Author: Caroline Corbin

After today’s class, there was one quote that we were reviewing from My Name is Red which truly stood out to me.  This quote was, “Painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight.”  I found this to be an incredibly important quote because it truly gets at the essence of the issue of this book.  Is it an illuminators job to just blindly produce images that are accepted by society, or is it the artists job to represent and express their emotions and use these emotions to depict the world they see around them?  Pamuk writes an entire novel of the transition from an Eastern world to a Western world, and how art and culture are developed as a result of this.  The quote above highlights the same transition from creating art that is thought to be appropriate to the public to creating art that shows true artistic expression.  I also find that he calls it “the music of sight” because yes these artists are producing what they see, but the “music” comes from their idealization of reality.  This use of idealization was extremely common in Western 16^th century art.

An example where I can see this transition is the first image we saw in class today that represented the love story that Pamuk’s novel is based on.  The artist is rejecting common ideals and notions for what is acceptable in Eastern culture.  It is completely new to have a man gazing upon a nude woman, who at the same time invites her in with her gaze.  This is also seen when the Modernist artists beginning in the 19^th century began developing what was acceptable in art with regards to nudity and gazing.  Prior to this movement only nymphs and gods were depicted naked, but now they were allowing ordinary women to be naked, and they were accepting the viewers gaze at the same time.  This can be seen in Edoard Manet’s Olympia (1856).

She was not a goddess or a nymph, but still was the sole focus of a painting and was completely nude.  She also was staring directly at the viewer drawing their attention to her nude figure.  So truly being an artist and painting is more than just the thought of the spectator and the thought of what is acceptable, but art is about the music in an artist’s soul.

I truly enjoyed The Secret of Kells last week.  Not only did I think that it was a creative way of depicting the story of an illuminator, but it was an vividly beautiful movie.  What I found incredibly interesting, which we discussed in class, was the relationship between both Brother Aiden and Uncle Callach with Brendan.  Brendan’s relationship with Aiden seemed to be one which encouraged creativity and promoted openness and freedom.  However, his relationship with his uncle was one of stifling creativity due to his sole focus on achieving a singular goal; building a wall.  These opposite opinions stuck with me after the movie, and were something that I thought was important to discuss.

I think the difference between these two relationships is an incredibly common theme that has been seen in the history of art.  Uncle Callach felt that the wall was the sole goal for the entire community in Kells, and would not begin to discuss the possibility of Brendan trying something different.  This reminded me a lot of how during World War II Hitler believed Modern art to be a disgrace, and held the Degenerate Art Exhibition.  While I do feel like comparing Uncle Callach to Hitler can be a bit harsh, the same idea is evident.  There have constantly been power figures who have stifled the development of art, culture and talent, but there are those like Brother Aiden who encourage this development of talent.  It is these figures in history that are responsible for art.

Often times when considering illumination and artwork, the first response someone will think of relates to the famous illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages.  However, as we were sitting in class today, viewing multiple examples of these manuscripts, all I was considering was what was the purpose and reason for illuminators and illustrators to begin using this technique for their manuscripts?  What does the use of illumination really mean?

Illumination is the act of illuminating, or creating and supplying with light.  For the Illustrators of the Middle Ages, the creation of this light I believe holds a much deeper meaning than being purely aesthetic.  Most of these illustrated manuscripts were religious texts, and they were portraying religious stories.  Looking at the image taken from The Book of Kells, one of the most famous and intricate illustrated manuscripts that survives today, the deeper meaning and purpose of illumination is clear.  For this post, I focused on the use of light and how it represented both God and the light of God.  This holds one of the deepest meanings and purpose of this time, and the artists are using these precious metals and colors to represent this light of God and the importance of religion in society.

Artists creating the light of God through illumination is an incredibly common technique throughout history, and it is seen in the artwork of different time periods for centuries to come.  Throughout the Renaissance, there were consistent portrayals of Jesus resurrecting surrounded by the light of God, or the Virgin Mary bathed in a gold and bright background in any portrayal of her.  Moving forward into the 20^th century, while the light of God may not be as obvious as the Renaissance, the use of illumination and light to represent it is still very common.  Looking at a piece by Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Thankful Poor, the light of God is coming in through the window as a man and his grandson pray at the breakfast table.

While the light of God is only one of the themes that artists have portrayed through illumination over the past centuries, it has an important historical meaning, and it is why I focused on it for this post.  The theme “sheds light” on the ability of illumination to change the purpose and understanding of any piece of art.