Viktor Shklovsky argued in his significant essay, “Art as Technique,” that the nature of our lives separates us from experience. This nature leads to the habituation of our perceptions and, thus, many aspects of our lives might go by unnoticed. Consequently, much of the beauty present in our lives might go overlooked. To combat habituation, Shklovsky believed art could restore our sensations and allow us to see this overlooked beauty. For art to restore our perceptions, however, it must make objects “unfamiliar” and difficult to perceive. Through this strategy, art will be removed from automatism and the length of our perceptions will be prolonged- allowing for the aestheticizing of art. This strategy is exemplified in the Rites of Spring …show more content…
Typically, Pound’s poems are densely packed with subjective allusions related to the themes of history, literature, politics, economics, and culture. Following Pound’s move from America to Europe, an additional theme found in many of his poems is a general form of cynicism towards America. This criticism of America and mass culture is exemplified through his poem, Hugh Selwyn Mauberry. In this poem, Pound’s new found understanding of European culture allowed him to complete a cross-cultural reflection of literature in the United States. Pound ingeniously constructed this poem by dividing it into several distinct sections. In the first section of this poem, Pound discreetly characterized himself as a struggling poet in America who appreciates aesthetics and the beauty of poetry. However, American society did not view literature in the same manner. Thus, he concludes America is a “half-savage land” in which his art and ideas are unable to flourish. To illustrate the feebleness of literature in America, Pound constructed a second section containing an allusionary autobiography using a third-person alter ego named Hugh Selwyn Mauberry. Pound used Hugh in this section to subjectively describe his experience as a 20th century poet in America. In this section, Pound criticized artists and publishers for caring more about sales and profits than the craft of literature itself. Throughout this allegory, it becomes apparent
According to Tolstoy, the true purpose of art is connected to our abilities to feel emotion. “To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art” (Tolstoy,66 ). Much like food is necessary for sustenance, art is necessary for our sympathetic capacities. In order for this form of communication to occur, the artist must have the capacity to express and transmit through his art, while the audience must have the capacity for sympathy in order to feel the artist’s expression. According to Tolstoy, simply transmitting an emotion is not enough to define art. A true work of art must be infectious to its audience and be able to express individual feelings lucidly and purposefully.
The engulfing size of the painting (250.5 x 159.5 cm) drives the audiences mind into a hypnotic frenzy as they are overwhelmed by bright and sensual colours, which, have the ability to evoke deep emotions and realisations. Kandinsky has portrayed this through the disorientation of his own personal visions of society during the industrial revolution. The rough yet expressive outline of buildings, a rainbow and the sun gives reference to realism as it allows viewers to connect and understand underlying motifs and shapes yet is painted abstractly to move away from the oppressive and consumerist society. Thus, Kandinsky breaks boundaries through his innovative approach to his art-making practise concluded from his personal belief of ‘art for arts sake’. He believed that art should mainly convey the artist’s personal views and self-expressionism that translated a constant individuality throughout his work from an inner intentional emotive drive. This broke traditional boundaries as art in the renaissance period was meant to be a ‘narration’ or an artwork where an audience could learn and benefit from. This is evidently shown in Composition IV as it exemplifies Kandinsky’s inner feelings towards the industrialised society
In John Berger’s essay “Ways of Seeing,” he shares his view on how he feels art is seen. Mr. Berger explores how the views of people are original and how art is seen very differently. By comparing certain photographs, he goes on to let his Audience, which is represented as the academic, witness for themselves how art may come across as something specific and it can mean something completely different depending on who is studying the art. The author goes into details of why images were first used, how we used to analyze art vs how we do today, and the rarity of arts. He is able to effectively pass on his message by using the strategies of Rhetoric, which include Logos, Pathos, and Ethos.
Pound discusses in his text “As the sun makes it new, Day by day make it new, Yet again make it new,” he talks about focusing on one thing at a time or one day at a time. You can not continue on with your journey if you have possibly missed something along the way. Pound became the face for new American poetry in the 1930’s, even influencing some of his friends, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, and Hart Crane. They called the influential poets’ works ‘the American idiom’ which means that there writings portrayed how people were really feeling during this time. They were basically the voice for the people when they did not know that they had
Charlie Parry Practicum 3 Professor Rowland American businessman and showman, P.T. Barnum, said, “Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of humanity.” The essence of Barnum’s words is the idea that literature is the most significant way of expressing human life and history. George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss, John Ford’s film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, Bruno Galet’s game Valiant Hearts: The Great War and Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus each provide social commentary and criticisms on topics ranging from family, politics, gender roles and war, each playing into Barnum’s ideas on literature as a significant way of expressing human life. Through Mill on the Floss, George Eliot gives the reader
For my essay I will discuss the theory of formalism, and how it is described in Shlovsky’s “Art as Technique.” Using my formulated definition, I will then apply my findings to the text “I am Bigfoot,” in order to relate the text to the definition. The definition of formalism is to study a text without any outside influences. In Victor Shklovsky’s “Art as Technique” formalism is suggesting that art makes objects unfamiliar. “Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object: the object is not important.”
Pound thinks of Whitman’s poem as crude and unrefined in “Song of myself”. In section 36 it states:
Being one of the pioneers of abstract modern art, Wassily Kandinsky exploited the evocative interrelation between color and form to create an aesthetic experience that engaged the sight, sound, and emotions of the public. Kandinsky painted Composition VII because he wanted to be free from depicting the things we can lay our hands on because he wanted to portray truths and emotions more profound than those encompassed in a simple object. He wanted his work of art to go straight into the viewers’ heart with a power and immediacy like that of music. Kandinsky composed this work before World War I when his productivity dropped dramatically. During the war, people struggled to acquire basic necessities so painting was beyond a luxury.
In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “This world is but a canvas to our imagination”. This statement speaks to all of mankind, in that, art can be traced back to thousands of years ago. For centuries people have put their whole lives into creating art, hoping that they would pass on their views while still creating something different, interesting, and unique. Generating from these ideas was as artist named Ivan Albright. Though his pieces appeared to depict a world of decay and corruption, Albright showed his love for art through his morbid emotional intensity. In this paper I will discuss the history of the artist, compare and contrast the subject matter and technique of two of his paintings, as acknowledge his approach to color, texture, balance, and space.
Miller, J. H. (1965) Poets of Reality: Six Twentieth-Century Writers. Cambridge, MA: In The Belknap Press of Harvard UP,
Pound went on to keep that pact with his many works that include The Cantos, The Condolence, and To Whistler, American. Like in the 1855 version of Leaves of Grass, Whitman gave a descriptive image of him in a “working dress and large hat, arms akimbo, standing at his ease,” this is also matched by the descriptive image in Pound’s Pavannes and Divisions (Willard 573). Whitman
During the Romantic Period, poets believed themselves to be very politically aware and important. William Blake and Charlotte Smith are those amongst those Romantic Poets who took it upon themselves to educate the public on the events of the time; particularly the established Church, the Industrial Revolution and the Slave Trade in Haiti: ‘[Poetry] speaks to a divided society in an attempt to constitute its readers as citizens of what [Geoffrey] Hill calls… the just kingdom… and the commonwealth’.
The most important trait in defining art is its beauty. As complex as the term “art” can be, the term “beauty” is nearly just as complicated. In order to understand art more clearly it is important to understand beauty. “We label an object beautiful because it promotes an internal harmony or ‘free play’ of our mental faculties; we call something ‘beautiful’ when it elicits this pleasure.” (Freeland 8). As defined above, beauty is not a direct message. It is something that subconsciously allows man to feel good and pleasurable. There is “an internal harmony” when we observe something beautiful that allows us to take away a deeper understanding of a work of art regardless of it being “nice looking” or “ugly”.
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley – I chose to analyse this poem as it “provides a finely chiseled “portrait” of one aspect of British literary
By imitating writing styles of ancient poets, Ezra Pound exhibited his attitude toward modern civilization, and his famous poem, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, is the stereotype. In this poem, Pound revealed his disagreement with industrial society. The poem is an imitation of other old poetic styles, or epic style; however, it presents ironic meaning. To fully understand Pound's divergence from modern culture, the ways of presenting his position will be firstly explained. Next, the focus is on the contrast between the elitist and popular culture. Finally, to highlight Pound's attitude, I prefer to make comparison with other literary masterpieces, Odyssey, which have similar poetic style,