The Coventry Carol

Lully Lullay

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child, bye, bye, lully lullay. O sisters too, how may we do, for to preserve this day, this poor youngling for whom we sing, bye, bye lully lullay. Herod the king in his raging, charged he hath this day, his men of night, in his own sight, all young children to slay. Then woe is me, poor child, for thee! And every morn and day, for thy parting not say nor sing bye, bye, lully lullay. Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child, bye, bye, lully lullay.

Here is a MIDI link to the song. It is not the best, but it does have a nice organ sound.

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"Let there be no traitors in our ranks!"

The Governor General's Coat of Arms


Its been several months since the Governor General, our representative of the Queen, was "inaugurated". Amid months of controversy over videos of her with Quebec’s separatists, she still got the post.

But, here is an even more insidious sign. Her coat of arms displays a deep-rooted inability to conform to Canadian traditions.

It shows voodoo female gods on either side, broken chains and conches referring to a Haitian national symbols (a runaway slave), an incongruent palm tree at the bottome left, and an ambiguous sand dollar in the middle.

The only indication (hard pressed even to see that) that we’re in Canada is a diminutive pine tree (bottom right), and an equally inconspicuous Royal Crown.

But this "tradition" of personal representation at the expense of the general culture has been building up for quite a while.

Romeo Lablanc’s coat of arms celebrates his "French" heritage for this very English of Canada’s appointments (representative of the Queen!).

And Adrienne Clarkson was all about Chinese.

But Jean is the most dangerous of them all. She has not only kept out any clear traditional Canadian elements, we are forced to look at a voodoo incantation of two female gods.

No sign of a cross to counterbalance that.

"Let there be no traitors in our ranks!" An apt line from the Haitian national anthem.

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Vogue Cover Illustrations

The Legacy of Aubrey Beardsley




Aubrey Beardsley lived a short life of twenty five years. His drawings, many used to illustrate books and posters, had a sense of foreboding about them, often with androgynous figures with cruel expressions. Kenneth Clark, the art critic and writer says that Beardsley knew about Evil.

(Left, Aubrey Beardsley, The Black Cape)
(Right, Condé Nast Vogue Cover, 1920s)




His many illustrated books included: Oscar Wilde’s play “Salomé”, an art an literary magazine called “The Yellow Book” of which he was the art editor, and Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”.

( Left: Aubrey Beardsley's Cover design for Smithers catalogue of rare books)

(Left: Condé Naste Vogue Cover, 1920s) 

(Right Aubrey Beardsley, Isolde)

Close to his death (due to tuberculosis) he converted to Catholicism and died at the very end of the nineteenth century.

These Condé Nast Publications for Vogue Magazine reminded me of Beardsley’s illustrations. Most of the Vogue illustrations are from the turn of the twentieth century (1912-15). Beardsley’s beautiful (but disturbing) images have found their true place. Decorating the women he tried so much to put in a favorable light.

(Left: Aubrey Beardsley: La Dame aux Camelias)
(Right: Condé Nast Vogue Cover, 1920s)

(Aubrey Beardsley: The Peacock Skirt)

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On The Twelve Days of Christmas

One of my Favorite Carols (too many to choose from)

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me A Partridge in a Pear Tree On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me Eleven Pipers Piping Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me 12 Drummers Drumming Eleven Pipers Piping Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

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Diversity in Writers

Will the Real Jeeves Please Stand?

England has witnessed several years of non-English authors who keep winning literary prizes, or just literary acclaim. Zadie Smith was recently in the headlines, Salman Rushdie has managed to outlive his fatwa, and another less famous but prolific writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, has written yet another book from those fair British Isles.

I’ve read books by all three, even tried more than one of each. And all leave me less than enthralled, slightly confused, and struck by a lack of authenticity. I find their characters to be caricatures. Both Rushdie and Smith go for hyperbole, while Ishiguro goes for exactly the opposite.

I’m beginning to wonder if non-British writers, however much they were born on the Island, can really capture the spirit of the land.

“Remains of the Day” by Ishiguro has a gloomy, undecipherable, remorseful butler try to recapture something of what he’s lost during all those years of selfless service. Actually, I recant my observation about Ishiguro’s understatement. What could be more of a hyperbole than this?

Then there is P.G. Wodehouse, with the inimitable Jeeves. His adroit butler who really always does save the day, after a lot of scampers and near-disasters along the way. And he does get to have his day at the sea-side also, and quite frequently.

I think Wodehouse captured his character with affection as a butler who certainly is not going to be bossed around by any Lord! No remains for him to collect.

Sometimes I wonder; if you don’t have your full emotions invested in a place, how can you write positive things about it? Like Rushdie, Smith and Ishiguro, who seem to deny a possibility for a future in their books, and press on with their circular exaggerations trying to find meanings for themselves.

Ishiguro’s 2001 book “When we were orphans” is about an Englishman who mysteriously lost his parents as a young boy in Shanghai. He returns as a professional detective to solve that ultimate mystery. It reminds me of these writers, trying to find clues about their past by digging into words.

Ishiguro’s latest book forfeited the unapproachable Far East, and his ancestral home, for something even more alien. It seems like he’s completely given up on ‘his’ England. “Never let me go” is about a Utopia (or a dystopia) on cloning. No more real people, real places or real stories for Ishiguro in the advent of the 21st century.

Why doesn’t this progression of his thoughts and stories not surprise me?

Quote from an interview with Ishiguro on "When we were Orphans":

There's a certain kind of branded, packaged atmosphere of Shanghai: this exotic, mysterious, decadent place. The same in Remains of the Day. It was a case of manipulating certain stereotypical images of a certain kind of classical England. Butlers and tea and scones: it's not really about describing a world that you know well and firsthand. It's about describing stereotypes that exist in people's heads all around the world and manipulating them engagingly.

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America’s Top Portraits

Reality Model Show Displays the Classics

Any reference to High Art by the Lower Arts has to be a good thing.

Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model (ANTM – as the website calls it) made each of her (remaining) five contestants pose as subjects in a classic painting.

The snobbism these days associated with ‘Art’ is really a recent phenomenon. Art has always been for the public. Notice Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes, his town center David, and Bach’s choral compositions, all for the public.

In fact, some ‘classic’ works have become so popular even in our postmodern days, that they have been mimicked, copied, parodied, satirized and made into any number of greeting cards by the public.

There’s Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, who is just as well know with her mustache as without.

And she figures again in Tyra’s enthusiastic show, although I’m not so sure how Leonardo would feel about his latest copy.

Click on each painting to see the Next Top Model’s rendition. They don’t live up to the originals, but I’m optimistic that they’ll keep the tradition going.







Top row:
Botticelli The Birth of Venus 1445-1510
Leonardo Da Vinci Mona Lisa 1503-1507

Middle Row:
Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring - 1665
Whistler Arrangement in Black and Grey, Portrait of the Painter's Mother
1871

Bottom Row:
Leonardo Da Vinci Vitruvian Man 1492

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Crimes vs. Values

Martha’s Designs and Conrad’s Prints

Much has been said about Martha’s ‘sins’, which probably resulted in the biased jury that convicted her.

Black’s crimes are equally nefarious – that is to the few, and powerful, who wish to indict him.

Both in their own way managed to cloud over “Though shalt not steal”.

Yet, finally, question of their criminality is not how many legal (or illegal) barriers they jumped, but what are their values.

Martha’s values may indeed be what kept her company going for so long, enriching us with ideas and products. Her television show was a mixture of do-it-yourself crafts (which really can be done if taken the time) and a pristine set with pleasant colors and good design.

Black’s, well I’m not entirely sure what they brought us since many of his original newspapers have now been sold, and Canada’s National Post no longer maintains the vision he once had of it.

Courts, it seems, are not designed to judge based on values. It is life (or a higher order) that eventually decides that.

Martha’s sin – i.e. lack of values - (not crime) may have been her arrogance. But without it, how could she have run her mega-empire?

Black’s is probably his lustfulness (more so than his arrogance). But how could he satisfy his wife without that?

If I were to judge, I would say that Martha’s sin is the lesser of the two. A leader needs a certain amount of arrogance to run the show.

Black’s was all about himself – and his wife. All about money. And unlike Martha, he eventually had to sell the majority of his newspapers to other parties. At least Martha still has her magazine, and her visions intact.

Arguments that don’t take ‘values’ into account end up defending any one and anything in the name of legal technicalities.

Michael Jackson becomes just as defendable (even though he’s now in enemy territory in the Middle East apparently hooked on drugs), as Conrad Black who renounced his Canadian Citizenship to become an English Lord. The latest news is he wants it back to avoid American prisons!

The most Martha has done to defy her country and values is to sell her beautiful Connecticut home, and to go start her version of the “The Apprentice”. At least that one failed too – she couldn’t summon up the courage to be arrogant! And she’s back on her pristine sets under a new program “Martha”.

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Words

And Reason

The Evengelical Outpost has a great post on hyperbole, exaggeration and metaphor. It is worth the read.

I think the View From the Right is addressing a similar concept when talking about highly emotional feelings which cloud a reasoned or reasonable argument. The example used here is: “I hate Islam… these people are a bunch of savages” deflects from the reasonable “Islam is our mortal enemy and we must defend ourselves from it”.

The Evengelical Outpost does the same deciphering. He quotes a writer who’s views on George Bush resort to “ George Busy is the worst President of the United States of America, ever. Hands down.”

When hyperbole, exaggeration and weak metaphors get in the way of the message, they seem to indicate a personal belligerence. Why should anyone listen to such violent language? As these writers point out, it personalizes the issues, putting the person (and his demons) at the center of the attention.

I’ve found that such style, if it is to be called such, is the language of liberal and female writers. For example, Ann Coulter has many points worth listening to, yet her anger is so palpable in every sentence she writes, that it is difficult to concentrate on her message.

I think most people are willing to listen to reasoned arguments from passionate speakers, not impassioned speakers who belie reasonableness.

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Vertical and Horizontal

When Schools Become 'Nice'

I know the republican school; I studied in it. It was an institution with strict demands, a bleak, unpleasant place that built high walls to keep out the noise from outside. Thirty years of foolish reforms have altered our landscape. The republican school has been replaced by an ‘educational community’ that is horizontal rather than vertical. The curricula have been made easier, the noise from outside has come in, society has come inside the school.

This is a quote from an early interview by French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut commenting on multiculturalism and the riots in France.

Since education is intrinsically part of culture, Finkielkraut's words have even more resonance.

Multiculturalism has obviously failed French culture and education, as it has whatever there is here of Canadian culture.

Picking and choosing what is ‘nice’ horizontally along the multiple cultures has only brought about a smorgasbord of unrelated and watered down cultures. Excellence and mediocrity paraded together, and of course mediocrity won.

Picking and choosing what is ‘nice’ horizontally in schools has introduced an ‘educated’ population which has no patience, discipline or desire to know what is really behind the information, what built it, where its roots are.

There is something religious about the bleak high walls of Finkielkraut’s vertical system. Monasteries (cross-culturally) have always been centers of learning. Jealously guarded by high walls, even if metaphorical, they were able to sustain the peace and quiet necessary for serious scholarship. Universities, not surprisingly, were founded on religious grounds, not academic. Where Truth is venerated and celebrated.

It is this lack of reverence for knowledge and truth that has brought on the ‘horizontal’ system which Finkielkraut talks about.

If truth is no longer a prerequisite for knowledge, then what is?

Finkielkraut was forced to retract his statements in a humiliating interview after he received death threats and law suites from ‘ethnic’ organizations.

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Synaesthesea

Seeing Voices

In artistic vocabulary synaesthesea is a word that describes when one of the senses evokes another – such as “blue is the sound of the universe…”

True synaesthesea is a rare, neurological phenomenon. But many artists believe they can interchange the various senses in their art.

Sometimes, they (the artists) are really stretching our imagination. At other times, though, I think it really does work that way.

For example, in color we talk of harmonious colors, or the tone of a color.

In music, we also talk of its tonality, or the chromatic scale, or the beautiful tone colors played by interlacing the different sounds of organ pipes to make a complex layer of sound – or I should say music.

And there is also a section in Exodus 20:18 and 22, where "the people saw the noise of the trumpet” when God was delivering the Commandments to them.

18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. 22 And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

It seems that even in Biblical messages, it is appropriate to excite different senses to get the full message across. To see the full force of God’s Voice must have been quite an experience.

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Belief in God - Part II

Are Artists less Religious than Scientists?

To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.

This is a quote attributed to Goethe, and it fits his choice of investigation in the Theory of Colors.

Goethe, although having written on botany and spent much time doing empirical observations on color, is really known as a poet first and foremost. He did try his hand at painting, but his paintings were never comparable to his other great achievements.

The interesting thing about artists – and that includes all creative people like poets, novelists, painters and musicians – is that they’re often making things out of nothing.

Although Goethe worked within the morals of his times, it is in his color theory where he set aside a complex table of polarities where he created his own tentaive morality based on colors. Blue is weakness, Yellow strength; Blue is attraction, Yellow repulsion. It is almost as though he were rewriting his own code for life – his own ten commandments – based on his earthly visions and empirical experiments.

He tried to be in harmony with the universe and with himself, without the explicit help or direction of God.

Scientists never really attempt to recodify the world, only to find the hidden and invisible structures that make up this world. Artists, at heart, wish to recreate the world and make it in their own image. They will always have a certain god-complex, some competition with God Himself.

Goethe’s many quotes, works and ideas testify that he was such a true artist, and probably an atheist as well.

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Belief in God - Part I

Are Scientists more Religious than Artists?

Was Isaac Newton an occultist? Well, it is documented that he was a type of alchemist.

Alchemy is the precursor to our modern-day chemists, although alchemist’s final goal was to find that ‘philosopher’s stone’. The stone that could turn all base metals into gold; or one that could fend off death. It seems that Newton, like many of his contemporaries, was really interested in how things worked, how metals interacted with each other, how nature arranged things. His alchemy seemed based on curiosity, rather than blasphemy.

As for occultist, Newton had a secret system to try and decode the Bible – but anyone with his curiosity and pattern-finding mind would work on other things besides the material world. He had the propensity to find out how things worked.

And like any human being, he must have at times thought quite a bit of himself. His favorite Latin anagram for his name "Isaacvs Nevtonvs" was "Ieova Sanctvs Vnvs," or "Jehovah's holy one." But everyone indulges in little acts of supremacy at times – to no avail and to no harm.

As for his eccentricities like this one (and others), well there is a saying "Mad dogs and Englishmen"!

Newton’s understanding of the components of light is really related to his alchemical work. He broke down the constituents of light, just like he did his metals, to find the single strands that made up the whole. White light traveling through a prism gives a spectrum of colored lights was one of his major discoveries.

Newton had disagreements with the form of Christianity that was believed in the England of his time. It was his own, perhaps at times misguided, attempt at trying to find the rational in the universe, trying to find God. But, he was a fundamentally religious, and Christian, person. In his quest to understand the nature that God created, he wrote:

"All these things being consider'd, it seems probable to me, that God in the Beginning form'd Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable Particles, of such Sizes and Figures, and with such other Properties, and in such Proportion to Space, as most conduced to the End for which he form'd them; and that these primitive Particles being Solids, are incomparably harder than any porous Bodies compounded of them; even so very hard, as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary Power being able to divide what God himself made one in the first Creation."

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Good Works

And Workmanship

Ephesians 2:8-10

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

I believe this passage is talking about God’s work and man’s work. That we are all God’s creations, His Workmanship.

But men still to do works. And we must choose whether to do good works or bad works. And even with the good, we are to find out which we are to do.

This must be the greatest dilemma of artists, who also create ‘out of nothing’. What good works are they to do that they walk in them as ordained by God?

Still, these are the questions that all Christians face. And its simple answer is for all of us to hear: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."

We should submit to God even those works that we consider to be our own, since they all ultimately come from Him.

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Our Silver Screens

In Defense of Black and White Films

There are still the joys of watching classic movies on exclusive channels on TV. Besides the fact that most of these films are the cream of the crop – who’s going to air those mediocre ones anymore – many of them are in black and white.

There have been many attempts to colorize these films, mainly to try and attract a wider audience, and quite simply acquire more revenue.

But since 1988, any black and white film that has been put on the National Film Registry and has been colorized is legally bound to post a disclaimer.

The argument that won this case is that a colorized movie detracts from the original intention and expression of the artist/filmmaker.

And I agree.

Black and white films are like charcoal or pencil drawings, where the form, line, shade and light play an important part. And on film, there is the added dimension of projected light which produces those beautiful shimmering effects that so aptly gave us the ‘Silver Screens’.

Black and white films are quite capable of holding interest. Many people are returning to those black and white photographs - buying birthday cards, putting up posters of Westons and Ansel Adams. No one would think of colorizing those!

I think it is just a matter of making these movies more available, and letting people know that they're around. Lack of popular demand is really not the audience's fault. It will only watch what is available.

These days, what is available seems to be of the 'Desperate Housewives' variety - or those blockbuster movies which only teenagers watch.

Time to put more confidence on the 'popular' vote.

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Double Identity

A Japanese, a Dane and an American were on French TV...

Bernard Pivot of the French cultural program "Apostrophe" fame is now doing a monthly show called "Double Je". He is trying to find non-French people who have somehow dedicated their lives, or part of their lives, to French culture.

The Japanese Balzacian Kazuo Kiriu has written an impressive ‘Balzac’ Dictionary over a twenty year period, and spent thirty years teaching French Literature in Japan. His dream is to afford to retire in France. His love for Balzac, and his immense dedication to French literature is very touching.

The Danish Queen Margrethe II, as well as having married a French count - Henri Marie Jean André - has translated Simone de Beauvoir’s “Tous les hommes sont mortels” into Danish, and speaks impeccable French. She is also an accomplished artist.

Now onto John Malkovich. Pivot visited Malkovich in his country house in Provence. Most of Malkovich’s conversation dwelt on how quickly he learnt French (badly, though I might add) and how he could never communicate with his non-English speaking Croatian grandparents.

Near the middle of the interview, Malkovich started throwing in ‘tu’s instead of the obligatory ‘vous’ at his interviewer. There was no mistake in this. If it isn't the ultimate insult at his French host, then what is. Malkovich seems neither at home in America, nor in France. Perhaps he should try Croatia next.

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Autumn Triptych

Maples

At the Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, home to one of the finest tree collections in North America.

[Photos by Camera Lucida]

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In Memoriam

How the War was Won

One of the most interesting and intricate of World War II films, the Dambusters, is a testament to all the levels of a society coming together to outwit, outsmart and outfight the enemy.

War was not just a matter of dropping bombs, but the right kind of bombs at the right targets.

The Bouncing Bombs, as they were called, were the invention of the engineer Barnes Wallis, who thought they were the best way to burst various key German dams.

Basically, by bouncing the balls on the surface of the water, he would extend their range, get them to skip over protective nettings and land next to the dam wall, and reduce their weight considerably than if they were dropped right above the target.

This idea had already been put to use by Lord Nelson in earlier sea battles, who bounced his cannon balls across the waters to fire at enemy ships.

The Dambusters, also know as 617 Squadron, flew the elite Lancaster bombers under Wing Commander Gibson in a moonlit night to accomplish their mission.

It wasn’t just the fighting soldiers who won the War, but minds such as Willis’s were crucial to its success.

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A Return to Christ

Yet Another Gospel?

Anne Rice’s first person narrative of the seven year-old Jesus in "Christ the Lord" is quick becoming a best-seller.

It is strange that people would rather read the imaginative rumblings of an undocumented (and I would say unimportant) episode in Jesus’s life.

I’m sure the purpose of that lack of documentation is that we be encouraged to read the Scriptures instead.

Her premise that Jesus's spirituality and Godliness developed as he grew physically already defies all available information.

How does she explain the 12-year-old that stood before a group of religious experts and proceeded to discuss Godly matters with them? Where did he find that supreme confidence and authority from, while still a child (albeit crossing over into manhood?).

As a born again Catholic, why not attain the humility of quietly and actively serving God according to the Bible, rather than attempting to write another Gospel?

This is the problem with modern Christianity. People cannot, and will not accept God’s word at heart. They prefer to write their own versions.

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Portrait of a Lady

Not in Her Likeness


Mayor Hazel McCallion is one of Canada's outspoken, daring and most successful leaders of a city.

She dared to voice her mayoral point of view on free-loading refugees and immigrants taking over her hospitals and institutions, at Canadians’ tax payers expense.

Now it seems the arts community is also feeling her bite. As usual, it is the mediocre ones who complain.

Brian Osmond, a photography store owner, was asked to pull down an uncomplimentary painting of the mayor. His reason for putting up this dismal portrait: The mayor doesn’t support the ‘arts’.

He finally took down the painting due to negative publicity for his business. So his higher ideals are all about money.

But once again, here on Camera Lucida, it is always interesting to look at the work of art, and see how it fits with the behavior of the beholder.

Let’s analyse this situation:

1. Osmond actually took a photograph of the mayor, which “he enlarged and finished with chalk and water colors.”

True to 'artists' of Osmond’s ilk, they have no drawing skills, are adept at tracing and copying, and keep their photoshop always at hand.

2. It’s full of simplistic and childish codes.

- Purple hair to show how ‘dated’ McCallion is

- Red to show her ‘strength’, I think he means her power, which not a good thing

- The footsteps around her, courtesy of his young son’s prints, to show that art should be run by someone younger

Borrowed footprints, borrowed portraits, and a little bit of slapdash paint does not art make.

Like the piggy-backing immigrants, McCallion has realized that artists belong into that category as well. And Osmond has a hard time accepting it.

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Family Portraits

Adolf Wissel vs. Norman Rockwell

While doing research on color and the history of modern art, I came across this website which talks about Hitler's abhorrence for modern art, so much so that he would set up degenerate art exhibitions to ridicule these painters.

Instead, he wanted art that glorified his Aryan concept.

Now, this type of commissioned art had nothing to do with 'artistic' requirements, but rather with ways to decimate Nazi propaganda.

Here is a strange, claustrophobic, family portrait, which is certainly meant to promote the 'happy, Aryan family life.' It fails on many levels, although artistically, it is an exquisitely designed piece.

Farm Family From Kahlenberg. By Adolf Wissel, 1939
The strangest thing about this portrait is the little boy, who is not quite in the center, and who looks directly at the viewer. Normally, one associates such a bold stare with a mature or heroic character. Not a disconcertingly young, and audacious boy.

But there are many more things going on in this picture:

1. There is no grandfather in the painting, which I'm sure is quite a deliberate omission. As though to say, we don't need our past, but must look into the future alone. It it the child-bearing women (the grandmother is present) who seem to matter more. In other words, create the world anew, by destroying it first - quite in league with the götterdämmerung for a new dawn.


I have manipulated the top picture to centralize the boy.
The bottom picture is the original.
(Click on images to view larger sizes without lines)

2. The boy is not really in the center of the original painting. If he were 'designed' thus, he would be visually separate him from everyone else. He would not fit in with his protective father, nor with the nurturing mother, but remain as a direct and lonely focal point

Ironically, the picture with the centered boy is also the more claustrophobic, and it is the less successful design of the two. The artist was correct to compose his painting in the original manner.

Yet, this original composition, as well as being true to design, is really true to sentiment and psychology as well.

As the visually centered character, the boy would then really be on his own. I would suspect that the painter is projecting his own immaturity and lack of independence by avoiding this central position for the boy. But the painter still doesn't underestimate the aggressive and audacious character of the boy, making him stare at us with a bold and insolent stare.

This goes quite well with the National Socialists, who never wanted the father figure too far away, being unable to mature into independent and responsible men. But, they were aggressive, demanding and ruthless little boys at heart.

3. The women seem to have an even stronger presence here. The father's connection is with the old woman, presumably his mother. Not with his father, who is absent. And the rather burly young girl on the left is busy with her books, suggesting the rather masculine role many Nazi women were to play later on. Of course the wife is the child bearer, producing both the young boy (future leader) and the young girls (a future feminist and a future mother).

4. There is no centered visual hierarchy of people here. Although the father dominates a mini-pyramid of his daughter (to the left) and his son, he is in the background. His wife seems to have some more prominence, being in the foreground. And the father's timid eye-contact with the grandmother seems to make her his center. As mentioned, the young boy seems to dominate the scene.

5. The colors are warm browns and yellows, and there appears to be a lively dusk sky behind. But any warmth has be negated by the claustrophobic arrangements of the people in their dark clothes and dour expressions. It really is to close the end of the day/world.

6. For a farm family, there is very little farm food around. Whatever is displayed is consigned to the small left-hand corner of the picture.

7. The horizon seems to have been flattened out as though we’re in some stage-set interior with a backdrop, full of fantasy and manipulation.

Now contrast this with the Rockwell painting.

Freedom from Want. By Norman Rockwell, 1943

1. The grandfather is the center, both pictorially and actually - there is no ambiguity about that.

2. The picture is designed in the classic pyramidal fashion, with the important figures at the top of the pyramid (grandfather and grandmother) and the rest of family widening out to the base.

3. Unlike the Wissel whose nature which we cannot seem to reach, Rockwell has brought nature into to the family, with the turkey, fruits and vegetables all laid out on the table. Rockwell's Nature is really abundant.

4. All the food follows the central and important axis, with the grandfather at the top. A true thanksgiving for the abundant fruits of the land.

5. Although we are indoors, there is a sense of space and light. The elongated perspective of the white table connects with the bright window at the back which promises to take us out into the sunny mid-day exterior.

6. Finally, this family seems to be fully enjoying the moment. And even the one person looking at us is doing so with a sense of fun and mischief.

October Treat

Veranda Magazine



October is almost over, and here is the rare treat of Veranda Magazine. Here seen is the cover for the September/October issue.

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The Gushing Streams of Wuthering Heights

Society's Antagonists

Whereas "Pride and Prejudice" is like an intricate carpet in the making (all design and geometry), Emily Brontë’s "Wuthering Heights" is like a long, flowing river: sometimes calm, and sometimes agitated; sometimes gushing and other times contained. It spurts downstream in paroxysms of emotion.

In many ways, it is Jane Austen who wins the day. Life goes on in "Pride and Prejudice", in a witty, alert, rather self-conscious but always responsible way. And there is emotion there, in her feisty characters who learn to mature.

Wuthering Heights exhausts itself at the end. We are left with a dried up stream. There is no society left. Only nature.

Perhaps this is all about Natural man vs. Social man. I don't think there is any society which lives by emotion alone. Nature is just too strong!

Kate Bush's great musical version of “Wuthering Heights” captures the mood perfectly.

It is interesting to note that Laurence Olivier has acted in both "Pride and Prejudice" (1940 version) and "Wuthering Heights" (1939 version).

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Geometry in Pride and Prejudice

Patterns of English Country Dance. [1]

Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, also enacted in various movie versions - the 1940 version with Laurence Olivier being a classic - is full of geometry.

During the frequent social dances which bring different families and groups together, dances are a common way for people to interact. Dancers are paired off with diagonally opposite partners, then break loose to join those next to them, and travel down lines with yet another. Partners weave in and out of lines and squares to complete the dance. The music prompts you when to start, stop and change directions and patterns.

Finally, at the very end, like a lovely carpet, all the patterns settle in perfect harmony and geometry. Everyone, and everything, is just where they belong.

Such dances are a microcosm of what happens in society itself. The rules of the game are dictated by subtle meters and melodies, decorum and restraint are required, conversation and interaction with partners and groups are carefully choreographed. And the final outcome is an unobtrusive and polite pairing off of the right couples.

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1. Plan and construction of a Country Dance

Ode to Nefertiti

"The Triumph of the Apollonian Image"
Nefertiti Bust, 14th Century B.C.

Camille Paglia defines the world into two contrasting elements:

- The Apollonian (from the Greek sky god Apollo) who personifies culture, order and Art.

- The Dionysian (from Dionysus, the god of wine, agriculture, and fertility of nature) who identifies with the mysterious, the irrational, the impulsive and especially the uncontrollable Nature.

- The Apollonian tries to bring order to the natural through art and rationality.

Camille Paglia describes the Apollonian as "The form-making aspect of the mind." and, "...all art is Apollonian."

Below are quotes from "The Birth of the Western Eye," the second chapter of Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickenson:

- [Nefertiti] is the triumph of Apollonian image over the humpiness and horror of mother earth. Everything fat, slack, and sleepy is gone. The western eye is open and alert. It has forced objects into their frozen frame…Taut, still, and truncated, Nefertiti is...[w]estern culture, moving up toward Apollonian sunlight…

- She is [the] icy line of Apollonian identity.

Nefertiti is subtraction. Visually, she has been reduced to her essence...She is abbreviation, a symbol or pictogram...

- [T]he idea of beauty is based on enormous exclusions. So much is excluded from the Nefertiti bust that we can feel its silhouette straining against the charged atmosphere, a combat of Apollonian line.

- Nefertiti [is] Apollonian head-magic. Thinking makes it so.

- Nefertiti is like Athena born from the brow of Zeus, a head-heavy armoured goddess.

- With her welcoming but uncanny smile, Nefertiti is western personality in its ritual bonds. Exquisite and artificial, she is mind-made image forever caught in radiant Apollonian freezeframe.

About

KPA has an extensive background in the arts. She has studied film and photography at Ryerson University under two of Canada's most renowed artists, Bruce Elder, an experimental film maker, and Don Snyder, a photographer. She has had her film and photogrpahy exhibited in Canada and Europe. Her contribution to the arts community includes as Board of Director for Trinity Square Video, a non-profite video art organization.

Her visual arts background also covers two years of drawing and painting classes under Toronto artist Michael Jenzen, and with botanical artist Leslie Staple. She has also spent two years studying textile design at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Her other artistic achievements include ballet training as a young girl, winning a regional prize, and more recently, as a performing member in several dance groups, including a modern dance ensemble. She has studied the piano starting at the age of six, and has given many public performances.

Her professional activity combines the graphic and textile arts. Her textile designs incorporate many of her photographs, drawings and paintings, especially of wild flora.

She has a broad theortical and historical knowledge of the arts. Her vision of trying to understand and build upon this art history and theory has enabled her to write many insightful articles on art, society and culture.

Rembrandt's Gentle Men

Beauty and Humanity


"Syndics of the Draper's Guild", 1661

Rembrandt was commisioned to paint many group portriats, unique in 17th century Holland, of guild members, hospitals, town councils and other civic institutions.

Rembrandt paints the group portrait of the "Staalmeesters", also known as "Syndics of the Draper's Guild", while in a meeting.

His unique touch brings out more than just a members' meeting.

- Rembrandt has submerged the protagonists with a gentler light and avoids stark contrasts and sharp demarcations, more common in his earlier paintings.

- This blending of contrasts makes the men to appear more gentle – they are not tormented by dilemmas of Biblical proportions. They are but wealthy citizens trying to bring about civility and order through their dutiful influence.

- At the same time, these are men who make difficult and sometimes harsh decisions, and the caution and wisdom in their faces recognizes that they need to always be alert to their surroundings.

- Technically, Rembrandt achieves this mixture of gentleness and caution with the natural chiaroscuros provided by the by the dark clothes and the contrasting white collars.

Their illumined (enlightened, intelligent) faces are so lit up by the reflected light from the white collars. These faces are not over-flooded with direct ligth, but are lit with the more subdued secondary reflections off the white collars.

Here the costumes are natural props in aiding Rembrandt's perennial technique of playing with light and dark contrasts, light and dark moods, light and dark personalities, and other psychological polarities.

- The rhythm of the white collars take us from one side to the other in gentle curves. Here, Rembrandt seems to want us to see the men one after the other, each individually important, rather than all of them at once.

- There are muted golden tinges everywhere, from the material in front to the panelling in the back wall. This shows us that despite their rather austere clothing, and probably equally restrained passions, these are men of wealth and financial and social security.

- Rembrandt makes us feel as though someone surprised these men with an unexpected entry. They are looking up at the visitor, and one Guild member is standing up to acknowledge (confront) the visitor. This puts a spontaneous, and familiar, tone to the painting, which a formal sitting couldn't.

- Since we cannot see this 'unexpected guest', then could it be us - the viewers? In such a manner, Rembrandt includes us into his painting, and joins us, even several hundred years later, with his gentle men.

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Zadie Smith's "On Beauty"

Lack of Beauty

I was immediately struck by Zadie Smith’s latest title “On Beauty”. I am always trying to find ways to describe, understand and study beauty, at least in art.

I must admit that I skipped everything except where Rembrandt was mentioned. And promptly returned the book (although it was never initially my intention) to the bookstore.

Most critics of Smith’s books (“White Teeth” and "On Beauty") talk of her factual inaccuracies.

But what struck me most about "On Beauty" was its inaccuracy starting even with the title. This is evident from the main protagonist, art history professor Howard Belsey, who is writing (or unable to finish writing) a book on Rembrandt called “Against Rembrandt”.

A book 'on beauty' whose main protagonist (and mouthpiece) hates Rembrandt!

Ultimately, I sensed that Zadie Smith is unable to discuss beauty. Along with a lack of real knowledge on the subject, and on Rembrandt, she has no sensitivity toward beauty. In fact, overall, she seems rather anti-beauty. Just like the anti-Rembrandt Howard.

I think this is the danger of this post-modern world. This multicultural world (from which Smith as evidenced in her novel “White Teeth” hails.) She personifies exactly the type of writers or artists who don’t want to spend the time doing the serious work, but would rather land on an interesting idea, only to show how much they really don’t know.

And even more dangerous, how much they discredit centuries of learning and tradition with a careless sweep of the pen (or brush).

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M for Morality

Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder"

It is hard to imagine Hitchcock as being a 'moral' person. Most of his films are about murder, deceits, or even nature's supremacy over higher moral codes. He was even quite a harsh and cruel director to his cast. But many of his films do have some kind of moral overcast over them, either directly in the story line, or the decisions Hitchcock makes to direct these storylines.

In "Dial M for Murder" he chose to follow the moral outcome of the original stage play, rather than change it for the logical one.

His main protagonist spent a great deal of time and energy planning his rich wife’s death. He also seems like the kind of guy who could figure out illogical details.

Yet, he got caught (or Hitchcock got him caught) in the tangle of the missing/switched latch key, which his hired gun had used to enter the apartment to kill the wife.

He should have been able to figure out this deliberate set up.

I think this was Hitchcock’s dilemma. Should he let a cold-blooded killer go free, or should he manipulate the script to provide an illogical, but moral outcome?

I am glad that Hitchcock stuck to the original.

I think all artists grapple with this dilemma, but the enduring ones will sacrifice logic for some sense of higher order. I thinks this may make their works imperfect, but they attain an excellence that logic alone cannot provide.

Fast forward 44 years with spin off "A Perfect Murder" and we find both a lack of logic and a lack of morality in this 'updated' version.

I wonder what this tells us about movies of the day?

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Imaginary Space

The Paintings of Christian Artist Thomas Kinkade

The Evangelical Outpost Blog has a very interesting post on famous Christian artist Thomas Kinkade.

While browsing through the links (and further comments) this post describes what I've identified as the problem with imagined space.

There is a new crop of painters who use a variety of images, many of which they don't draw or paint 100% (I suspect there is a lot of tracing going on and that copy machines and computer downloads are quite active), to create these non-existent places.

I think Kandinsky was aiming for such non-existent places in his vaguely familiar, abstracted paintings. They remind us of something (an animal, a plant, a city?) but we're at a loss to say what.


Kandinsky, Compostition VIII, 1923

Of course, these artists forfeit the long-established perspective drawings, proportions, realistic colorings, and even coherent themes and stories in order to bring us their utopias (or dystopias).


Kristine Moran, Checkpoint, 2005

From a commenter called 'Lizzie' on Kindade's art posted at Hollywood Jesus News Blog:

At first glance, [Kinkade's]subjects look well drawn, realistically rendered, and believably three-dimensional--what one would expect from any art school graduate…I found misaligned perspectives, awkward proportions, inexplicable light sources, and strange juxtapositions of architecture and landscape. His scenery has no relationship to geographical reality…His churches are buried in deep forests and hover at the edge of swamps, without paths, their front doors, blocked by streams that in any remotely real geography would immediately flood the buildings… I find it especially telling in the painting of the nature churches, where there seems to be no way for any human to access the church itself. One is cut off by dense forests, giant mountains, and rivers… Where people are depicted they are awkward, stick-like and blurred: unspecific, faceless figures, barely three dimensional and lacking the color, depth, weight, movement, that he gives inanimate objects…Professional artists spend years trying to capture the human body... In almost all of his paintings the parts do not fit together naturally… This general mismatching is patched over with the stippled points of light and deliberately brilliant colors to create an artificially uniform effect.

Thomas Kinkade, Streams of Living Water

Now, an interesting question would be: "Why would a 'Christian' artist spend so much time creating his utopia (heaven, paradise?) on earth?"

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John Huston's "The Misfits"

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

With our regular dose of the Calgary Stampede, it is hard to imagine that the gritty life of the cowboy is really over.

In John Huston’s "The Misfits" we see a trio of spent cowboys going after a handful of mustang horses to sell them for dog meat.

Marylyn Monroe comes in as the prime animal lover (and PETA candidate?) to dissuade them.

Clark Gable’s final wrestling with the great stallion weans him off this enterprise.

It makes one wonder: where have all the cowboys gone, that they need to be subdued by PETA-afficionadas?

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The Emperor's Clothes

Modern Art's Fleeting Arguments

Art critic Terry Teachout on his blog About Last Night:

On the other hand, I also don’t believe in expressing broad-gauge opinions about artists based on insufficient experience of their art… More often, though, I realize that it was necessary for me to grow into a fuller understanding of a work of art to which my powers of comprehension were not at first equal.

But the Emperor does at times have no clothes on.



One case in point. Olitsky's Patusky in Paradise is a lush, ephemeral spray-gun painting. Part of his objective is to produce pure color – and no form. At the same time, he seems to be referring to his renaissance ancestors with his almost invisible ‘chiaroscuros’- light and shades – by changing the density of the sprayed paint.

Yet, despite his work's intellectual sophistication and
beauty, it is difficult to find any added layers of meaning and significance. Patusky in Paradase feels like an iridescent piece of silk fabric left behind on a tailor's table.

Compare that with the real renaissance master Leonardo’s intricate study of the inner workings of cheek muscle tissue to produce that uncanny Mona Lisa smile.

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Leonardo's Flying Machine

Foolproof Design



In a PBS special, engineers were given the formidable task of putting two of Leonardo's blueprints into life – an 80ft crossbow and a glider.

Faithfully following the blueprints, and consulting Leonardo experts where information was scant, the engineers working on the glider produced the most spectacular result. 500 years later, Leonardo's design was infallible. The glider remained airborne for more than 20 seconds.

There was a magical moment when the creaking of the glider’s wooden frames seemed to be speaking from a different time, connecting Leonardo's profound imagination with
It was a wonderful acknowledgement that there is nothing relative about truth.

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Writers in Harar



Arthur Rimbaud has his own house/museum in the city of Harar. Perhaps it is in the name of literary tradition that Canadian novelist Camilla Gibb has made a special ode to this walled, Southern Islamic city in Ethiopia in her new book "Sweetness in the Belly".

It is always curious why writers pay such high praises to this city. Although Rimbaud initially said he was living in boredom, he stayed in Harar on-and-off for ten years.

Sir Richard Burton preferred to investigate Harar in his "First Footsteps in East Africa" rather than travel to the northern Christian Highlands of the Amhara people. And even Evelyn Waugh couldn’t see the ancient strength of this Christian civilization, and in his journalistic travelogues "Waugh in Abyssinia" and "Remote People" at times appeared much more complimentary toward the Southern Harare/Somali Muslims. His novel "Scoop", based on his journalistic experience of the fascist invasion of Ethiopia, is centered around the fictional ‘East African’ country of…Ishmaelia. This is all the more surprising in light of Waugh’s recent conversion to Catholicism. But it could just be that he was temporarily side-tracked by the Catholic (yet fascist) Italians. And such a basic Christianity may have been too much to handle.

I suspect that it is mostly atheist/pantheist/agnostic writers who are lured into the facile spirituality (sensuality) of places like Harar. As always with exotic works, the subject rings of the writer/traveler himself, in his spiritual (or similar) quest to find some meaning in his life. Usually, the farther away from home, the better.

The disciplined, ancient and exclusive Christianity of the highlander Amhara is too difficult and too demanding, and too close to home. I think this Biblical fear drives these writers away. It is easier to wallow in the accessible sensuality of a Southern Muslim city, in search of a generalized spirituality.

The Islam of Harar may be beguiling, and easier to enter. But it is far less forgiving and far less compassionate than the Christianity of the austere Highlanders.

From a TVOntario interview of Camilla Gibb, who says that after the events of 9/11, she changed the direction of her novel to take on a ligher, gentler Islam, making her an (atheist) Islam apologoist:

When the capacity for some kind of spiritual life is taken from you, and not even fostered, you can never reclaim it, or at least not in any kind of conventional way... It is curious that a devout atheist should end up writing a book...that has so much to do with spirituality, but I think it is born of a place of envy.

In line with the above quote, can this be just mere coincidence? "Notes from the Hyena's Belly" came out several years before Gibb's work.

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Romance in Black and White

A Comparison

a) Jean Cocteau's "Orphée". Where the Princess of Death has to return to her territory, and the poet Orphée to his own.

b) Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in "Roman Holiday". Where the runaway princess has to return to her royal confines, and the commoner journalist to his own.

Both filmed in black and white. In post-WWII cities.

Yet, Roman Holiday rings the more optimistic. It is suffused with innocence. And people perform their duties uncomplainingly.

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Form and Colour

John Ruskin's "Modern Painters" Vol. 1

The artist who sacrifices or forgets a truth of form in the pursuit of a truth of colour, sacrifices what is definite to what is uncertain, and what is essential to what is accidental.

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Niagara Falls

Power

Horseshoe Falls, Naigara Falls, ON

- Fresh water from the four of the five great Lakes – Lakes Michigan, Superior, Erie and Huron

- empty into the Niagara River, and eventually cascade down the Falls

- The water from the Falls travels through 15 miles of gorges into Lake Ontario, and later travels to the Atlantic ocean via the St. Lawrence River

- Second largest falls in the world

- Length at highest point – 176ft

- Width at widest point – 2600ft

- Volume of water (highest) - 600,000 gallons/second

- About 50-75% of the water is diverted for hydroelectric power

- A total of 4.4 million Kilowatts of energy can be generated from the Falls

[Photo by Camera Lucida]

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TIFF 2

A Sense of Canadian Space

It seems that when Canadian Filmmakers achieve some kind of fame, they forgo their sense of Canadian space. Such is the case with Cronenberg's, Egoyan's and Virgo's latest. Egoyan cut his film to soften NC-17 ratings for his "American Dream" release, and Cronenberg's take is on violence, not in Canada, but in America. Virgo's could be set anywhere; actually one set in particular.

All three have no celebratory place.

Yet the latest engaging film coming out of Canada is the French Canadian "The Barbarian Invasion" by Quebec director Denys Arcand. Funded by the government agency Telefilm Canada, no less, and winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last year. What is this film about? Family, dying, past misunderstandings, fathers and sons, friendship, reconciliation, remorse, Canada’s monolithic Health Care system. Qeubec.

Here is an engaging place, in its own way.

Cronenberg, Egoyan and Virgo are unable to engage themselves to any place. Surely they can learn something from their Quebec compatriots.

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TIFF 1 (Toronto International Film Festival )

Canadian Films, Multiculturalism and Cultural Sensitivity


Deepa Mehta's film "Water" was selected to open the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Usually, such an tradition is given to a Canadian film.

Mehta initially started to shoot her film in India, in the holy city of Varasani, where the River Ganges is located. She named her film after the Ganges. Her production site was shut down by Shyamdeo Ramchaudhary's Uttar Pradesh government, in protest to its contents.

The film deals with widows who live in the Varanasi 'widow houses' and who turn to prostitution. Many contend that this is an exaggeration of real events, and a sacrilege on the holy city.

She later secretly shot and completed her film in Sri Lanka.

Mehta, on this honor: "Why wouldn't it open the festival? Because I am Canadian, I'm just not an Anglophone or Francophone."

From the TIFF website. Noah Cowan, Festival Co-Director: "We are extremely pleased to have Deepa Mehta open the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time with this extraordinary film." Piers Handling, Director and CEO of the TIFF Group: "Canadian filmmakers are creating some of the world's finest cinema."

Shyamdeo Ramchaudhary on "Water", and the Ganges: "The Ganges is the most revered place for us, to call it Water is so insulting! Calling it plain Water!"

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A Tale of Two Cities

The Summer of Competing Attractions


Ottawa- National Gallery of Canada: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and the Renaissance in Florence.

Toronto – Art Gallery of Ontario: The Shape of Colour: Excursions in Colour Field Art

Florence wins.

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Georgian Bay

Geography, History and Aura

- Georgian Bay is one of the two largest bays on the Great Lakes

- Early explorers listed Georgian Bay as a separate sixth lake because it is nearly separated from the rest of Lake Huron by Manitoulin Island and the Bruce Peninsula

- Lake Huron is the second largest Great Lake by surface area and the fifth largest freshwater lake in the world

- It receives the flow from both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan

- It has the longest shoreline of the Great Lakes

- It holds some 30,000 islands

- Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the world

- Lake Huron was the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered by European explorers

- It was first visited in the 17th century by the French explorers Samuel de Champlain and Étienne Brûlé

- At the time of European contact the Ojibwe and Ottawa Indians lived along the north and eastern shores of Georgian Bay

- The Huron and Iroquois inhabited the lands to the south

- Georgian Bay was first charted in 1822 and was named after King George IV

- Penetanguishene, also located at the southern tip of the bay, was created as a British naval base in 1793

[Photo of Lake Huron by Camera Lucida]

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Camera Lucida

Chamber of Light

Scratchell's Bay near Freshwater; Isle of Wight.
By JFW Herschel 1831

Camera lucida n. pl. camera lu·ci·das. a) An optical device that projects an image of an object onto a plane surface, especially for tracing. b) Light Chamber [Latin camera, chamber + Latin lucida, feminine of lucidus, light.]

The camera lucida was an optical instrument invented by William Wollaston in 1807 as a drawing device, and a more portable version of the camera obscura. There is no “chamber’ involved in the camera lucida, rather a prism attached on a stand which reflects the desired image onto a piece of paper or some flat surface. This device became a common instrument for artists and scientists, draftsmen and architects, and even for microscopic drawings.

Henry Fox Talbot, was inspired (and frustrated) by it, which led him to invent photography.

This optical device allowed John Herschel, a renowned scientist and also a pioneer in photography, to leave behind a legacy of "Tracings of Light" which he made during his travel expeditions. He was on of the most enthusiastic user of this device.

Netley Abbey; Southampton.
By JWF Herschel 1832,

Camera lucida became Herschel's portable merger of Art and Science, Nature and Knowledge, Truth and Beauty.

The whole world became his to reveal with his chamber of light.

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Evolution of Designs

Textiles
- Dove and Dog Rose
- Trillium/Queen Anne's Lace
- Hosta Leaf
- Toronto Gables
- Allan Gardens Conservatory  
- Lake Huron
- Spring High-Rise

ABOUT

Kidist Paulos Asrat


Kidist Paulos Asrat has an extensive background in the arts. She has studied film and photography at Ryerson University under two of Canada's most renowed artists, Bruce Elder, an experimental film maker, and Don Snyder, a photographer. Her films and photographs have been exhibited in Toronto, Montreal, Prague and Lille (France). Her contribution to the arts community includes as Board of Director for Trinity Square Video, a non-profit video art organization.

Her visual arts background also covers two years of drawing and painting classes under Toronto artist Michael Jenzen, and with botanical artist Leslie Staple. She has also spent two years studying textile design at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Her other artistic achievements include ballet training as a young girl, winning a regional prize, and more recently, as a performing member in several dance groups, including a modern dance ensemble. She has studied the piano starting at the age of six, and has given many public performances.

Her professional activity combines the graphic and textile arts. Her textile designs incorporate many of her photographs, drawings and paintings, especially of wild flora.

She has a broad theoretical and historical knowledge of the arts. Her vision of trying to understand and build upon this art history and theory has enabled her to write many articles on art, society and culture, which have been published in Chronwatch.com and the Botanical Artists of Canada Newsletter.