Wednesday 19 August 2020

Write...Edit...Publish... + IWSG August 2020 : Long Shadow


Write...Edit...Publish... is sticking to its Lite version for now...and I am sticking to the essay format...




Breath and Shadow


A human being is only breath and shadow. – Sophocles. 


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The mind is a shape shifter. Like a shadow – squat at midday, long by sunset. One minute it is a grasshopper, all chirpy multitasking cheerfulness, juggling a million thoughts per second, leaping off one to the other, unable to stick with just a single. The next it is a bulldog, just lugubrious folds and salt-of-earth tenacity, focussed sharp and a serial stickler for one at a time.  Yet again it is a pigeon, slicing through the fluff and zooming home to what matters.  As mercurial as a drop of water on a lotus leaf, huddled into its own rounded self, concise and self-contained and tiny, unable to wet anything yet reflecting a whole skyscape of clouds above it.

The mind can contain a whole skyscape of grief and loss and stressful pandemics, yet go about working cell by cell on spreadsheets, or writing word by word, an essay sparked by a prompt. It can imagine the universe is its oyster, it can blithely go about seeing multiverses in a grain of sand.  Smoothly glide back and forth along the continuum of time from history and art history to sci-fi and fantasy. Between truth and fiction, between the abstract and concrete, between the painfully personal and the monumentally universal. There is no end to its skittering about.

Today it’s vaulted back to the first seat of Western higher learning, to Athens. That’s where the history of the cast shadow in Western art goes back to - ancient Greece. They were the first to develop and use ‘a geometry of light’ and cast shadows in art. Apollodorus, an Athenian artist, introduced a shading technique called skiagraphia (lit shadow-painting) to create the impression of volume, depth and space on a flat plane. However, in the Allegory of the Cave, Plato set up a shadow-reality dichotomy that continues to influence all spheres of Western culture even today. That Greek perception of shadow was negative – associated with ignorance, illusory, unreal. 

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A counterpoint can be found in the Natural History  in which Pliny the Elder, the Roman historian, recorded the Greco-Roman origin myth of Western art: a young woman – the clay modeller Butades’ daughter, who captured her lover’s shadow on a wall as he slept on the night before his departure as a romantic keepsake. This was a far more positive angle, a love story, but it could not throw off the Cave’s, um…long shadow. Cast shadows in art dwindled from the classical period onward, with their dodgy impression of ugly, gloomy, negative, deluding the viewer with trickery and deception. Shadows in art remained a no-no for centuries. Till the Renaissance upended everything. 


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Darkness is the absence of light. Shadow is the diminution of light. – Leonardo da Vinci.

The grasshopper meanwhile, as is its wont, has leapt down a rabbit hole. What exactly were the Easterners doing to their shadows? Eastern art, the Chinese, Japanese and Indian traditions are deep and ancient, but they always were more stylised than Western art. No space for cast shadows there historically. From the Renaissance onward Western art explored the exact representation of experienced reality through linear perspective, shading and shadows.  Eastern art by and large remained moored in tradition however, and experiments with realism came later, mainly due to European colonisation. But the converse is also true, Eastern art diffused into Europe and inspired Western artists too. In particular, Japanese art crossed the oceans and left its indelible mark on one particular, much celebrated artist.

A landmark Renaissance work, where  linear perspective and cast shadows were first used, was a fresco in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. The artist, Masaccio (1401-28) was one of the pioneers in Renaissance art - he used cast shadows masterfully. 

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In another Masaccio artwork – St Peter Healing the Sick with His Shadow, the shadow of the saint dominates the core message, but visually the shadow does not hide the sick. 


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The vocabulary of shadows continued to develop through the work of later artists - Caravaggio, Bernini, Gianlorenzo and others.  By the time of Rembrandt and Vermeer, the techniques of perspective, chiaroscuro and cast shadows were quite established. And then Impressionism with its soft brush strokes, stunning colours, subtle movement and shimmery reflections  shredded all the rules again.

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Like a shadow, I am and I am not. – Jalaluddin Rumi.


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An evolution of light. Looking at the body of work this artist left in his short career, there seems to be a progression from the shadows into light, both literally and figuratively. In his early works, he used chiaroscuro to marvellous effect. His palette and perspective changed radically midway when he came to Paris. There he encountered two forces which would change his art. One, the Impressionists, and second, Japanese woodcuts. His palette became lighter, brighter, more colourful. His perspectives became flatter, and his art avant-garde,  by repurposing the ancient.

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Japanese art was a major inspiration for Vincent, he wanted to find a take-off point for a more modern, more stylised vibe, and Japanese prints – with their bold patches of colour, prominent contour lines, lack of horizons and shadows, truncated frames and focus on nature – fitted admirably. He went south to Arles looking for the “clearness of atmosphere” and “colour effects” of Oriental prints. Even his idea of an artist’s commune was based on Japanese monks living and working together. His painting of his bedroom at Arles is the epitome of the Japanese influence – bold colours, a subtly distorted perspective and removal of all cast shadows. 


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Unfortunately, what happened on canvas did not translate into personal life. The more his external work exploded with colour and creativity, the greater was the turmoil in his inner workings. The artists’ commune did not materialise, Gauguin came and left after a major disagreement. Vincent had a series of mental breakdowns. His neighbours petitioned for him to be removed on account of ‘insanity.’ An abject sense of failure dogged him. Like some Gothic horror story come eerily to life, for every burst of brilliance on the easel, his life seemed to become a couple of shades darker, regress into the terrible shade of mental illness. Despite his efforts, he was wholly unable to shake that off. Till all that remained was a shadow, without breath.


WC - 1051
FCA


Read the other entries - 

50 comments:

  1. WEP may be light. Your words are not. I will visit, revisit and ponder in the days to come.
    Many, many thanks.

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    1. I've been trying to lighten up and failing singularly. This year no lightness for me...thanks, EC for being here.

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  2. Hari OM
    With your words woven into sentences which weave light in the brain and leave it in the shadow of thought, I thank you for leading us along a fascinating and dappled trail! YAM xx

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  3. I thought of the shadow puppet shows of Thailand (I think). A different kind of shadow.

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    1. The history of shadow puppetry is also fascinating! And silhouette photography... and then onto films/TV. Shadows have a big role in all arts really.

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  4. wow - this was Art History 101. Children at home should be required to read this link. Nila - you are something else with your words. I'm envious and grateful at the same time - to get to read and ponder. Thanks!

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    1. Thank you! I am a fan of history and van Gogh both, so ... :)

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  5. Wonderful. The introduction was breathtaking. All lights shades and shadows converged into Vincent Van Gogh.

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  6. This essay was such a treat to read, imparting so much information while playing beautifully with words.

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    1. Not sure if the words play with me or the other way round! :) Pleased you liked it.

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  7. I love your posts! You weave words beatuifully and I always leave better for having arrived. Thank you!

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    1. That is the nicest compliment one can receive, thank you!

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  8. Great essay, really brought art to life.

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  9. Nice Article. My reaction to your post went from "OMG I'm like this!" to "that's enlightening, I should read more about this."

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    1. That's super helpful the detailing of that reaction, many thanks, Bernadette. Btw, glad to know I'm not alone.

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  10. An informative essay that discerns how easily the atmosphere around you shapes anything you create. Well done.

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    1. Thank you, surroundings impact art expressions in the most hard to pin down ways sometimes.

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  11. This is a beautiful and unique take on the theme. And such an interesting exploration of history--from the scholars thoughts to the world of art. I thoroughly enjoy the piece.

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  12. Wonderful essay, informative and emotional.

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  13. I didnt realise that shadows were out of favour in art till the Renaissance. I shall look more carefully in future. Light and shade, yes, shadows, no.

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    1. Not just in art, in language and literature too. To be in the shadow, to cast a shadow etc - none of it is perceived in a good light.

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  14. Interesting and informative. Nice job. Dixie Jo Jarchow

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  15. Your essays always leave me stunned and speechless. The way you take the prompt and weave something so thought provoking and educational is astonishing. Wonderful!

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  16. Ditto on Laura's comment. I'm thrilled to see you sharing this way. You are the master!

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    1. I'm thrilled to have such encouraging words from y'all! Thank you.

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  17. Another wonderful art lesson. I've always related to the struggles of Vincent van Gogh.
    Naughty Netherworld Press

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    1. Vincent has been a heart throb of mine for the longest time! :)

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  18. Nilanjana I love your writing. The art lesson is great but I would come back for the sheer magic of your words.

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  19. Thank you Nilanjana for this article and the quotes from Sophocles and Leonard Da Vinci, both embodying key moments to Humankind philosophy of life and art. Beautifully written. Happy WEP week.

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    1. Happy WEP week to you too, and thanks for the feedback.

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  20. Always so interesting, knowledgeable and thought-provoking. I learn something every time!

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  21. Nila...wonderful...I feel I could sit at your feet and be lost in your words. From beginning to end, you held me in thrall. Of course, the introduction of Vincent into the mix had me delighted. Did you see they've found the exact spot/trees/road where he painted his last painting hours before he died. Sad that he only sold one painting in his lifetime. (On a side note, his bedroom is still exactly the same in all the important ways. Was there in 2016).

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    1. Yes, that is so moving isn't it? To find the spot almost exactly as painted 130 years later! It's a real pity his work wasn't accepted commercially, had it been, he wouldn't have committed suicide I am sure! and we would have had more of his art to feast on. So tragic it ended the way it did.

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  22. Hi,
    What can I say but awesome. I sat here reading your essay an living the moment, my mind transported to each scene that you portrayed. Then Van Gogh whom I consider the greatest painter of all times. Ending this essay with him. you painted his agony and his ecstasy.
    You are a borne historical writer of fiction and non fiction. Whenever I read your submissions for the WEP, I come out one gem richer in my heart.
    Thank you.
    Shalom aleichem,
    Pat Garcia

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    1. Thank you Pat G. That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said on this blog! One gem richer - I am going to hold that close. Both as inspiration and as a benchmark, thanks once again.

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  23. I am as always moved by how well, and poetically, you share information and honor each topic. I learn so much from your essays and, oddly, I feel I relate to the sad tone of this piece as it follows the trail of shadows through art.

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    1. Thank you. I never feel I do the topic justice! It's always hard to condense everything I want said into the word count - sometimes I fail outright, at others I'm better at adhering to rules.

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  24. Wow! That's a lot about art and Vincent that I never knew. Cool way to use the prompt.

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  25. Hi Nila - as Pat mentioned above ... I really would like to spend a few months nearby - enabling me to learn at your skirt tales - I've made note of this as I have two art books I want to read. As with music ... I need to learn - but really appreciate how you've given us an overview of art history from the jumping brain POV - tying it all up with Vincent's last shadow of breath ... brilliant. You do write exquisitely ... take care and all the best - Hilary

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    1. Thank you, Hilary! I am blown away by Pat and your kind words. There's a lovely book on the history of shadows in art, if I can find it, I'll send a link. Stay safe and well.

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