Sylvia Bokor's Blog

My long-time friend Sylvia Bokor, an artist and writer, has just started a blog. Check it out at

http://www.sylviabokorcomments.blogspot.com/

The latest post (as I write this) is on mystery writer John Dunning, and it nails down an aspect of his style that had bothered me enough so that I only read one of his books - but which I hadn't bothered to put into words.

History as Prozac

I am usually “even tempered and good-natured, whom you never hear complain,” but like Henry Higgins, occasionally I get furiously angry. My trigger at the moment is the upcoming presidential election. As an Objectivist, I don’t think the government should dictate how I run my private life or my business; it ought to confine itself to protecting individual rights, including protecting me from attacks foreign or domestic. (See Ayn Rand’s “The Nature of Government.”) McCain and Obama are both promising more regulations and more government programs that would affect every aspect of my life, and neither one has convinced me that he’ll fight genuine threats such as Iran. So when I see either one talking on TV, I soon find myself shouting at them, and wondering how a nation with such brilliant founding principles can survive, if we're reduced to choices such as this. Pass the Prozac, please.

 My Prozac is history, because history gives me a sense of perspective on passing events. Last summer I started working part-time as a cataloguer for Martayan Lan, a bookseller specializing in works printed before 1800, particularly the history of science, travel and discovery, and art and architecture. I typically skim a book and then write a page-long description of it, setting the book in context as a major contribution to knowledge, a quaint leftover from an earlier age, or something between. Recently I’ve described a 17th-century book on heart defects, a collection of reports submitted by Jesuits around the world in the 1590s, French newspapers promoting the California Gold Rush, and a compilation of women’s legal rights in 16th-c. Portugal.

Not long ago I described a book of medical aphorisms: Latin couplets that purported to help students and physicians remember how to diagnose and/or treat various ailments. The information in the poems was probably centuries old when the book came out, and had mostly likely been distorted by years of unthinking repetition to the point of being useless, if not outright harmful.

Here's the kicker: the book was published in 1589. Forty years earlier (the whole working life of a physician at that time), Andreas Vesalius had dissected cadavers and had published the results of his research in a beautiful multi-volume work. (See the illustrations at http://tinyurl.com/6nxkr9 ). Others were also finally looking at nature rather than parroting ancient and medieval authors: physicians of this era described the circulation of the blood in the lungs and set the foundation for the systematic study of tropical diseases. Those at the cutting edge in science knew better than to simply memorize and apply medieval solutions in Latin doggerel. Many of them must have howled with rage that any publisher would print works such as Scholtz' Aphorismorum medicinalium.

And yet … eventually books like that were no longer published. Those who were constantly expanding their knowledge and confidently announcing their discoveries did eventually triumph. Reality and reason won out, in the long run - although not without staunch defenders who fought long, difficult battles.

So when I need a pick-me-up from the current depressing presidential election, history is my Prozac. If you need some anti-depressants, try these:

• Simon Winchester, The Map That Changed the World
• Bronowski, Jacob. The Western Intellectual Tradition: From Leonardo to Hegel.  
• Frederick B. Artz, The Mind of the Middle Ages
• Paul Johnson, Modern Times
• Paul Johnson, Birth of the Modern
• Printing and the Mind of Man
• Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler
• Herold, The Age of Napoleon
• Gordon, John Steele.  A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable.
• Loon, Willem van. The Story of Mankind. 
• Manchester, William. A World Lit Only by Fire. 
• Bryson, Bill. Short History of Nearly Everything
• Petrocelli, Daniel. The Triumph of Justice: Closing the Book on the Simpson Saga   
• McCullough, David. John Adams
• Ellis, Joseph. His Excellency (on George Washington)
• Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World (on Manhattan)

Three-fer: Wilkinson, Wildhorn, Gill

Last week I visited Michael Wilkinson’s studio in Manhattan, and it raised my spirits for days. One of Michael’s specialties is cast-acrylic sculptures of idealized figures, usually on romantic themes. I had seen photos of many of them on his website (www.michaelwilkinson.com) and expected to like them, but hadn’t anticipated the impact of seeing them in person, in three dimensions. Acrylic can be highly polished or sanded to a frosted finish. The outer planes can be angled in such a way that the images molded into it are reflected back at unexpected angles. Change the angle of the light or rotate the sculpture, and the effect is quite different.

Not all artists can talk coherently about what they do. Michael can. I was fascinated to listen to him discuss his aims for different pieces, and the ways in which he manipulated the material to make his intention a reality.

The piece that sticks in my mind is not an acrylic but a bronze: a small work called Sanctuary, which shows a woman leaning protectively over a man. Michael said the idea in his mind was that in a romantic relationship, there are times when one partner is exhausted by the outside world, and the other provides a sort of haven until the partner recovers.

I immediately heard a song in my mind: “You Are My Home,” from the Broadway musical The Scarlet Pimpernel (music by Frank Wildhorn). The words aren’t exactly the same concept as the sculpture, but they’re close; and I still get goosebumps when I think of the first time I heard that song performed on stage, with a dozen vocalists and an orchestra. So the Sanctuary sculpture gripped me not just visually, but via an auditory memory. (You can hear an excerpt from the song on iTunes by searching “You Are My Home.”)

Thinking of all the times in the past years that I’ve wished I could see the Pimpernel live on stage again reminded me, in turn, of an essay I recently read in A.A. Gill’s Previous Convictions. He pointed out that seeing a play live, on stage, is fundamentally different from seeing the same work on film. (Mind you, I wouldn’t want to live without film, even if I could afford to see a Broadway play every week.)

"Film performance is a vanity, it’s done for a mirror, it’s passed through a hundred hands. The audience is an abstract. There’s no middleman between you and a stage. Every time you see Olivier perform Othello on film it’s the same. You make no difference. What I saw onstage was unique. … You can see the same play again and again and it utterly changes. Every performance leaves a footprint, but it also leaves the text pristine and untouched. As I grow older, plays grow old with me. Their meanings change, the emphasis is different."

The same is true of sculpture: seeing the original work is very different from seeing a reproduction; and seeing it under different circumstances (whether it’s simply a different time of day, or the fact that you’re a year or two older) can make an enormous difference in what the work says to you. So if you’re lucky enough to live in a town with art galleries, museums, or artists’ studios, take an hour or two to drop by for a visit—not as a “chore” to prove you’re cultured, but for the chance it gives you to see something beautiful and, perhaps, to learn something more about yourself.

Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan, which was marketed as a guidebook to New York City sculpture, includes long sections on looking at art and figuring out why you react to a certain piece as you do. For beginners looking at art, see my blog entry on introducing kids to art.

The sculptures are Futurity and Sanctuary; art and photographs  copyright (c) Michael Wilkinson, all rights reserved.

Great views of Manhattan skyline

Midtown from Gantry Plaza Park

New York Harbor from Battery Park

New Yorkers who seldom venture out of Manhattan miss the delights of seeing the sun rising and setting on the island. I recently compiled a list of my favorite places to do that. It's not  exhaustive: I focus on places I can sit with a friend and have a picnic dinner (or breakfast). On Google maps, the list is called "Great Views of the Manhattan Skyline." (The sculptures in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan are plotted on a different Google Map.)

For suggestions of places to take photos (but not necessarily sit and relax), see 

http://photo.net/travel-photography-forum/00Mgbf

The pics for today's post are among the 350 images on the Upward Glance screensaver CD, available for $15 at  http://www.forgottendelights.com/UpwardGlanceScreensaver.htm .  All images Copyright (c) Dianne Durante, all rights reserved.

Midtown from Gantry Plaza Park

Midtown from the Pulaski Bridge

Midtown from Gantry Plaza Park

Introducing Children to Art

Several friends have asked me how I would go about introducing a child to art. What follows is a combination of what I did with my daughter, and what (looking back) I wish I’d thought of doing. The suggestions are geared to any age from infant to adult: pick up wherever you feel is appropriate. For me, the point of looking at art is not to learn history or sociology, and it’s certainly not to wow other people with your knowledge. At its best, looking at art is pure pleasure. Even when it’s not pure pleasure, I enjoy figuring out why it’s not. Incidentally, if you’re looking for advice on teaching a child to appreciate abstract works, you’ve come to the wrong person. You can read my thoughts on such pieces in the essay I wrote a couple years ago on Christo’s Gates. 1. Learn to look. Teach your child to observe what’s around him by pointing things out and commenting on them. You can do this walking down the street (buildings, cars, public sculpture), with the pictures in children’s books, or any number of other ways. My father used to drive through open countryside and point out what crops were being grown. That’s what interested him, and to this day, I can’t drive through Upstate New York without noticing what’s growing … and looking at the way the hills roll, the rivers meander, the mountains fade into the distance. This is despite the fact that at the time, I thought playing gin rummy with my siblings in the back seat was much more fun. Don’t feel that what you say about what you see has to be your final word on the subject. Nor does it have to express the accumulated wisdom of centuries of scholarly research. Just saying, “My, that bear looks very happy!” is a fine place to start. 2. Think and talk. Translating images and feelings into words helps you understand and remember what you see and feel. After you’ve made some comments, ask “What do you think?” Your talking is giving the child the words to use; eventually he’ll come up with his own, and get his opinion in even before you offer yours. 3. Evaluate and compare evaluations. Talk about what you like and dislike about whatever you’re looking at, and (this is important) what you specifically like or dislike. Just saying “Eeuw, that stinks!” isn’t enough. But (this is equally important) don’t impose your own views on your child. When you look at one of Raphael’s paintings of the Madonna and Child, you may think of the story of Christ, the influence of Christianity on the Western intellectual tradition, or how Raphael compares to Michelangelo. Your child may love a Raphael Madonna and Child just for the affection shown between the mother and child. Within your child’s context, that reaction is just as legitimate as yours. Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t say, “You like that? How can anyone possibly like that?” Maybe he likes it because it’s a pretty color of blue. Ask him, and listen to the answer. Remember this kind of conversation doesn’t have to be about art. You can talk about buildings, high-tech gizmos, cars, or whatever. The point is to get your child in the habit of looking, thinking, and talking to you - not just to get him to look at art. 4. Use a camera. Give your child a cheap digital camera and let him take photos of whatever grabs his interest. We once took our daughter to a sculpture foundry; what interested her was mostly flowering weeds. The weeds were prettier than some of the works that had been cast there, so you could argue that she was showing good artistic taste. If you spot a pattern to what your child likes, try to find ways to see more of that. Let him put together a folder of photos for the grandparents or aunts and uncles. Use them as a screensaver on your computer. Print them out for a changing display on the walls of your home. If you want to talk with your child about art, he needs to know that you’re interested in what he likes - not just in teaching him to like what you like. (Liking what you like may come later, if you can explain why you like what you like.) 5. Visit some art. Take your child to a museum, a gallery, or a place with lots of outdoor sculptures. Don’t plan to give an art history lecture. Don’t plan to spend more than 2 hours there - make it less if your child’s a restless type. If you’re in a mega-museum like the Metropolitan in New York, pick one room with pieces that you like, and plan to just meander through other rooms, letting your child decide which rooms to spend more time in. Pause often to talk about what you see. Let your child take photos, if the museum allows it. See if you can find a couple works on similar subjects that are hung side by side, and talk about how they’re different. I like to compare notes as we go along of which works are my favorites, in a particular room and later in the whole visit. It helps me keep them in mind, and what my husband or child choose as favorites often reveals sides of them that I never suspected. Notice that a concentrated look at art is the last step in this list of suggestions, not the first. You can take your child to the great museums of the world for hours on end, but if he can’t focus on what he’s seeing, and if the two of you can’t talk about what you’ve seen, what’s the point?

Upward Glance screensaver: more photos (2)

Here are two more photos from the Upward Glance screensaver. For more details and how to purchase the CD, see the post of 5/20/08.

Let's see, the screensaver CD has 350 images, so I can upload 4 per week for almost 2 years ... by which time I'll have another CD of photos to offer.

Upward Glance screensaver: more photos

Here are two more photos from the Upward Glance screensaver. For more details and how to purchase the CD, see the post of 5/20/08.