Art and Design Blog

Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Empress Theodora

And her past

A comment at VFR comparing the 6th century Byzantine Empress Theodora with the Spitzer escort girl prompted me to write this post, especially since I had just finished reading - coincidentally - a short excerpt on Theodora in Daniel Boorstin's The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination. Theodora started off with lowly beginnings as the daughter of a bear keeper, followed her mother's profession as an actress, and eventually became a prostitute. Here is an excerpt from Boorstin's account of her:

[A]ccording to Procopius "As soon as she was old enough and fully developed, she joined the women on the stage and promptly became a courtesan." Who would have predicted that she would become an emperor's faithful wife, a passionate Christian theologian, and the most powerful empress in the history of the Roman Empire?

Boorstin continues to say that this all happened after:

Suddenly and unaccountably, [she] abandoned her lascivious ways, settled in a modest house near the palace, and earned her living by spinning wool. Attracted by Theodora's beauty, wit, intelligence, and youth, Justinian determined to marry her.

The mysterious word is "unaccountably."

I will venture to say that this change wasn't unaccountable. By gleaning through various written and internet sources, it appears that in her early twenties, she briefly stayed in Alexandria and converted to Christianity. Although no source I have reviewed makes this association, where inference follows logic, it would surely be her Christian conversion that led her to abandon her previous life, and live modestly as a wool spinner.

Her extraordinary life with Justinian is immortalized in the mosaics at the San Vitale Basilica in Italy, where she stands with her cohort of women on the south wall of the apse, facing her husband Emperor Justinian, who is on the north wall. Justinian had made her joint ruler of the Byzantine Empire.

With great contrition at putting Theodora's name together with Spitzer's call girl, here's a headline from Times online entitled: Prostitute Ashley Alexandra Dupre behind Eliot Spitzer sex scandal cashes in.

One can never accuse the expiated Theodora of cashing in. In fact, her legacy lives on as one can only hope, after renouncing sin and attempting to live an exemplary life.

Mosaic of Justinian in San Vitale
[Click image to see larger version]

Mosaic of Theodora in San Vitale
[Click image to see larger version]

Saturday, March 8, 2008

The Unwearable Genius of John Galliano

Fashion as Inspiration

John Galliano is the enfant terrible of the fashion industry. And whatever deviations he takes, he will always be forgiven (at least by me) for his talent, and, I really believe, his deep desire to create beautiful clothes.

For some reason, he seems to be stuck on tarnishing the very women for whom he creates his clothes. His models have strange doll-like make-up at times, some he adorns (!) with moustache-like paint, others walk in heavy fur winter boots while modelling silk floral spring clothes.

Another strange obsession of his is are wispy, dusty veils. These grey head-gear look like they're made of cobwebs from dusty interiors. They look like death at the doorstep.

His obsession with death (and with distorted, doll-like women) almost has a romantic feel to it, of the decadent, violent type.

I can hardly go into what makes Galliano deface (literally) his designs. That is why his work will only remain an inspiration and perhaps this is as lofty a compliment as I can make.

Galliano's Genius
[Click image to see larger version]

Everything from the great Valentino, on the other hand, is always for the wearing.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Slowly Seeping into our Landscape

Moratorium on exotic representations

It is unusual that I don't post images for two straight weeks, and the previous post was too serious to put up images which corroborate with the erroneous "Moorish Revival" as proposed by the writers at Space Toronto.

I understand and appreciate fully the creative desire at times to represent "exoticism." And this is just what I did with my gouache print design which I did a couple of years ago entitled "Desert Jewels." I'm pretty sure it is the turquoise domes of the Iraqi landscapes which inspired me to do this.

But, this type of occasional representation is a far cry from the stories of design and fashion changes that our Muslim residents are planning for our cities.

Print design "Desert Jewels"

With sadness, I have to conclude that exoticism has to be out for now. And we are far better off going back to our original landscape to reinforce it back into our psyche.

Fortunately, I did just that last year, with my Trillium and Queen Anne's Lace series.

Print design
"Trillium/Queen Anne's Lace"

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Cross-Cultural Influences

Moorish Revival, with a twist

I've consistently said that Canadians are either very naive or deeply irresponsible. A recent article I came across from Spacing Toronto entitled Toronto meets Marrakesh leads me to think that the sin lies in irresponsibility.

The online blog, which is part of a print edition, describes itself thus:

Spacing Toronto is your hub for daily dispatches from the streets of Toronto to cities around the world, offering both analysis and a forum for discussion. Our contributors examine city hall, architecture, urban planning, public transit, transportation infrastructure and just about anything that involves the public realm of our cities.

Clearly a blog and magazine that tries to understand the urban landscape of cities across Canada.

But, the writer of Toronto Meets Marrakesh, Thomas Wicks, is incapable of differentiating between a benign, and even flourishing, urban landscape, and that which is endangered.

European and American artists have always had a fascination for foreign cultures, from African masks, to Chinese ceramics to exotic "Moorish" styles. Often, they lived in these cultures for some time, or spent years traveling back and forth, while borrowing from and being inspired by their alien friends.

Still, the bottom line has always been that they never transformed their societies with these strange and foreign elements. Whatever they brought, somehow and not always tidily, fit into their European or American environments.

Wicks' great description of the Toronto landscape of the early 20th century, when there was a general Moorish Revival through architecture, art and design, shows that many of these elements (they were actually very few) somehow blended in, albeit a little incongruously, with the rest of the city, and Toronto went on being Toronto, and nothing fundamental changed.

Yet, Wicks' attempt to favorably compare the latest "Moorish" incursion with the original one is completely erroneous and dangerous.

There is no Moorish Re-Revival. There are no artists and architects who, enchanted by these faraway lands, tried to bring a little of that exoticism back to their hometown.

What we have now is actual "Moors" right here, who are adamant about changing the landscape to fit their world view. They are not building mosques and minarets as quaint additions to a northern city, but as buildings which will transform this city. There will not be one or two buildings dispersed here and there, but whole regions which will be under the visual and aural spell of this new landscape.

Wicks appears to be a regular writer for Spacing Toronto. I hold him responsible for his myopia and wrong analogies, since he appears to be a professional. He will be directly responsible for the innocent bystander who will have to hear chants five times daily from the minaret that was built just across his home. And even if he moves to another place, a new one is sure to rise up again.

Canadians are certainly not naive. They have ample evidence, information and proof. They are ultimately profoundly irresponsible to their society, their environment and their landscape.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Flat, Simple and Funny

Charley Harper's Illustrations

It is always a pleasure to find an innovative artist who eschews the avant-garde mentality. Charley Harper (1922-2007) made his first claim to fame when he illustrated The Golden Book of Biology, and The Animal Kingdom. Although not pure realism, his illustrations are nonetheless realistic. He calls his work "minimal realism" and he describes it as "flat, simple and funny."

I think they are more than that, with a certain charm, rhythm, and a story to them.

Birch, Bark and Birds

Double Lucky

Octoberama

Trumpeter Swan

Migration Mainline, Cape May

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Collapsing Architecture

The warning signs of Toronto's latest architectural addition

The new Royal Ontario Museum's (ROM) extension sits on the narrow curb of Bloor street as if ready to fall on the innocent pedestrians. Its architect, Daniel Libeskind, who also started the Twin Towers memorial, but later on had to cede the design to another architect for fear of an unstable structure, has been very buoyant during his interviews about his new Toronto structure.

The new Royal Ontario Museum exterior

The new Royal Ontario Museum interior

Interviewer: Your addition is radically different from the existing ROM building. Along with the praise, you’ve heard lots of criticism of it.

Daniel Libeskind: When the Eiffel Tower was built, it was condemned universally. But what would Paris be without the Eiffel Tower?

Libeskind hubristic response equating the Eiffel Tower with the new ROM extension is not even correct. The Eiffel Tower was built in the spirit of triumph, celebrating the one hundred years of the French Revolution and man's perceived victory against fate, at least the fate of ordained Kings and serfdoms, by lofty (if misguided) ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. It was also an ode to the science and technology, and the achievements of the industrial age.

What has Libeskind's convoluted structure to offer? Libeskind's consistent response is that his buildings are "different" and "progressive." That's it, according to him. That's their value.

But there is another undeclared layer that Libeskind is not articulating. Either he doesn't really know it, or is too clever to mention it. His buildings all convey destruction, the opposite of architecture. But why is that? I think primarily because of uncertainty. Libeskind has no principles to build on. Liberty, equality, science, centennials? None of these words figure in his interviews. Instead abstract and empty ones like "different" and "radical" describe much of his intentions.

Libeskind is essentially a nihilist. And since art is always the projector of its creator's thinkings, his buildings emerge as potentially (imminently) crumbling edifices. And his interiors are no different. There is a sense of claustrophobic despair inside his structures, as though the wall are about to fold in. In fact that was one of the strongest criticisms of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, another of his buildings on the verge of collapse.

Whenever architects and artists distort our structures to the point of collapse, I believe that danger is nearby. This was what happened just before the horror of the Nazis. German filmmakers were making their own nightmarish films, and claustrophobic buildings about to cave in figured prominently in their stage sets. But there was at least a sense of awareness of impending doom by the German filmmakers. They chose, unwisely, to deal with it in metaphorical terms. Libeskind, on the other hand, keeps cheerfully giving interviews about the renaissance of Toronto, with, of course, his exemplary contribution.