Bien que White Rabbit n'est pas toujours de la BD, le sequence "DE-POL" (sur Pages) develop le theme qui s'introduit a Conan de BWS, puis 1996 de Montellier, pas artistes pareils du tout
Friday, 5 August 2016
Monday, 18 July 2016
White Rabbit
WHITE RABBIT – PART 1
Artemis and
Apollo, Barry Windsor-Smith
“White Rabbit”
is taken from the Grace Slick song of Lewis Carroll’s Alice. In Through the
Looking Glass, the land on the other side of the mirror is the world of
myth and fairy tale. That world is the opposite to a world of light, of
reflection. Critically speaking, light has to be destroyed in order for the
mirror to reflect its opposite (myth and fairy tale).
This is seen in
many contexts, which I’ll discuss later. The first thing to say is that a world
of reflected light is Apollonian (in the Nietzschean sense). It is a world of
logic and proportion but, in the lyrics of the song,
“When logic and
proportion have fallen sloppy dead
And the White
Knight’s talking backwards
And the Red
Queen’s off with her head”
The other side
of the mirror is the domain of Artemis – the twin and destroyer of Apollo – a
world of darkness and decadence. Artemis is fertility (Daphne, laurel) and the
enabler of the frivolous god Dionysus.
How many people
are aware that floral green is simply the subtraction by leaves of the rainbow
(spectrum)? Photosynthetic pigments. A rainbow is like a technical mirror –
telling us what colors are there – the red to blue spectrum. The other side of
the rainbow is simply the land beyond technique, the land of wilful
expression.. or of witch.. or the Wizard of Oz http://www.uvs-model.com/UVS%20on%20paradoxical%20effect.htm (see “Somehow I Don’t Think We’re In
Kansas, Toto” down page)
To put it in
simple English, there is a world of light, but there is a world of the
destruction and bending of light – forests, rainbows, bowers, glades. This is
actually the world of heroic fantasy, of which more anon.
Once light is
destroyed or bent, we have enclosure – leafy bowers, bows of light (the rainbow
bridge), decadent romance. We are in familiar time and space. Essentially, the
destruction of light (Artemis) is a creative act, an act of fertility.
Of course, we
are told we live in a spacetime continuum that is filled with light, reflected
light. It’s a very nice theory, since the continuum is supposed to just be
there, and bend light around it. However, light can be bent by other means,
such as a prism (rainbow), or heat as in a mirage.
If vortices
exist, the continuum is an Apollonian fantasy or “lightspace”. If something is
an Apollonian fantasy, all the followers are essentially following the light –
reflections – and not the dark (shadows, myths, dreams).
The other side
of the mirror is a type of atmosphere, invisible to an Apollonian order (like a
rainbow which is like a mirage). This is not the world of theory, but the world
of Artemis and Apollo, twin gods, a type of incestuousness or decadence.
The reality it
emblemizes is atmospheric. Its limbs are flesh and wood, like taverns of old,
of melancholy airs and raucous carousing.
This is an
alternate reality that destroys an Apollonian fantasy of logic and proportion,
replete with robots and economic pundits. Fill the halls with mirrors and they
think it’s real, not a reflection of a reflection.
The Song of Red Sonja
- Artemis carousing with Dionysus (Conan #24, 1972)
BWS’s trademark
hatching style is taken more from 18th century British illustrators
like Hogarth than 20th century American. The other point I want to
get across is the sense of space – whether clichéd and caricatural 18th
century Hogarth or 20th century comics – they are enclosed in a
recognizable space.
What is it that encloses
space? In the history of Man, it’s trees. Trees that capture sunlight, that
shelter us with overhanging boughs. Trees are the creators of space because
they destroy the radiation of the sun, converting it to trunks and greenery.
The basic point is that the destruction of light is needed because this lets in
Artemis. Artemis is darkness, decadence, romance and a type of almost
incestuous closeness.
That environment
is actually the environment of, say, a Sioux village. Also, of fairy tales set
in woods and ivied castles. If you look at the splash page of Song of Red
Sonja, there is a very strong sense of enclosure by wooden timbers – it could
almost be a ship’s hold. It looks sort of familiar. Dreamlike.
I’m going to be
taking up the theme of familiarity in further instalments. There is also the
more basic point that destruction of light is destruction of technique. It is
pure expression, wildness. This is actually therefore an ontological point.
The world “we”
are building is a world of reflections (light) in a continuum. Breaking the
mirror lets in the flame-haired Artemis. This is the world of enclosure, of
leafy bowers. It is an ontological distinction that recognizes that light and
the continuum have to be destroyed. We are then not in Einstein’s world; we are
in an enclosed, and greener, and dreamier land.
Cat Stevens,
Sun/C79
WHITE RABBIT – PART 2
“Without music,
life would be a mistake” – Nietzsche
“And the sun
lights the moon” – Cat Stevens (Sun C79)
Atmospheric
reflection of white light, that is. Mellow and mild, erotic and fecund,
wolflike. The harshness of light is destroyed, and we are in the realm of dream
and fairy tale.
Archetypally, Cocteau’s
Beauty and the Beast (1946) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsXkv1mpRUk
..made a
ravishing and endlessly satisfying allegory about truth and illusion, sincerity
and hypocrisy, with image sequences that swim through mirrors and flames, as
the characters hope to discover truth in love. – Marina Warner (2008)
The film moves
from the mundane farmyard and barnyard of Avenon and Belle (Jocette Day) to the
magic castle of la bete (Jean Maurais). Cocteau inundates the set with decadent
touches – ivy is even in Belle’s bedroom so that it is half forest. The castle
is cloaked in darkness (literally).
The magic mirror
reflects its opposite and truth is discovered through positive (Beauty) and negative
(Beast), day and night. The Beast in a sense is the creative aspect which, to
Cocteau, was a product of torment.
There are
references in the film to classical myths. The Beast’s pavilion of Diana
containing his treasure. In myth, Diana changed Actaeon into a stag for daring
to disturb her bathing ritual, another version of Beauty and the Beast. Cupid
also makes an appearance, from the 2nd century Appulius tale of
Psyche and Cupid, The Golden Ass.
Light has to
destroyed in order for the mirror to reflect its opposite. You are no longer in
the world of white light, because there is a dark side, an almost incestuous
closeness of atmospheric fraternity and melancholy. The shadow-land of Gustav
Dore.
This sense of
enclosure, not continuing expansion, is contained in BWS’s Pandora from 1975.
The tightly enclosed box represents the romantic, decadent nature of the
artefacts, their tangled connections.. mind, memory, allusion, dream and whimsy
(Boewulf, a stack of Cat Stevens albums). The tangled-up conundrums are
actually harking back to “practically Heraldic” medievalism, as BWS says in The
Studio (Dragon’s Dream).
The rainbow
effect represents technique – but the technique illuminates the interesting decadence
that afflicts mankind. Light illuminates human culture only because of its
enclosed nature (Artemis and Apollo).
This could
almost act as a definition of the psychedelic space that erupted in San
Francisco in 1965. The Fillmore’s scenic ambience represented the flower-power
surge, the rainbow sweat of dancers, incense and pheromones, Alice and, of
course, White Rabbit.
“It’s No Secret”
from Fly Jefferson Airplane https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw-6-stIFJc
The picture of
atmospheric space, of ballrooms and lightshows, circles of people holding hands dancing , all swirling
together around one thing, the drug scene. If you take that as read, which they
seem to, the whole scene erupts from inside the poppy, or LSD. The light shows
have a floral profligacy, the dancing a rite of spring ritual.
This is weirdly
similar to Richard Strauss’s opera Daphne, who was transformed into a laurel
tree. At the finale, you see weirdly flickering light effects as she
metamorphoses. Daphne – or Artemis-Daphne – is the moon aspect, so the light
effects are mellow, yellow, almost churchlike in their calm iridescence.
You’re no longer
in the world of logic and proportion but a fairyland of pure expression where,
as Kantner puts it, “wish upon a star” and it will happen. The essential point
is this is atmospheric decadence; the Fillmore is a happening place, you’re
among friends, there is a rite of spring essence.
Something very
particular has happened and, as the Jefferson family note, San Fran was the
centre of the universe. What has happened is a metamorphosis of logical space –
the gridlines of NYC – into pure expressive space. This is enclosed,
atmospheric space, singing with life and liberty.
The hippy
revolution is this circular sense of time and space, the creation of a scene
where people seem to be your friends and things just happen, for no reason.
This poses a
threat to the mainstream – this is something tackled later. For the nonce it’s
enough to say that the destruction of logic and proportion is necessary for the
shadowland to materialize. The shadowland is profligate, erotic, wild (Slick’s
epic Theme to Manhole is worth catching, 1974).
This is
something that’s quite difficult to grasp because there are two worlds that are
completely different, with no connection atall. In the world of pure expression
there is no technique. In the world of technique there is no pure expression.
This is why the
60s has an ontological basis, because it is getting at the root of things, the
fact that things “just happen”. The six musicians of Airplane were, as Spencer
Dryden puts it, “in search of an arrangement”. They were all very different and
individual artists and, on any given instance, might veer into, say, a Cassady
bass solo while the others just stood around waiting. Balin, the tunesmith has
nothing in common with Kantner the cavalier balladeer, but plays well with Slick’s
melodrama.
A scene
establishes enclosure, a sense of togetherness that can override differences as
we’re in the land of artistic differentiation. The people were part of a scene
for that reason alone. The scene destroys logic and therefore any overtly
political motivation. Kantner, the most “political” member, couches his advice
in the unreal language of hijacked spaceships, cruising the spaceways with
daisy-chained children, peering through portals onto a Jupiter starlight.
The scene is essentially
fecund; they are in enclosed space, a group of friends with an almost
incestuous closeness, almost like they are carrying a laurel tree with Daphne’s
essence to the universe. Kantner even makes remarks like, when talking about
ditching Signy Anderson for Slick, “The sense of presence in her voice was
overwhelming, nothing sexual, although of course that was an undercurrent”.
That is the
scene. If you want to live in a cloud of logic and proportion, then you will be
in a political, Machiavelian area. But that was not the scene which the druggees
indulged in in ’65. Cat Steven’s Sun/C79 has the lyric, “She was a junky then”.
The scene
encloses space so that “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead”. This is
an ontological point, that the way we experience things changes when we have a
type of Daphne-like enclosure. Without the enclosure, we are in a state of
continuing expansion, where everything is logical and proportionate.
The sense of
completely unpreconceived happenings was taken to an extreme in ’68, when Jean-Luc
Godard got the Airplane to perform from a NYC rooftop. Typically Godard-esque,
the apocalyptic sound breaks down on the good citizens of NY with no warning.
Godard films it as a director who just happens to be there, catching events as
they unfurl.
WHITE RABBIT – PART 3
Since botanical forms are colored in hues
of yellow and green and grey ochres of lichen and bark, there is a palpable
sense of bending and shaping color. This appeals to an artistic sensibility and
the impulses of painters down the ages to be scenic.
A scene encloses
space, and with the bending, weaving forms of plants this is easy to achieve.
Man’s forms also seek to enclose, and I read somewhere that the form of Greek
temples originally derived from wooden temples, and those from groves.
An enclosure is
therefore tied-up with botanical forms which are bending and shaping the energy
of the sun for their own use. If light represents technique – a prism (rainbow)
– enclosure represents darkness and shadow.
Artemis is not
technique, Artemis is simply darkness, absorption, a type of serenity, also
wildness. The hippies and particularly hip-chicks identified with this. Grace
Slick’s 1974 album Manhole has a dedication to Bruce Lee, who advocated his
method of kung-fu fighting (Jeet Kune Do) as “no style” or no technique.
Don’t tie him
down
He wants to
run
Give him the
sun
Slick’s lyric to
Manhole is a very good precis of Bruce Lee’s “no style”. Every method ties you
down (to routine). So,
A person
cannot express himself fully when a partial set structure or style is imposed
on him. Fighting “as is” is total (including all “that is” as well as all “that
is not”), without boundaries or lines, always alive, and constantly changing. – Artist of Life, p162
Now, Bruce Lee’s
book is all about this, so he repeats himself in different ways. On the one
hand there is technique, which you learn. On the other, flexible response. The
two are totally separate, something that is difficult to grasp.
There is no
technique in flexible response; there is no flexible response in technique. The
reason is that fighting “as is” is total – reality.
Reality is just
a state of being, in time and space. There are two things going on. You learn
the technique, and the technique breaks down in the moment of response.
In other words,
you destroy the technique in order to act. If you are to have totally flexible
expression there is no alternate. You live in the moment always.
So another way
of stating Bruce Lee’s philosophy is that you destroy what is built-up. This is
again the land where “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead”, down the
rabbit hole with Alice. Where “the Red Queen’s off with her head”, and
destruction and disorder rule. Artemis.
This is the land
of darkness, dreams and memories. The Underworld. In Orpheus and Eurydice,
Orpheus is given a lyre to play and charm his way out of Pluto’s kingdom with
Eurydice, but glances back and the spell is broken. This is one of the first
tragedies.
Darkness and
destruction are one thing, and completely separate from the world of light and
understanding. There are two worlds here, and they are totally separate.
Science is
building up a world of light that gives answers in that side of the world but
the point is the other side of the world is simply destruction of light.
That world is
Artemis and it is the land of fertility. The enabler of Dionysus. Frivolity and
music, but quick to vengeance.
Barry
Windsor-Smith, The Ram and the Peacock, 1975
This is one of
BWS’s versions of heroic romance (the other is The Enchantment), and you notice
the low shadow that gives it a sort of decadent feel – twilight. You notice the
shadow is very sculptural, and the hero’s face is only half-lit. He actually
says in an interview that the wizard is a fallen hero, and the barbarian is the
intruder in a scene of refinement.
The two symbols
of light in the picture, the sundial and the prism, seem to represent time and
space. A prism uses the angles of the glass to separate light into component
parts in the same way a rainbow does with water droplets.
The foliage in
the garden takes the form that Artemis has adopted to occupy this serene scene
that the barbarian has apparently invaded. It may even be that the Peacock is
the wizard whose spirit has fled his body (so he is the victor).
The scene that
we see is a setting in time and place upon which Apollo has cast his bounty.
Because light is bent and split, or transformed into multicolored hues of
flora, we are no longer in Einstein’s universe. We are in a universe where
light provides the bounty but not the form. It’s not a continuum, it’s an
enclosure, a refined scene.
The barbarian’s
shadow falling over the wizard is just the absence of light, and that defines
the form here. Basically, we’re told a continuum is something that’s supposed
to have a certain shape (that bends light), but it’s actually the destruction
and transformation of light that provides shape. Then you don’t have technique,
you have enclosure. The shadow that defines form is actually part of that
destruction or transformation. It’s a negative to a positive.
WHITE RABBIT – PART 4
All the
leaves are brown
And the sky
is gray
I’ve been for
a walk
On a winter’s
day
Mamas and Papas
The siren call
to San Francisco culminated in the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, a musical
exchange of ideas that was free on delivery (though not free on entry like
Woodstock). With ringlets in haystack hair and flowery costumes, it was a
perfect demonstration of a “happening”, establishing with ease an alternate
culture to the straightlaced stockbroker society.
Cultures that
are happening are utilizing time and space to re-establish a sense of
enclosure. There is always going to be some floral or botanical sense to
enclosure, mainly because it’s an alternate to a society based on logic and
proportion. Enclosures are often wooden like a wild west corral. Monterey did
the best it could to ensure a peasanty, Mark Twain-like gathering, where things
are carefree and hillbilly rather than organized along corporate lines.
The essential
thing is that there are two completely separate entities, one organized along
the lines of logic and proportion. The other is a “happening” that has people
coming together in a gathering of frivolity and not much money.
In the modern
world, any technique can be used for any purpose, whether it’s music or selling
bread. In the absence of technique you have a happening, just defined as
absence of technique. A happening corresponds to days of yore, and for our
purposes I want to take it back to 14th century medieval Europe.
The painters of
the early Renaissance –Giotto, Francesca – exhibited a sound basis in solid
geometry and perspective. In Giotto’s St Francis, Miracle of the Spring, the
cliffs are nowhere near natural, but they are modelled in relief so that the
figures are placed in a depth of field. Francesca would later develop the
modelling of geometric forms that create space.
Giotto, St Francis Miracle of the Spring
A model of
whatever kind, whether a sphere or a cylinder, depend on light and shade to
make them visible. Renaissance art is primarily the art of light and shade,
whereas Byzantine is more like flat relief. Space is created in that way, so in
order to even have the idea of a depth of field you need to have the sense of
light being applied to geometric shapes, and the resulting shadow.
Giotto, the Annunciation
The beam of
light alighting on the Virgin Mary is very effective against the dark greenery
and vaulted ceiling. So, early Renaissance scenes suppose the presence of
geometric forms and the effects on them of light. That is what creates space –
light and its absence (shade).
In Renaissance
terms, without shade you cannot have space. The absence of light is also a type
of atmosphere. Flashing forward to the famous Pennebaker film of Monterey Pop,
Otis Redding is filmed against stage-lights which silhouette him, or cause a
white-out. This sort of very atmospheric scene always has a mellow or twilight
dimness. The scene is an establishment of time and place, same as were the
Giotto scenes.
Where you have
an establishment in time and place, you can have a “happening” scene; something
with the type of atmosphere we’ve been talking about. This atmosphere – any
atmosphere worth its salt- is actually a product of the absence of light. So it
seems that these scenes are not in Einsteinian space, which is a continuum of
light, or lightspace. Where you have a space consisting of geometric forms, you
have to also have the absence of light (shade). Then you are in what is usually
called Euclidean space.
The modern world
has no classical geometry (in terms of architecture), and you could say we
therefore live in a continuum, of various types such as cyberspace. Whether
this is down to Einsteinian space doesn’t matter; if you want a scene then you
are in Euclidean space.
More than that,
a “happening” scene is an alternate way of life to one based on logic and
proportion. In the case of Monterey, they established a board of “elders” who
oversaw the construction. They issued this proclamation:
The Festival
hopes to create an atmosphere wherein persons in the popular music field from
all parts of the world will congregate, perform, and exchange ideas concerning
popular music with each other and with the public at large.
What it
symbolises is a retaking of space by the people, harking back to days of yore
when happenings were an everyday occurrence (almost medieval). You’d have to
say it’s Euclidean or geometric space, since we can see it’s moody and shadowy.
Flashback to a leafy grove, dappled with overhanging branches.
The leafy
abstraction of unspoiled scenery must be one of the first impulses on painters.
A scene, it seems, must be the retaking of unspoiled scenery by the people,
since these are the moody, atmospheric places. It seems that the idea of
Euclidean space has been eroded by various other types of space – the idea of a
world ruled by logic.
Page 1 of BWS’s
illustration to REH’s poem is cleanly cut almost like a woodcut – wood, stone,
hooves, leather, limbs, rock, hills. The first panel is particularly sparkling,
writhing branches framing a dim-lit glade, stage-lit. There is a sense in which
the setting of light against shade sets up a tension which is dramatic and
which lends itself to storytelling. It’s an endlessly fascinating scene, and
not resolvable since it’s the play of light on dark, like the glint of steel in
the gloom.
Drama and
staging, lighting and atmosphere is what I mean by a Euclidean scene. Something
that lends itself to contrast for effect. A scene is simply something like
Monterey created by the people. All it needs is a board of elders to outline
its aims, something like an Amerindian Nation.
2 The Speed Of Darkness
The Shadow of the
Vulture (Conan #23, 1972)
The Shadow of the
Vulture, page 415
Once you have
shadow you are no longer in “lightspace” (see next post) since the light
is eclipsed by the geometric shape (like a half moon). I know that sounds like
something from Marvel Comics but it’s mainly a case of knowing what a scene is,
man.
REH has some
prize examples, I particularly like his historical yarns published in Swordwoman
and Other Historical Adventures (Del Rey), and illustrated by John Watkiss
Red Blades of Black
Cathay, page 234
Here, the Norman
adventurer Godric gazes from a stone balcony. In foreground are rounded dark
pillars and vases, Blossom, vines and rough-hewn stone frame the view of
soaring mountains and birds. Watkiss’s grainy lines are enough to give a good
sense of the geometry, both manmade and natural, the dramatic setting.
Here, the drama
is all in the darkness of Sonya’s looming form, the lodge sketched-in with grey
wash for rough-hewn stone walls, grainy lines for wooden beams. Watkiss’s
charcoal approach is bold, effective and expressive. Effective scenes are often
tightly framed, circular as here or hemmed in by mountains as at Black Cathay.
Light is
everywhere obstructed by geometric forms, so that is more or less the
definition of a scene. It’s pretty apparent in the Sonya scene that the play of
dark and light is very defining and dramatic. So, Euclidean space can only be
defined by a state of constant tension.
Light is the
primary technique in nature, and once you obstruct it you are no longer in
“lightspace”, you are in Euclidean space. His evocation of Sonya on page 403
has her waving tresses practically backlit, vigorously defining her profile as
she no doubt utters some profanity.
The Shadow of the
Vulture, page 403
In all things,
it’s pretty obvious contrast is one of the main features in the representation.
A scene, or a representation, is simple by virtue of the fact that it employs
contrast. The only problem with contrast is it’s not possible to resolve it;
you’re not in technical or “lightspace”, you’re in a world of shadow since that
is often what defines forms.
The world you
create with shadow is a very different one to a technical one that seemingly
expands like radiation into space. In effect, it creates interesting enclosures
and a world where actually closeness and dramatic tension are the norm. It’s
not resolvable, it’s not logical, but it’s interesting. Also decadent. Romantic
decadence, or heroic romance.
To clarify
things, decadence means the decay of light. This is what makes things
interesting because the geometry is atmospherically lit. The moment that
happens you are in Euclidean space, the moulding of shadows round forms.
When Einstein
said “Time is an illusion” (see quotes at top), he seemed to mean technically it’s
not there. No, but it is there in the motion of objects, shadowed in
interesting ways. If the moon is side-lit we have a half-moon; the phases of
the moon tell the time in a simple enough fashion. Why do we assume things are
technical when in looking at a crescent moon we are seeing the absence of
technique?
The crescent is
the sign that light has been cut-off, you only have a rim-lit scene. You are
now not in a world explicable by technique, you are in a romantic scene. These
things are not resolvable because it’s simply the result of geometry. Geometry
creates space which is lit in interesting ways. Then you are no longer in
“lightspace”; you are in Euclidean space.
Euclidean space
is enclosed space since shadows have a way of enclosing things. A shadow is
simply the absence of technique, shape pure and simple. That is what a scene
is, so you already have the means for simple stories with dramatic tension.
I was watching
the Monterey Pop Festival commentary by Pennebaker and Adler, and you get the
sense of photographing things very directly, just people as they move about,
the performances with no preconceived ideas, a record. Pennebaker’s main aim
seemed to be interesting lighting, so he often shot from stage-side or even
into the stage-lights for an “eclipse” with Slick and Redding.
It was a
wonderful dream and, in the sleeve notes, Jann Wenner seemed to make the case
that petty local politics clamped-down on a rerun of that dream that creates a
Monterey Pop “tradition”. Whatever the historical case, I would just say it’s
not just politics, it’s the actual ontology of the scene and how it’s
experienced. The technical and corporate world can’t replicate these things;
it’s 100% impossible through no fault of their own, just because they are not
in the scene and can never be.
Yes, Monterey is
a dream, but I’d like you to imagine for a moment that, in a historical context,
anything with a bold simplicity has a dreamlike resonance. Monterey is just 3
days in time that happened to make waves round the world; what you want is a
circular scene that is Monterey all the year round.
I don’t mean
“like Monterey”; I just mean with a bold, dreamlike resonance. What is the
dreamlike resonance? It’s the shape of things, the geometry and how they’re lit.
Simplicity is what a corporate, technical world can never be.
Don’t get me
wrong. I’ve nothing against industry. This is simply an ontological point. The
way we experience things; we can’t be told what is there because we experience
it. Then we express what we experience.
In Cynthia
Harnett’s The Wool-Pack - a
children’s yarn that lodged in my mind about the 15th century
English wool trade – the very vividness might strike us as fanciful. In fact,
the vividness of description, the blood and sweat, is what is truthful. Authors
are describing the vividness of settings, what’s there in bold outline and
harsh shadow. If the artistry of it to us may appear a stage-lit fantasy, that
is mainly because good artists are describing a Euclidean world. Just what is
there, the sweat, the smell, the clangour.
A huddle of houses, pitched roofs framed
by copices, on the edge of what is probably common land. The commoners occupy
the common land, so it’s another type of communal enclosure. Round about are
fields, pasture for flocks. The Wool-Pack is about the wool-trade in 15th
century England, so what’s very obvious is that a scene in those days had also
economic and social value (as Prince Charles might say!) So, ok, that might be
a hippy’s lotus dream, what’s it to do with us?
It’s a
discussion-point, basically, and, since human beings are verbal animals, that
can always lead somewhere. There are various things you can say about the
picture, for a start. The foreground doesn’t appear to be what we call
designed, but just follows the contours of the ground, leading to the tree on
left. This leads to the entire question of how Man designs the landscape. Going
by the cover, it has more of a feng-shui aspect to it; the picturesque quality
isn’t planned, it’s the disorderliness that looks right.
This raises the
question of is what we call public design actually anti-design in this sense?
There is a place for design, but there is also a case for design that just
happens because it looks right. This is just people, craftsmen, expressing
themselves. If you take a thatched roof, it’s a vernacular artform or trade, so
it automatically fits into what’s there. The craftsman expresses that through
their work.
Now, this is
quite a vital point since expression is not design; it’s informal not formal.
Expression is a main element of vernacular architecture. Going by the White
Rabbit lyric, “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead”. Yes, there is
proportion in a thatched roof, but it’s almost a disproportionate proportion.
It’s the waywardness that’s good, that appeals to our sense of the picturesque.
So, yes,
proportion is there, but so is expression. That is a vital point because proportion
by itself is technique; it’s just numbers, basically. Once you add expression
then you are outside of technique.
This is the land
that I want to re-enter; not a land that has no technique, but a land that is
shadowed and variegated. This is the land of dream and myth, but also of
historical tales like The Wool-Pack. The sense of location and place are
so powerfully imprinted, with Harnett also doing the illustrations. That is
what I mean by a sense of enclosure that has a sense of happening to it.
In order for
that to happen, yes we need technique, but we also need the destruction of
technique through vernacular craft. We need proportion but also lack of proportion.
And we need logic but also emotion.
Bruce Lee has an
expression (in Artist of Life, see first post) - “a war between a robot
and a wild beast”. On the one side you need the training and disciplined
routine. On the other you need the complete opposite, the flexibility of pure
expressive response. These two are not compatible, and you need to destroy
routine in order to act.
There is no
resolution of the issue, in the same way there is no resolution of a moonlit
moor. What you are seeing is what there is. Which is atmosphere, or you are
feeling the air flow, hearing an owl hoot. There is no resolution of this issue
because you are not in technical space, you are just communing with nature in a
Jack London way.
You are also
being enclosed, because shadow is a form of enclosure. If you look at the illo
by Harnett of Fetterlock House (from a Cotswold locality), there is a strong
sense of vibrant texture and almost of burrowing into the surrounds; stone and
foliage as one.
The house I
would say is Tudor style with a strong vernacular element. When you look at
that house you cannot be told what you see because a lot of it is pure
expression. Expression of craftwork is what I see as a happening; a direct
response of the craftsman to the material and the setting. It supplies a
variegated texture that fairly ripples with atmosphere.
Atmosphere is
seen in the constant play of light and shade, in the lack of definition. What
appeals to us is actually the lack of resolution. We feel comfortable in a lack
of resolution, and why is that? Because there are two things going on; one is
technique and one is expression and they can’t be resolved.
If one feels
comfortable, I would also say it’s a type of enclosure. If enclosure can’t be
resolved, if it’s just a type of variegated shadow, then we can’t be told what
it is. It’s not a technical issue, it’s outside of technique.
In the same way,
time is not a technical issue, but you can see it in the lengthening of
shadows. Basically, not everything is technical, and it doesn’t matter what
technicians say, even if it happens to be Einstein! We know, and can sense and
can see the passage of time. We play our folk songs, we sing and dance in the
summer breeze. None of these things need to be told, they’re experiential.
So, the lost
world that one can possibly glimpse in Monterey is the experiential one. It’s
not lack of technique, but it is highly informal and subtly spiritual. It has
no resolution, it’s a happening. It’s not political, it’s a place. It’s a
tradition, a “Good tradition”. Tanita Tikaram’s song is in the tradition of
urban pop-folk. A tradition that isn’t resolvable but, in the lyrics:
There’s a
good tradition of love and hate
Staying by
the fireside
The rain may
fall
You still
feel safe inside
This world can
be governed politically, but it is also much more socially and economically
independent. Because you are essentially recreating an atmosphere I see it as
an alternative to the social-media future. The atmosphere is stone and wood,
hill and rock, heather and grass and, critically, it is enclosed. What I mean
by enclosure is something that is not resolvable, just what is there to the
senses.
Smailholm tower
near Kelso in Borders, early 16th century seat of Pringle family
near Stichill village
Enclosure
is variegated line, a constant sense of shadowplay, that essentially the
surroundings are not technical but expressive. I know it’s quite a difficult
thing to get conceptually, as you just have to “get it”. It’s something
children probably have an affinity with; in this link http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=14&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjg34jo57vNAhVYF8AKHc0ADmkQFghdMA0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdovegreyreader.typepad.com%2Fdovegreyreader_scribbles%2F2009%2F03%2Fthe-woolpack-by-cynthia-harnett.html&usg=AFQjCNEgT0okYsGG9kugdSxaUp-6JZYQ_w&bvm=bv.125221236,d.ZGg
Dovegreyreader
describes the attractions of doing a school project on The Wool-Pack –
the joys of tracing paper.
The
idea of tracing endless contours that go round and round. Nothing is
resolvable, but in the end it’s one thing. The grainy rock poking through the bracken,
the sturdy fort on the rock outcrop, the wavy wall descending to the byre. It’s
not design, but it’s not lack of design either. It is expression, and the
variegated shadows of stone, rock, heather and hill give a sense of enclosure.
Basically, the shadow is moulded into the forms, they are made of shadows.
Shadow,
as you can also see, tells you roughly the time of day. This “scene world” is
the opposite of “lightspace” or the technical world. It has a sense of time and
I would say also enclosure, since shadows enclose forms.
The
trouble with atmosphere is that you can describe it and experience it, but only
if it’s there. It’s the product of two unresolvable things, technique and
expression (or order and disorder). Of course, this doesn’t appeal to some,
especially those of a blatantly futuristic train of thought. The Daily
Telegraph’s head of technology, Madhumita Murgia, said recently..
..their immense
scale also means social networks have got a finger on the pulse of
humanity – the perfect vantage point from which to help. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/19/facebook-leads-the-way-in-online-compassion-but-others-need-to-f/
What
Murgia is actually talking about is transhumanism. The doctrine that humans are
special (apart from nature), that they are bright enough to design machines
that can design algorithms, and that the algorithms are what count.
It’s a future,
but it recks without the unresolvable quality of scenes. Now, scenes have an
impact on human health, social order, economy and historically government. You
could imagine a future in which humans become more scenic; in other words
retook the scenic places; started crofting; made a going concern of goat’s
cheese or whatever.
Algorithms in
actual fact can’t measure humanity because not everything is measurable. That
is the mistake that transhumanism makes, you can’t measure a scene because it
is actually literally immeasurable. Start drawing the contours.
3 Future-Medieval
FUTURE-MEDIEVAL
”The speed of
darkness” is seemingly the opposite to “the speed of light”. Darkness moulds
form, and extracts the light, giving a sense of time through shadow. It is
atmospheric space, the sort of place a romantic artist might set their easel.
So you might say it’s a place where calmness and ease of thought are in the
air, and the play of shadow gives a restful sense of time passing.
Now, you could
do without this space and instead inhabit a future “lightspace” (see first
post), but it seems to me that is just one future. There is no reason why the
speed of thought, of calmness and meditation, can’t be part of a future. It’s
just not the transhuman one of algorithms (see 2nd post).
Through a French
contact - one Perrine Sandrea - I got into French BD in the late 70s – the
golden age of Pilote and Metal Hurlant – and retrospectively
their alternate reality futures are mind-numbingly accurate in a crazed way.
Perrine Sandrea *
What I want to
do is to relate the medievalism of BWS’s prints to, specifically, Chantal
Montellier’s bold, shadow-haunted futurescapes. Dating from late 70s/80s, these
are the first and best noirish alternate futures.
There’s a lot
you could write about alternate futures – the crazed cityscapes of Caza, Bilal,
Motter, Schuitten and Gilbert Hernandez – but I want to focus on the simplicity
of Montellier’s black and white style. Despite all the futuristic complexity of
the militaristic, media-fixated Wonder City, it shares one thing in common with
its successors, something that probably originates with Le Corbusier’s ideal
template of the ‘30s.
This is
basically that all the noble idealism is so fantastically misguided that all
the crazed, Machiavelian scenes follow almost as a matter of course. The
idealism is essentially rational totalitarianism. What this says is that one
vision is sufficient for humanity to have ordered, satisfying existences.
Obviously the fallacy is so laughable that Montellier and the others have a
ball playing it out.
It’s an Apollonian
vision, brought to its peak in the aims of transhumanism. What happens in
Montellier is that the vision is constantly undercut by the simplicity of her style.
What you can say (from post 2) is that things are simplified by the use of
shadow. It’s a way of moulding the form, establishing solid geometry, bold
design and silhouette.
Montellier does
this because she wants to create mood and tension. Mood and tension are created
by the irresolvable contrast of black and white. What occurs is what occurs in
BWS’s harshly shaded figure drawing (mythical prints - post 1). A type of
visual symbolism that tells us the shadowland expresses mood, gives a sense of
time and geometrical space.
Mood is a
product of simplicity and an artist’s sense of refined delicacy. Comic book
artists are very good at this subtle undermining of a logical Apollonian
vision. Montellier seems to use Professor Nimbus as her Einstein substitute; a
universal expert with vision and advise for the citizenry.
Motter’s version
of this is Radiant City (Mr X), making the “lightspace” connection
obvious. It’s the very simplicity of shadow that makes it impenetrable to
logic, its mutability of form and changing expression. Artists, whether they
are aware or not, are subverting complexity with a world of shifting moods and
expressions.
This world is
actually the geometric world of time and space. Unlike Einsteinian space, which
is theoretical, Euclidian space is almost stage-lit. The stage-lit sense of
presence that you get in BWS’s prints is a nice riposte to a world which is so
tenuous and seemingly chasing fanciful theories, when the world of time and
space is there in bold outline.
And imagination,
because that’s what the world of time and space is. Because it’s not tenuous or
fanciful, because it’s a simple, bold reality, it affects us and we are
moulded, inculcated. We can dream. The shadowland – another word for Euclidean
– is the world of romantic decadence, or heroic romance. Of gardens which
absorb light, that need water, oases, the picturesque days of yore.
Another artist I
became familiar with was Italian Hugo Pratt, creator of romantic seafarer Corto
Maltese. His use of line is subtle and intense. In A Ouest de l’Eden (Pilote
#52, 1978), the dividing line between light and shade in the desert almost
seems to shimmer with the sun, moving, you can imagine, with the passage of
day.
The passage of
time, trecking to an oasis, dreamlike images that affect the mind. Shadows that
mould things that are in time and place, transport us also across time. This is
an alternate reality to the tenuous theories of “Professor Nimbus”. The
imagination has free rein and, in the words of Grace Slick’s “Hyperdrive”, we
can
Think
ourselves light years ahead
Or put
yourself 1,000 years back in time
Despite what
“Nimbus” says, things are actually simple, and there is a purely pictorial
aspect that transports us across time. What we respond to are drama, graphic
and sculptural qualities.
These images
affect us because the energy of line is irresolvable. It’s always a balance of
opposing forces, like Newton’s action and reaction. This happens in a world –
an alternate reality – where the energy of shadow counterbalances light. Shadow
is the diminution or extinction of light and that gives us geometric shape,
sense of time.
Now, you could
do without that world, and you’d be worshipping at the shrine of E=MC². But the
point is that is the light equation; not everything is light. There are two
aspects to reality and one is simply lack of light or night. You can say that
is less important, but the entire span of history and prehistory is against you
It is equally
important, and together they are irresolvable. Artists, by their use of line,
are establishing mood and atmosphere by the use of contrast. They don’t exist
without contrast. On the one side is light on the other side dark and both are
equally important. That might sound childishly simple and I suppose it is. But
that is the way we look at paintings, that is the reality, and anything that is
tenuously complex is not the reality.
Urban futures
are all saying that in their various ways. Perhaps the prototype is Jean-Luc
Godard’s Alphaville (1965), set in a nightmarish Paris.
The myth (Lemmy
Caution) conquers Alpha-60 and the same is possible with E=MC². We don’t have
to slavishly follow the light equation, or live in “lightspace”. We can take
back the world of geometry which in fact is composed equally of darkness. That
is the land of irresolvable myths. Godard has this logical tyranny running
through the imagery, at one point E=MC² flashing onscreen (about 18 minutes in when Caution visits the dive his pal Henri is staying, going up the stairs, also with Fifi a few minutes later, later on when Alpha-60 is breaking down).
With a bit of
imagination, the vistas of a romantic ruin can draw us back in time. The
monumental qualities of stone, etched against Mediterranean sky, the heroic
aspect of a theatre. The fantastical geometry and geography are pinpointed by
the play of black on white, giving a graphical quality that is overwhelming in
its simplicity. As we sit on the top tier of the theatre, shadows gradually
lengthen and our mind is transported back to the ancient clamour of performance
and ritual..
Though the
theatre was large, and could accommodate an audience of no less than 15,000
people, the lie of the land made it impossible to complete the semi-circle as
in most Greek theatres.. But this was compensated for by the superb view in
front of the spectators, looking out across the valley and fertile plain to the
sea and to Lesbian Sappho’s island floating in the bay. In the evening the warm
air would rise from below, and in a gentle breeze, carry every word from the
stage up to the furthest corners of the auditorium.
Duncan Forbes,
Travels in Turkey, The Book Guild, 1987
The simple
dominance of ancient sites is a “good tradition”, bounded by time and
geographical space. The rain may fall, but we still feel safe inside. Was
this yesterday? Yes, because time is flowing through the ancient stones.
Forbes’s book
has a conversational, documentary quality. The pictorial aspect of things is a
very accurate representation of their aspect in time and place. Almost
Tintinesque. The graphical quality of stone and earth when limned, etched
against Mediterranean light. The graphic and theatrical are actually reality
and not the purely logical theory or ideology. Along with “lightspace”, we also
do not live in global-space or technocratic-space. They are just inventions of
a logical maze.
Alphaville, the light equation, the logical maze..
Without the shadowland there is no romantic decadence, no decay of light. The
twilight in an oasis with camels slaking their thirst in the frond-fringed
atmosphere.
You can’t
imagine a desert without an oasis, or an oasis without a caravanserai. It’s a
good tradition and traditions travel the fertile paths of Man. But fertility is
simply the absence of light. Ancient traditions are well aware of this fact and
there is no escaping it.
The way out of
the uncomfortable logical maze is mainly to be much more traditional, since
traditions exist in the scenic land of time and place. In Travels in Turkey
, written in the 80s, people still used donkeys, the simpler rhythms that are
tied to the land. The book is good at evoking the sense of a continual history
- Greek, Biblical, Ottoman, Christian - tied together by geography.
There is a sense
in which ancient traditions – whether Biblical, Greek, Medieval – are tied to
geography, and the simple drama of line drawings. Europe is tied to geography,
basically, not politics.
*If you’re out there Perrine, I need someone
to write French links to French pop-culture types, sort of PR.
The general drift is rebellion, a revival of l’esprit
de Monterey et ’68. Le deja-vu, c’est nous.
4 Travels In Europe
TRAVELS IN EUROPE
Traditions exist
in time and place. They are resolutely Euclidean and whatever they say about
ancient ruins they are landmarks in time. In his travels over the Anatolian
plateau and the Mediterranean shore, Forbes reels off exciting landmarks like
there’s no tomorrow, but there sure are a lot of yesterdays.
Cover of Forbes’s book, The Book Guild (1978)
It has been said
Turkey is the hub of everything – Europe and Asia, Middle-East and West, Black
sea and Mediterranean – and that predetermines its politics. If it weren’t for
Kemal Ataturk it would have been divided between all those. Patriotism runs
deep, now with Erdogan.
If you then say,
is Europe patriotic? the pregnant pause might speak for itself. Europe and the
Ottomans may have been antagonists since Suleyman camped at the gates of Vienna
(The Shadow of the Vulture), but the difference is Turkey has not changed that
much. Thanks to Ataturk, the demise of the Ottoman Empire turned into not a non
future but a fight back. The wealth of the Bosporus and the glories of Istanbul
were retrieved with much blood.
Turkey, from the
point of view of epistemology – knowledge of what’s there – is quite dramatic
and picturesque. Europe, by contrast, is a fantastical mess of utter
contradictions. The closest it gets to Turkey is Spain’s Andalucian Moorish
splendour. Europe is essentially national cultures, so if you ask, What is
Europe? there is no ready answer. That might be ok politically or economically,
but it’s not ok epistemologically. The first thing a ruler has to know is what
they’re ruling over.
The simple fact
is that Europe doesn’t exist epistemologically, but does exist as a logical
maze. That’s the difference not just with Turkey but with America, which exists
in the mind as an idea of rugged independence. This brings forth images of
cowboys and steers, plucky Indians, the High Chaparral and so on. We’re again
in scenic space, the vistas of John Ford’s Westerns. We all know these images,
and it’s also apparent the images must have an ontological basis in the land.
So, this type of knowledge is not just rational, it is the type that involves
irresolvable qualities of line. It’s the type of knowledge you also get from a
view from the theatre at Pergamum (post 3).
Europe has to
start from that type of knowledge because otherwise everything is Machiavellian.
It doesn’t matter if the intentions are good or bad; they are just travelling
round a logical maze. There is a problem with understanding; the assumption is
a rational world is good, which is like saying if you live in a logical maze
all you need is logic. In fact, that’s a recipe for madness. You always start
with simple, dramatic vistas, the view from the hill.
Elric Vol 1, page 75
(Thomas/Russell/Gilbert adaptation of Moorcock): logic is always useful,
particularly on a land-ship
Logic is useful,
indispensable, but it’s not knowledge of things. So, actually, logic is only useful
in an illogical world. The world is only logical if you don’t bother about
epistemology – knowledge of things – or ontology. As far as the latter goes,
people are impressed with the infinite complexity of computer algorithms and
theorems whereas I’m impressed by Greek temples. The latter are a product of
balance and restraint, expression and the irresolvable qualities of line.
Europe, much
more than its historical neighbour Turkey, has lost its ontological identity.
There is a big problem of understanding. We don’t want politics, we want a
revival of rebellion. Rebellion by its nature is less rational and so more open
to the experience of ontology. Politicians like to think they are dealing with
problems; I was speaking to a Scottish street guy the other day who was hanging
around the harbour. He happened to be anti immigration and struck me as a
weatherbeaten cove. Immigration may be a problem but there are other problems.
If this guy
comes from Glasgow, the majority of the Highlanders in Glasgow were “cleared”
from the land in the 19th century. The land, because it’s a scenic
habitat, is an ontological problem. It’s not political. You have to preserve
the land and you do that by living on it, making a life of crofting or
fish-farming.
That doesn’t
worry politicians because it’s an ontological problem to do with the dramatic
vistas and picturesque locales of the Highlands. But, that is Scotland. It’s a
product of light and the nature of the land. Therefore, to get into that area
we need to get out of politics. That, of course, is just a subset of economics,
so how do we get out of that? It has to be done ontologically. It can only be a
riposte to the ultimate logical maze of transhumanism.
Transhumanism
accepts everything from E=MC² down and doesn’t accept the opposite – subtly
balanced expression and the grand simplicity of time-lost vistas. This sounds
pretty abstract, so put it in the shape of a question; how irresolvable is in
fact the “real world”? Are there alternatives?
I think there is
an alternative to the one envisaged by Google&Co and this will come into
the next post. In the meantime, a good way to counter this is to go back into
history. I’m no expert so a few observations will have to suffice. In Shadow of
the Vulture (post 2), about the siege of Vienna by Suleyman and his advance
guard under Mikal Oglu (the Vulture), REH says a lot about Europe’s inclement
weather, fortuitous thunderstorms and shipwrecks, and uses phrases like “The
infidel invaders”.
This surprises
us, but is just a product of civilized Christian values of the 14th
century. REH is quite even handed, and makes a point of saying the hated
Janizaries are not Mohammedans but Westerners, a ragtag of mercenaries loyal
only to their paypacket. Here’s a long quote towards the end of the story.
About the
vast arena stalked trained elephants, almost covered with housings of
gold-worked leather, and from the jewelled towers on their backs, fanfares of
trumpets vied with the roar of the throngs and the bellowing of lions. The
tiers of the Hippodrome were a sea of faces, all turning toward the jewelled
figure on the shining throne, while thousands of tongues wildly thundered his
acclaim.
As he
impressed the Venetian envoys, Suleyman knew he impressed the world. In the
blaze of his magnificence, men would forget that a handful of desperate Caphars
behind rotting walls had closed his road to empire. Suleyman accepted a goblet
of the forbidden wine, and spoke aside to the Grand Vizier, who stepped forth
and raised his arms.
“Oh, guests
of my masters, the Padishah forgets not the humblest in the hour of rejoicing.
To the officers who led his hosts against the infidels, he has made rare
gifts. Now he gives two hundred and forty thousand ducats to be distributed
among the common soldiers, and likewise to each Janizary he gives a thousand
aspers.” (page 421)
Turkish Mehter
Traditional
Macedonian
I’m no expert in
medieval history and have only a passing familiarity with Byzantium, so will
have to confine this to a general observation about the Ottoman, Christian
conflict.
This is that
history was made “on-the-hoof”. Representatives from the Venetian Empire, from
the vassals of Byzantium and from the Ottomans had a free hand to make deals
and basically deal with the situation as they saw fit. In the end, Byzantium
fell, but there was a long history of trade and civilized discourse with the
Ottomans. What that means is that history was largely a result of day-to-day
action; discourse in the market; trade in the harbour; time-lapse diplomacy. It
is quite filmic because it is action in-the-moment.
Basically, there
were very few preconceptions, and there is a lot of flow and movement of
people. This is what history was; movement of people and things. This is what
we see in paintings.
People in
motion
There’s a
whole generation
With a new
explanation
“San Francisco”,
Mamas and Papas
It’s a
happening, because a happening is when things “happen”. Now, a happening
happens when things are different; it’s a type of uncertainty. It can’t happen
when things are the same because then they are planned.
In the medieval
world, you could plan things to a certain extent, but you were operating in quite
an uncertain world. That sort of world is actually a product of opposites; of
order and disorder. The problem with envisaging something like a uniformly
governed Europe is that it assumes the world is ordered, but it’s not. It
consists of night and day. It consists of ancient geometry.
I quoted REH in
full as he gives a telling picture of oriental grandeur. The drama and
fascination are almost out of a Delacroix painting, but this is quite true to
the ceremonial world of the Ottomans. Now, this is not a political point; it’s
not a comment on decadence and luxury. I’m just saying that politics is to do
with order – the world isn’t ordered.
This is an
ontological point, not a political one. The only sort of order that can work is
an attempt to create order in something that’s disordered. Then we find that
really pleasing, like one of Capability Brown’s gardens.
A garden is not
a bad metaphor as it is also fertile and enclosed. It’s what I would call a
Euclidean area. There is a sense of drama, a frisson of buds ripening in
spring. What I would say is that sense of exciting frisson is mirrored in the
quote by REH of the ceremonial orient. In other words, it can be governed, but
you can’t govern order; that is madness (see Alphaville). You can only
govern disorder.
Grace Slick’s
song “Garden of Man” contains a mirror in the lyrics; I’m assuming it’s a magic
mirror.
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