It may be a small point, but the title of that Bernini is "Il Ratto di Proserpina," which properly translates as "The Abduction (not the rape) of Persephone." The same word occurs in the title of Mozart's opera "Il Ratto dal Serraglio," or "The Abduction from the Seraglio." The coarsening of the usual English rendering is not what Bernini meant nor what his audience heard.
I think the next PROGRESSion in art history has happenned already with the fresh banana masking tape event.
I used to work at the IMJ and could visit the Klee work when it was out. It was very limited in the amount of light it could be exposed to and this was strictly enforced.
An attuned consciousness, which is indeed required, can also be called an aptitude for art or an eye for art as such. That consciousness can be developed or refined with time and experience, but it must be there to begin with, however latent. It cannot simply be inserted or imported into a void. Those who disdain the fact that some people have a good eye and others don't are typically of the latter sort.
Can you say more about the Klee? Understanding you’ve looked at a lot of them. What would you say about this one? And what of the experience of reading about a work before seeing it?
I also have experienced enough times that I have a sublime experience in front of a painting and then when I look at the photographic rendering later, it’s just not as good. So I tend not to “trust” a photograph of work to give me the true experience of the object. I wonder if this particular Klee renders so much differently in real life?
It's likely. Klee's surfaces are sometimes exquisite. This is a monoprint, and looks like some kind of highly manipulated, one-off etching. Reproduction is probably brutalizing it.
The Benjamin is worth quoting in full: "There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair, to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm."
If you read this, and your image base for constructing what the picture looks like is confined to, say, Raphael, the Klee is going to be a kick in the shin. The trick to reading about art is that you have to take the information as indicators, like I described above, and not reify the language into a barrier between you and the art. Scott put together an expectation based on what kind of image he would feel in a similar way to how Benjamin felt about the Klee. I did not, but I'm up to my neck in figurative modernism.
It may be a small point, but the title of that Bernini is "Il Ratto di Proserpina," which properly translates as "The Abduction (not the rape) of Persephone." The same word occurs in the title of Mozart's opera "Il Ratto dal Serraglio," or "The Abduction from the Seraglio." The coarsening of the usual English rendering is not what Bernini meant nor what his audience heard.
Updated, thank you.
I think the next PROGRESSion in art history has happenned already with the fresh banana masking tape event.
I used to work at the IMJ and could visit the Klee work when it was out. It was very limited in the amount of light it could be exposed to and this was strictly enforced.
Looking forward to the big Boomerangelo retrospective at the Met next year.
An attuned consciousness, which is indeed required, can also be called an aptitude for art or an eye for art as such. That consciousness can be developed or refined with time and experience, but it must be there to begin with, however latent. It cannot simply be inserted or imported into a void. Those who disdain the fact that some people have a good eye and others don't are typically of the latter sort.
Can you say more about the Klee? Understanding you’ve looked at a lot of them. What would you say about this one? And what of the experience of reading about a work before seeing it?
I also have experienced enough times that I have a sublime experience in front of a painting and then when I look at the photographic rendering later, it’s just not as good. So I tend not to “trust” a photograph of work to give me the true experience of the object. I wonder if this particular Klee renders so much differently in real life?
It's likely. Klee's surfaces are sometimes exquisite. This is a monoprint, and looks like some kind of highly manipulated, one-off etching. Reproduction is probably brutalizing it.
The Benjamin is worth quoting in full: "There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair, to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm."
If you read this, and your image base for constructing what the picture looks like is confined to, say, Raphael, the Klee is going to be a kick in the shin. The trick to reading about art is that you have to take the information as indicators, like I described above, and not reify the language into a barrier between you and the art. Scott put together an expectation based on what kind of image he would feel in a similar way to how Benjamin felt about the Klee. I did not, but I'm up to my neck in figurative modernism.