After reading a couple of poems written in Verlaine's anthology, I didn't find them that much interesting. When I heard the name 'poetes maudits' I was sure I was going to like these poems a lot because the name suggests they are very dark and mysterious but I didn't feel the poems were. Some of them are interesting like, 'Dusk', but still not as much as the name suggested. Also, to me, I know it is, but poems written in vers libre don't seem to me that much like poems, I know they are, but without the rythm and the rhymes and all of that I don't see the point in these poems.
Endre ady
I really liked his poems. They are very deep and I know I'm not understanding all of it but I am. I mean that I don't know what are and what the symbols in the poem mean but I loved these poems a lot and specially 'Life terrifies me'. Great poem, great rhyme, just awesome to me.
Stephen Crane
I liked the poems but not as much as Ady's. but they are good poems and I like what they say. But, again, I don't find the poetic writing in prose poems but they are good. And I think his short novels are better because he writes very well and interstingly in prose.
Imagism in the U.S. and Great Britain
Probably prose poems work but only when they are very short as the imagists often did them. The three principles, in my opinion, cuouldn't be better for a poem. Especially the second one, because sometimes really really long poems which say few thing can be very boring. I still think, even if it is in musical phrase, not following a meter and rhymes in poems doesn't work that well. Although, the first principle, I think goes a bit out of symbolism when you give direct treatment of the 'thing'.
Paul Gauguin
Finally an artist who was middle-class or above, before he left of course, all the others are poor or just junkies and I was starting to lose hope. Although, I would like to travel as much as he did and you can clearly see the symbols of an angel beating what looks to me like a herald, I don't particularly like his paintings because they do not look very realistic and there are some odd shapes in people and things. The one that I did like was 'The seed if the Areoi' because the background and the flowers are very nice.
Pictorialist photography
In my opinion, photography should've been taken as an art form right from the beginnign without the need of movements trying to prove what photography could do and to prove that it could be art. Photography is not at all like paintings but you can still do a lot with a photograph and play with all the possibilities. It is in fact, no less artificial than any other art form, less that some actually, I think. And some of these pictures are very cool and they should've been enough to prove that photography could be an art form at that time. I really likes 'Struggle' because it looks just like a painting. Also, I liked Stieglitz's 'Spring showers', 'Winter' and 'Dirigible' a lot because they look very dark and interesting and taken from a horror flim. Stieglitz is probably my favourit pictorialist photographer.
Symbolism in music
Arnold Schoenberg
To be honest the song made me laugh a little because, first I can't understand a thing but also because the lady seems to be so off tone with what the instruments are playing, but you get the idea of sprechstimme . Although, it gets stuck in your head and you start to like it after a few.
These paintings are very interesting and I liked 'The Talisman' a lot, but it doesn't seem so abstract to me, it is almost abstract because the objects aren't outlined and becase you can't see where the reflection in the water begins, but you can clearly identify most of the objects.
Although Denis, Ranson and Valloton's paintings are very well made, and Denis is right about a painting being just a set of colors in a specific order, I rather when paintings have a 3D effect because paintings in real life are essentially that just colors and in 2D but in the observers mind it could be 3D it could pop out, it could sink in, it could do anything. I put 'The persistance of memory' just as an example, the first one which came to my head because I actually have a replica in my room, of a painting which isn't in 2D.
Early Modern Sculpture
Auguste Rodin
I really liked the 'Man with the broken nose' because it's not onl very realistic, it caused controversy at the time and it look so painfull but the man seems to be handling himself very well.
I've always liked 'The thinker', everytime I look at tha sculpture it makes me think myself about deep things, because in my opinion his look is very concentrated and deep, like he is 'gone' to think alone.
As for the 'unfinished' finished scultpures I didn't think they weren't finished because I think giving that effect to a sculpture makes it feel alive.
Certainly though, my favourite of his is 'Gates of hell' because it is just overwhelming the amount of details on each figure and theres hundreds of them. It makes me want to go in there even if it's the gate to hell. This is unveliebably good and astonishing. Like just a few things I wan't to see in person so badly, I yearn to see it in person.
Camille Claudel
I must begin saying that I didn't think there were women sculptures because, I don't know, but I feel like making sculptures requires a lot of strength.
I like the fact that she used more than one material in a single sculpture. Although in most of her sculptures I've seen they seem to be trying to show a dispair-like feeling.
Aristide Maillol
I think the women in these scultpures, although they seem a bit too big, at least in the pictures, look extremely realistic and well made. They look like an actual women but frozen. Although, I think some of the poses they're in could be very difficult or the women would have no reason to be like that.
Gustav Mahler
I must admit I didn't heat the whole thing, but I did hear a large part and I quite liked it, not too much at the start because it too bright and happy, and I don't like that in a symphony. But when it goes to heavier lower tones it is amazing.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens I think Robert Gould Shaw Memorial is a great sculpture. I always have strong reactions to sculptures because I find it hard to believe that it is sculpted off the material rather than made separately or just molded and shaped. This one in particular has a lot of details, there is a lot of information coming from wherever you see and I actually start to think that they are going to move. It look very very realy and what impressed me the most is that, even though you can't tell the soldier's color in the sculpture, he uses features and traits in their faces which leaves no doubt that they are black people except from the one in the horse who doesn't. Also, the horse is incredibly well made although his face seems a bit weird.
I had never seen a 20 dollar coin. Although it is very beautiful and most importantly it carries a lot of important symbols. Realism in Poetry
Edwin Arlington Robinson
I really liked how 'Richard Cory' ends, it made me laugh a little because in many cases one man's dream is another man's nightmare, and this is one. Also the 'bullet through his hed' comes so unexpectedly that when you're reading the line before that and I could see that it ended in two lines I thought it might me incomplete but it ends very abruptly and not at all sad.
'Miniver Cheevy', in my opinion actually ends even more sadly and depressing than 'Richard Cory' and I really like the phrase 'born too late'. It ends depressing because it means that Miniver Cheevy will have to live a life he doesn't like, in a place he doesn't like and in a time he doesn't like.
Also, I noticed how he used the same structure for the rhymes and in my opinion one of the best layouts because it gets me engaged every two lines unlike other structures.
Rupert Brooke
I'm blown by 'A Channel Passage'. It is very deep and depressing. In the poem he transmits the pain and desperation to you. It must be horrible to be in the middle of a decision, but also not be able to make it even though you've already chosen. Late 19th Century American Realist Painters
Thomas Eakins
In 'Gross clinic' it took me a while to notice all of the people sitting high in the background because everything is so focused on the bald man and what they are studying and even though I can't figure out what it is, I really like when paintings look realistic and his paintings look unbelievably realistic.
It is interesting of findinf someone who would paint nude men instead of nude women (not that I'm into that, I must clarify) like almost everyone does. And it must've been quite a laugh with that male model university issue.
John Singer Sargent
I've always opposed to the idea of changing one's painting because it is too 'scandalous' or whatever. I bet he regretted changing it when he saw other paintings which were a lot more scandalous become very popular and public.
But, even though I didn't like him from the start because he changed his painting, these are amazingly realistic and I like the paintings a lot.
I get why painters and people would get tired by academic painting because of all the limitations and the fact that the paintings that were published were controlled and some refused.
The 'Salon des Refuses' is actually a clever and simple solution for that problem without causing any more. Even better because I think that more people went that to the other salon with the academics because prohibited thigs always attract more attention.
I don't really understand why Edouard Manet's paintings would be scandalous because, even if it was the first painting depicting harsh nudity or prostitutes, they lived in a society full of that.
I found very interesting the visual relation in 'A bar at the Folies-Bergere', because it must've took him a lot of thinking to accomplish such an angle and for it to be perfectly correct.
Also, I find self-referentiality and painting another paintings in the background very interesting because I think sometimes the background could be filled with hidden things or mysteries and become even more interesting than what is at the front of the painting.
The Barbizon School
Painting outside or "en plein air", in my opinion is a clever thing to do because there is much more going on and more things that could inspire the artist than in an enclosed room with low light. Also I love that melancholy feeling and I think the quieteness and serenity of painting outside is what made them do such melancholic paintings.
Jean-Francois Millet
His paintings about peasants working are very well made and they really do fullfil their purpose of giving the idea that the workers didn't have much dignity and were mostly sad. Except, in "The sheepfold, Moonlight", in which I think that would've been a nice place to be
Camille Corot
For me, implied narrative is sort of annoying because it leaves you waiting for something else or for a conclusion to that hint of story you get, or to find at least something that gives a bit more meaning but they are great paintings.
Eugene Boudin
In his paintings depicting the sea and seaside they are not like you think of the sea, all sunny and bright and happy. They are sad and not too beautiful instead.
Impressionism
Claude Monet
I don't like impressionist paintings that much but I can see how it could've been interesting at the time to see a painting that looked completely new and wasn't a thing but only its impression using a lot of light to make the objects. I do like some of the water lillies because they are very nearly abstract but when looked closely you find the forms.
I do like Monet's painting of Venice.
Camille Pissarro
I like Pissarro's work more than Monet's because it is closer to being the things painted and not only the impressions bordering abstraction.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
I love the way he uses blue colors. They way most of the things in the painting have different tones of blue and that do not contrast too much from the background but somehow they do. Seen from very close it looks like its just tones of blue fading into the next but from far away somehow the contrast works and looks very good. For example, in "Girld with a watering can", I wouldn't know she has a watering can in her hand if it didin't say in the title but once you notice it, it is clearly there.
Women impressionists
I didn't find neither Morisot's nor Cassat's paintings interesting. Few women get to be known as painters or remembered at all, and the little few who did should've been for something more interesting or controversial in my opinion. This just makes me think that they themselves piled on to their stereotype.
Edgar Degas
I like the cropping of paintings because in most cropped paintings it makes you wonder why, or what can't we see. Also because they are not focused on the center it takes time to find where to look or what is more important.
Impressionism in Music
Claude Debussy
Maybe they denied the name impressionists just because they wanted to be recognized as a completely new genre. Also for me it is difficult to imagine how a song would suggest impressions. Maybe the names but not really the songs.
Maurice Ravel
I think Debussy was right. He should't be discouraged about people's reaction to his music and much less change it.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
I liked "Nocturne: Black and Gold, because when a painting is nearly abstract but it really isn't you can imagine a lot of things and find different thing which makes it more interesting but still depicting what the painter felt and wanted to say.
Impressionist Sculpture
Medardo Rosso
I just can't find the mother breastfeeding a baby in that scultpture but it is interesting as an abstract sculpture and also the use of light which puts him in the category of impressionist.
If pre-modern artists contain hints of actual modernism if means that it was a slow transition, but proto-modern artists should be the first modern artists instead of precursors. Why aren’t proto-modern artists the beggining of modernism intead of precursors?
Charles-Valentin Alkan
The song doesn’t seem appropriate soundtrack for a funeral and it doesn’t inspire weeping and tragedy in the beginning. Listening to this I think of parrots celebrating another one’s death instead of mourning him. But about half way it changes to a complete tragical tone and set of voices, at some point it even gets scary because of the tone, strength and frequency the lady uses.
The name ‘Absurdism’ for one of the major modern tones sound a little derogatory. Although ‘mock’ versions sound fun and interesting, especially the mockumentarys. So far, modernism sounds only like jokes which then caught so much interest that they became a genre.
William Blake
For other modern artists to consider him mad, considering that they weren’t so far from that themselves, means he must’ve been careless about people’s opinion about him.
His painting are very abstract in ideas and don’t make a lot of sense but they depict very deeply his ideas and how he was against rationality. Although the visions might’ve been caused by the use of drugs, they were product of many great works.
I like the idea that he thought that what was on his head was just as important and relevant as the material world, that ideology must’ve taken almost every barrier of his imagination and let him get ahead of his time.
It’s a shame few people recognized the greatness of his works when he was alive. His paintings remind me of Francisco de Goya's "Saturno devorando a su hijo".
Tyger seems to be very aggressive, almost like if he was daring God because it sound like he is saying that where could he have gotten everything to create the Tyger and it is illogical that God actually did.
The illustrated books depict and show how his imagination had none or almost no boundaries and that he could go from one thing completely off his time to problems he had from one page to another, this is also related to the juxtaposition he used, the ability of looking at two different ways of something, both as valid. His mind must’ve been a very hectic place to be.
Also, it is interesting how he tried to balance the good and evil and violence in his works, just as in “Songs of experience” between “The Divine image” and “A Divine image”.
Emily Dickinson:
In my opinion, poetry can’t be felt physically like she said she knew what poetry was and wasn’t, it is the structure and meaning of the text which makes something poetry. She seems like a girl from a horror film.
It is a shame that almost 2000 poems written in a style never seen before were ruined because of “orthodoxy” and people’s interest of keeping most of the people “in chains”.
The uncanny/Caspar David Friedrich
At first, “familiar, but strange” seems a bit meaningless but it does make sense, I’ve even felt like that before. Now, depicting something like that, in my opinion, is very difficult but he does it quite good, at least it works for me.
It feels like something is missing or something is strange and unrealistic but you just can’t find anything wrong in his paintings. Seems like they are fiction but everything in the paintings could exist.
The uncanny/Luminists
The brightness is depicted very realistically. Paintings like this give you a sense of joy and happiness since the light tends to be related with those feelings and also because the scenery is very beautiful.
Blakelock’s painting, to me, looks like an overload of paint brushes and details and if you were to look at it very closely it would look like a bunch of stains but it sort of takes form when looked at completely. On the other hand, Ryder’s paintings look a bit messy and the paint brush must’ve been very wide but it gives it a sort of faded or blurry fantasy-like look.
British landscapes
Constable’s paintings of landscapes have excessive clouds and it makes me feel like he wanted you to feel that it was a good day in a beautiful place about to get bad or rainy. Also somehow they don’t look all that realistic, they do but not completely.
Bonington’s paintings, rather than abstract, to me, they seem like if he painted them on a rush, but quite cheerful or relaxed.
JMW Turner’s on the other hand seem very violent. Looking at the sea in his paintings makes you feel like the people there are in a lot of pain and desperation of getting out, especially on “Slaveship”.
Laurence Sterne
I wonder what he could’ve written about for three volumes without even introducing the main character, but then again Cervantes was a great great author and if he influences him he must me very nearly just as good. I personally find bawdy humor very amusing. He was lucky he could get samples from great authors in fiction like Cervantes and Rabelais.
The uncanny/Edgar Allan Poe
I personally like Poe’s works very much. Gothic and dark arts are my very favorites.
The raven is one of the greatest poems and to that we add Vincent Price’s voice. He makes a really good job in making it sound mysterious and scary.
I’m not surprised that awards for mystery writers are call the Edgars.
Walt Whitman
Even though, when it reaches certain point, it can be a bit too much and a bit annoying, I believe that being a rebel and causing controversy is very important and also because once someone does it people feel more confident and they can change for good.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
In my opinion, not the most interesting poet we’ve reviewed so far. Although the metric structure of his poems is actually quite impressive because it is very difficult to ‘play’ with it in English and he does it very nicely.
Also, it does make you think contextually because it is hard to decipher what he really is trying to say, he used many symbols and metaphors making it more interesting than if he didn’t.
Ukiyo-e
These pictures are very colorful and they look like computer-made drawing. It is amazing how they managed to get that effect using wooden blocks.
The
invention of railroads and trains must’ve struck people very hard and change
their lives very drastically for it to change them physiologically and also
revolutionize the arts and ways of communicating.
Isambard
Kingdom Brunel
I agree in
how something beautifully engineered can be taken as art. There’s a certain joy
from things that just work properly, and to that you add the great leap and the
great design and it was and still is undoubtedly a piece of art.
As it changed
how people lived their lives, it also changed how they saw things and therefore
it spawned new types of art, changed the landscapes and caused the contemporary
artists to respond.
JMW Turner’s
response is with his same style very abstract and faded.
Jones Very
He gives
the impression as if the train was a ‘he’ and was alive and he doesn’t sound so
obscure, not nearly as Poe.
Emily Dickinson
Emily
Dickinson’s response toward railroads is a bit weird because in her poems it
doesn’t say specifically that she is talking about trains, one must infer. Also
she describes it very inaccurately, but then again, this was such a huge leap
that she referred to trains as iron horses.
