Yuri Norstein - Seasons

Lyrical, crisp as lace, soft as snow--I just discovered the fascinating imagery of this animation artist from Russia. The music sets the mood, but the images float and drift in our subconscious; creating such magic. The hedgehog clip revisits our childhood fantasies and fears--of being lost and lonely and afraid--but yet never losing the wonder of meeting the unknown.

Yuri Norstein Hedgehog in the fog 1975

An Uncompromising Life:Georgia O'Keefe

Simply put Georgia O'Keefe was stunning--both she herself and her amazing paintings. Many people think of her as "The one who painted flowers." There's a little more to it than that though!

Georgia O'Keefe lived life on her own terms--and showed us the impact that even small things, such as flowers could have--if only we viewed them differently. She did not see flowers as just fragile, sweet things; neither did she attribute any other "spiritual" value to them. What she did do though was to extract their exquisite, pure form and their unabashed sensuality. She did away with sentimentality altogether and that was really where the strength of her vision lay.

Her lines and colours were bold, elegant, and unapologetic--just like she was.

I believe that flowers were just incidental to her. Her interest lay not in the objects she chose but in revealing their possiblities. She cut a solitary figure, both literally and figuratively in the world of art at that time.
After middle age she chose to live in solitude when she moved to Santa Fe- inhabiting a simple adobe house that reflected her own inner sense of grandeur and dignity. In her later years (she lived to the age of 98) she painted stark, uncompromising pictures of  the vast expanses of the desert landscape, the mexican outback.

 
Today she is an icon. She set an example for all of us who wish to live life stripped bare, never losing touch with her powerful "nner voice."
Don't forget to click on the pics to see the more detail!

Languid afternoon

As I looked out, the sun was bright enough to blind my eyes. But then as I got used to the astonishing clear skies, the colours that seeped through to my very bones, I saw. The languid afternoon grew on me and I wondered if the world was always as still as this. The scene before me was complete, whole, as though clothed in contentment. Yet it contained a secret--held it close. Look, you will see an ordinary scene , trees, plants. But, wait a minute...something else...who goes there...?
One of my watercolours. Click on it for a larger view.

World without Form

Vasily Kandinsky--the father of modern abstract painting said "All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary.All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity."

He was referring to how the artist depicts the world. To him the internal world of the human being, when it touched the spiritual, could understand reality by means of line, shape and colour alone. Abstraction therefore was a deeply intimate thing--the closest you could be to your true self.


In this, I equate him with spiritual masters--they too recognised that the self took precedence. The world is  passionately felt and understood--simply because it is part of one's own self. But did he go the whole distance and equate the self and the world--as one and the same? I am not sure.

When we look at Kandinsky's work, it strikes an immediate chord.  His later advanced work was devoid of any recognisable form--yet it resonates with life. This is a contradiction for those who believe that we need to  see objects and forms for us to relate to painting.

                                       


Where does the emotion come from then when we view these paintings? Kandinsky explains that the elements of painting such as line and colour are sufficient in themselves...just as musical notes placed in a particular way lead to aesthetic experience of the highest order.
Click on the pics for a larger view--gives you a much better idea of the paintings!

Masks to see beyond

Tribal masks from the Congo basin.

Heart-shaped masks. The kaolin or white clay on the face making them pale and eerie in the dark. They seemed alive.Pure in design and construction--clean, uncluttered lines--you could have believed that the world's best minimalist designers had made them!

Today we take ideational thinking in the arts for granted--but lots of us believe that it is only the modern, "civilised" world that is capable of such clarity of thought--of conceiving powerful imagery that is so subtle yet defined.

What was the idea behind the construction and use of such masks in tribal society that had as yet felt little influence from the western world?

Was it to reveal or conceal the wearer beneath? Neither, apparently.


These ritual masks helped the wearer take on a new identity--and communicate with the Other World--the world of the dead and the spirits. Masks took on a whole new meaning in the context of the performance or the ritual for which they were used. Revered and feared--they gave ordinary humans the ability to see beyond ordinary reality. To safely live on the edge--at least for that space and time. The wearer thus turned larger than life--and identified so much with the persona of the mask that he forgot himself--

This was not play-acting for the audience's sake. It was a deep need to connect with the forces of nature, the spirits of animals and trees--the forces of the psyche, that were normally kept under wraps.
Today too people "wear masks" in day-to-day interaction. But instead of conferring power and prestige they actually take them away! They make us less than we can be. Just ourselves. Connected with our deepest being.

Tribal cultures, however, never confused the real with the make-believe!

Lotus dreams

My preoccupation with lotuses--their silky soft contours, fresh dewy look and dream-like floating colours that enfold and embrace you. I can completely understand what the Lotus Eaters must have felt! Enveloped in luxurious, glorious drunken ecstasy.
I was shocked out of this recurrent dream, though, rudely awakened by a painting I just saw by Natee Utarit--a Singapore  artist who questions the way we create and relate to images.

He juxtaposes photographs, classic paintings and the canvas (one over the other) and makes us see that the artist creates the way we look at reality--merely by the medium he/she chooses, first of all. Secondly, the artist shows you a point of view--one which may not coincide with your own.

In this case, the picture was that of brownish, dark lotus stems (just three huge ones) which drooped, out of  an astonishingly huge water-glass--the glass is fragile and dream-like contrasting with the almost menacing roots and stem. Caught me unawares...