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baleanopteraIn a recent discussion ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
losyark refered to Hamlet as the whiney prince. After years of reading Hamlet she’d developed a certain allergy towards the brooding Dane. This got me thinking.
I suspect ever country or culture has them – a writer, or painter or poet who is so vital to their literature and art that they get taught again, and again, and again. I’ve understood that Shakespeare is one of these figures in the English speaking world. In Norway the poor poet is Ibsen. He gets dragged out every school year – certain like clockwork. The result is usually a little discouraging. My class once went to see A Doll’s House, and the audience was packed with people who were there because they felt they had to, rather than wanted to. Don’t ask me how – but you could just tell. Late in the first act a classmate leaned over and whispered to me: “I wish Nora would just get her shit together and leave already.”
Now I know this was a guy who usually loved books and plays, so I can’t write him off as a buffoon. I likewise refuse to think that the entire audience where cultural ignorants, and sincelosyark has studied theatre I very much doubt that her dislike of Hamlet is based on ignorance. And the plays in question are good – so it isn’t their fault either.
But somewhere along the way something happens. I’m not going to blame the schools – because that is too easy. But I am wondering if culture can get broken? Not used up, because that implies emptying a cultural artefact of meaning – and I’m not sure that is possible.
No, I mean broken. Rather like a mirror that is supposed to give you a nice, contemplative reflection, only somewhere along the way the mirror was broken and all you can see now are these really ugly shards. And they distort everything.
See – I have a problem with Raphael’s “The School in Athens”. I’m an art historian and in almost every art history book or lecture, when someone mentions perspective and composition, up comes “The School in Athens”. I can understand that because Raphael does perspective so well, and he is so essential in that aspect. Rationally I also know that “The School in Athens” is a good picture.
But when I look at it all I see are compositional lines, references, disegno and historia, and I hear little whispers of text and theory. And then I no longer see the picture, but this other thing –and in many ways “The School in Athens” has for me become broken.
Does this make sense to anyone?
losyark refered to Hamlet as the whiney prince. After years of reading Hamlet she’d developed a certain allergy towards the brooding Dane. This got me thinking. I suspect ever country or culture has them – a writer, or painter or poet who is so vital to their literature and art that they get taught again, and again, and again. I’ve understood that Shakespeare is one of these figures in the English speaking world. In Norway the poor poet is Ibsen. He gets dragged out every school year – certain like clockwork. The result is usually a little discouraging. My class once went to see A Doll’s House, and the audience was packed with people who were there because they felt they had to, rather than wanted to. Don’t ask me how – but you could just tell. Late in the first act a classmate leaned over and whispered to me: “I wish Nora would just get her shit together and leave already.”
Now I know this was a guy who usually loved books and plays, so I can’t write him off as a buffoon. I likewise refuse to think that the entire audience where cultural ignorants, and since
losyark has studied theatre I very much doubt that her dislike of Hamlet is based on ignorance. And the plays in question are good – so it isn’t their fault either. But somewhere along the way something happens. I’m not going to blame the schools – because that is too easy. But I am wondering if culture can get broken? Not used up, because that implies emptying a cultural artefact of meaning – and I’m not sure that is possible.
No, I mean broken. Rather like a mirror that is supposed to give you a nice, contemplative reflection, only somewhere along the way the mirror was broken and all you can see now are these really ugly shards. And they distort everything.
See – I have a problem with Raphael’s “The School in Athens”. I’m an art historian and in almost every art history book or lecture, when someone mentions perspective and composition, up comes “The School in Athens”. I can understand that because Raphael does perspective so well, and he is so essential in that aspect. Rationally I also know that “The School in Athens” is a good picture.
But when I look at it all I see are compositional lines, references, disegno and historia, and I hear little whispers of text and theory. And then I no longer see the picture, but this other thing –and in many ways “The School in Athens” has for me become broken.
Does this make sense to anyone?
