From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL)
Subject: Re: Q about _Gravity's_Rainbow_
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 05:51:32 GMT

Joe Green writes:

>In article <1992Apr9.174800.19856@infonode.ingr.com> palmerc@palmerc@abulafia.b21.ingr.com (Christopher M. Palmer) writes:
>>In article <73066@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>>
>>>Since you mentioned Pollack, let me ask: do you have any appreciation
>>>for non-representational painting?  Say a "typical" Picasso.  

I guess you mean something like the "Weeping Woman". 

Incidentally, Picasso is more "representational" than Kandinski, for
instance.  Picasso often made use of what he saw arouind him, and transformed 
these things
in an extraordinary way on the canvas. It seems to me that Kandinski denies
the link with "reality" - his images are not as closaely connected with
what he saw around him.  Picasso's Weeping Woman (1937) image is rtelated
to the myth painting "Guernica" which Picasso produced after witnessing
the bombing of a town during the Spanish Civil War. The composition for
Guernica is well-known - it's similar to Poussin's "The Triumph of Pan"
(1638-39) and other "epic" paintings, especially by Delacroix. So Picasso
is aware of not only the visual images around him, but also the moral
weight of events of his time, as well as his place in the progression of
art.  


>I'll
>>>assume that you do.  The appreciation comes from both the closeness
>>>to and the disparity from traditional painting.  You can find elements
>>>of familiarity, but somehow they are put together non-literally.  The
>>>same goes for non-narrative novels.  

There's still plenty of room for "new" things in the narrative novel - this
is my opinion, I'll prove it by writing such a novel. On what basis do I hold
such an opinion ? Well, I invite speculation as to what basis there might
be for anyone to hold such an opinion.



>>>The author is doing something
>>>different, and it takes a different response to appreciate.  In the
>>>case of Pynchon, it also takes a good deal of stamina and homework.

This is true of any worthwhile artist.


>>
>>I don't have a lot of respect for non-representational art *if* I
>>don't know that the artist is capable of representational art.

Salvador Dali was capable of painting in any of the "traditional" styles 
when he was 16 years old.  Picasso was even better at this than Dali.

I agree, however, with the gist of your doubt. I don't know of any painters
in Australia, for instance, who are as capable as Dali and Picasso were in
the traditional styles. These people moved away from tradition too early, 
before they matured, I feel.  They became too restless too early, and moved
on to new, more difficult things before mastering what came
previously. This shows in the triviality of their work - and the way they
talk about it. Of course, this doesn't stop the public from making them
famous.



>Why?  Probably because you think representational art more "difficult"
>than non-reresentational art.  This is probably because you don't
>understand the ways non-representational art is difficult.

Picasso's "Guernica" is brilliant, in both an intellectual and a moral
sense.

There are works which are brilliant in an intellectual sense - these
resemble the fractals I can generate on my computer at the touch of a
button.


>  In the
>>case of Picasso, I didn't have any real respect for his art until I
>>saw a collection that had some of his early paintings which showed his
>>transition from realism to abstract representation.  According to Kurt
>>Vonnegut, Pollack also made this transition.  Without this background,
>>how do we know that the person has artistic talent. 

>And here you are equating artistic talent with the ability to
>represent in the ways you are used to seeing things represented.

I came to respect Picasso - as an equal - even before I knew anything about him 
personally. I just saw one painting - "Guernica" - it contains everything that 
one needs to know about him. It represents familiar things in a challenging
way. What I mean by "familiar" really depends on the individual. What kinds
of things do you consider to be important enough to remember ? The rest is
political - some people think one thing is important, others think
something else is.  One thing seems clear - in the last 50 years, there
seems to be no one capable of creating a myth as powerful and
all-encompassing as Picasso's "Guernica".  In film, yes, Tarkovsky did it -
I assert - in the films "The Sacrifice" , "Solaris" and "Nostalgia".  How
relevent is his work?  Maybe that's the wrong question. I assert that it
ought to be seen by anybody who claims to be an artist, or even a follower
of the arts.





> Certainly some
>>painting, abstract or otherwise, have innate artistic quality.  But if
>>you are confronted with a Pollack or a late-period Picasso, how do you
>>know if the painting is a challenge to traditional modes of art, or
>>just the semi-random scribblings of someone who cannot paint.

You familiarize yourself with the circumstances of the art world of the
time, with as much examples of art of all periods you can get your eyes/hands on, 
you  learn to understand the difficulties of controlling the image produced
from a single brush-stroke let alone that of controlling the meaning of many brush
strokes when they're put together... etc. etc.

Yes, you can very well be being taken for a ride by the painting - and by
its disciples.  Whether you choose to trash it or not is a matter of your
personal choice. So, above all, learn to hold your integrity. This is true
of any undertaking, not just art criticism.



>And you need to be able to carry this over from painting to fiction.
>All kinds of difficuties there.  How you "know" about the painting
>involves a lot more than what you suggest -- including why the
>quotation marks are placed around "know."


I believe it is possible to exist in a state which is independent of
culture. The state may last for sec0onds, or minutes - or days even.
Culture is all the "done" things around you, what's accepted. An axe
decapitating one's neighbour causes one to fall through into another
culture - something more primitive, perhaps (to take the example of
Dostoevsky's character Raskolnikov).  All other questions are then related
to the aceptance of the act in society. These are social and political
things.



>  Judged
>>in a vacuum, there is some merit to the fact the some Picasso's look
					^^^^^^^^
>>like attempts by pre-schoolers attempting representational art.

That is not a fact - it is the opinion of an ignoramus.


>>
>>In the case of books, I believe the same is true.  I tried to read
>>Ulysses several times.  I was intrigued by the word games and the
>>non-traditional modes of narrative, but I wondered sometimes if it was
>>just an intellectual game.

>No, Ulysses is the greatest comic novel in English.  This means that
>it is the greatest novel.  

I disagree; it belongs to a class of art which remains aloof from the
reader/audience. It's like Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness .." (only in this
sense, of course - Ulysses is far more complex) and many other Western
books.  These are different from novels by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy Turgenev and
others (or traditional Japanese authors), where such a barrier doesn't
exist. The aim is to get the reader to identify with the text - rather than
to stand outside it and observe it - there is no intellectual barrier. Even though
the novels are intellectual.  This kind of art is intellectual by its
nature.




>  I then read some of James Joyce's earlier
>>works, "The Dead" stands out, and realized that Joyce *was* capable of
>>very powerful traditional narrative.  With my mind settled, I read
>>Ulysses and enjoyed it much more.

>Why should the ability to write a traditional narrative "count"
>more than the abilty to write other kinds?  Seems to me it should
>count less.  

Who wants to retrace the steps one took at an early age? Oughtn't one express
one's existence in the best way one knows how - using one's total experience up
until the moment of writing?


>>
>>All of this finally brings me back to Pynchon.  I have read Vineland
>>and have attemped to read Gravity's Rainbow.  Evaluated in isolation,
>>Vineland is an entertaining, but not very well written book.  The
>>narrative structure is disjoint, but in some ways is just seems
>>sloppy, not non-linear.

>In some places even seems idiotic in the original sense of the word.
>This is very difficult to do and has a moral point.

>  About GR, I see it the way I saw Ulysses the
>>first time.  Part are very interesting.  Pynchon's use of language is
>>marvelous. But... I haven't finished it.  I haven't discovered a
>>overall theme that binds it together and without that theme, it just
>>seems like random writing exercises.  The jury is still out (maybe
>>I'll try some other Pynchon, any suggestions? V?)

>No, you are seeking a particular kind of satisfaction.  Traditional
>narrative implies beginnings and endings and sorts of satisfactions
>demanded by the ideology that dominates a culture that wastes lives
>to produce narrative.  You are participating in this.

On the other hand, one might think that one's avoding that, but really
one's following a familiar pattern. 



>>
>>While I'm making a clean sweep of different forms of art, I'll throw
>>in that I had some of these same problems with the film Barton Fink.
>>I love the Coen brothers movies and they are capable of tight plotting
>>(Blood Simple), comedy (Raising Arizona), and emotional conflict
>>(Miller's Crossing).  But then we have Barton Fink (which I suppose
>>has emotional conflict, but certainly has none of the other two).  Without
>>exception, I loved every *scene* in the move, but taken as a whole, I
>>didn't think the movie was very good.

>You missed the point of Barton Fink entirely.  
>The stories Charlie could tell would be traditional
>narratives that coerce the listener.  However, the story
>Charlie acts is idiotic -- the story he acts when he is not the subject
>of your gaze.  Your gaze structures his pain.  The narratives you long
>for are nostalgic reproductions that colonize your mind in
>expected ways.

>Forget these little bedtime stories.  Join the idiots.  Share the fantasy.

And remain irrelevent to the political times.



>>
>>
>>
>>
>>-- 
>>|  Christopher M. Palmer          # There are two kinds of fool.  One says,   |
>>/  Intergraph Corporation         # "This is old, and therefore good." And    \
>>\  Huntsville, AL                 # one says, "This is new, and therefore     /
>>|  palmerc@abulafia.b14.ingr.com  # better."                                  |


>-- 



jw


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