And so it begins. This will be a place to organize my thoughts and discoveries during this endless game of nontrivial pursuit. The pursuit of what? We'll find out one day, but the important thing right now is to just keep trying.
The title of my blog comes from the dedicated art critic Waldemar Januszczak. To prepare for an interview with the artist Anselm Kiefer (who used numerous literary and cultural references in his art) Januszczak read opera librettos, epistles, short stories, novels, and the writings of psychoanalysts. He said collecting the information referenced in the paintings was a "kind of marvelously addictive game of Nontrivial Pursuit." (Connoisseur May 1988) What a delightful metaphor, no?! So I stole it.
Speaking of Anselm Kiefer, he falls into the category of creative-types that I have endearingly termed "smart artists." Kiefer creates many works that are centered around WWII, making silent statements about the Nazi's atrocious acts. The image below, "March Heath," is one of many dull landscape paintings Kiefer did of lonely and abandoned pastoral locals in Germany that were once the settings of horrific acts of inhumanity.
The title of my blog comes from the dedicated art critic Waldemar Januszczak. To prepare for an interview with the artist Anselm Kiefer (who used numerous literary and cultural references in his art) Januszczak read opera librettos, epistles, short stories, novels, and the writings of psychoanalysts. He said collecting the information referenced in the paintings was a "kind of marvelously addictive game of Nontrivial Pursuit." (Connoisseur May 1988) What a delightful metaphor, no?! So I stole it.
Speaking of Anselm Kiefer, he falls into the category of creative-types that I have endearingly termed "smart artists." Kiefer creates many works that are centered around WWII, making silent statements about the Nazi's atrocious acts. The image below, "March Heath," is one of many dull landscape paintings Kiefer did of lonely and abandoned pastoral locals in Germany that were once the settings of horrific acts of inhumanity.
The words Märkische Heide are painted into the image. Märkische Heide is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, and is the title of a Nazi marching anthem. To me, this painting is like a sad song with a never ending chorus. While Kiefer's image are muddy and gray, they are also emotional and have a deep, spiritual resonance.
Hopefully many more images and links will be posted on this blog and I look forward to documenting my journey on this endless and sometimes whimsical game of nontrivial pursuit!
I feel obliged to have a lighter finish for my premier post, so here is another painting of a road that is a bit more cheery. This is Charing Cross Bridge (1905) by André Derain, my new favorite Fauvist painter. Derain painted this bridge several times, and the National Gallery in D.C. has a famous painting he did of the bridge one year later.
More on the Fauvists to come. What wild beasts they were! How I love them!
