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Karen
Unregistered User
(8/6/01 12:43:25 am)
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Spectre thoughts
This is a topic which has been suggested by comments people have made in other threads and it's sort of one of those grand, sweeping ones....
I thought it might be interesting to start a discussion of the effect the disintegration of folk belief had/has had/is having not only on art, but on consciousness generally. I've been reading this wonderful book by Terry Castle called The Female Thermometer (It's a brillant title, even if it's spelt wrong! :P) which proposes that the rationalist relegation of the spirit world to the realm of the imagination leads, 'through a kind of epistemological recoil', to the spectralisation of thought itself. Now the spooks are in our heads and our very thoughts can 'haunt' us, all of which unfurls 'the possibility of a new and more insidious kind of enslavement'- your own mind becomes the tyrant spectre with which you grapple.
I'm wondering if it would be at all useful to consider the shape-shiftings of other folk beliefs in this light.
K.
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Terri
Registered User
(8/7/01 11:20:20 pm)
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Re: Spectre thoughts
Karen, this reminded me of Bruno Bettleheim's contention that forcing children to abandon fairy tales and fantasy at too young an age in favor of strict realism (as educators were overwhelmingly in favor of doing at the time he was writing) deprived them too early of their sense of wonder and could then be, he felt, at the root of adults losing themselves in fantasy later in the form of drug addiction and slavish devotion to bizarre cults. Like many of poor old Bettleheim statements, this one is a little broad but there's an interesting idea buried in it nonetheless.
I've just been reading about the turn-of-the-century artists Margaret Macdonald McIntosh and Frances Macdonald McNair, two Scottish sisters who created much of the "Glasgow Style" that Charles Rene McIntosh, Margaret's husband, now tends to get full credit for, and even influencing Klimdt's work and sending it in a new direction. Very interesting women. Anyway, when they first started showing their work it was so radically individual, even in Art Nouveau circles and especially to the wider Victorian/Edwardian public, that it freaked people out, provoked some vicious criticism, and was promptly dubbed the "Spook School" of art, because of its elongated women and Celtic-heritage use of the imagery of spectres, spirits, and fairies. One of the things the critics could not get their heads around was the idea of women depicting themselves, the female form, in this disturbing (to them), unusual way. Okay, Karen, I confess I'm not sure how that relates to your comment above...but your idea has been in my head as I've been reading about these two. I'll have to mull it further.
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(8/8/01 11:51:20 pm)
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MMM
My husband David says of the MacIntoshes that one was brilliant and one--Mary--was a genius!
Jane
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Terri
Registered User
(8/9/01 12:55:43 am)
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Re: MMM
So true! There is a famous quote from McIntosh himsef: "Margaret had genius. I only had talent."
In letters McIntosh stated that Margaret was 3/4 of their collaborative work, and certainly the earliest evidence of what would become the Glasgow Style can be seen in the early collaborative work of Margaret and Frances. On the Continent, where the Glasgow Style was far more appreciated in their day than in Glasgow itself, Margaret was seen as an equal collaborator -- at the famous McIntosh installation at the Vienna Secession Exhibition (where Klimdt became a fan of their work, which arguable influenced his own), both Margaret and "Toshie" were carried through the streets and strewn with rose petals. Yet after their death, when a McIntosh Memorial Exhibit was organized in Glasgow, the influential architectural critic P. Morton Shand wrote to the organizers: "I hope the exhibition may not be so arranged or announced as to give the impression that Mrs. McIntosh was in any sense considered her husband's equal or alter ego. Outside of circles of loyal friends in Glasgow and Chelsea her work is either unknown or long since forgotten; and the future is scarcely likely to see her rather thin talent restored to a place of honor."
Frances, meanwhile, married McIntosh's great friend Herbert MacNair, who never really succeeded as an architect and ended up with a drinking problem. She continued to paint all her life, and the samples we have of her work are exquisite. But the bulk of her work was burned by Herbert after her early death at age 47.
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(8/15/01 2:10:00 pm)
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Those Glasgow Girls...
Terri,
Couldn't agree more about that astounding group of woman artists in Glasgow (also: Jessie M. King, Annie French,etc,).
I expect you've been reading THE GLASGOW GIRLS edited by Jude Burkhauser. But have you run across the book, PART SEEN, PART IMAGINED by Timothy Neat (pub. by Canongate Press in the UK). A wonderful book on both Margaret Macdonald and Rennie Macintosh, with lots of wonderfull pictures by the both.
It frustrates me that I keep trying to take adequite slides of those woman's work for my slide shows. They never quite get across the beauty of their art so I hesitate to show them.
Also there is a very informative book on Jessie M. King by Colin White, THE ENCHANTED WORLD OF J.M.K.(again pub.by Canongate). A good selection of her art as well as the most enchanting photographs of Jessie, usually with a very wide brimmed hat and colorful scarf around her neck.I hope we all look so good when we are her age. Not that I'm planning on taking to wearing scarves you understand...
Charles
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(8/15/01 9:48:28 pm)
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Jessie
We almost bought a small Jessie King black and white, but it was not one of her most wonderful, so I have ended up mourning a lost opportunity. (Like the Phoebe Traquair that was just a tad too expensive at auction two years ago.)
Jane
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Terri
Registered User
(8/15/01 11:14:44 pm)
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Re: Jessie
Thanks for the book recommendations -- I haven't come across either of them yet, so I'll start searching. I love King's work, and Traquair's. It was interesting to read that King was a true believer in fairies, like Brian Froud, and felt her work to be a direct expression of her contant with the fairy kingdom. Also that she'd been part of an arts colony in Kirkcudbright, Scotland, which sounds delightful. I wonder if there are any remnants of it left? Jane, have you ever been there?
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(8/16/01 3:48:33 am)
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Kirkkudbright
Been to Kirkcubright (pronounced oddly enough, Kirr-COO'-bree) but never knew about any arts colony. Will try and find out.
Jane
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