Friday, 31 December 2021

Pictorial 206

 I don't know if anyone noticed that Haeckel's Art Nouveau-esque drawings of natural forms and the Yorkist symbols at Devon have a certain family resemblance?

I mean, in the overall symmetries and flowery patternings. Differences have similarities in the physical spectrum; not necessarily the scientific world of measurement, but the sensual depiction that accentuates florid aspects.

I did a bit of reading, and Haeckel was essentially an artist who became a scientist through his infatuation with microflora and fauna of the sea. With one eye on the microscope he would draw these amazing tapestries.

pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/drawings-ernst-haeckel/

Architects and Art Nouveau designers were influenced, and it seems

..only included the elements of rhythm, force and movement..

Unsurprisingly, since these are the elements that make up the natural world. Haeckel's drawings were copied by lithographic plates which even more accentuate these elements. Are they realistic or artistic?

They're sort of highly stylised versions of natural forms, which throughout history has been practiced by Man (Pictish standing stones ornamentation.) The physical elements are accentuated since they emphasize the power of nature.

This goes back to Plato and idealistic form; the essence of something is strong and rhythmic. Greek sculpture is Platonic form. Ideal form contains stylised elements, and some comparisons from Yorkist symbols make the point.


If you take a look at the discomedusa on the link, it was said to have inspired a decorative chandelier. The bold abstraction of the Yorkist crown bears a distinct similarity. The radiating spokes of the Sunne in Spendour symbol can also be likened to Haeckel's marine forms.

This is an argument I've been following for awhile; where things are different, they have similarities in their physical shapes. The branches of a tree and the limbs of a figure. Haeckel's designs are similar to Yorkist in their large scale similarities.

Science - and particularly Darwin and genetics - deals in minute differences, which are then measured. These differences may convince the ego that something is there, but in fact it's the large scale similarities that are vastly more powerful!

Anything that is different has large scale similarities because rhythm, force and movement are primordial aspects of growth. Without them everything is chaos. 

The problem is, the logical order we are in requires measurement, and this convinces the ego (of acolytes of the mirror of illusions.) The stylisation of symbolism is actually truer to the physical spectrum of reality. 

Alan Moore in 'Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas' has a very similar argument (Watchmen). Owing to measurement, science takes us out of physical reality and into a parallel reality decided by measurement and convincing to the ego. One cannot consider natural forms without rhythm, force and movement because that is what they are!

Differences contain similarities for that reason. Darwin cannot be considered apart from that argument, otherwise we are entering a parallel universe of measurement (and machines.)

Spiralling galaxies and proteins are testament to this fact. We seem to have become habituated on the Western sofa to accepting something that is parallel to the actual reality of the situation.

News, or the routine facts of a logical order, is driven at us with the intensity of a fire-breathing dragon. Whether it's the DNA Dragon or 'the retail price index' - quote from Paul Kantner on 

STAIRWAY TO CLEVELAND

When, actually, the physically strong rhythms of natural power of the human physique create the ideal woman and ideal man!

The physical reality of these wouldn't seem to be worth questioning, going by the history of Western art, or Brundage's Weird Tales. Nevertheless, JK Rowling has come under intense criticism for defending the identity of 'woman' as opposed to some neutral receptacle.

Let transgenders have an identity, by all means, Rowling is merely defending the sexual province of womankind that gives differences meaning. The physical substance of the issue concerns strong rhythm (menstrual) that women have, along with curves. It's not a technical issue, it's a natural one.

Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people, and goes against all advice given by professional healthcare associations who have far more expertise than Jo or I. (Daniel Radcliffe)

This implies that expertise is able to baffle the physical substance of strong rhythms that occur in nature. In fact, expertise tends to do just that, under the pretext of improvements to living as a sop to the ego.

Figures (numbers) replace real-life figures. The ego accedes its need for 'nuanced thought' (Rowling) to expertise.

As some know, fantasy artist Jeffrey Jones became Catherine in later years, and I have a personal email from Michael Kaluta (both of The Studio) to the effect that it was his conscientious admiration for the ideal woman that prompted his change. In other words, the physical nature of woman was his reality.

That might be called a trait of the imagination, and it is imagination that is lacking in the modern neutralising news of fire-breathing dragons.

The dragon enters a parallel space apart from physical rhythms, and defined by expert pronouncements that dabble in measurement of wellbeing as opposed to the actual reality.

The neutralising aspect of measurement occurs outside the physical rhythms of natural power, convincing to the ego.

Rowling's thoughts are not that far from 50s women such as Betty Grable who thought themselves a match for men BECAUSE OF their difference.

..what nine-year-old Grace saw was a woman who looked like a princess, behaving in a primarily offensive, often masculine way and producing slapstick results.. Significantly, she takes it with no whining or lobbying against sexist attitudes.. At the end of the film, when she discovers that Romero has a woman on the side, she dumps him with a few well-chosen remarks and shoots the same judge in the ass again - this time hitting both cheeks. (Grace Slick memoir, page 6)

The difference between the sexes is physically empowering, and this was strongly brought-out in Louise Simonson's writing of the 'war' between Scott, Jean and Phoenix in X-Factor (Louise, incidentally, is the ex-wife of Jones.)



#18

A war is something fought between different elements, and is a way of resolving conflict. As Scott says in #19, mutants have "dramatic ways to express themselves". That's life, and it doesn't have to be death. A battle of wills is the route to resolution.

In a neutral world, these battles are verbotten in a ludicrous quest for wellbeing, fueled by fire-breathing dragons of sterile expertise.

Of course, dragons have their own physical identity along with everything else, which underscores the absurdity of a parallel universe built on neutral facts.