Ophelia by Odilion Redon courtesy Tess Kincaid
Redon wrote:
"My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."Redon's work represent an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche. He himself wanted to "place the visible at the service of the invisible"; thus, although his work seems filled with strange beings and grotesque dichotomies, his aim was to represent pictorially the ghosts of his own mind. A telling source of Redon's inspiration and the forces behind his works can be found in his journal A Soi-même (To Myself). His process was explained best by himself when he said:
"I have often, as an exercise and as a sustenance, painted before an object down to the smallest accidents of its visual appearance; but the day left me sad and with an unsatiated thirst. The next day I let the other source run, that of imagination, through the recollection of the forms and I was then reassured and appeased."
It Must Be Indigestion
Spike Lee's done his best.
The shitty committee speaks
the truth, I'll admit.
It rolls all the way
back a hundred years and more
to the symbolists,
the surrealists and
their paints, their pastels,
charcoal suggestions
hidden in the wash.
It all lets the new guys do
what they do of late.
I do not get it,
all the piercings and the tats.
Something wrong with kids
these days, I harrumph.
July 1, 2012 6:32 AM
Written for Mag 124... *click here*
No kidding...but there was something wrong with kids when I was a kid, too. Perspectives change. Body mod. ew.
ReplyDeleteit is the new self expression...speaking out on the onwership of mind and body...and a desire to em-body art....even if they dont feel like it...smiles.
ReplyDeleteOh dear... does this mean we're getting old? ;-)
ReplyDeleteHmm...I didn't get the two orange blobs with fuzzy green edges - sure looked like indigestion to me! LOL
ReplyDeleteI am having a rather difficult time figuring out any of this ambiguity. Interesting take, Christopher. Thank you for sharing. =D
ReplyDeleteThrough the generations some things never change...
ReplyDeleteThere will always be things in life we just don't understand... very well put.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it either.
ReplyDeleteBut that's okay.
I get what *I* get, and that works...
harrumph
;)
Yes, thank you. The long haul view was surely on my mind...that the surrealists of the 1890s were the godparents of the beat generation and the Hippies...that what goes on today is directly linked if extreme to those days, to the costume show...that there is a polemic about kids these days available from classical Greece...and that's before Christ's appearance on the planet.
ReplyDeleteSymbolism aside - it is a beautiful painting - perhaps one of his best?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thought-provoking thoughts here.
Anna :o]
just scrolling through, i love the painting! xxx
ReplyDelete