working over a year. Location:
Lincolnton, North Carolina. (Hine’s title), 1908, National Archives.
3John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Minton, Balch, 1934), p. 348.
continued
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408
CHAPTER 16
of much of the nation. Young children worked regularly in those mills, especially up in
the top fl oors where there was less room for adults to stand upright. The wealthy men
who owned the mills worked the laborers intensely while they sometimes enjoyed their
recreations. Cleghorn’s poem, published in 1916, has no title because it is a quatrain
from a longer poem, but it has been widely quoted as it is here:
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
For Cleghorn, the irony of men at play while children work, like the girl looking out
the window in Hine’s photograph, was an ethical issue. The labor system of the day
saw no problem with what she described, but she wrote this poem in protest.
Throughout this book we have been elaborating an aesthetics, or philosophy of art.
We have been attempting to account to some extent for the whole range of the phe-
nomena of art — the creative process, the work of art, the experience of the work of
art, criticism, and the role of art in society. On occasion we have avoided restricting our
analysis to any single area within that group, considering the interrelationships of these
areas. And on other occasions we have tried to make explicit the basic assumptions of
some of the restricted studies. These are typical functions of the aesthetician, or philos-
opher of art. For example, much of our time has been spent doing criticism — analyzing
and appraising particular works of art. But at other times, as in Chapter 3, we tried to
make explicit the presuppositions or principles of criticism. Critics, of course, may do
this themselves, but then they are functioning more as philosophers than as critics.
Furthermore, we have also refl ected on how criticism infl uences artists, participants,
and society. This, too, is a function of the philosopher.
Finally, the aim of the metaphysicians, or speculative philosophers, roughly speaking,
is to understand reality as a totality. Therefore they must take into account the artifacts
of the artists as well as the conclusions and refl ections of other humanists and scientists.
Metaphysicians attempt to refl ect on the whole of experience in order to achieve some
valid general conclusions concerning the nature of reality and our position and prospects
in it. A metaphysician who ignores the arts will have left out some of the most useful
insights about value phenomena, which are a fundamental part of our reality.
Th e Arts and Th eology
The practice of religion, strictly speaking, is not a humanistic activity or study, for
basically it neither reveals values in the way of the arts nor studies values in the way
of the other humanities. A religion is an institution that brings people together for
the purpose of worship. These people share beliefs about their religious experiences.
Since the beliefs of various people diff er, it is more accurate to refer to religions
than to religion. Nevertheless, there is a commonsense basis, refl ected in our ordi-
nary language, for the term “religion.” Despite the diff erences about their beliefs,
religious people gen er ally agree that their religious values — for example, achieving,
in some sense, communion with the sacred — are ultimate, that is, more important
than any other values. They have ultimate concern for these values. Moreover, reli-
gious people seem to share a common nucleus of experience: (1) un easy awareness
of the limitations of human moral and theoretical powers; (2) awe-full awareness of a
further reality, a majestic mystery, beyond or be hind or within the world of our sense
experience; (3) conviction that com mu nion with this further reality is of supreme
importance.
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409
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE HUMANITIES
Theology involves the study of religions. As indicated in Chapter 1, the humanities
in the medieval period were studies about humans, whereas theology and related stud-
ies were studies about God. But in present times, theology, usually broadly conceived,
is placed with the humanities. Moreover, for many religious people today, ultimate
values or the values of the sacred are not necessarily ensconced in another world “up
there.’’ In any case, some works of art — the masterpieces — reveal ultimate values in
ways that are relevant to the contemporary situation. Theologians who ignore these
revelations cannot do justice to their study of religions.
The Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), was a theologian who
wrote some of the best religious poetry of his time. He did not publish while he lived,
and wrote relatively little, but his work has been considered of the fi rst order of Victo-
rian poetry. His theology included an appreciation of the value of sensory experience.
His poem “Pied Beauty,” published in 1918, praises God for the beauty perceptible in
the natural world, especially in animals and objects whose markings may seem to imply
that they are imperfect.
PIED BEAUTY
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-fi recoal chestnut-falls, fi nches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fi ckle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Hopkins, like the metaphysicians, attempts to refl ect on the whole of experience by
his meditation on the “thisness” of physical experience through the senses that leads
him to a deeper understanding of the spiritual qualities of beauty, which he connects
directly to God. Hopkins destroyed his early poetry, and stopped writing for many
years because he thought writing poetry was inappropriate to his calling as a theolo-
gian. But his studies of the early church theologian Duns Scotus (1265/66–1308),
who promoted the concept of “thisness,” freed Hopkins to begin writing again.
Scotus’s concept of “thisness” gave Hopkins permission to write about the physical
world as he does in “Pied Beauty.” Hopkins takes pleasure in sensual experience in the
fashion of most observant poets. The quality of “mountainness” in Cézanne’s Mont
Sainte-Victoire and Ansel Adams’s Half Dome owes something to Hopkins’s apprehen-
sion of holiness in the beauty of the world.
Dietrich Bonhoeff er, in one of his last letters from the Nazi prison of Tegel, noted
that “now that it has become of age, the world is more Godless, and perhaps it is for
that very reason nearer to God than ever before.’’ Our artists, secular as well as reli-
gious, not only reveal our despair but also, in the depths of that darkness, open paths
back to the sacred.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Matthew Arnold intimated that the aesthetic
or participative experience, especially of the arts, would become the religious expe-
rience. We do not think this transformation will happen, because the participative
continued
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410
CHAPTER 16
experience lacks the outward expressions, such as worship, that fulfi ll and in turn
distinguish the religious experience. But Arnold was prophetic, we believe, in sensing
that increasingly the arts would provide the most direct access to the sacred. Iris
Murdoch, the late Anglo-Irish novelist, describes such an experience:
Dora had been in the National Gallery a thousand times and the pictures were almost
as familiar to her as her own face. Passing between them now, as through a well-
loved grove, she felt a calm descending on her. She wandered a little, watching with
compassion the poor visitors armed with guidebooks who were peering anxiously at
the masterpieces. Dora did not need to peer. She could look, as one can at last when
one knows a great thing very well, confronting it with a dignity which it has itself con-
ferred. She felt that the pictures belonged to her. . . . Vaguely, consoled by the presence
of something welcoming and responding in the place, her footsteps took her to various
shrines at which she had worshipped so often before.4
Such experiences may be rare. Most of us still require the guidebooks. But one
hopes the time will come when we no longer just peer but also participate. And when
that time comes, a guide to the guidebooks like this one may have its justifi cation.
4The Bell, by Iris Murdoch, copyright © 1958 by Iris Murdoch. Reprinted by permission of The Viking Press,
Inc., New York, and Chatto and Windus Ltd., London, p. 182.
CONCEPTION KEY Th e Arts and History
Suppose an ancient town were being excavated, but, aside from architecture, no works
of art had been unearthed. And then some paintings, sculpture, and poems come to
light — all from the local culture. Is it likely that the paintings would give information
diff erent from that provided by the architecture or the sculpture? Or what might the
poems reveal that the other arts do not? As you refl ect on these questions, refl ect also
on the following description by Martin Heidegger of a painting by van Gogh of a pair
of peasant shoes:
From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the toilsome tread of the
worker stares forth. In the stiffl y rugged heaviness of the shoes there is the accu-
mulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the far-spreading and ever-uniform
furrows of the fi eld swept by a raw wind. On the leather lie the dampness and richness
of the soil. Under the soles slides the loneliness of the fi eld-patch as evening falls. In
the shoes vibrates the silent call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and
its unexplained self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry fi eld. This equipment
is pervaded by uncomplaining anxiety as to the certainty of bread, the wordless joy of
having once more withstood want, the trembling before the impending childbed and
shivering at the surrounding menace of death. This equipment belongs to the earth,
and it is protected in the world of the peasant woman.5
5Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,’’ in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert
Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 33ff.
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411
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS
OF THE HUMANITIES
Summary
The arts and the other humanities are distinguished from the sciences because in
the former, generally, strictly objective or scientifi c standards are irrelevant. In turn,
the arts are distinguished from the other humanities because in the arts values are
revealed, whereas in the other humanities values are studied. Furthermore, in the arts
perception dominates, whereas in the other humanities conception dominates.
In our discussion about values, we distinguish between (1) intrinsic values — activities
involving immediacy of feeling, positive or negative; (2) extrinsic values — activities
that are means to intrinsic values; and (3)  intrinsic-extrinsic values — activities that
not only are means to intrinsic values but also involve signifi cant immediacy of
CONCEPTION KEY “Pied Beauty”
1. What makes this poem theological? Is it clearly a religious poem?
2. How does “Pied Beauty” connect the idea of God to the world at large? How does
the poem connect the idea of God to art?
3. What theological values does the poem clarify and reveal?
4. How does “Pied Beauty” celebrate the concept of “thisness”?
CONCEPTION KEY “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont”
1. Search for details of the massacre and decide what Milton adds to the historical
record.
2. How does Milton’s art reveal values that a historical record does not?
3. What, in the poem, tells you that Milton is deeply aware of history?
CONCEPTION KEY Ethics and the Arts
1. In the quotation above, Dewey might seem to be thinking primarily of poets when
he speaks of the contribution of artists to the ethicist. Or do you think he is using
the term “poets’’ to include all artists? In any case, do you think that literature has
more to contribute to the ethicist than do the other arts? If so, why?
2. Refl ect on the works of art we have discussed in this book. Which ones do you
think might have the most relevance to an ethicist? Why?
3. What seem to be the ethical issues that concern Lewis Hine?
4. What seem to be the ethical issues that concern Sarah Norcliff e Cleghorn?
5. How do Hine’s photograph and Cleghorn’s poem contribute to a humanist’s under-
standing of values?
6. In what ways are Hine’s photograph and Cleghorn’s poem revelatory? Do they
transform their subject matter?
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412
CHAPTER 16
feeling. A value is something we care about, something that matters. The theory
of value presupposed in this book has been relational; that is, value emerges from
the relation between a human interest and an object or event. Value is not merely
subjective — projected by human interest on some object or event — nor is value
merely objective — valuable independently of any subject. Values that are described
scientifi cally are value facts. Values set forth as norms or ideals or what ought to be
are normative values. The arts and the other humanities often have normative rele-
vance: by clarifying what ought to be and thus what we ought to do.
Finally, the arts are closely related to the other humanities, especially history,
philosophy, and theology. The arts help reveal the normative values of past cultures
to the historian. Philosophers attempt to answer questions about values, especially
in the fi elds of ethics, aesthetics, and metaphysics. Some of the most useful insights
about value phenomena for the philosopher come from artists. Theology involves
the study of religions, and religions are grounded in ultimate concern for values.
No human artifacts reveal ultimate values more powerfully to the theologian than
works of art.
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G-1
GLOSSARY
A
A-B-A In music, a three-part structure that consists of
an opening section, a contrasting second section, and a
return to the fi rst section.
Abstract, or nonrepresentational painting Painting that
has the sensuous as its subject matter. See representational
painting.
Acrylic In painting, pigment bound by a synthetic plastic
substance, allowing it to dry much faster than oils.
Adagio A musical term denoting a slow and graceful
tempo.
Aerial perspective The portrayal of distance in painting by
means of dimming light and atmosphere. See perspective.
Aesthetics Philosophy of art: the study of the creative
process, the work of art, the aesthetic experience, princi-
ples of criticism, and the role of art in society.
Agnosticism Belief that one cannot know for sure whether
God exists.
Aleatory Dependent on chance.
Allegory An expression by means of symbols, used to
make a more effective generalization or moral com men-
tary about human experience. See symbol.
Allegretto A musical term denoting a lively tempo but
one slower than allegro.
Allegro A musical term denoting a lively and brisk tempo.
Alliteration In literature, the repetition of consonant
sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables.
Ambiguity Uncertain meaning, a situation in which sev eral
meanings are implied. Sometimes implies con tradic tory
meanings.
Anapest A poetic metrical foot of three syllables, the fi rst
two being short and the last being long.
Andante A musical term denoting a leisurely tempo.
Appropriation In the arts, the act of combining the art-
ist’s basic medium with the medium of another art or
arts but keeping the basic medium clearly dominant. See
synthesis and interpretation.
Arabesque A classical ballet pose in which the body is sup-
ported on one leg, and the other leg is extended be hind
with the knee straight.
Arcade In architecture, a series of arches side by side and
supported by columns or piers.
Arch In architecture, a structural system in which space
is spanned by a curved member supported by two legs.
Archetype An idea or behavioral pattern, often formed
in prehistoric times, that becomes a part of the un con-
scious psyche of a people. The archetype is embedded
in the “collective unconscious,” a term from Jungian
psy chol ogy that has been associated by Jung with
myth. In the arts, the archetype is usually ex pressed
as a narrative pattern, such as the quest for per sonal
identity. See myth.
Architrave In post-and-lintel architecture, the lintel or
lowermost part of an entablature, resting directly on the
capitals of the columns.
Arena Theater A stage arrangement in which the stage is
surrounded on all sides by seats.
Aria An elaborate solo song used primarily in operas,
oratorios, and cantatas.
Art Deco In the visual arts, a style prevalent between 1915
and 1940.
Art Nouveau A style of architecture characterized by
lively serpentine curves and organic growth.
Artistic form The organization of a medium that clar i fi es
or reveals a subject matter. See con tent, decorative form,
subject matter, and work of art.
Artlike Works that possess some characteristics of works
of art but lack revelatory power.
Assemblage The technique of sculpture, such as welding,
whereby preformed pieces are attached. See modeling.
Assonance A sound structure employing a similarity
among vowels but not consonants.
Atonal Music without a dominant key.
Auteur The author or primary maker of the total fi lm,
usu ally the director.
Avant-garde The “advance guard” — innovators who break
sharply with traditional conventions and styles.
Axis line An imaginary line — generated by a visible line
or lines — that helps determine the direction of the eye
in any of the visual arts.
Axis mundi A vertically placed pole used by some primi-
tive peoples to center their world.
B
Baroque The style dominant in the visual arts in
seventeenth -century Europe following the Renaissance,
characterized by vivid colors, dramatic light, cur vi lin-
ear heavy lines, elaborate ornamentation, bold scale, and
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G-2 GLOSSARY
Complementary colors Colors that lie opposite each
other on the color wheel.
Composition The organization of the elements. See
design.
Computer art Works using the computer as the medium.
Conception Thinking that focuses on concepts or ideas.
See perception.
Conceptual art Works that bring the audience into
di rect contact with the creative concepts of the artist; a
de- emphasis on the medium.
Conceptual metaphor A comparison that evokes ideas.
Confi gurational center A place of special value, a place
to dwell.
Connotation Use of language to suggest ideas and/or
emo tional coloration in addition to the explicit or de-
noted meaning. “Brothers and sisters” denotes relatives,
but the words may also connote people united in a com-
mon effort or struggle, as in the “International Broth-
er hood of Teamsters” or the expression “Sisterhood is
powerful.” See denotation.
Consonance When two or more tones sounded simulta-
neously are pleasing to the ear. See dissonance.
Content Subject matter detached by means of artistic
form from its accidental or insignifi cant aspects and thus
clarifi ed and made more meaningful. See subject matter.
Cool color A color that is recessive, such as blue, green,
and black.
Cornice The horizontal molding projecting along the top
of a building.
Counterpoint In music, two or more melodies, themes,
or motifs played in opposition to each other at the same
time.
Craft Skilled making.
Craftwork The product of craft, usually utilitarian and
beautiful.
Crescendo A gradual increase in loudness.
Criticism The analysis and evaluation of works of art.
Cross-referencing Memory of a similar work that en-
riches a participative experience.
Crosscutting In fi lm, alternation between two separate
actions that are occurring at the same time.
D
Dadaism A movement begun during World War I in
Eu rope that was anti-everything. A precursor of shock
art and Duchampism.
Decoration An artlike element added to enhance or adorn
something else.
Decorative form The organization of a medium that
pleases, distracts, or entertains but does not inform about
values. See artistic form.
strong expression of emotion. Music is the only other art
of that time that can be accurately described as Baroque.
See Rococo.
Beauty An arrangement that is pleasing.
Binder The adhering agent for the various media of
painting.
Blank verse Poetry with rhythm but not rhyme.
Buttress In architecture, a structure built on a wall, vault,
or an arch for reinforcing support.
C
Cadence In music, the harmonic sequence that closes a
phrase.
Cantilever In architecture, a projecting beam or struc ture
supported at only one end, which is anchored to a pier
or wall.
Carving Shaping by cutting, chipping, hewing, etc.
Casting The process of making a sculpture or other ob ject
by pouring liquid material into a mold and al low ing it to
harden.
Catharsis The cleansing or purifi cation of the emotions
and, in turn, a spiritual release and renewal.
Centered space A site — natural or human-made —
that organizes other places around it.
Character In drama, the agents and their purpose.
Chiaroscuro Technique in painting that combines and
contrasts light and shade.
Chord Three or more notes played at the same time.
Cinematic motif In fi lm, a visual image that is repeated
either in identical form or in variation.
Cinematography The way the fi lm camera tells a story.
Classical style In Greek art, the style of the fi fth century
BCE. More generally, the term “Classical” sometimes re-
fers to the ancient art of Greece and Rome. Also, it some-
times refers to an art that is based on ra tional prin ci ples
and deliberate composition. The low er case term “classic”
can mean excellence, whatever the pe riod or style.
Closed line In painting, hard and sharp line. See line.
Coda Tonal passage or section that ends a musical
composition.
Collage A work made by pasting bits of paper or other
ma te rial onto a fl at surface.
Collective unconscious Jung’s phrase for the universality
of myths among cultures, some of which had no contact.
Color The property of refl ecting light of a particular
wavelength.
Color value Shading, the degree of lightness or darkness
of a hue.
Comedy A form of drama that is usually light in subject
mat ter and ends happily but that is not necessarily void
of seriousness.
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GLOSSARY G-3
Epicureanism The belief that happiness is based on
pleasure.
Episodic narrative A story composed of separate incidents
(or episodes) tied loosely together. See organic narrative.
Ethics The inquiry into the presuppositions or principles
operative in our moral judgments. Ethics is a branch of
philosophy.
Evaluative criticism Judgment of the merits of a work
of art.
Expressionism School of art in which the work empha-
sizes the artist’s feelings or state of mind.
Extrinsic value The means to intrinsic values or to further,
higher values. See intrinsic value.
F
f/64 Group A group of photographers whose name de-
rives from the small aperture, f/64, which ensures that
the foreground, middle ground, and background will all
be in sharp focus.
Fantasia A musical composition in which the “free fl ight
of fancy” prevails over conventional structures such as
the sonata form.
Figure of speech Language used to heighten effect, espe-
cially by comparison.
Flaw in character (hamartia) In drama, the prominent
weakness of character that leads to a tragic end.
Flying buttress An arch that springs from below the
roof of a Gothic cathedral carrying the thrust above and
across a side aisle.
Folk art Work produced outside the professional tradition.
Form-content The embodiment of the meaning of a
work of art in the form.
Forte A musical term denoting loud.
Framing The photographic technique whereby important
parts of fi gures or objects in a scene are cut off by the
edges of the photograph.
Fresco A wall painting. Wet fresco involves pigment ap-
plied to wet plaster. Dry fresco involves pigment applied
to a dry wall. Wet fresco generally is much more endur-
ing than dry fresco.
Frieze Low-relief sculpture running high and horizontally
on a wall of a building.
Fugue A musical composition in which a theme, or mo-
tive, is announced and developed contrapuntally in strict
order. See counterpoint.
G
Genre Kind or type.
Genre painting Subjects or scenes drawn from everyday
life portrayed realistically.
Denotation The direct, explicit meaning or reference of a
word or words. See connotation.
Denouement The section of a drama in which events are
brought to a conclusion.
Descriptive criticism The description of the subject mat-
ter and/or form of a work of art.
Design The overall plan of a work before implementa-
tion. See composition.
Detail Elements of structure; in painting, a small part. See
region.
Detail relationships Signifi cant relationships between or
among details. See structural relationships.
Diction In literature, drama, and fi lm, the choice of words
with special care for their expressiveness.
Dissolve In fi lm, the slow ending of a scene.
Dissonance When two or more tones sounded simultane-
ously are unpleasant to the ear. See consonance.
Documentarists Photographers who document the pres-
ent to preserve a record of it as it disappears.
Duchampism School of art that produced works that are
anti-art and anti-establishment but are funny rather than
angry. See Dadaism.
Dynamics In music, the loudness and softness of the
sound.
E
Earth sculpture Sculpture that makes the earth the me-
dium, site, and subject matter.
Earth-dominating architecture Buildings that “rule over”
the earth.
Earth-resting architecture Buildings that accent neither
the earth nor the sky, using the earth as a platform with
the sky as a background.
Earth-rooted architecture Buildings that bring out with
special force the earth and its symbolism. See sky-oriented
architecture.
Eclecticism A combination of several different styles in
a work.
Editing In fi lm, the process by which the footage is cut,
the best version of each scene chosen, and these versions
joined together for optimum effect. See montage.
Elements The basic components of a medium. See media.
Elements of drama (Aristotle’s) Plot, character, thought,
diction, spectacle, and music. See entries under individ-
ual elements.
Embodiment The meshing of medium and meaning in a
work of art.
Emotion Strong sensations felt as related to a specifi c and
apparent stimulus. See passion and mood.
Epic A lengthy narrative poem, usually episodic, with
heroic action and great cultural scope.
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G-4 GLOSSARY
Intentional fallacy In criticism, the assumption that what
the artists say they intended to do outweighs what they
in fact did.
Interpretation In the arts, the act of using another work
of art as subject matter. See appropriation and synthesis.
Interpretive criticism Explication of the content of a
work of art.
Intrinsic value The immediate given worth or value of an
object or activity. See extrinsic value.
Irony A literary device that says one thing but means an-
other. Dramatic irony plays on the audience’s capacity
to perceive the difference between what the characters
expect and what they will get.
K
Key A system of tones based on and named after a given
tone — the tonic.
Kitsch Works that realistically depict objects and events
in a pretentious, vulgar manner.
L
Labanotation A system of writing down dance movements.
Largo A musical term denoting a broad, very slow, stately
tempo (also called lento).
Latin cross A cross in which the vertical arm is longer
than the horizontal arm, through whose midpoint it
passes. Chartres and many other European cathedrals are
based on a recumbent Latin cross. See Greek cross.
Legato A musical term indicating that a passage should be
played smoothly and without a break between the tones.
Leitmotif In music, a leading theme.
Libretto The text of an opera.
Line A continuous marking made by a moving point on a
surface. The basic building block of visual design.
Linear perspective The creation of the illusion of dis-
tance in a two-dimensional work by means of converging
lines. In one-point linear perspective, developed in the
fi fteenth century, all parallel lines in a given visual fi eld
converge at a single vanishing point on the horizon. See
perspective.
Listener One who listens to music with careful attention
to details and structure. See hearer.
Living space The feeling of the comfortable positioning
of things in the environment that promotes both liberty
of movement and paths as directives.
Low-relief sculpture Sculpture with a background plane
from which the projections are relatively small.
Lyric A poem, usually brief and personal, with an em pha-
sis on feelings or states of mind as part of the subject
matter. Lyric songs use lyric poems.
Gouache A water color medium with gum added.
Greek cross A cross with equal vertical and horizontal
arms. See Latin cross.
H
Happenings Very impromptu performances, often in-
volving the audience. See shock art.
Harmony The sounding of notes simultaneously.
Hearer One who hears music without careful attention to
details or structure. See listener.
High-relief sculpture Sculpture with a background plane
from which the projections are relatively large.
Historical criticism The description, interpretation, or
evaluation of works of art with reference to their histor-
ical precedents.
Hue The name of a color. See saturation.
Humanities Broad areas of human creativity and analysis
essentially involved with values and generally not using
strictly objective or scientifi c methods.
I
Iambic pentameter Type of poetic meter. An iamb is a
metrical unit, or foot, of two syllables, the fi rst unac-
cented and the second accented. Pentameter is a fi ve-foot
line. See sonnet.
Idea art Works in which ideas or concepts dominate the
medium, challenging traditional presuppositions about
art, especially embodiment. In an extreme phase, ideas
are presented in diagram or description rather than in
execution. See embodiment.
Illumination Hand-drawn decoration or illustration in a
manuscript.
Illustration Images that closely resemble objects or
events.
Imagery Use of language to represent objects and events
with strong appeal to the senses, especially the visual.
Impasto The painting technique of heavily applying pig-
ment so as to create a three-dimensional surface.
Impressionist school The famous school of art that
fl ourished between 1870 and 1905, especially in France.
Impressionists’ approach to painting was dominated by
a concentration on the impression light made on the
surface of things.
Improvisation Music or other performance produced on
the spur of the moment.
Inorganic color In painting, fl at color, appears laid on the
object depicted. See organic color.
Intaglio A printmaking process in which ink is transferred
from the grooves of a metal plate to paper by extreme
pressure.
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GLOSSARY G-5
N
Narrative A story told to an audience.
Narrator The teller of a story.
Negative space In sculpture, any empty or open space.
Neo-classical A return in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, in reaction to the Baroque and the
Rococo, to the Classical styles of ancient Greece and Rome,
characterized by reserved emotions. See Romanticism.
New Comedy Subject matter centered on the foibles
of social manners and mores. Usually quite polished in
style, with bright wit and incisive humor.
Nocturne In music, a pensive, dreamy composition, usu-
ally for piano.
Normative values Values set forth as norms or ideals,
what “ought to be.”
O
Objective correlative An object, representation, or image
that evokes in the audience the emotion the artist wishes
to express.
Objectivist theory of value Value is in the object or
event itself independently of any subject or interest. See
relational and subjectivist theory of value.
Ode A ceremonious lyric poem.
Oil painting Artwork in which the medium is pigment
mixed with linseed oil, varnish, and turpentine.
Old Comedy Subject matter centered on ridiculous and/
or highly exaggerated situations. Usually raucous, earthy,
and satirical.
Onomatopoeia The use of words whose sounds suggest
their meaning.
Open line In painting, soft and blurry line. See closed
line.
Organic color In painting, color that appears deep, as if
coming out of an object depicted. See inorganic color.
Organic narrative A story composed of separable in ci dents
that relate to one another in tightly coherent ways, usually
causally and chronologically. See epi sodic narrative.
P
Panning In fi lm, the moving of the camera without pause.
Paradox An apparent contradiction that, upon refl ection,
may seem reasonable.
Participative experience Letting something initiate and
control everything that comes into awareness—thinking
from.
Pas de deux A dance for two dancers.
Pas de trois A dance for three dancers.
Passion Emotions elevated to great intensity.
M
Machine sculpture Sculpture that reveals the machine
and/or its powers.
Madrigal In music, a secular song usually for two or three
unaccompanied voices.
Mass In sculpture, three-dimensional form suggesting
bulk, weight, and density.
Media The materials out of which works of art are made.
These elements either have an inherent order, such as
colors, or permit an imposed order, such as words; these
orders, in turn, are organizable by form. Singular, me-
dium. See elements.
Melodic line A vague melody without a clear beginning,
middle, and end.
Melodrama In theater, a genre characterized by stereo-
typed characters, implausible plots, and emphasis on
spectacle.
Melody A group of notes having a perceivable beginning,
middle, and end. See theme.
Metaphor An implied comparison between different
things. See simile.
Middle Ages The centuries roughly between the dissolu-
tion of the Roman Empire (ca. 500) and the Renaissance
(fi fteenth century).
Mixed media The combination of two or more artistic
media in the same work.
Mobile A constructed structure whose components have
been connected at the joints to move by force of wind
or motor.
Modeling The technique of building up a sculpture piece
by piece with some malleable material. See assemblage.
Moderato A musical term instructing the player to be nei-
ther fast nor slow in tempo.
Modern art The bewildering variety of styles that de –
vel oped after World War II, characterized by the
ten dency to reject traditionally accepted styles, em pha-
siz ing originality and experimentation, often with new
technologies.
Modern dance A form of concert dancing relying on
emotional use of the body, as opposed to formalized or
conventional movement, and stressing emotion, passion,
mood, and states of mind.
Montage The joining of physically different but usually
psychologically related scenes. See editing.
Mood A feeling that arises from no specifi c or apparent
stimulus.
Motive In music, a brief but intelligible and self-contained
unit, usually a fragment of a melody or theme.
Myth Ancient stories rooted in primitive experience, usu-
ally of unknown authorship, ostensibly based on histori-
cal events of great consequence.
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G-6 GLOSSARY
Q
Quest narrative In literature, a story that revolves around
the search by the hero for an object, prize, or person who
is hidden or removed. This typically involves consider-
able travel and wandering on the part of the hero.
Quoins Large squared stones, often roughly cut, that
accent the corners of a building.
R
Realism The portrayal of objects and events in a highly
representational manner. An important style of painting
around 1840–1860.
Recessional shot The camera focuses on distant fi gures
while leaving foreground fi gures somewhat blurred, used
typically when the distant fi gure is leaving.
Recitative Sung dialogue in opera, cantata, and oratorio.
Recognition In drama, the moment of truth, often the
climax.
Region In painting, a large part. See detail.
Regional relationships Signifi cant relationships between
regions. See structural relationships.
Relational theory of value Value emerges from the re-
lation between a human interest and an object or event.
See objectivist and subjectivist theory of value.
Relief With sculpture, projection from a background.
Renaissance The period in Europe from the fi fteenth
through sixteenth centuries with a renewed interest in
an cient Greek and Roman civilizations. See Classical style.
Representational Descriptive of portrayals that closely
resemble objects and events.
Representational painting Painting that has specifi c ob-
jects or events as its primary subject matter. See abstract
painting.
Requiem A mass for the dead.
Reversal In drama, when the protagonist’s fortunes turn
from good to bad.
Rhyme A sound structure coupling words that sound alike.
Rhythm The relationship, of either time or space, between
recurring elements of a composition.
Ritardando In music, a decrease in tempo.
Rococo The style of the visual arts dominant in Europe
during the fi rst three-quarters of the eighteenth cen-
tury, characterized by light curvilinear forms, pastel col-
ors, ornate and small-scale decoration, the playful and
lighthearted. Rococo music is lighter than Baroque. See
Baroque.
Romanticism Style of the nineteenth century that in reac-
tion to Neo-classicism denies that humanity is essentially
rational and the measure of all things, characterized by
intense colors, open line, strong expression of feeling,
complex organizations, and often heroic subject matter.
Pediment The triangular space formed by roof jointure in
a Greek temple or a building on the Greek model.
Perception Awareness of something stimulating our sense
organs.
Perceptual metaphor A comparison that evokes images.
Performance art Generally site-specifi c events often per-
formed with little detailed planning and leaving much to
chance; audience participation may ensue. See shock art.
Perspective In painting, the illusion of depth.
Philosophy The discipline that attempts to give
reasoned answers to questions that — because of their
gen er ality — are not treated by any of the more special-
ized disciplines. Philosophy is the systematic examination
of our fundamental beliefs.
Piano A musical term instructing the player to be soft, or
quiet, in volume.
Pictorial space The illusory space in a painting that seems
to recede into depth from the picture plane (the “window
effect”).
Pictorialists Photographers who use realistic paintings as
models for their photographs. See straight photography.
Picture plane The fl at surface of a painting, comparable
to the glass of a framed picture behind which the picture
recedes in depth.
Pigment For painting, the coloring agent.
Plot The sequence of actions or events in literature and
drama.
Polyphony In music, two or more melodic lines sounded
together.
Pop Art Art that realistically depicts and sometimes in-
cor po rates mass-produced articles, especially the fa mil iar
objects of everyday life.
Popular art Contemporary works enjoyed by the masses.
Pornography Works made to sexually arouse.
Post-and-lintel In architecture, a structural system in
which the horizontal pieces (lintels) are upheld by verti-
cal columns (posts). Also called post-and-beam.
Presentational immediacy The awareness of some thing
that is presented in its entirety with an “all-at-onceness.”
Presto A musical term signifying a rapid tempo.
Pretext The underlying narrative of the dance.
Primary colors Red, yellow, and blue. See secondary colors.
Print An image created from a master wooden block,
stone, plate, or screen, usually on paper. Many impres-
sions can be made from the same surface.
Processional shot The camera focuses on fi gures and ob-
jects moving toward the camera.
Propaganda Political persuasion.
Proportion Size relationships between parts of a whole.
Proscenium The arch, or “picture frame,” stage of tra di-
tional theater that sets apart the actors from the audience.
Protagonist The chief character in drama and literature.
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GLOSSARY G-7
Spectacle The visual setting of a drama.
Spectator experience Thinking at something. See partic-
ipative experience.
Staccato In music, the technique of playing so that indi-
vidual notes are short and separated from each other by
sharp accents.
State of mind An attitude or orientation of mind that is
relatively enduring.
Stereotype A very predictable character. See type
character.
Stoicism The curbing of desire to cope with the inevita-
bility of pain.
Straight photography Style that aims for excellence in
photographic techniques independent of painting. See
pictorialists.
Structural relationships Signifi cant relationships be-
tween or among details or regions to the totality. See
regional relationships.
Structure Overall organization of a work.
Style The identifying features — characteristics of form—
of a work or group of works that identify it with an artist,
group of artists, era, or culture.
Subject matter What the work of art “is about”; some
value before artistic clarifi cation. See content.
Subjectivist theory of value Value is projected by human
interest on some object or event. See objectivist and rela-
tional theory of value.
Sunken-relief sculpture Sculpture made by carving
grooves of various depths into the surface planes of the
sculptural material, the surface plane remaining percep-
tually distinct.
Surface relief Sculpture with a fl at surface plane as the
basic organizing plane of the composition, but with no
clear perceptual distinction perceivable between the
depths behind the surface plane and the projections in
front.
Surrealism A painting style of the 1920s and 1930s that
emphasizes dreamlike and fantastic imagery.
Symbol Something perceptible that stands for something
more abstract.
Symmetry A feature of design in which two halves of a
composition on either side of a central vertical axis are
more or less of the same size, shape, and placement.
Synthesis In the arts, the more or less equal combination
of the media of two or more arts. See appropriation and
interpretation.
T
Tactility Touch sensations, both inward and outward.
Tempera In painting, pigment bound by egg yolk.
Tempo The speed at which a composition is played.
Rondo A form of musical composition employing a re-
turn to an initial theme after the presentation of each
new theme — for example, A B A C A D A.
Rubato A style of musical performance in which the per-
former takes liberties with the rhythm of the piece.
S
Satire Literature that ridicules people or institutions.
Saturation The purity, vividness, or intensity of a hue.
Scherzo A musical term implying playfulness or fun. The
word literally means “joke.”
Sciences Disciplines that for the most part use strictly
objective methods and standards.
Sculpture in the round Sculpture freed from any back-
ground plane.
Secondary colors Green, orange, and violet. See primary
colors.
Sensa The qualities of objects or events that stimulate our
sense organs, especially the eyes. See sensuous.
Sensuous In painting, the color fi eld as composed by
sensa. See abstract painting.
Sentimentality Oversimplifi cation and cheapening of
emotional responses to complex subject matter.
Setting In literature, drama, opera, dance, and fi lm, the
time and place in which the work of art occurs. The set-
ting is established mainly by means of description in lit-
erature and spectacle in drama, opera, dance, and fi lm.
Shape The outlines and contours of an object.
Shock art Attention-grabbing works intended to shock or
repel, which usually fail to hold attention.
Shot In fi lm, a continuous length of fi lm exposed in the
camera without a break.
Simile An explicit comparison between different things,
using comparative words such as “like.”
Sky-oriented architecture Buildings that bring out with
special emphasis the sky and its symbolism. See earth-
resting, earth-rooted, and earth-dominating architecture.
Soliloquy An extended speech by a character alone with
the audience.
Sonata form In music, a movement with three major
sections — exposition, development, and recapitulation,
often followed by a coda.
Sonnet A poem of fourteen lines, with fi xed rhyming
pat terns, typically in iambic pentameter. See iambic
pentameter.
Space A hollow volume available for occupation by
shapes, and the effect of the positioned interrelationships
of these shapes.
Space sculpture Sculpture that emphasizes spatial rela-
tionships and thus tends to de-emphasize the density of
its materials.
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G-8 GLOSSARY
Tympanum The space above an entranceway to a build-
ing, often containing sculpture.
Type character A predictable character. See stereotype.
V
Value facts Values described scientifi cally. See normative
values.
Values Objects and events that we care about, that have
great importance. Also, with regard to color, value refers
to the lightness or darkness of a hue.
Vanishing point In linear perspective, the point on the
horizon where parallel lines appear to converge.
Virtual art Computer-created, imaginary, three- dimensional
scenes in which the participant is involved interactively.
Virtuoso The display of impressive technique or skill by
an artist.
W
Warm color A color that is aggressive, such as red and
yellow.
Watercolor For painting, pigment bound by a water-
soluble adhesive, such as gum arabic.
Work of art An artifact that informs about values by
means of artistic form. See artistic form.
Tertiary colors Colors produced by mixing the primary
and secondary colors.
Texture The surface “feel” of a material, such as “smooth”
bronze or “rough” concrete.
Theatricality Exaggeration and artifi ciality.
Theme In music, a melody or motive of considerable im-
portance because of later repetition or development. In
other arts, a theme is a main idea or general topic.
Theology The study of the sacred.
Thought The ideas expressed in works of art. Also, the
thinking that explains the motivations and actions of the
characters in a story.
Timbre A quality given a musical tone by the overtones
that distinguish musical instruments from each other.
Tone A sound that has a defi nite frequency.
Tragedy Drama that portrays a serious subject matter and
ends unhappily.
Tragicomedy Drama that includes, more or less equally,
characteristics of both tragedy and comedy.
Transept The crossing arm of a church structured like a
Latin cross. See Latin cross.
Truth to materials Respect for the distinctive character-
istics of an artistic medium.
Twelve-tone technique A twentieth-century atonal
struc tur ing of music — no tonic or most important
tone—de vel oped especially by Schoenberg.
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C-1
CREDITS
Page 182: Anton P. Chekov, “Vanka,” Best Russian Short
Stories, Thomas Seltzer, ed. 1917, Boni & Liveright.
Page 185: e.e. cummings, “Buffalo Bill’s Defunct,”
Complete Poems: 1904–1962, George J. Firmage, ed.
Liveright Publishing Corporation. Copyright 1923,
1951, © 1991 by the Trustees for the e.e. cummings
Trust. All rights reserved. Used by permission of
Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Page 187: W. H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts,” W. H.
Auden Collected Poems, Random House, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of
Random House LLC. Copyright 1940 and renewed
© 1968 by W. H. Auden. All rights reserved. Used by
permission.
Page 188: Emily Dickinson, “After Great Pain, a For-
mal Feeling Comes,” Reprinted by permission of the
publishers and Trustees of Amherst College from The
Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed.,
Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, Copyright 1951, 1955, 1979, © 1983
by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All
rights reserved.
Page 190: T.S. Eliot, “Preludes,” Poems, New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1920. Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random
House, Inc.
Page 191: Li Shang-Yin, “The East Wind Sighs,” Poems
of the Late T’ang, translated with an introduction by
A.C. Graham, Penguin Classics, 1965. Copyright
1965, © 1977 by A.C. Graham. All rights reserved.
Used by permission.
Page 193: Li Ho, “The Grave of Little Su,” Poems of the
Late T’ang, translated with an introduction by A.C.
Graham, Penguin Classics, 1965. Copyright 1965,
©  1977 by A.C. Graham. All rights reserved. Used
by permission.
Page 194: William Blake, “The Sick Rose,” Songs of
Experience, 1794.
Page 196: Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Richard Cory,”
The Children of the Night, 1897.
Page 197: Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’,
1897; published in America as The Children of the Sea,
1914.
Text Credits
Chapter 1
Page 12: e.e. cummings, “l(a,” Complete Poems: 1904–
1962, George J. Firmage, ed. Liveright Publishing
Corporation. Copyright 1958, 1986, © 1991 by the
Trustees for the e.e. cummings Trust. All rights
reserved. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing
Corporation.
Page 14: Gabriel Okara, “Piano and Drums,” The
African Assertion, Austin J. Shelton, ed. New York:
Odyssey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Chapter 2
Page 33(top right): William Overgard, Steve Roper,
©  1961 by North American Syndicate, Inc. World
rights reserved.
Page 33(bottom left): “Battle of the Ghost Ships?”, Our
Fighting Forces, DC Comics, October 1962.
Page 34(top left): William Overgard, Steve Roper,
©  1963 by North American Syndicate, Inc. World
rights reserved.
Page 34(bottom left): Tony Abruzzo, “Run For Love!”,
Secret Hearts, DC Comics, no. 83, November 1962.
Page 35(top right): Martin Branner, Winnie Winkle,
© Tribune Content Agency, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission.
Chapter 3
Page 55: William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Inn-
isfree,” The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Volume 1:
The Poems, 2nd Edition, Richard J. Finneran, ed. New
York: Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult
Publishing Group and AP Watt, 1997, p. 35.
Chapter 7
Page 172: Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into
That Good Night,” The Poems of Dylan Thomas, New
Directions Publishing, Corp. Copyright © 1952 by
Dylan Thomas. All rights reserved. Used by permis-
sion of New Directions Publishing, Corp.
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C-2 CREDITS
Chapter 1
Page 1: J.M. Chauvet; p. 3: J.M. Chauvet; p. 5: David
Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896–1974, © 2014, ARS, NY.
Echo of a Scream . 1937. Enamel on wood, 48 3 36 inches
(121.9 3 91.4 cm). Gift of Edward M. M. Warburg.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Digital Image © The
Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Re-
source, NY; p. 6: Peter Blume, 1906–1992, © VAGA, NY.
The Eternal City . 1934–1937. Dated on painting 1937. Oil
on composition board, 34 3 47 7/8 inches. Museum of
Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund.
Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed
by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; p. 8: Pablo Picasso, © 2014
Estate of Pablo Picasso/ARS, NY. Guernica . 1937. Oil on
canvas, 11 feet 6 inches 3 25 feet 8 inches. Museo Na-
cional Centro de Arte Reina Sofi a, Madrid, Spain. Erich
Lessing/Art Resource, NY; p. 9: Pablo Picasso, © 2014
Estate of Pablo Picasso/ARS, NY. Preparatory drawing for
Guernica – 1937 – pencil on paper. Author: Ruiz Picasso,
Pablo. Location: Museo Reina Sofi a-PIintura, Madrid,
Spain. Photo: Album/Art Resource, NY; p. 10: © RMN-
Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; p.  16: ©  Whitney
Museum of American Art/akg-images.
Chapter 2
Page 18: Marcel Duchamp. Nude Descending a Stair-
case (No. 2), 1912. © 2014 Succession Marcel Duchamp/
ADAGP, Paris/ARS, NY. Oil on canvas, 57 7/8 3 35
1/8 inches (147 3 89.2  cm). The Louise and Walter
Arensberg Collection, 1950. Photo: Philadelphia Mu-
seum of Art, Philadelphia/Art Resource, NY; p. 19:
Jim Dine, © 2014 Jim Dine/ARS, NY. Shovel . 1962.
Mixed media. Photo: Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery.
p. 21: Eddie Adams/AP Images; p. 22: Scala/Art Re-
source, NY; p. 25: Paul Cèzanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire .
1886–1887. Oil on canvas, 23 1/2 3 28 1/2 inches. Ac-
quired 1925. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Photo: Courtesy of The Phillips Collection, Washing-
ton, D.C.; p. 31: Kevin Carter/Sygma/Corbis; p. 33(top
left): Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Photo: Courtesy of
the Leo Castelli Gallery; p. 33(bottom right): ©  Es-
tate of Roy Lichtenstein; p. 34(top right): © Estate of
Roy Lichtenstein; p. 34(bottom right): © Estate of Roy
Lichtenstein; p. 35(top left): © Estate of Roy Lichten-
stein; p. 38: Superstock; p. 39(left): National Gallery
of Art, Washington, D.C., Chester Dale Collection;
p. 39(right): Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art
Resource, NY; p. 40(top): Erich Lessing/Art Resource,
NY; p.  40(bottom): Tom Wesselmann, © Estate of
Page 197: Herrick, Robert, “Upon Julia’s Clothes,”
Works of Robert Herrick, Alfred Pollard, ed. London:
Lawrence & Bullen, 1891, pg. 77.
Chapter 8
Page 216–219: Anton Chekov, The Swan Song, Marian
Fell, trans. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912.
Chapter 14
Page 362: Andrew Wyeth, The Art of Andrew Wyeth,
Wanda M. Corn, Greenwich, Conn.: New York
Graphic Society, 1974, p. 38.
Chapter 15
Page 388: Robert Fagles, “The Starry Night,” I, Vincent:
Poems from the Pictures of Van Gogh by Robert Fagles.
Copyright © 1978 by Robert Fagles. Reprinted by
permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for the Estate
of Robert Fagles.
Page 389: Anne Sexton, “The Starry Night,” All My
Pretty Ones. Copyright 1962 by Anne Sexton, renewed
© 1990 by Linda G. Sexton. All rights reserved. Used
by permission of Houghton Miffl in Harcourt Publish-
ing Company.
Chapter 16
Page 402: Joanne Loviglio, “Getting Medical Students
to See,” The Associated Press, March 20, 2007. Copy-
right © 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Re-
served. Used by permission.
Page 410: Iris Murdoch, The Bell, The Viking Press,
1958, p. 182. Copyright 1958, renewed © 1986 by Iris
Murdoch. All rights reserved. Used by permission of
Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group, (USA)
LLC.
Photo Credits
Front Matter
Page iii: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images;
vii: Nick Briggs/© Carnival Films for Masterpiece/PBS/
Courtesy Everett Collection; viii: Photograph by Franko
Khoury/National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian
Institution; xiii: Loretta Lux, © 2014 ARS, New York/
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Isabella. 2001. Digital print, 9 1/2
3 9 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo
Gallery. Photo courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo
Gallery; xv: Sergio Pitamitz/Corbis; xvi: Nick Briggs/
© Carnival Films for Masterpiece/PBS/Courtesy Everett
Collection.
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CREDITS C-3
3 30 1/4 inches. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alfred
Stieglitz Collection. Image © The Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; p.  70: Helen
Frankenthaler, The Bay . 1963. © 2014 Helen Franken-
thaler Foundation, Inc./ARS, NY. Acrylic on canvas,
6 feet 8 7/8 inches 3 6 feet 9 7/8 inches. Detroit Institute
of Arts, Detroit. Photo source: Bridgeman Art Library;
p. 71: Wang Yuanqi. Landscape after Wu Zhen . 1695.
Hanging scroll; ink on paper, 42 3/4 3 20 1/4 inches.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bequest of John M. Craw-
ford Jr. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; p.  72: © Na-
tional Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY; p.  74: Piet
Mondrian, Dutch, 1872–1944, Broadway Boogie Woogie,
1942–1943. Oil on canvas, 50 3 50 inches (127 3 127
cm). Given anonymously. Museum of Modern Art, New
York. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/
Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; p. 75: Mark Rot-
hko, © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/
ARS, NY. Earth Greens, 1955. Oil on canvas, 90 1/4 3 73
1/2 inches. Museum Ludwig, Koln. Rheinisches Bildar-
chiv, Koln, Germany; p. 78: Georgia O’Keeffe, © 2014
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/© ARS, NY. Ghost Ranch
Cliffs . 1940–l942. Oil on canvas, 16 3 36 inches. Private
collection. Photo courtesy of the Gerald Peters Gallery,
Santa Fe, New Mexico; p. 82: Lee Krasner (1908–84),
© 2014 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/ARS, NY. Cel-
ebration, 1957–60. Oil on canvas, 92 1/2 3 184 inches.
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio/Purchase from the J. H.
Wade Fund. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library; p. 85:
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; p.  86: The Samuel
Courtauld Trust/The Courtauld Gallery/Art Resource,
NY; p. 87: Album/Art Resource, NY; p.  88: Frederick
Childe Hassam. Summer Evening . 1886. Oil on canvas,
12 1/8 3 20 3/8 inches. Florence Griswold Museum: Gift
of The Hartford Steam Boiler Insurance and Inspection
Company. Florence Griswold Museum, www.fl orence-
griswoldmuseum.org; p. 89: ©  RMN-Grand Palais/Art
Resource, NY; p. 90(left): Andrew W. Mellon Collection.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; p. 90(right):
© Luisa Ricciarini/Leemage; p.  91(left): Art Resource,
NY; p. 91(right): Frida Kahlo (1907–1954). ©  2014
Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums
Trust, Mexico, D.F./ARS, NY. Self Portrait with
Monkey . 1938. Oil on Masonite, support: 16 3 12 inches
(40.64 3  30.48  cm.). Bequest of A. Conger Goodyear,
1966. Photo courtesy of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buf-
falo, NY/Art Resource, NY; p. 93: Howard Hodgkin,
Dinner in Palazzo Albrizzi . 1964–1988. Oil on wood,
Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, NY 1931–2004,
Study for Great American Nude . 1975. Watercolor
and pencil, 19 1/2 3 54 inches. Private collection. ©
Connaught Brown, London/The Bridgeman Art Li-
brary; p.  41(left): Marcel Duchamp. Nude Descending
a Staircase (No. 2), 1912. © 2014 Succession Marcel
Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris/ARS, NY. Oil on canvas, 57
7/8 3 35 1/8 inches (147 3 89.2 cm). The Louise and
Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950. Photo: Philadel-
phia Museum of Art, Philadelphia/Art Resource, NY;
p. 41(right): Detroit Institute of Arts/Bridgeman Art Li-
brary; p. 41(bottom): Suzanne Valadon, Reclining Nude .
1928. Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 3 30 11/16 inches. Photo:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Robert Leh-
man Collection, 1975. Image © The Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art/Art Resource, NY; p. 42: Courtesy of David
Zwirner, New York; p. 43: Philip Pearlstein. Two Female
Models in the Studio . 1967. Oil on canvas, 50 1/8 3 60
1/4 inches (127.3 3 153.1 cm). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ste-
phen B. Booke. (634.1973) The Museum of Modern Art,
New York, NY, U.S.A. Digital Image © The Museum of
Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY.
Chapter 3
Page 47: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images; p. 50:
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; p. 51: Erich Less-
ing/Art Resource, NY; p. 52: Jackson Pollock, Autumn
Rhythm (Number 30) . 1950. © 2014 The Pollock-
Krasner Foundation/ARS, NY. Enamel on canvas,
105 3 207 inches. (266.7 3 525.8 cm). George A. Hearn
Fund, 1957 (57.92). The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, NY. Image © The Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY; p. 54(top):
Ezra Stoller/Esto. © ARS, NY/ADAGP, Paris/FLC;
p.  54(bottom): Courtesy of Buffalo History Museum,
used by Permission; p.  58: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/
Getty Images; p. 59: Courtesy of Chris Ofi li/Afroco and
David Zwirner; p. 60: Willem Drost, The Polish Rider .
1655. Oil on canvas, 46 3 53 1/8 inches. Accession num-
ber: 1910.1.98. © Frick Collection, New York; p. 61: Oli
Scarff/Getty Images.
Chapter 4
Page 63: © Luisa Ricciarini/Leemage; p. 65: Alinari/Art
Resource, NY; p. 66: Scala/Art Resource; p. 67: © Jim
Zuckerman/Corbis; p. 68: Erich Lessing/Art Resource,
NY; p. 69: John Marin. © 2014 Estate of John Marin/
ARS, NY. Blue Mountain on the Circle Drive Near Taos .
1929. Watercolor, crayon, and graphite on paper, 21 3/4
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C-4 CREDITS
1/2 3 26 7/8 3 45 inches (136 3 68.2 3 114 cm); overall
7 feet 5 inches 3 4 feet 3 5/8 inches 3 6 feet 4 3/4 inches
(226 3 131 3 195 cm). Philip Johnson Fund, Museum of
Modern Art, New York. Digital Image © The Museum
of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY;
p. 115: Alberto Giacometti, 1901–1966, © 2014 Alberto
Giacometti Estate/Licensed by VAGA and ARS, NY, NY
City Square (La Place) . 1948. Bronze, 8 1/2 3 25 3/8 3 17
1/4 inches (21.6 3 64.5 3 43.8 cm). Museum of Modern
Art, New York. Purchase. Digital Image © The Museum
of Modern Art/ Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY;
p. 116: David Smith, American, 1906–1965, © VAGA,
NY . Cubi X. 1963. Stainless steel, 10 feet 1 3/8 inches
3 6 feet 6 3/4 inches 3 2 feet (308.3 3 199.9 3 61 cm),
including steel base 2 7/8 3 25 3 23 inches (7.3 3 63.4
3 58.3 cm). Robert O. Lord Fund, Museum of Modern
Art, New York. Digital Image © The Museum of Mod-
ern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; p. 117:
Jean Tinguely, © 2014 ARS, NY/ADAGP, Paris. Hom-
age to New York . 1960. Mixed media. Exhibited at the
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: David Gahr.
p. 118: Art © Estate of Robert Smithson/Licensed by
VAGA, NY; p. 119: Photograph by Franko Khoury/Na-
tional Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution;
p. 120(left): EO.0.0.23470, collection RMCA Tervuren;
photo © R. Asselberghs, MRAC Tervuren; p. 120(mid-
dle): Photograph by Franko Khoury/National Museum of
African Art, Smithsonian Institution; p. 120(right): Ma-
ternity Group Figure . Afo peoples, Nigeria. Nineteenth
century. Wood, 27 3/4 inches high. Horniman Museum
& Gardens, London. p.  121: Photograph by Franko
Khoury/ National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian
Institution; p. 122: David Noble; p. 123: Judy Chicago,
© 2014 Judy Chicago/ARS, NY. The Dinner Party . 1979.
Mixed media, each side 48 feet. Elizabeth A. Sackler Cen-
ter, Brooklyn Museum of Art. Photo by Donald Wood-
man. Courtesy Through the Flower. p.  124: Richard
Serra, © 2014 Richard Serra/ARS, NY. Sequence, 2006.
Cor-Ten steel, 12 feet 9 inches 3 40 feet 8 3/8 inches 3
65 feet 2 3/16 inches. Photo © Frederick Charles.
Chapter 6
Page 126: © David R. Frazier Photolibrary, Inc./Alamy;
p. 127: Alinari/Art Resource, NY; p. 129: © Alinari
Archives/Corbis; p. 130: Lee A. Jacobus; p. 133: Lee
A. Jacobus; p. 135: © Ezra Stoller/Esto; p. 136(top):
© Bettmann/Corbis; p. 136(bottom): © Massimo Bor-
chi/Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis; p. 141(top): French
Government Tourist Offi ce; p. 141(bottom): Courtesy
46 1/4 3 46 1/4 inches. Modern Art Museum of Fort
Worth, Fort Worth, Texas. © Howard Hodgkin. Collec-
tion of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum
Purchase, Sid W. Richardson Foundation Endowment
Fund. Acquired in 1988.
Chapter 5
Page 95: Photograph by Franko Khoury/National Mu-
seum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution; p. 97: Jean
Arp, © 2014 ARS, NY/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Growth .
1938. Marble, 39 1/2 inches high. Philadelphia Museum
of Art. Gift of Curt Valentin. Photo: Philadelphia Mu-
seum of Art; p. 99: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York/Art Resource; p. 100: Frank Stella. Giufà, la luna,
i ladri e le guardie . 1984. © 2014 Frank Stella/ARS, NY.
Synthetic polymer paint, oil, urethane enamel, fl uores-
cent alkyd, and printing ink on canvas, and etched mag-
nesium, aluminum, and fi berglass, 9 feet 7 1/4 inches 3
16 feet 3 1/4 inches 3 24 inches (293.3 3 491.1 3 61
cm). Acquired through the James Thrall Soby Bequest.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Digi-
tal Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by
SCALA/Art Resource, NY; p. 101: Image © The Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource,
NY; p. 102: Alinari/Art Resource, NY; p.  103: Lee A.
Jacobus; p. 105: Courtesy of the National Gallery of
Australia, Canberra; p. 106: Alinari/Art Resource, NY;
p. 107(right): Alinari/Art Resource, NY; p.  107(left):
© Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY; p.  108: Alexander
Calder, © 2014 Calder Foundation, NY/ARS, NY. Five
Swords, 1976. Sheet metal, bolts, paint, 213 3 264 3 348
inches. Photo: Art Resource, NY; p. 110: Henry Moore,
© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved,
DACS 2014/www.henry-moore.org. Recumbent Figure .
1938. Green Hornton Stone, 54 inches long. Tate Gal-
lery, London, Great Britain. Photo: Art Resource, NY; p.
111: © Benoit Tessier/Reuters/Corbis; p. 112: Barbara
Hepworth, Pelagos . 1946. Wood with color and strings,
16 inches in diameter. Tate Gallery, London, Great Brit-
ain. © Bowness, Hepworth Estate. Tate Gallery, Lon-
don/Art Resource, NY; p. 113: Ernest Trova, Study:
Falling Man (Wheel Man) . 1965. Silicon bronze, 60 3
48 3 20 13/16 inches. © The Trova Studios, LLC [1967].
Collection, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Gift of the
T. B. Walker Foundation, 1965. Photo: Courtesy of the
Walker Art Center; p.  114: George Segal, 1924–2000.
© VAGA, NY. The Bus Driver . 1962. Figure of plaster
over cheesecloth with bus parts, including coin box, steer-
ing wheel, driver’s seat, railing, dashboard, etc. Figure 53
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CREDITS C-5
Driggs Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images; p. 252:
© Ricky Fitchett/ZUMA Press/Corbis; p. 253: © Robert
Galbraith/Reuters/Corbis.
Chapter 10
Page 256: © Andrew Eccles/AUGUST; p. 257: Fred
Fehl/Harry Ransom Center/University of Texas at
Austin; p. 258: © Robbie Jack/Corbis; p. 260: © John
Running; p. 263: George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,
New City Ballet Production. Choreography George Bal-
anchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo © Paul
Kolnik; p. 265: © Anatoly Maltsev/epa/Corbis; p. 266:
Reuters/Corbis; p. 268: Arnold Genthe/Jerome Robbins
Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the
Performing Arts, Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations/
Art Resource, NY; p. 269: © Andrew Eccles/AUGUST;
p. 272: Martha Swope/New York Public Library; p. 273:
© Richard Termine/The New York Times/ Redux;
p.  274(top): © John Kane; p. 274(bottom): Andrea
Mohin/The New York Times/Redux; p. 275(top): Sara
Krulwich/The New York Times/ Redux; p. 275(bot-
tom): © Paul Kolnik; p. 276: © Screen Gems/Courtesy
Everett Collection; p. 277: © 20th Century-Fox Film
Corp. A1l Rights Reserved. Courtesy Everett Collection.
Chapter 11
Page 278: Loretta Lux, © 2014 ARS, NY/VG Bild-
Kunst, Bonn. Isabella . 2001. Digital print, 9 1/2 3 9 1/2
inches. Courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo Gallery.
Photo courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo Gallery;
p.  279: HIP/Art Resource, NY; p. 280: Courtesy of
George Eastman House, International Museum of Pho-
tography and Film; p. 281: Courtesy of George East-
man House, International Museum of Photography and
Film; p. 282: Courtesy of George Eastman House, In-
ternational Museum of Photography and Film; p. 284:
Alfred Stieglitz, Sunrays, Paula . 1889. © 2014 Georgia
O’Keeffe Museum/ARS, NY. International Museum
of Photography at the George Eastman House, Roch-
ester. p. 285: Edward Steichen, The Flatiron Building,
Evening . From: Camera Works N 14, April 1906, pl.
VIII. Heliogravure (21.6 3 16.5 cm.) PHO1981-25-20.
Repro-photo: Alexis Brandt. Location: Musee d’Orsay,
Paris, France © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY;
p. 287: Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage . 1907. © 2014
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/ARS, NY. Photogravure, 12
5/8 3 10 3/16 inches (32.2 3 25.9 cm). Purchase. The
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Digital Image
© The Museum of Modern Art/ Licensed by SCALA/Art
of Rockefeller Center/© Rockefeller Center Manage-
ment Corporation; p. 142: Frank Lloyd Wright, © 2014
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ/© ARS,
NY. Edgar J. Kaufmann House, known as Fallingwater .
1937–1939. © Scott Frances/Esto; p. 143: Ingram Pub-
lishing/SuperStock; p. 144: Samuel H. Kress Collection/
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; p. 145:
© Canali Photobank, Italy; p. 147(top): Vanni/Art Re-
source, NY; p. 147(bottom): © Lee A. Jacobus; p. 148:
© Lee A. Jacobus; p. 150: © Douglas Pearson/Corbis;
p.  151: © David Pearson/Alamy Images; p.  152: Jon
Miller/Hedrich Blessing, Chicago; p. 153: © Ezra Stoller/
Esto; p. 154: © Ezra Stoller/Esto; p. 155: © Robert Po-
lidori; p. 156(top): © Ralph Richter/Esto; p. 156(bot-
tom): © age fotostock/SuperStock; p. 157: © Christian
Richters/Esto; p. 158: Sergio Pitamitz/ Corbis; p. 159:
Solus-Veer/Corbis; p. 160: QT Luong/terragalleria.
com; p. 161(left): Michel Setboun/The Image Bank/
Getty Images; p. 161(right): Johan Furusjo/Alamy Im-
ages; p. 162: Chuck Choi/Arcaid/Corbis; p. 163(bot-
tom): Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images; p. 163(top): Janek
Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images; p. 164(top): © David R.
Frazier Photolibrary, Inc./Alamy; p. 164(bottom): View
Pictures/UIG via Getty Images; p. 165: Royalty-Free/
Corbis; p. 166: © Lee A. Jacobus; p. 167: Courtesy of
MetLife Media & Public Relations; p. 168: © Lee A.
Jacobus; p. 169: Simeone Huber/Getty Images.
Chapter 7
Page 171: Scala/Art Resource, NY; p. 186: Scala/Art
Resource, NY.
Chapter 8
Page 199: © Paul Kolnik; p. 201: Courtesy Guthrie
Theater. Photo: Michael Paul; p. 206(top): © Tuul/
Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis; p. 206(bot-
tom): © Topham/The Image Works; p. 209: © Devon-
shire Collection, Chatsworth Reproduced by permission
of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees/Bridgeman Art Li-
brary; p. 211: ArenaPal/Topham/The Image Works;
p. 216: Jason Machinski/National Arts Centre English
Theater, Canada; p. 221(top): © Warner Brothers/
Courtesy Everett Collection; p. 221(bottom): ©  Paul
Kolnik; p. 222: Martha Swope/New York Public Library;
p. 223: Richard Termine.
Chapter 9
Page 225: Ocean/Corbis; p. 240: © ArenaPal/Clive
Barda. Topham/The Image Works; p. 251: © Frank
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C-6 CREDITS
drew Cooper/© Weinstein Company/ Courtesy Everett
Collection; p. 317: © United Artists/Courtesy Ever-
ett Collection; p. 319: © 1963 Embassy Pictures Corp.
The Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive; p. 320:
MGM/Pathe/The Kobal Collection at Art Resource, NY;
p. 323: © 1972 Paramount Pictures Corporation/Cour-
tesy Photofest; p. 324: © 1972 Paramount Pictures Cor-
poration/The Kobal Collection at Art Resource, NY; pgs.
327–329: Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC.
Chapter 13
Page 333: Nick Briggs/© Carnival Films for Master-
piece/PBS/Courtesy Everett Collection; p. 335: Photo:
Monty Brinton/CBS. © 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All
Rights Reserved/Courtesy of Everett Collection; p. 336:
Courtesy of Everett Collection; p. 338: Photo by Michael
Yarish/© CBS/Courtesy Everett Collection; p.  339:
Courtesy Everett Collection; p. 340: Photo Courtesy
of HBO/HBO ® and The Sopranos ® are service marks
of Home Box Offi ce, Inc.; p. 341: Photo Courtesy of
HBO/HBO ® and The Wire ® are service marks of
Home Box Offi ce, Inc.; p. 342: Nicole Rivelli/© HBO/
HBO ® and The Wire ® are service marks of Home Box
Offi ce, Inc./Courtesy Everett Collection; p. 343(top):
Nick Briggs / © Carnival Films for Masterpiece/ PBS/
Courtesy Everett Collection; p.  343(bottom): Nick
Briggs/© Carnival Films for Masterpiece; p. 344: Nick
Briggs/© Carnival Films for Masterpiece/PBS/Courtesy
Everett Collection; p. 345: Courtesy of Janine Antoni
and the Luhring Augustine, New York; p.  346(top):
Gary Hill (1951-) © 2014 Gary Hill/ARS, NY. Inas-
much As It Is Always Already Taking Place. 1990. Instal-
lation: Sixteen videos (black-and-white, sound), Sixteen
black-and-white TV tubes and wires, Recessed in a wall
420 from the fl oor, overall 16 3 53 3/4 3 680. Gift of
Agnes Gund, Marcia Riklis, Barbara Wise and Margot
Ernst; and Purchase. (297.1997) The Museum of Mod-
ern Art, New York, NY. Digital Image © The Museum
of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY;
p. 346(bottom): AES1F Group. © 2014 AES/ARS,
NY. The Feast of Trimalchio (2009–2010), Multichannel
HD video installation (9-, 3-, and 1-channel versions),
series of pictures, series of portfolios with photographs
and drawings. Photo courtesy of the Triumph Gallery;
p.  347: © Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times/
Redux; p. 348: Photo: Kira Perov. Courtesy Bill Viola
Studio; p. 349(top): Photo: Kira Perov. Courtesy Bill
Viola Studio; p. 349(bottom): Photo: Fred Scruton,
courtesy James Cohan Gallery New York.
Resource, NY; p.  289: Edward Weston, © ARS, NY,
Nude . 1936. © 2014. Center for Creative Photography,
Arizona Board of Regents/Art Resource; p. 290: Ansel
Adams. Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley, Califor-
nia. 1960. Gelatin silver print, printed c. 1974, 12 3/16
3 9 3/8 inches (31 3 23.8 cm). The Ansel Adams Pub-
lishing Rights Trust/Corbis; p. 291: Eugène Atget, Petit
Trianon (Pavillon Francais) . 1923–24. Abbott-Levy Col-
lection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden. (1.1969.1955)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Digital
Image ©  The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by
SCALA/Art Resource, NY; p. 292: James Van Der Zee,
Couple in Raccoon Coats . 1932. © Christie’s Images/
Corbis; p. 293: © Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Pho-
tos; p. 294: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Division, Washington, DC (LC-USZ62-95653); p. 295:
Walker Evans, A Graveyard and Steel Mill in Bethle-
hem, Pennsylvania . 1935. Gelatin-silver print, 7 7/8 3
9 5/8 inches. Gift of the Farm Security Administration.
(569.1953) © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art. The Museum of Modern Art, New York,
NY. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Li-
censed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; p. 297: © The
estate of Garry Winogrand, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery,
San Francisco; p. 298: Manuel Alvarez Bravo, The Man
from Papantla . 1934. © 2014 ARS, NY/ADAGP, Paris.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. Gift of Mr.
and Mrs. Ivor Massey. Photo: Courtesy of the Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; p. 299: Ken Moody and
Robert Sheren, 1984. © The Robert Mapplethorpe Foun-
dation. Courtesy Art 1 Commerce Anthology; p. 300:
Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures; p. 301(top):
Joel Meyerowitz/Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gal-
lery; p.  301(bottom): Loretta Lux, © 2014 ARS, NY/
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Isabella . 2001. Digital print, 9
1/2 3 9 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo
Gallery. Photo courtesy of the artist and Yossi Milo Gal-
lery; p. 302: Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery.
Chapter 12
Page 304: Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC;
p. 305: Photo by: Mary Evans/SVENSK FILMINDUS-
TRI/Ronald Grant/Courtesy Everett Collection; p. 307:
© Everett Collection; p. 310: © Everett Collection; p.
311: TM & Copyright © 20th Century Fox. All rights
reserved/Courtesy Everett Collection; p.  312: © RKO
Radio Pictures Inc. Photographer: Alexander Kahle/Pho-
tofest; p. 314: © Lucasfi lm Ltd./ Twentieth Century Fox
Film Corp./Courtesy Photofest p. 315: Photo by An-
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CREDITS C-7
ARS, NY. L. H. O. O. Q. 1919. Drawing, 7 3/4 3 4 1/8
inches. Private Collection. Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/
Art Resource, NY; p. 373: © Regis Bossu/Sygma/Cor-
bis; p. 375: © Christopher Smith/Corbis; p. 377: Cour-
tesy of Activision.
Chapter 15
Page 380: Jeff Wall, After ‘Invisible Man’ by Ralph El-
lison, the Prologue 1999–2001 transparency in lightbox
(174.0 3 250.5 cm). Courtesy of the artist; p. 382: Cour-
tesy Everett Collection; p. 383: Courtesy Everett Collec-
tion; p. 388: Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night . 1889.
Oil on canvas, 29 3 36 1/4 inches (73.7 3 92.1 cm). The
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through
the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Digital image © The Museum
of Modern Art, NY/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY;
p. 391: Scala/Art Resource, NY; p. 393: New Britain
Museum of American Art; p. 394: Jeff Wall, After ‘Invis-
ible Man’ by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue 1999–2001 trans-
parency in lightbox (174.0 3 250.5 cm) Courtesy of the
artist; p. 395(left); © Don Klumpp/The Image Bank/
Getty Images; p. 395(right); © RKO RadioPictures/
Photofest; p. 396: Henri Matisse, © 2014 Succession H.
Matisse/© 2014 ARS, NY. The Dance . 1910. Decora-
tive panel, oil on canvas, 102 1/4 3 125 1/2 inches. The
Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Photo © Scala/Art Resource,
NY; p. 397: Henri Matisse, © 2014 Succession H. Ma-
tisse/© 2014 ARS, NY. Music . 1910. Decorative panel,
oil on canvas, 102 1/4 3 153 inches. The Hermitage, St.
Petersburg. Photo: Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia/
The Bridgeman Art Library.
Chapter 16
Page 400: Lewis Hine/The Image Works; p. 402:
© The Philadelphia Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY;
p. 407: Lewis Hine/The Image Works.
Chapter 14
Page 352: © Bob Collier/Sygma/Corbis; p. 355: Duane
Hanson, Woman with a Purse . Art © Estate of Duane
Hanson/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY Photo ©
AKG London; p. 357: Richard Estes, Baby Doll Lounge .
1978. Oil on canvas, 3 3 5 feet. © Richard Estes, cour-
tesy Marlborough Ga1lery, New York. Photo © Arto-
thek; p. 358: Digital Image © The Museum of Modern
Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY; p. 359:
Andy Warhol, © 2014 The Andy Warhol Foundation for
the Visual Arts, Inc./© ARS, NY/200 Campbell’s Soup
Cans . 1962. Acrylic on canvas, 72 3 100 inches. Photo
© The Andy Warhol Foundation Inc./Trademarks,
Campbell Soup Company. All rights reserved; p. 360:
From the Collection of The Norman Rockwell Museum
at Stockbridge, Norman Rockwell Art Collection Trust.
Printed by permission of the Norman Rockwell Family
Agency. © 1943 the Norman Rockwell Family Entities;
p. 362: Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World . 1948. Tem-
pera on gessoed panel, 32 1/4 3 47 3/4 inches. The Mu-
seum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Digital Image ©
The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art
Resource, NY; p. 363: Aleksei Vasilev, They Are Writ-
ing about Us in Pravda . 1951. Oil on canvas, 39 3 61
inches. Jerald Jacobs Collection. Springville Museum
of Art. Photo: Courtesy of the Springville Museum of
Art; p.  365(top): Private Collection/Photo © Chris-
tie’s Images/The Bridgeman Art Library; p. 365(bot-
tom): © Bob Collier/Sygma/Corbis; p. 367: © Scala/
Art Resource, NY; p. 368: Lee A. Jacobus; p. 370(top):
Francis Picabia, © 2014 ARS, NY/ADAGP, Paris. La
Sainte Vierge (The Holy Virgin). 1920. Black China ink
on paper, (32.9 3 23.8 cm). AM2008-91. Photo: Georges
Meguerditchi. Photo source: © CNAC/MNAM/Dist.
RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY; p. 370(bot-
tom): Courtesy Tate Archive; p. 371: Marcel Duchamp,
© 2014 Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris/
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I-1
INDEX
Page numbers followed by f indicate
fi gures.
A
Abell, Walter, 138
abstract ideas, and concrete images, 13–16
abstract painting
abstract sculpture compared to, 96–98
intensity and restfulness in, 83–84
overview, 81–82
sensa in, 81–83, 96, 98
abstract sculpture, 96–98
accommodation with technology sculpture,
115–116
acrylic, 69–70
Acts without Words (Beckett), 223
Adams, Ansel, 283, 288, 303
Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley,
California , 290, 409
Adams, Eddie, Execution in Saigon , 21–24,
21 f , 26–32, 48, 291
Adams, Henry, Mont-Saint-Michel and
Chartres , 128
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(Twain),   183
Aeschylus, 200, 208
AES+F Group, 346–347, 346 f
aesthetics, 407
African sculpture, 119–121
“After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling
Comes” (Dickinson), 188, 188 f , 381
After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the
Prologue (Wall), 393–395, 394 f
Ailey, Alvin, Revelations , 269–271, 269 f
Aitken, Doug
Electric Earth , 347
Sleepwalkers , 347 f
All My Pretty Ones (Sexton), 390
all-at-onceness, of painting, 81
allegro, 231, 242
allegro con brio (fast, breezy), 245
allegro molto (very fast), 245
Also Sprach Zarathustra (Strauss), 317
Amos and Andy , 336
Anatomy of Criticism (Frye), 204
“The Ancient Mariner” (Coleridge), 195
andante, 242
animated fi lms, 331
Another World , 338
Antoni, Janine
Tear , 345–346, 345 f
Touch , 345
Antonioni, Michelangelo, Blow Up , 331
Aphrodite , 106–108, 106 f , 282
Apocalypse Now (Coppola), 316, 317 f
Apollo and Daphne (Bernini), 390–393, 391 f
Apollo and Daphne (Ovid), 390–393
appropriation, artistic, 379–380, 399
arabesque, 263
Arbiter, Petronius, The Satyricon , 347
Arc Double Face (Paik), 344
archetypal patterns
in comedy, 213–214
in drama, 203–204
architecture. See also earth-rooted
architecture; sky-oriented architecture
artistic appropriation by, 380
centered space in, 126–127
earth-dominating, 153–154
earth-resting, 151–152
fantasy, 163–165
interpretation of dance, National
Nederlanden Building, 395–396, 395 f
interpretive criticism of, 53–54
living space, 131–132
materials and, 142–143
overview, 126, 170
painting compared to, 126, 139
sculpture compared to, 103–104, 126, 139
space and, 126–128, 131–132, 139
urban planning, 166–169
values and, 139
architecture, combinations of types
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 155–157,
163
high-rises and skyscrapers, 157–162
overview, 154–155
Sydney Opera House, 158, 158 f , 164, 165
architecture necessities
functional requirements, 133–137
overview, 132
revelatory requirements, 137–139
spatial requirements, 137
technical requirements, 132–133
Aristophanes, 200, 209, 213–214
Aristotle, 215
dramatic elements of, 200–202
The Poetics , 220
on tragedy, 200–201, 205, 214, 224
Armstrong, Louis, 250, 251, 251 f
Arnatt, Keith, Keith Arnatt Is an Artist ,
370–371, 370 f
Arnold, Matthew, 409–410
Arp, Jean, Growth , 96–97, 97 f , 101, 103, 104
art. See also works of art
artlike works and, 352–354
censorship of, 58–60, 298, 300
ethics and, 407, 411
history and, 406–407, 410–411, 412
humanities and, 401, 403, 406–412
participation with values and, 405
philosophy and, 407–408, 412
photography and, 282–283
progress in, 2–3
propaganda, 364
responses to, 4–13
taste in, 4
theology and, 408–410, 412
theories, 354
values and, 2–4, 16–17, 60–61, 403–405,
411–412
art interrelationships
appropriation, 379–380, 399
interpretation, 382–399
overview, 379, 399
synthesis, 381–382, 399
Art of Fugue (Bach), 238
Artaud, Antonin, “Theater of Cruelty,” 223
artistic form
descriptive criticism of, 49, 56
evaluative criticism of, 57
examples, 32–37
further thoughts on, 44–45
interpretive criticism of, 54
overview, 11, 20–23, 45
participation and, 26–27, 30–32
subject matter and, 30, 44–45
unity in, 20–21, 23
artlike works
art and, 352–354
decoration, 366–368
idea art, 369–373
illustration, 355–366
overview, 378
performance art, 374–375
shock art, 375–376
traditional and avant-garde, 353–354
types, 353–354
virtual art, 376–378
Assembled Panorama of the World Trade
Center Looking East (Meyerowitz), 301,
301 f , 303
assonance, as poetic device, 173
Astaire, Fred, 276, 395–396, 395 f
Atget, Eugène, 292
Trianon, Paris , 291, 291 f
Auden, W. H., 188
“Musée des Beaux Arts,” 186–187
Augustine, St., 171
auteur, 305
Autumn (Cassat), 88, 89 f
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I-2 INDEX
Camus, Albert, 30
Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), 171
cantilever, 137
Canyon de Chelley, Arizona (O’Sullivan),
281, 282 f , 283
Carjat, Étienne, Charles Baudelaire ,
280–281, 281 f , 283
Carter, Helena Bonham, 383 f
Carter, Kevin, Vulture and Child in Sudan ,
31–32
Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 290–291, 296
Behind the Gare St. Lazare , 292–293, 293 f
Casablanca , 310
Cassat, Mary, Autumn , 88, 89 f
catharsis, in drama, 201
Cathedral of Florence dome, 149,
150 f , 152
Cats , 221
cave paintings, 2–3, 3 f
Celebration (Krasner), 82, 82 f , 83
censorship, of arts, 58–60, 298, 300
centered space, in architecture, 126–127
centrality, in earth-rooted architecture,
143–145
Cervantes, Miguel de, Don Quixote , 55–56,
177–179, 183
Cézanne, Paul, 74
Mont Sainte-Victoire , 25–26, 25 f , 58, 64,
73, 80, 81, 82, 283, 409
character
as dramatic element, 200
type, 213
Charles Baudelaire (Carjat), 280–281,
281 f , 283
Chartres Cathedral, 128–131, 129 f , 130 f ,
133, 134, 138–140, 143, 145, 146,
148–150, 152
Chase, David, 340
Chaucer, Geoffrey, Canterbury Tales , 171
Chekhov, Anton P.
The Swan Song , 215–220, 216 f
Vanka , 179–182
Chicago, Judy, The Dinner Party , 123–124,
123 f
Un Chien Andalou (Buñuel), 315
chord, 229
A Chorus Line , 221, 221 f
Christina’s World (Wyeth, Andrew),
362–363, 362 f
Christo
Running Fence , 373
Wrapped Reichstag , 373, 373 f
Cimabue, Madonna and Child Enthroned
with Angels , 64, 65 f , 73, 78, 92, 93
Cimino, Michael, The Deer Hunter ,
319–320
cinema, 304, 332. See also fi lm
Citizen Kane (Welles), 311
City of Man (Viola), 350
City Square (La Place) (Giacometti),
113–114, 115 f
Claire’s Knee (Rohmer), 321–322
clarity, of painting, 80
binder, 64
The Birth of a Nation (Griffi th), 316
Blackboard Jungle , 252
Blake, William, 174
“The Sick Rose,” 194–195, 381
The Blessed Virgin (Picabia), 370, 370 f
Blithedale Romance (Hawthorne), 266
Blow Up (Antonioni), 331
Blue Mountain on the Circle Drive Near Taos
(Marin), 69, 69 f
blues
jazz and, 250–251, 252, 253, 254
popular music and, 254
rock and roll and, 252–254
Blume, Peter, The Eternal City , 6–7, 6 f ,
10, 12
Boardwalk Empire , 340
Bolden, Buddy, 250
Bonanza , 337
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 409
Botticelli, Venus and Mars , 72, 72 f , 73, 78
Bouguereau, William-Adolphe, 364
Cupid and Psyche , 365, 365 f
The Bourne Identity , 308
Brando, Marlon, 323 f , 324
Brave New World (Huxley), 112
Bravo, Manuel Álvarez, 296
The Man from Papantla , 297, 298 f
Britten, Benjamin
Death in Venice , 398–399
Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings , 381
War Requiem , 381
Broadway Boogie Woogie (Mondrian), 20–21,
73, 74 f , 355, 361
Broadway musical theater, 220–222
Brueghel, Peter van, Landscape with the Fall
of Icarus , 186, 186 f , 187
Brunelleschi, Filippo, Cathedral of
Florence dome, 149, 150 f , 152
“Buffalo Bills’ Defunct” (cummings),
185–186
buildings. See architecture
Buñuel, Luis, Un Chien Andalou , 315
The Buried Mirror (Fuentes), 3
Burton, LeVar, 339
The Bus Driver (Segal), 112–113, 114 f
C
cadences, 229
Cage, John, 254
Calatrava, Santiago, Turning Torso,
160–161, 161 f , 163
Calder, Alexander, Five Swords , 108–109,
108 f
Call of Duty: Black Ops II , 377 f
camera (in fi lm)
point of view, 312–314
shots, 306–308
vision, 313–314
Cameron, James, Avatar , 311, 311 f
Cameron, Julia Margaret, Sir John
Herschel , 280–281, 281 f
Autumn Rhythm (Pollock), 52, 52 f , 57–58,
63, 70, 77, 99, 355
avant-garde
painting, 94
sculpture, 117, 125
Avatar (Cameron), 311, 311 f
axis line, 73
axis mundi, in sky-oriented architecture,
148–149
B
Baby Doll Language (Estes), 356–358, 357 f ,
360, 361
Bach, Johann Sebastian, Art of Fugue , 238
Bachelard, Gaston, 105
balance, in painting, 78
Balanchine, George, Nutcracker , 263 f
ballet
narrative and bodily movement, 263–264
overview, 262–263
Swan Lake , 264–267, 265 f , 266 f , 270
Balloon Dog, Red (Koons), 110, 111 f
Bank of China Tower, 158, 160 f
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (Manet), 86–87,
86 f , 365
Barbizon school, 84–85
Baroque period, 109
Bather Arranging Her Hair (Renoir,
Pierre), 39 f , 42, 73, 77
“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” 230
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein), 321
Baudelaire, Charles, 280–281, 281 f ,
282–283
The Bay (Frankenthaler), 69, 70 f , 73, 303
BBC Symphony Orchestra, 240
Beatles, 225, 253
Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin de, The
Marriage of Figaro , 385–387
Beckett, Samuel
Acts without Words , 223
Endgame , 223, 223 f
Not I , 223
Waiting for Godot , 223
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Eroica , 226, 231, 233, 239, 245–250, 255
Fifth Symphony, 384
Pastoral Symphony, 231
Behind the Gare St. Lazare (Cartier-
Bresson), 292–293, 293 f
Bell, Clive, 26–27
Bennet, Michael, 221
Bergman, Ingmar
The Seventh Seal , 304, 305 f
The Virgin Spring , 316, 316 f
Wild Strawberries , 321
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo
Apollo and Daphne , 390–393, 391 f
Piazza before St. Peter’s, 127, 127 f , 153
Bernstein, Leonard, 221, 275
Berrill, N. J., Man’s Emerging Mind , 56
big bands, 251
Bill Haley’s Comet, 252
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INDEX I-3
dance subject matter, 259
feeling, 256–258
overview, 256–257
states of mind, 257
Dante Alighieri, 146
Divine Comedy , 320
Dante and Virgil in Hell (Delacroix), 320
David (Michelangelo), 95, 106–109,
107 f , 122
Davis, Miles, 251
Deadwood , 340
Death in Venice (Britten), 398–399
Death in Venice (Mann), 398–399
Death in Venice (Visconti), 398–399
Debussy, Claude, La Mer , 231–232,
233, 234
decoration, 366–368
decrescendo, 231
The Deer Hunter (Cimino), 319–320
defi ance of gravity, in sky-oriented
architecture, 149–150
Delacroix, Eugène, 30
Dante and Virgil in Hell , 320
Delaroche, Paul, Execution of Lady Jane
Grey , 278, 279 f , 280
denotation, 173
denouement, 200
descriptive criticism, 49–53, 55, 56
The Desperate Man (Courbet), 90, 90 f
detail
literary, 188–198
relationships in works of art, 51–53
Dewey, John, 407, 411
dialogue, in drama, 201–202
Dickinson, Emily, “After Great Pain, a
Formal Feeling Comes,” 188, 188 f , 381
diction
as dramatic element, 200
in literature, 196–198
Dido and Aeneas (Morris), 273
digital photography, 300–302
Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in
Blue ,   233
Dine, Jim, Shovel , 18–19, 19 f
Dinner in Palazzo Albrizzi (Hodgkin),
93, 93 f
The Dinner Party (Chicago), 123–124, 123 f
Dionysus in ’69 (Schechner), 224
direction, of fi lm, 305–308
dissonance, as musical element, 227–228
Divine Comedy (Dante), 320
Django Unchained (Tarantino), 315, 315 f
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good
Night” (Thomas), 172–173
The Doctor and the Soul (Frankl), 404
Documentarists, 286, 290–296
dollar value, of art, 60–61
Dolorosa (Viola), 349–350, 349 f
Don Quixote (Cervantes), 55–56, 177–179,
183
Donahue, William, 58
Donatello, 109
Donne, John, “The Relic,” 190–191
costumes
Elizabethan, 209, 209 f
Greek, 207, 208–209
stage scenery and, 207–209
counterpoint, as musical element, 229
Couple in Raccoon Coats (Van Der Zee),
292, 292 f
Courbet, Gustave, The Desperate Man ,
90, 90 f
court dance, 262
Cox, Renee, Yo Mama’s Last Supper , 376
craft, 354
craftworks, 354
Creation of Adam (Michelangelo), 67, 67 f , 72
crescendo, 231
Crewdson, Gregory, 303
Untitled , 302, 302 f
criticism
descriptive, 49–53, 55, 56
evaluative, 49, 56–61
everyday, 47–48
interpretive, 49, 53–56
overview, 47, 61–62
participation and, 48, 55
responsible, 47
three kinds of, 48–61
Crooked House, 163, 163 f , 165
CSI , 337, 338 f
Cubi X (Smith), 115, 116 f
Cubism, 92, 119
cummings, e. e.
“Buffalo Bills’ Defunct,” 185–186
“l(a,” 12–13, 13 f , 172
Cupid and Psyche (Bouguereau), 365, 365 f
D
da Vinci, Leonardo
Last Supper , 50–51, 50 f , 51 f , 72, 78
Mona Lisa , 9–11, 10 f , 53, 371–372
Dada, 18, 92, 369–371
Daguerre, Louis J. M., 278
Daguerreotypes, 278, 282
Danaïde (Rodin), 95, 106–109, 107 f
dance. See also ballet; modern dance
in fi lms, 276, 277 f
form, 259
music synthesis with, 381
narrative and bodily movement, 263–264
overview, 256, 277
popular, 276–277, 277 f
pretext, 262
theater, 275–276
dance, and ritual
court dance, 262
overview, 259–261
ritual dance, 261
social dance, 261
The Dance (Matisse), 396–398, 396 f
dance interpretation
by architecture, National Nederlanden
Building, 395–396, 395 f
by painting, The Dance , 396–398, 396 f
Cleghorn, Sarah Norcliffe, “The golf links
lie so near the mill . . . ,” 407–408
cloning, 1, 2
closed line, 72–76
coda, 245
Coleridge, Samuel, “The Ancient
Mariner,” 195
collages, 18
color, 76. See also watercolor
comedy. See also theater
archetypal patterns in, 213–214
Greek, 200, 212–214
New Comedy, 213, 214
Old Comedy, 212–213, 214
overview, 224
tragicomedy, 215
comic strips
Lichtenstein transformations of, 32–38,
33 f , 34 f , 35 f
overview, 32
Commemorative Head of a King , 119, 119 f
commercial television, 335–342
complementary colors, 76
composition, in painting
overview, 77
principles, 78–79
space and shapes, 79
conception
identifying works of art through, 19–20
perception compared to, 19
conceptual art, 372–373
conceptual metaphor, 193
concrete images, and abstract ideas,
13–16
connotation, 174
Conrad, Joseph, 197
Youth , 189
consonance
as musical element, 227
as poetic device, 173
Constructivism, 92
Contact (Stroman), 275–276, 275 f
contemporary sculpture
accommodation with technology,
115–116
earth, 117–118
machine, 116–117
overview, 109
protest against technology, 112–115
truth to materials in, 109–111
content
interpretive criticism of, 53–54
overview, 20, 27–29, 45
participation and, 30–31
subject matter and, 38–44, 45
contrast, as musical element, 231, 242–244
Cook, David, A History of Narrative
Film ,   304
Cook, Peter, Graz Museum, 163, 163 f , 165
Coppola, Carmine, 326
Coppola, Francis Ford
Apocalypse Now , 316, 317 f
The Godfather , 323–327
mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 3mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 3 06/02/14 7:48 PM06/02/14 7:48 PM

I-4 INDEX
directing and editing, 305–308
experimentation, 330–331
gestures in, 321–322
The Godfather , 323–327
historical context, 322–323
image, 309–312, 318–319, 325–326
making, 331–332
montage, 308
overview, 304, 332
participative experience and, 308–309
point of view, 312–314
shots, 306–308
signifi cance, 321–322
sound and, 316–318, 326
structure, 319–321, 324–325
subject matter of, 304–305
technique, 314
television and, 333, 334
Vertigo , 327–330, 327 f , 328 f , 329 f
violence and, 315–316
fi lm interpretation, of literature
Death in Venice , 398–399
Howards End , 382–384
Finley, Karen, 375 f
We Keep Our Victims Ready , 374
Five Swords (Calder), 108–109, 108 f
Flatiron (Steichen), 285–286, 285 f
Floating Figure (Lachaise), 105, 105 f
F.L.O.W. (For Love of Women) (Pendleton),
272, 273 f
fl ying buttresses, 149
folk art, 356–358
Formalism (music theory), 234
form-content
interpretive criticism of, 54
overview, 39, 45
Forrest Gump , 308–309
Forster, E. M., Howards End , 382–384
forte (“loud”), 231
Foster, Norman, Hearst Tower, 161–162,
162 f
Fountain (Duchamp), 372
Fournier, Pierre, Graz Museum, 163,
163 f , 165
frames
painting, 92, 93
photography and still, 310
framing, in photography, 288
Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus
(Shelley), 2
Frankenthaler, Helen, The Bay , 69, 70 f ,
73, 303
Frankl, Victor, The Doctor and the Soul , 404
Freedom from Want (Rockwell), 359–361,
360 f
fresco, 66–67, 77
Friends , 334
Frost, Robert, 198, 407
Fry, Roger, 26–27
Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism , 204
Fuentes, Carlos, The Buried Mirror , 3
fugue, 238
functional requirements, of architecture,
133–137
Ellison, Ralph, Invisible Man , 183, 393–395
emotions. See also feelings
music and, 232–233, 235
painting and, 5–6
The Emperor Jones (Limón), 268
Empire of the Sun , 317
Endgame (Beckett), 223, 223 f
The Engagement Ring (Lichtenstein),
35 f , 37
epics, 176
Epidaurus theater, 205, 206 f
Eroica (Beethoven), 226, 231, 233, 239, 255
overview, 245–250, 246 f –248 f
Estes, Richard, Baby Doll Language ,
356–358, 357 f , 360, 361
The Eternal City (Blume), 6–7, 6 f , 10, 12
ethics
art and, 407, 411
values and, 404
Euripides, 200
evaluative criticism, 49, 56–61
Evans, Walker, 294
A Graveyard and Steel Mill in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania , 295, 295 f
Execution in Saigon (Adams, Eddie), 21–24,
21 f , 26–32, 48, 291
Execution of Lady Jane Grey (Delaroche),
278, 279 f , 280
experimental drama, 223–224
experimentation, in fi lm, 330–331
Expressionism
music theory, 234
painting style, 92
extrinsic values, 403
F
f/64 group, 286, 288–290, 297
Fagles, Robert, “The Starry Night,”
388–390
Fallingwater. See Kaufmann house
fantasia, 239–240
The Fantasticks , 220
fantasy architecture, 163–165
Farnsworth residence, 151–152, 152 f
The Feast of Trimalchio , 346–347, 346 f
feelings. See also emotions
dance and, 256–258
Formalism and Expressionism music
theories on, 234
lyrics and, 184–185
as music subject matter, 232–234, 235
values and, 2, 4
Fellini, Federico, 8½ , 318–319, 319 f , 320
female nude studies, 38–39, 38 f –43 f , 42–44
Ferber, Edna, Show Boat , 222
fi ction. See literature
Fifth Symphony (Beethoven), 384
Fifth Symphony (Tchaikovsky), 225
Figure , 120, 120 f
fi lm
action and image, 318–319
animated, 331
dance in, 276, 277 f
Doric order, 133, 134 f
Downton Abbey , 343–344, 343 f , 344
drama. See also comedy; theater; tragedy
archetypal patterns, 203–204
experimental, 223–224
interpretation by music, The Marriage of
Figaro , 385–387
narrative, 203–204
overview, 224
The Swan Song , 215–220, 216 f
dramatic elements
Aristotle and, 200–202
dialogue and soliloquy, 201–202
overview, 200–201
dramatic genres. See comedy; drama
drawing, and modeling, 106
Drost, Willem, The Polish Rider , 60–61, 60 f
Drury Lane Theatre, 208, 208 f
Dubai main road, 168, 169 f
Duchamp, Marcel, 18–19, 369
Fountain , 372
L.H.O.O.Q. , 11, 371–372, 371 f
Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 , 38,
41 f , 42, 43, 44, 59
Duchampism, 371–372
Duncan, Isadora, 267–268
La Marseillaise , 268 f
dynamics, as musical element, 231
E
Eakins, Thomas, The Gross Clinic ,
402–403, 402 f
Early Sunday Morning (Hopper), 15–16,
16 f , 64
Earth Greens (Rothko), 74, 75 f , 79, 82,
83–84, 96–98
earth sculpture, 117–118
earth-dominating architecture, 153–154
earth-resting architecture, 151–152
earth-rooted architecture
centrality, 143–145
gravity, 140–141
overview, 139–140
raw materials, 142–143
site, 140
“The East Wind Sighs” (Li Shang-Yin),
191
Echo of a Scream (Siqueiros), 5–7, 5 f , 10,
78, 81
editing, of fi lm, 305–308
8½ (Fellini), 318–319, 319 f , 320
Eisenstein, Sergei, 305–306, 311
Battleship Potemkin , 321
Electric Earth (Aitken), 347
Eliade, Mircea, 139, 148–149
Eliot, T. S., 184
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats , 221
“Preludes,” 190–191
Elizabethan period
stage costumes, 209, 209 f
theater, 205, 206 f , 207, 208, 220
Ellington, Duke, 233
Ellis, Havelock, 256
mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 4mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 4 06/02/14 7:48 PM06/02/14 7:48 PM

INDEX I-5
A History of Narrative Film , Cook, David,
304, 305
Hitchcock, Alfred
Psycho , 321
Vertigo , 327–330, 327 f , 328 f , 329 f
Hodgkin, Howard, Dinner in Palazzo
Albrizzi , 93, 93 f
Holocaust, 334
Holy Virgin Mary (Ofi li), 58, 59 f
Homage to New York (Tinguely), 116,
117 f
Homer
The Iliad , 171
The Odyssey , 171, 176
The Honeymooners , 336, 336 f
Hong Kong, high-rises and skyscrapers,
158–160, 160 f , 161 f
Hood, Raymond, Rockefeller Center, 140,
141 f , 149, 159
Hopeless (Lichtenstein), 34 f , 37
Hopkins, Anthony, 382, 382 f
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, “Pied Beauty,”
409, 411
Hopper, Edward, Early Sunday Morning ,
15–16, 16 f , 64
House of Cards , 340
Howards End (Forster, E.), 382–384
Howards End (Ivory), 382–384, 382 f , 383 f
Howe, Julia Ward, 230
Howlett, Robert, 292
Isambard Kingdom Brunel , 279–280, 280 f
Hudnut, Joseph, 169
hue, 76
Hugo, Victor, Les Miserables , 221
human body, and sculpture, 105–109
humanities
arts and, 401, 403, 406–412
medical students and, 402–403
religion and, 408
sciences and, 1–2, 400–401, 411
values and, 1–3, 403, 405, 411–412
Humphrey, Doris, 268
Huston, John, The Misfi ts , 313
Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World , 112
I
I, Claudius , 339
I Can See the Whole Room . . . and There’s
Nobody in It! (Lichtenstein), 33 f ,
35–36, 37–38
iambic pentameter, 184
idea art
conceptual art, 372–373
Dada, 369–371
Duchampism, 371–372
overview, 369
The Iliad (Homer), 171
illustration
folk art, 356–358
kitsch, 364–366
popular art, 358–363
propaganda, 363–364
realism of, 355
Greenberg, Clement, 364
Greenwich Village building, 167, 168 f
The Greeting (Viola), 348, 348 f
Griffi th, D. W., 305–306
The Birth of a Nation , 316
Grimm’s Fairy Tales , 221
The Gross Clinic (Eakins), 402–403, 402 f
Growth (Arp), 96–97, 97 f , 101, 103, 104
Guangzhou Opera House, 164,
164 f , 165
Guaranty (Prudential) Building (Sullivan),
53–54, 54 f
Guernica (Picasso), 8–9, 8 f , 9 f , 52, 53, 56,
78, 356, 401
Guest, Edward, 57
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 155–157,
156 f , 157 f , 163
Guggenheim Museum, New York City.
See Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York City
Gurney, Edmund, 234
H
Hadid, Zaha, Guangzhou Opera House,
164, 164 f , 165
Hagia Sophia, 150, 151 f
Haley, Alex, 339
Haley, Bill, 252
Hamlet (Shakespeare), 196, 197, 202, 203,
213, 215, 302
Hammerstein, Oscar, 222
Hanslick, Eduard, 234
Hanson, Duane, Woman with a Purse , 355,
355 f , 359
harmony, as musical element, 229
Hassam, Childe, Summer Evening , 88, 88 f
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Blithedale Romance ,
266
Haydn, Franz Joseph, 241
London , Symphony no. 104, 239, 241,
242 f , 244
Hearst Tower, 161–162, 162 f
Heidegger, Martin, 410
Helms, Jesse, 298, 299, 300
Hemingway, Ernest, 197
Hepworth, Barbara, Pelagos , 111, 112 f ,
381–382
Herrick, Robert, “Upon Julia’s Clothes,”
197
high-relief sculpture, 100–101
high-rises and skyscrapers
Hong Kong, 158–160, 160 f , 161 f
New York City, 159–162, 162 f
Shanghai, 157–159, 159 f , 161
Turning Torso, 160–161, 161 f , 163
Hill, Gary, Inasmuch As It Is Always Already
Taking Place , 346, 346 f
Hine, Lewis, Rhodes Mfg. Co., Lincolnton,
NC , 407–408, 407 f
hip-hop, 253, 276, 276 f
history
arts and, 406–407, 410–411, 412
fi lms, 322–323
G
Game of Thrones , 340
Gaudí, Antonio, Sagrada Familia, 146,
147 f , 148, 149, 152, 163, 380, 381
Gehry, Frank
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, 155–157,
156 f , 157 f , 163
National Nederlanden Building,
395–396, 395 f
genetic research, 1
genetically altered food, 1
genres, literary, 189
Gershwin, George, 221
Gershwin, Ira, 221
Ghost Ranch Cliffs (O’Keeffe), 78, 78 f , 83
Giacometti, Alberto, City Square ( La Place) ,
113–114, 115 f
“Ginger and Fred.” See National
Nederlanden Building
Giorgione, Sleeping Venus , 38 f , 39, 73,
106–107
Giotto, Madonna Enthroned , 66, 66 f , 70, 93
Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards
(Stella), 99–100, 100 f , 104
Giuliani, Rudolph, 58, 376
The Glass Menagerie (Williams), 202
Godard, Jean-Luc, Weekend , 310
The Godfather (Coppola, Francis), 323 f ,
324 f , 327
images, 325–326
narrative structure, 324–325
overview, 323–324
power of, 326
sound, 326
The Goldbergs , 336
“The golf links lie so near the mill . . .”
(Cleghorn), 407–408
Goodhue, Bertram, St. Bartholomew’s
Church, 166, 166 f , 167
Goya, Francisco, May 3,1808, 22–24, 22 f ,
26–32, 48, 49, 73–74, 78, 82
gradation, in painting, 78
graffi ti art, 367–368, 368 f
Graham, Martha, 268
Night Journey , 271–272
overview, 271–272
El Penitente , 272
Phaedra , 272, 272 f
“The Grave of Little Su” (Li Ho), 193–194
A Graveyard and Steel Mill in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania (Evans), 295, 295 f
gravity
in earth-rooted architecture, 140–141
sky-oriented architecture and defi ance
of, 149–150
Graz Museum, 163, 163 f , 165
Great American Nude (Wesselman), 40 f , 42,
44, 73, 77
Greek
comedy, 200, 212–214
costumes, 207, 208–209
theater, 205, 206 f , 207, 207 f , 208, 220
tragedy, 200–201, 205, 220
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I-6 INDEX
L.H.O.O.Q. (Duchamp), 11, 371–372, 371 f
Li Ho, “The Grave of Little Su,” 193–194
Li Shang-Yin, “The East Wind Sighs,”
191
Lichtenstein, Roy
comic strip transformations of, 32–38,
33 f , 34 f , 35 f
The Engagement Ring , 35 f , 37
Hopeless , 34 f , 37
I Can See the Whole Room . . . and There’s
Nobody in It! , 33 f , 35–36, 37–38
Image Duplicator , 34 f , 37
Torpedo . . . Los! , 33 f , 36–37, 73
The Life of Riley , 336
light
in paintings, 82
sky-oriented architecture and, 150–151
Limón, José
The Emperor Jones , 268
The Moor’s Pavane , 257
Lin, Maya Ying, Vietnam Veterans
Memorial , 122–124, 122 f
line
axis, 73
closed, 72–76
overview, 72–76
linear perspective, 79
literary details
diction, 196–198
image, 189–191
irony, 195–196
metaphor, 191–194
overview, 188–189
symbol, 194–195
literary interpretation
by fi lm, Howards End , 382–384
by fi lm and opera, Death in Venice ,
398–399
by photography, 393–395
literary structures
episodic narrative, 176–179
lyrics, 184–188
narrative and narrator, 174–176
organic narrative, 179–182
quest narrative, 182–183
literature
artistic synthesis of, 381
genres, 189
overview, 173–174, 198
spoken language and, 171–174, 188–189
theme, 173
living space, 131–132
London , Symphony no. 104 (Haydn), 239,
241, 242 f , 244
Long Island Federal Courthouse, 154, 155 f
Longaberger Building, 163–164, 164 f , 165
Los Angeles 1969 (Winogrand), 296, 297 f ,
302
Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five, 251 f
Loviglio, Joann, 402
low-relief sculpture, 99–100
Luba Helmet Mask , 119–120, 120 f
Jupiter Symphony (Mozart), 234, 242,
243 f , 244, 255
K
Kahlo, Frida, Self Portrait with Monkey ,
90–91, 91 f
Kandinsky, Wendy, 83–84
Kasebier, Gertrude, 285
Kaufman, George S., 221
Kaufmann house (Fallingwater), 142, 142 f ,
152, 153, 155
Keats, John, 188, 266
“When I have fears . . . ,” 184–185
Keith Arnatt Is an Artist (Arnatt), 370–371,
370 f
Ken Moody and Robert Sherman
(Mapplethorpe), 299, 299 f , 302
Kiss Me! Kate , 221
kitsch, 364–366
Klee, Paul, 81
Knappe, Karl, 109
Koons, Jeff
Balloon Dog, Red , 110, 111 f
Michael Jackson and Bubbles , 365, 365 f
Krasner, Lee, Celebration , 82, 82 f , 83
L
La Bohème (Puccini), 221, 380
La Marseillaise (Duncan), 268 f
La Mer (Debussy), 231–232, 233, 234
La Place . See City Square
Lachaise, Gaston, Floating Figure , 105,
105 f
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (Yeats), 55
“l(a” (cummings), 12–13, 13 f , 172
L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato
(Morris), 273
Landscape after Wu Zhen (Wang Yuanqi),
70, 71 f , 76, 77
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (Brueghel),
186, 186 f , 187
Lange, Dorothea, Migrant Mother ,
294–295, 294 f
Langer, Susanne, 232
language
connotation, 174
denotation, 173
image in, 189
literature and spoken, 171–174, 188–189
metaphoric, 191–193
Lapine, James, 221
Large Odalisque (Ingress), 40 f , 42, 44
Last Supper (da Vinci), 50–51, 50 f , 51 f ,
72, 78
Law and Order , 337
Le Corbusier, Notre Dame-de-Haut,
53–54, 54 f , 134, 148
Lean, David, 311
Les Miserables (Hugo), 221
Les Miserables (musical), 221
LeWitt, Sol, 372
image
fi lm, 309–312, 318–319, 325–326
in language, 189
in literature, 189–191
Image Duplicator (Lichtenstein), 34 f , 37
The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde),
201–202, 204
Impression, Sunrise (Monet), 85–86, 86 f
Impressionism, 92
school of, 85
Impressionist paintings. See also specifi c
Impressionist paintings
comparison of fi ve, 84–89
Inasmuch As It Is Always Already Taking
Place (Hill), 346, 346 f
Ingress, Jean-August Dominique, Large
Odalisque , 40 f , 42, 44
integration of light, in sky-oriented
architecture, 150–151
intensity, in abstract painting, 83–84
Interior of the Pantheon (Panini), 144–145,
144 f
interpretation
of dance and music by painting, The
Dance and Music , 396–398, 396 f , 397 f
of dance by architecture, National
Nederlanden Building, 395–396, 395 f
of drama by music, The Marriage of
Figaro , 385–387
of literature by fi lm, Howards End ,
382–384
of literature by fi lm and opera, Death in
Venice , 398–399
of literature by photography, 393–395
overview, 382, 399
of painting by poetry, The Starry Night ,
388–390
of poetry by sculpture, Apollo and
Daphne , 390–393
interpretive criticism, 49, 53–56
Into the Woods , 221
intrinsic values, 403
Invisible Man (Ellison), 183, 393–395
irony, 195–196
Isabella (Lux), 301, 301 f
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Howlett),
279–280, 280 f
Ives, Charles, 242
Ivory, James, Howards End , 382–384, 382 f ,
383 f
J
Jagger, Mick, 253, 253 f
James, Henry, 197
jazz, 250–251, 252, 253, 254
The Jazz Singer , 316
Jeanne-Claude
Running Fence , 373
Wrapped Reichstag , 373, 373 f
Jerome Kern, 222
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer, 382, 383
Jung, C. G., 400
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INDEX I-7
Moon and Half Dome, Yosemite Valley,
California (Adams), 290, 409
Moore, Henry, 95, 108
Recumbent Figure , 110, 110 f , 126
The Moor’s Pavane (Limón), 257
Morris, Mark
Dido and Aeneas , 273
L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato , 273
Morton, Jelly Roll, 250
motive, melody and theme, 228
movement. See also dance
narrative and bodily, 263–264
painting, rhythm and, 78
pretext and, 268–269
movies. See fi lm
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 241
Jupiter Symphony, 234, 242, 243 f , 244,
255
The Marriage of Figaro , 385–387, 386 f
Requiem , 234
Mueck, Ron, Mask II , 58, 58 f
Mughal Empire, 165
Mumtaz Mahal, 164, 165
Munch, Edvard, The Scream , 61, 61 f
Murdoch, Iris, 410
“Musée des Beaux Arts” (Auden), 186–187
music
blues, 250–254
dance synthesis with, 381
as dramatic element, 200
emotions and, 232–233, 235
hearing and listening, 225–226
jazz, 250–251, 252, 253, 254
overview, 225, 254–255
poetry synthesis with, 381
popular, 253–254
rock and roll, 252–254
theories of Formalism and
Expressionism, 234
tonal center, 235–237
tonal relationships in, 235
Music (Matisse), 396–398, 397 f
music interpretation
of drama, The Marriage of Figaro ,
385–387
by painting, Music , 396–398, 397 f
music subject matter
feelings, 232–234, 235
Formalism, Expressionism on, 234
overview, 231–232
sound and, 234–235
musical elements
consonance, 227
contrast, 231, 242–244
counterpoint, 229
dissonance, 227–228
dynamics, 231
harmony, 229
melodic material, 228
overview, 226
rhythm, 228
tempo, 228
tone, 226–227
Melville, Herman, Moby Dick , 182–183,
194, 195
Menander, 213
The Metamorphoses (Ovid), 390–393
metaphor
conceptual, 193
in language, 191–193
in literature, 191–194
perceptual, 193
symbol, 194–195
MetLife Building, 166, 167, 167 f
Meyerowitz, Joel, Assembled Panorama of
the World Trade Center Looking East ,
301, 301 f , 303
Michael Jackson and Bubbles (Koons), 365,
365 f
Michelangelo
Creation of Adam , 67, 67 f , 72
David , 95, 106–109, 107 f , 122
Pietá , 101–103, 102 f , 108
St. Peter’s dome, 149
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig
Farnsworth residence, 151–152, 152 f
Seagram Building, 134, 135 f , 137, 140,
146, 159, 160, 161
Migrant Mother (Lange), 294–295, 294 f
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 401
Milton, John
“On the Late Massacre in Piedmont,”
406–407, 411
Paradise Lost , 13–14
The Misfi ts (Huston), 313
Mithuna Couple , 100–101, 101 f , 103, 104
mixed media, 70
Moby Dick (Melville), 182–183, 194, 195
modeling, and drawing, 106
modern dance
Alvin Ailey’s Revelations , 269–271, 269 f
Mark Morris Dance Group, 273, 274 f
Martha Graham, 268, 271–272
Momix Dance Company, 272
overview, 267–268
Pilobolus Dance Company, 272, 274 f
modern photography
overview, 296–303
snapshot, 296–297, 356
A Modest Proposal (Swift), 198
Momix Dance Company, 272
Mona Lisa (da Vinci), 9–11, 10 f , 53,
371–372
Mondrian, Piet, 93
Broadway Boogie Woogie , 20–21, 73, 74 f ,
355, 361
Monet, Claude, Impression, Sunrise , 85–86,
86 f
Mont Sainte-Victoire (Cézanne), 25–26, 25 f ,
58, 64, 73, 80, 81, 82, 283, 409
montage, in fi lm, 308
Mont-Saint-Michel , 128, 140, 141 f ,
145, 149
Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Adams,
Henry), 128
moods, 232
“Lucinda Matlock” (Masters), 174–175
Luncheon of the Boating Party (Renoir,
Pierre), 87, 87 f
Lux, Loretta, 302
Isabella , 301, 301 f
lyrics, 184–188
M
machine sculpture, 116–117
MacLeish, Archibald, Poetry and Experience ,
190
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels
(Cimabue), 64, 65 f , 73, 78, 92, 93
Madonna della Sedia (Raphael), 93,
366–367, 367 f , 368
Madonna Enthroned (Giotto), 66, 66 f , 70,
93
The Madonna with the Long Neck
(Parmigianino), 67, 68 f , 70, 73, 121,
303
The Man from Papantla (Bravo), 297, 298 f
Manet, Edouard, A Bar at the Folies-
Bergère , 86–87, 86 f , 365
Mann, Thomas, Death in Venice , 398–399
Man’s Emerging Mind (Berrill), 56
Mapplethorpe, Robert, 298, 302
Ken Moody and Robert Sherman , 299, 299 f
Marat/Sade (Weiss), 223
Margaret Evans Pregnant (Neel), 42, 42 f ,
44, 77
Marilyn Monroe series (Warhol), 70
Marin, John, Blue Mountain on the Circle
Drive Near Taos , 69, 69 f
Mark Morris Dance Group, 273, 274 f
The Marriage of Figaro (Beaumarchais),
385–387
The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), 385–387,
386 f
Marsalis, Wynton, 252 f
Mask II (Mueck), 58, 58 f
Masters, Edgar Lee
“Lucinda Matlock,” 174–175
The Spoon River Anthology , 175
materials
architecture and, 142–143
earth-rooted architecture and raw,
142–143
truth to materials in contemporary
sculpture, 109–111
Maternity Group Figure , 111, 120 f , 121
Matisse, Henri, 83
The Dance , 396–398, 396 f
Music , 396–398, 397 f
May 3, 1808 (Goya), 22–24, 22 f , 26–32,
48, 49, 73–74, 78, 82
McCarthy, Paul, 376
medical students, and humanities, 402–403
Meier, Richard, Long Island Federal
Courthouse, 154, 155 f
melodic line, 228
melodic material, as musical element, 228
melody, theme and motive, 228
mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 7mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 7 06/02/14 7:48 PM06/02/14 7:48 PM

I-8 INDEX
fresco, 66–67
mixed and other, 70
oil, 67–68
overview, 64–72, 94
pigment, 64
tempera, 64–66
watercolor, 69
painting styles. See also specifi c painting styles
of past 150 years, 92, 94
Palace of Versailles, 143–144, 143 f , 153
Panini, Giovanni Paolo, Interior of the
Pantheon , 144–145, 144 f
Pantheon, 144–145, 144 f , 145 f , 150, 152,
153
Paradise Lost (Milton), 13–14
“Paralytic” (Plath), 175–176, 184
Parmigianino, The Madonna with the Long
Neck , 67, 68 f , 70, 73, 121, 303
Parthenon, 132–133, 133 f , 138, 140,
142–144
participation
with art and values, 405
artistic form and, 26–27, 30–32
content and, 30–31
criticism and, 48, 55
experiences, 24
with fi lm, 308–309
overview, 20, 24–26, 45
pas de trois, 264
passions, 232
The Passions (Viola), 348–350, 348 f , 349 f
Pastoral Symphony (Beethoven), 231
Paul, Les, 252
Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, 250
Paula (Stieglitz), 283–285, 284 f
Pearlstein, Philip, Two Female Models in the
Studio , 43 f , 44
pediment, 132
Pei, I. M.
Bank of China Tower, 158, 160 f
National Gallery of Art, 153, 153 f , 154,
154 f
Pelagos (Hepworth), 111, 112 f , 381–382
Pendleton, Moses, F.L.O.W. (For Love of
Women) , 272, 273 f
El Penitente (Graham), 272
perception, 12–13
conception compared to, 19
identifying works of art through, 19–20
perceptual metaphor, 193
performance art, 374–375
perspective, 79
Phaedra (Graham), 272, 272 f
The Phantom of the Opera , 221, 221 f
philosophy, and arts, 407–408, 412
photography
arts and, 282–283
digital, 300–302
Documentarists, 286, 290–296
as folk art, 356
framing, 288
interpretation of literature, 393–395
modern, 296–303, 356
overview, 303
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (Eliot),
221
Oliver, King, 250
Olowe of Ise, Yoruba Bowl , 121, 121 f
Olympia (Riefenstahl), 364
“On the Late Massacre in Piedmont”
(Milton), 406–407, 411
One More Step, Mr. Hands (Wyeth, N.),
393, 393 f , 394–395
opera
artistic appropriation by, 380
Guangzhou Opera House, 164, 164 f , 165
interpretation of literature, Death in
Venice , 398–399
Royal Opera House, 206 f
Sydney Opera House, 158, 158 f , 164,
165
organic narrative, 179–182
O’Sullivan, Timothy, 290
Canyon de Chelley, Arizona , 281, 282 f , 283
Othello (Shakespeare), 257
Overruled (Shaw), 208
Overture: Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky),
231
Ovid
Apollo and Daphne , 390–393
The Metamorphoses , 390–393
Owen, Wilfred, 381
Ozu, Yasujiro, Tokyo Story , 307 f
P
Pacino, Al, 324, 324 f
Paik, Nam June, 334
Arc Double Face , 344
Video Flag z , 344, 345 f
Pain (Sanasardo), 256–257, 257 f
painting. See also photography, and
painting
all-at-onceness of, 81
architecture compared to, 126, 139
avant-garde, 94
clarity of, 80
emotions and, 5–6
frames, 92, 93
interpretation by poetry, The Starry
Night , 388–390
light in, 82
overview, 94
schools, 84–85
sculpture and, 96–99, 125, 381–382
self-portraits, 90–92
sensa in, 81–83, 96, 98
values and, 403–404
visual powers and, 63–64
painting elements
color, 76
composition, 77–79
line, 72–76
overview, 72
texture, 77
painting media
acrylic, 69–70
binder, 64
musical structures. See also symphonies
fantasia, 239–240
fugue, 238
overview, 237
rondo, 238
sonata form, 238–239
theme and variations, 237–238
musical theater, 220–222
My Fair Lady , 221
N
narrative
bodily movement and, 263–264
dramatic, 203–204
quest, 182–183, 203–204
narrative, literary
episodic, 176–179
narrator and, 174–176
organic, 179–182
overview, 174
quest, 182–183
National Gallery of Art, 153, 153 f , 154,
154 f
National Nederlanden Building (“Ginger
and Fred”), 395–396, 395 f
NCIS , 334, 335 f
Neel, Alice, Margaret Evans Pregnant , 42,
42 f , 44, 77
New Comedy, 213, 214
New York City high-rises and skyscrapers,
159–162, 162 f
Nicholas Brothers, 276, 277 f
Night Journey (Graham), 271–272
nonrepresentational painting, 81. See also
abstract painting
normative values, 404–405
Not I (Beckett), 223
Notre Dame-de-Haut (Le Corbusier),
53–54, 54 f , 134, 148
Novak, Kim, 328 f
Nrityagram Dance ensemble, 258, 258 f
Nude (Weston), 288–289, 289 f
Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2
(Duchamp), 38, 41 f , 42, 43, 44, 59
Nutcracker (Balanchine), 263 f
O
objective correlative, 107, 184
objectivist theories of value, 404
O’Casey, Sean, 215
The Odd Couple (Simon), 213
The Odyssey (Homer), 171, 176
Oedipus Rex (Sophocles), 196, 200, 201 f ,
203–204, 271
Of Thee I Sing , 221
Ofi li, Chris, Holy Virgin Mary , 58, 59 f
oil painting, 67–68
Okara, Gabriel, “Piano and Drums,”
14–15
O’Keeffe, Georgia, Ghost Ranch Cliffs , 78,
78 f , 83
Old Comedy, 212–213, 214
mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 8mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 8 06/02/14 7:48 PM06/02/14 7:48 PM

INDEX I-9
representational painting, 84. See also
nonrepresentational painting
representational sculpture, 96–97
Requiem (Mozart), 234
Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino), 315
restfulness, in abstract painting, 83–84
Revelations (Ailey), 269–271, 269 f
revelatory requirements, of architecture,
137–139
reversal, in drama, 200
Rhapsody in Blue , 254
Rhodes Mfg. Co., Lincolnton, NC (Hine),
407–408, 407 f
rhyme, 184
rhythm, as musical element, 228
Rich Man, Poor Man , 339
“Richard Cory” (Robinson), 195
Richards, Keith, 253, 253 f
Riefenstahl, Leni
Olympia , 364
Triumph of the Will , 364
Ring of the Niebelungs (Wagner), 266
ritual dance, 261
Rivera, Diego, 91
Robbins, Jerome, 275
Robinson, Edwin Arlington, “Richard
Cory,” 195
rock and roll, 252–254
“Rock Around the Clock,” 252
Rockefeller Center, 140, 141 f , 149, 159
Rockwell, Norman, 57
Freedom from Want , 359–361, 360 f
Rodin, Auguste, Danaïde , 95, 106–109, 107 f
Rogers, Ginger, 395–396, 395 f
Rohmer, Eric, Claire’s Knee , 321–322
Rolling Stones, 226, 253, 253 f
Romanticism, 109
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 209–212,
211 f , 221, 382
rondo, 238
Roots , 334, 339–340, 339 f
Rothko, Mark, Earth Greens , 74, 75 f , 79,
82, 83–84, 96–98
Rousseau, Henri, 356
The Sleeping Gypsy , 357–358, 358 f
“Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” 238
Royal Opera House, 206 f
Running Fence (Christo and Jeanne-
Claude), 373
Ryskind, Morrie, 221
S
Sagrada Familia, Gaudí, Antonio, 146,
147 f , 148, 149, 152, 163, 380, 381
Sanasardo, Paul, Pain , 256–257, 257 f
satire, 198
saturation, 76
The Satyricon (Arbiter), 347
Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg), 317
scenery, stage, 207–209
Schechner, Richard, Dionysus in ’69 , 224
scherzo, 245
proportion, in painting, 78
proscenium theater, 205, 206 f , 207
protagonist, 176, 200
protest against technology sculpture,
112–115
Prudential Building. See Guaranty
Building
Psycho (Hitchcock), 321
public sculpture, 122–124
Puccini, Giacomo, La Bohème , 221, 380
Pulp Fiction (Tarantino), 315
Pygmalion (Shaw), 221
Pyramid of Cheops, 103–104, 103 f , 165
Q
quest narrative
in drama, 203–204
in literature, 182–183
The Quintet of the Astonished (Viola),
348–350, 349 f
R
Rachmaninov, Sergey, 233
Rain Man , 317
rap, 253
Raphael, Madonna della Sedia , 93, 366–367,
367 f , 368
raw materials, in earth-rooted architecture,
142–143
R&B (rhythm and blues), 252
Reclining Nude (Valadon), 41 f , 42, 44,
64, 77
recognition, in drama, 200
Recumbent Figure (Moore), 110, 110 f , 126
region, 51–53
regional relationships, in works of arts,
51–53
relational theory of value, 404
relationships (in works of art). See also art
interrelationships
detail, regional and structural, 51–53
“The Relic” (Donne), 190–191
relief sculpture
high-relief, 100–101
low-relief, 99–100
sunken-relief, 98–99
religion
humanities and, 408
theology and arts, 408–410, 412
Rembrandt van Rijn, 60, 61
Self Portrait , 90, 90 f , 91
Renaissance, 38
Elizabethan theater, 205, 206 f , 207, 208,
220
tragedy, 205
Renoir, Jean, 311
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste
Bather Arranging Her Hair , 39 f , 42, 73,
77
Luncheon of the Boating Party , 87, 87 f
Rent , 221
still frames and, 310
straight, 286–290
photography, and painting
overview, 278–283
pictorialists, 283–286
synthesis of, 382
physical size, and sculpture, 108–109
pianissimo (“very soft”), 231
piano (“soft”), 231
“Piano and Drums” (Okara), 14–15
Piazza before St. Peter’s, 127, 127 f , 153
Picabia, Francis, 369
The Blessed Virgin , 370, 370 f
Picasso, Pablo, 96, 119, 251
Guernica , 8–9, 8 f , 9 f , 52, 53, 56, 78, 356,
401
pictorialists
overview, 283–285, 303
sentimentality and, 285–286
“Pied Beauty” (Hopkins), 409, 411
Pietá (Michelangelo), 101–103, 102 f , 108
pigment, 64
Pilobolus Dance Company, 272, 274 f
Plath, Sylvia, “Paralytic,” 175–176, 184
plot, as dramatic element, 200
poetic interpretation
of painting, The Starry Night , 388–390
by sculpture, Apollo and Daphne , 390–393
The Poetics (Aristotle), 220
poetry. See also specifi c poems
assonance as device of, 173
consonance as device of, 173
dance synthesis with, 381
iambic pentameter, 184
lyrics, 184–188
rhyme, 184
sonnet, 184
Poetry and Experience (MacLeish), 190
The Polish Rider (Drost), 60–61, 60 f
Pollock, Jackson, Autumn Rhythm , 52, 52 f ,
57–58, 63, 70, 77, 99, 355
Ponti, Giò, Praise of Architecture , 143
Pontormo, Jacopo, The Visitation , 348
Pop Art, 19, 92, 358, 359
popular art, 358–363
popular dance, 276–277, 277 f
popular music, 253–254
post-and-lintel (or beam) construction, 132
Post-Impressionism, 92
Pound, Ezra, 173
Praise of Architecture (Ponti), 143
Pravda , 363
“Preludes” (Eliot), 190–191
presentational immediacy, 82
Presley, Elvis, 252
presto, 231
pretext
of dance, 262
movement and, 268–269
primary colors, 76
prints, 70
propaganda, 363
art, 364
mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 9mar23984_index_I1-I16.indd 9 06/02/14 7:48 PM06/02/14 7:48 PM

I-10 INDEX
Sondheim, Stephen, 221
sonnet, 184
Sonnet 73 (Shakespeare), 191–192
Sontag, Susan, 286
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex , 196, 200, 201 f ,
203–204, 271
The Sopranos , 340, 340 f
sound
fi lm and, 316–318, 326
music subject matter and, 234–235
Sounder , 317
space
architecture and, 126–128, 131–132, 139
centered, 126–127
painting composition, shapes and, 79
sculpture and, 98, 104, 126
spatial requirements, of architecture, 137
spectacle, as dramatic element, 200
Sphinx, 103, 103 f
Spielberg, Steven, Saving Private Ryan , 317
Spiral Jetty (Smithson), 118, 118 f
Spiritual Ruins , 377
spoken language, and literature, 171–174,
188–189
The Spoon River Anthology (Masters), 175
St. Bartholomew’s Church, 166, 166 f , 167
St. Denis, Ruth, 267
St. Peter’s
dome, 149
Piazza before, 127, 127 f , 153
stage. See also theater
scenery and costumes, 207–209
tragic, 205–207
Standing Woman , 41 f , 43
Star Wars , 314, 314 f
“The Starry Night” (Fagles), 388–390
“The Starry Night” (Sexton), 389–390
The Starry Night (van Gogh), 77, 388–390,
388 f
The Steerage (Stieglitz), 287–288, 287 f , 291
Steffe, William, 230
Steichen, Edward, Flatiron , 285–286, 285 f
Stele of Maety , 95, 98–99, 99 f
Stella, Frank, 355
Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the
Guards , 99–100, 100 f , 104
stereotypes, 213
Stevenson, Robert Louis, Treasure Island ,
393, 393 f , 394–395
Stewart, Jimmy, 327, 327 f , 329, 329 f
Stieglitz, Alfred
Paula , 283–285, 284 f
The Steerage , 287–288, 287 f , 291
as straight photography pioneer,
286–288
straight photography
f/64 group, 286, 288–290, 297
overview, 286, 303
Stieglitz as pioneer of, 286–288
Strauss, Richard, Also Sprach Zarathustra ,
317
Stravinsky, Igor, 234, 242, 381
“Strawberry Fields,” 225
Stroman, Susan, Contact , 275–276, 275 f
The Seventh Seal (Bergman), 304, 305 f
Sexton, Anne
All My Pretty Ones , 390
“The Starry Night,” 389–390
Shah Jehan, 164–165
“Shake, Rattle, and Roll,” 252
Shakespeare, William, 178, 184, 220
Hamlet , 196, 197, 202, 203, 213, 215, 302
Othello , 257
Romeo and Juliet , 209–212, 211 f , 221, 382
Sonnet 73, 191–192
The Taming of the Shrew , 221
Shanghai high-rises and skyscrapers,
157–159, 159 f , 161
shapes and space, in painting composition,
79
Shaw, George Bernard
Overruled , 208
Pygmalion , 221
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft,
Frankenstein, Or the Modern
Prometheus , 2
Sherman, Cindy, 303
Untitled #466 , 300 f , 301
shock art, 59, 375–376
shots, in fi lm, 308
Shovel (Dine), 18–19, 19 f
Show Boat (Ferber), 222
Show Boat (musical), 222
“The Sick Rose” (Blake), 194–195, 381
The Silence of the Lambs , 309
simile, 192
Simon, Neil, The Odd Couple , 213
Siqueiros, David Alfaro, Echo of a Scream ,
5–7, 5 f , 10, 78, 81
Sir John Herschel (Cameron), 280–281,
281 f
site, in earth-rooted architecture, 140
situation comedies, 336–337
size, and sculpture, 108–109
Sketches of Spain , 251
sky-oriented architecture
axis mundi, 148–149
defi ance of gravity, 149–150
light integration in, 150–151
overview, 145–148
skyscrapers. See high-rises and skyscrapers
The Sleeping Gypsy (Rousseau), 357–358,
358 f
Sleeping Venus (Giorgione), 38 f , 39, 73,
106–107
Sleepwalkers (Aitken), 347 f
Smith, Barbara, 374
Smith, David, Cubi X , 115, 116 f
Smith, Maggie, 343 f
Smithson, Robert, Spiral Jetty , 118, 118 f
snapshot photography, 296–297, 356
soap operas, 337–338
social dance, 261
soliloquy, in drama, 201, 202
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York City, 135, 136 f , 137, 145, 152,
155, 163, 380
sonata form, 238–239
sciences
humanities and, 1–2, 400–401, 411
values of, 1–2
Scott, Ridley, Thelma & Louise , 320–321,
320 f
Scotus, Duns, 409
The Scream (Munch), 61, 61 f
Scruton, Roger, 233
sculpture. See also contemporary sculpture
abstract, 96–98
African, 119–121
architecture compared to, 103–104, 126,
139
avant-garde, 117, 125
high-relief, 100–101
human body and, 105–109
interpretation of poetry, Apollo and
Daphne , 390–393
low-relief, 99–100
as mass, 95
overview, 95, 125
painting, 96–99, 125, 381–382
physical size and, 108–109
public, 122–124
representational, 96–97
sensa in, 96, 98
sensory interconnections and, 96
sensory space around, 104
space and, 98, 104, 126
sunken-relief, 98–99
tactile nature of, 95
sculpture in the round
human body and, 105–109
overview, 101–103, 105
Seagram Building, 134, 135 f , 137, 140,
146, 159, 160, 161
Search for Tomorrow , 338
secondary colors, 76
The Secret Storm , 338
Segal, George, The Bus Driver , 112–113,
114 f
Seinfeld , 334
Self Portrait (Rembrandt), 90, 90 f , 91
Self Portrait with Monkey (Kahlo), 90–91,
91 f
Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (van Gogh),
90, 91, 91 f
self-portraits, 90–92
sensa
in painting, 81–83, 96, 98
in sculpture, 96, 98
Sensation: Young British Artists art show,
58–59
sensory interconnections, 96
sensory space, around sculpture, 104
sentimentality, and pictorialists, 285–286
Sequence (Serra), 123–124, 124 f
Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings
(Britten), 381
Serra, Richard, Sequence , 123–124, 124 f
Serrano, Andrew, 376
Seurat, Georges, 366
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La
Grande Jette , 221
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INDEX I-11
overview, 200–201, 205, 224
Renaissance, 205
Romeo and Juliet , 209–212, 211 f , 221, 382
tragic stage, 205–207
tragicomedy, 215
Treasure Island (Stevenson), 393, 393 f ,
394–395
Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl), 364
Trova, Ernest, Study: Falling Man (Wheel
Man) , 112, 113, 113 f
truth to materials, in contemporary
sculpture, 109–111
Turner, Joe, 252
Turning Torso, 160–161, 161 f , 163
Twain, Mark, The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn , 183
Two Female Models in the Studio
(Pearlstein), 43 f , 44
200 Campbell’s Soup Cans (Warhol), 359
2001: A Space Odyssey , 314, 317
type characters, 213
U
unity
in artistic form, 20–21, 23
in painting, 78
Untitled (Crewdson), 302, 302 f
Untitled #466 (Sherman), 300 f , 301
“Upon Julia’s Clothes” (Herrick), 197
Upstairs, Downstairs , 339
urban planning, and architecture,
166–169
Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, Taj Mahal,
164–165, 165 f
Utzon, John, Sydney Opera House, 158,
158 f , 164, 165
V
Valadon, Suzanne, Reclining Nude , 41 f , 42,
44, 64, 77
values
architecture and, 139
art and, 2–4, 16–17, 60–61, 403–405,
411–412
color, 76
decisions, 405
ethics and, 404
extrinsic, 403
facts, 404
feelings and, 2, 4
humanities and, 1–3, 403, 405, 411–412
intrinsic, 403
normative, 404–405
objectivist theories of, 404
overview, 403–406, 411–412
painting and, 403–404
participation with art and, 405
relational theory of, 404
of sciences, 1–2
subjectivist theories of, 403–404
Van Der Zee, James, Couple in Raccoon
Coats , 292, 292 f
protest against technology sculpture,
112–115
telenovelas, 338
television
commercial, 335–342
evolution of, 333–334
fi lm and, 333, 334
overview, 350–351
subject matter of, 334–335
television serials
Downton Abbey , 343–344, 343 f , 344
overview, 337–339
Roots , 339–340, 339 f
soap operas, 337–338
The Sopranos , 340, 340 f
The Wire , 340–342, 341 f , 342 f
television series
early situation comedies, 336–337
overview, 336
self-contained episode structure, 337
tempera, 64–66
tempo, as musical element, 228
tertiary colors, 76
texture, 77
theater. See also comedy; drama
dance, 275–276
Drury Lane Theatre, 208, 208 f
Elizabethan, 205, 206 f , 207, 208, 220
Epidaurus, 205, 206 f
Greek, 205, 206 f , 207, 207 f , 208, 220
musical, 220–222
overview, 199, 224
proscenium, 205, 206 f , 207
“Theater of Cruelty” (Artaud), 223
Thelma & Louise (Scott), 320–321, 320 f
theme
in literature, 173
melody, motive and, 228
musical structure of variations on,
237–238
theology, and arts, 408–410, 412
They Are Writing about Us in Pravda
(Vasilev), 363, 363 f
Thomas, Dylan, “Do Not Go Gentle into
That Good Night,” 172–173
Thompson, Emma, 382, 382 f , 383 f
Thompson, Robert J., 338
thought, as dramatic element, 200
timbres, 231
Tinguely, Jean, Homage to New York , 116,
117 f
To the Lighthouse (Woolf), 189–190
Tokyo Story (Ozu), 307 f
Tom Jones , 314
tone
as musical element, 226–227
relationships in music, 235
tonal center, 235–237
Torpedo . . . Los! (Lichtenstein), 33 f , 36–37,
73
Touch (Antoni), 345
tragedy
Aristotle on, 200–201, 205, 214, 224
Greek, 200–201, 205, 220
structural relationships, in works of arts,
51–53
Study: Falling Man (Wheel Man) (Trova),
112, 113, 113 f
styles, painting, 92, 94
subject matter
artistic form and, 30, 44–45
content and, 38–44, 45
dance, 256–259
fi lm, 304–305
interpretive criticism of, 56
music, 231–235
overview, 20, 29–30, 45
television, 334–335
video art, 334–335
subjectivist theories of value, 403–404
Suger, Abbot, 150
Sullivan, Louis Henry, Guaranty
(Prudential) Building, 53–54, 54 f
Summer Evening (Hassam), 88, 88 f
Sun Dance, 260 f
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande
Jette (Seurat), 221
Sunday in the Park with George , 221, 222 f
sunken-relief sculpture, 98–99
Suprematism, 92
Surrealism, 92
Suspended , 272, 274 f
Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky), 264–267, 265 f ,
266 f , 270
The Swan Song (Chekhov), 215–220, 216 f
Swift, Jonathan, A Modest Proposal , 198
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” 228, 236–237,
236 f , 271
Sydney Opera House, 158, 158 f , 164, 165
symbol, in literature, 194–195
symmetry, 144
symphonies. See also specifi c symphonies
Eroica (Beethoven), 226, 231, 233, 239,
245–250, 255
overview, 240–244
synthesis, art, 381–382, 399
Szell, George, 246
T
Taj Mahal, 164–165, 165 f
The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare),
221
Tarantino, Quentin
Django Unchained , 315, 315 f
Pulp Fiction , 315
Reservoir Dogs , 315
taste, in arts, 4
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilych
Fifth Symphony, 225
Overture: Romeo and Juliet , 231
Swan Lake , 264–267, 265 f , 266 f , 270
Tear (Antoni), 345–346, 345 f
technical requirements, of architecture,
132–133
technology
accommodation with technology
sculpture, 115–116
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I-12 INDEX
Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse ,
189–190
works of art. See also artistic form; content;
participation; subject matter
basic terms, 20
detail, regional and structural
relationships, 51–53
overview, 18–46
works of art, identifying, 18
conceptually, 19–20
perceptually, 19–20
Wrapped Reichstag (Christo and Jeanne-
Claude), 373, 373 f
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 132
Kaufmann house (Fallingwater), 142,
142 f , 152, 153, 155
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 135,
136 f , 137, 145, 152, 155, 163, 380
Wyeth, Andrew, 361
Christina’s World , 362–363, 362 f
Wyeth, N. C., One More Step, Mr. Hands ,
393, 393 f , 394–395
Y
Yeats, William Butler, “The Lake Isle of
Innisfree,” 55
Yo Mama’s Last Supper (Cox), 376
Yoruba Bowl (Olowe), 121, 121 f
You Got Served , 276 f
Youth (Conrad), 189
Z
Zaleski, Szotynscy, Crooked House, 163,
163 f , 165
W
Wagner, Richard, 316
Ring of the Niebelungs , 266
Waiting for Godot (Beckett), 223
Wall, Jeff, After “Invisible Man” by Ralph
Ellison, the Prologue , 393–395, 394 f
Wang Yuanqi, Landscape after Wu Zhen ,
70, 71 f , 76, 77
War Requiem (Britten), 381
Warhol, Andy, 282, 330
Marilyn Monroe series, 70
200 Campbell’s Soup Cans , 359
watercolor, 69, 77
We Keep Our Victims Ready (Finley), 374
Weekend (Godard), 310
Weiss, Peter, Marat/Sade , 223
Welles, Orson, Citizen Kane , 311
Wesselman, Tom, Great American Nude ,
40 f , 42, 44, 73, 77
West Side Story , 221, 275, 275 f
Weston, Edward, 30
Nude , 288–289, 289 f
“When I have fears . . .” (Keats),
184–185
Whiteman, Paul, 250
Wild Strawberries (Bergman), 321
Wilde, Oscar, The Importance of Being
Earnest , 201–202, 204
Williams, Michael Kenneth, 342, 342 f
Williams, Tennessee, The Glass Menagerie ,
202
Willis, Wallace, 236
Winogrand, Garry, Los Angeles 1969 , 296,
297 f , 302
The Wire , 340–342, 341 f , 342 f
Woman with a Purse (Hanson), 355, 355 f ,
359
Woodrow, Taylor, 374
van Gogh, Vincent, 30, 410
Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat , 90, 91 f
The Starry Night , 77, 388–390, 388 f
Vase with Fifteen Sunfl owers , 57
Vanka (Chekhov), 179–182
variety, in painting, 78
Vase with Fifteen Sunfl owers (van Gogh), 57
Vasilev, Alexei, They Are Writing about Us
in Pravda , 363, 363 f
Venus and Mars (Botticelli), 72, 72 f , 73, 78
Venus de Milo , 38, 39 f , 42
Versailles. See Palace of Versailles
Vertigo (Hitchcock), 327–330, 327 f , 328 f ,
329 f
video art
overview, 342–350, 351
subject matter of, 334–335
Video Flag z (Paik), 344, 345 f
video games, 377–378
Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Lin), 122–124,
122 f
Viola, Bill, 334–335
City of Man , 350
Dolorosa , 349–350, 349 f
The Greeting , 348, 348 f
The Passions , 348–350, 348 f , 349 f
The Quintet of the Astonished , 348–350,
349 f
violence, and fi lm, 315–316
The Virgin Spring (Bergman), 316, 316 f
virtual art, 376–378
virtuoso, 271
Visconti, Luchino, Death in Venice ,
398–399
Vishneva, Diana, 272, 273 f
The Visitation (Pontormo), 348
visual powers, and painting, 63–64
Vulture and Child in Sudan (Carter), 31–32
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COVER
TITLE
COPYRIGHT
CONTENTS
PREFACE
Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS
1 The Humanities: An Introduction
The Humanities: A Study of Values
Taste
Responses to Art
Structure and Artistic Form
EXPERIENCING: The Mona Lisa
Perception
Abstract Ideas and Concrete Images
Summary
2 What Is a Work of Art?
Identifying Art Conceptually
Identifying Art Perceptually
Artistic Form
Participation
Participation and Artistic Form
Content
Subject Matter
Subject Matter and Artistic Form
Participation, Artistic Form, and Content
Artistic Form: Examples
Subject Matter and Content
EXPERIENCING: Interpretations of the Female Nude
Further Thoughts on Artistic Form
Summary
3 Being a Critic of the Arts
You Are Already an Art Critic
Participation and Criticism
Three Kinds of Criticism
Descriptive Criticism
Interpretive Criticism
Evaluative Criticism
EXPERIENCING: The Polish Rider
Summary

Part 2 THE ARTS
4 Painting
Our Visual Powers
The Media of Painting
Tempera
Fresco
Oil
Watercolor
Acrylic
Other Media and Mixed Media
Elements of Painting
Line
Color
Texture
Composition
The Clarity of Painting
The “All-at-Onceness” of Painting
Abstract Painting
Intensity and Restfulness in Abstract Painting
Representational Painting
Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings
FOCUS ON: The Self-Portrait: Rembrandt van Rijn, Gustave Courbet, Vincent van Gogh, and Frida Kahlo
Frames
Some Painting Styles of the Past 150 Years
EXPERIENCING: Frames
Summary
5 Sculpture
Sensory Interconnections
Sculpture and Painting Compared
Sculpture and Space
Sunken-Relief Sculpture
Low-Relief Sculpture
High-Relief Sculpture
Sculpture in the Round
Sculpture and Architecture Compared
Sensory Space
Sculpture and the Human Body
Sculpture in the Round and the Human Body
EXPERIENCING: Sculpture and Physical Size
Contemporary Sculpture
Truth to Materials
Protest against Technology
Accommodation with Technology
Machine Sculpture
Earth Sculpture
FOCUS ON: African Sculpture
Sculpture in Public Places
Summary
6 Architecture
Centered Space
Space and Architecture
Chartres
Living Space
Four Necessities of Architecture
Technical Requirements of Architecture
Functional Requirements of Architecture
Spatial Requirements of Architecture
Revelatory Requirements of Architecture
Earth-Rooted Architecture
Site
Gravity
Raw Materials
Centrality
Sky-Oriented Architecture
Axis Mundi
Defiance of Gravity
Integration of Light
Earth-Resting Architecture
Earth-Dominating Architecture
Combinations of Types
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Sydney Opera House
High-Rises and Skyscrapers
EXPERIENCING: Sydney Opera House
FOCUS ON: Fantasy Architecture
Urban Planning
Summary
7 Literature
Spoken Language and Literature
Literary Structures
The Narrative and the Narrator
The Episodic Narrative
The Organic Narrative
The Quest Narrative
The Lyric
EXPERIENCING: “Musée des Beaux Arts”
Literary Details
Image
Metaphor
Symbol
Irony
Diction
Summary
8 Theater
Aristotle and the Elements of Drama
Dialogue and Soliloquy
Archetypal Patterns
Genres of Drama: Tragedy
The Tragic Stage
Stage Scenery and Costumes
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Comedy: Old and New
Tragicomedy: The Mixed Genre
A Play for Study: The Swan Song
EXPERIENCING: Anton Chekhov’s The Swan Song
FOCUS ON: Musical Theater
Experimental Drama
Summary
9 Music
Hearing and Listening
The Elements of Music
Tone
Consonance
Dissonance
Rhythm
Tempo
Melodic Material: Melody, Theme, and Motive
Counterpoint
Harmony
EXPERIENCING: “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
Dynamics
Contrast
The Subject Matter of Music
Feelings
Two Theories: Formalism and Expressionism
Sound
Tonal Center
Musical Structures
Theme and Variations
Rondo
Fugue
Sonata Form
Fantasia
Symphony
FOCUS ON: Beethoven’s Symphony in E Major, No. 3, Eroica

Blues and Jazz: Popular American Music
Blues and Rock and Roll
Summary
10 Dance
Subject Matter of Dance
EXPERIENCING: Feeling and Dance
Form
Dance and Ritual
Ritual Dance
Social Dance
The Court Dance
Ballet
Swan Lake
Modern Dance
Alvin Ailey’s Revelations
Martha Graham
Pilobolus and Momix Dance Companies
Mark Morris Dance Group
FOCUS ON: Theater Dance
Popular Dance
Summary
11 Photography
Photography and Painting
EXPERIENCING: Photography and Art
Photography and Painting: The Pictorialists
Straight Photography
Stieglitz: Pioneer of Straight Photography
The f/64 Group
The Documentarists
The Modern Eye
FOCUS ON: Digital Photography
Summary
12 Cinema
The Subject Matter of Film
Directing and Editing
The Participative Experience and Film
The Film Image
EXPERIENCING: Still Frames and Photography
Camera Point of View
Violence and Film
Sound
Image and Action
Film Structure
Cinematic Significance
The Context of Film History
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather
The Narrative Structure of The Godfather Films
Coppola’s Images
Coppola’s Use of Sound
The Power of The Godfather
FOCUS ON: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Experimentation
Summary
13 Television and Video Art
The Evolution of Television
The Subject Matter of Television and Video Art
Commercial Television
The Television Series
The Structure of the Self-Contained Episode
The Television Serial
Video Art
FOCUS ON: Downton Abbey
Summary

Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS
14 Is It Art or Something Like It?
Art and Art like
Illustration
Realism
Folk Art
Popular Art
Propaganda
EXPERIENCING: Propaganda Art
FOCUS ON: Kitsch
Decoration
Idea Art
Dada
Duchamp and His Legacy
Conceptual Art
Performance Art
Shock Art
Virtual Art
Summary
15 The Interrelationships of the Arts
Appropriation
Synthesis
Interpretation
Film Interprets Literature: Howards End
Music Interprets Drama: The Marriage of Figaro
Poetry Interprets Painting: The Starry Night
Sculpture Interprets Poetry: Apollo and Daphne
EXPERIENCING: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s The Metamorphoses
FOCUS ON: Photography Interprets Fiction
Architecture Interprets Dance: National Nederlanden Building
Painting Interprets Dance and Music: The Dance and Music
EXPERIENCING: Death in Venice: Three Versions
Summary
16 The Interrelationships of the Humanities
The Humanities and the Sciences
The Arts and the Other Humanities
EXPERIENCING: The Humanities and Students of Medicine
Values
FOCUS ON: The Arts and History, The Arts and Philosophy, The Arts and Theology
Summary

GLOSSARY
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
V
W
CREDITS
INDEX
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
Z

2014-12-04T12:42:30+0000
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