Giorgione's Tempest

Paintings represent in more than one way, including the use of signs which are "read." But this is different from claiming that what is distinctively pictorial about how pictures represent is their status as sign. Salvatore Setti points out that, The “dissembling” of a painting to analyze how its message is conveyed is permissible when the various elements points facts of style: for the formal qualities of that message are the only ones worth gathering. (Setti, 11).

The Tempest (1506-1508) 82 x 73 cm (32 1/4 x 28 3 /4 in.) oil on canvas artwork, by Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco (familiar name Giorgione) painted in Academia, Venice. The painting has a man with a staff, dressed in a white shirt pauses in a darkening landscape to look in the direction of a nearly-naked woman seated at the further edge of a pool or stream which divides the foreground. Giorgione uses landscapes as an instrument of expression, blending nature and human nature into happy harmony. It heightens the pictorial effect,not merely by providing a picturesque background, but by enhancing the mood of serenity and solemn calm.Giorgione has used more blue and dark green shades. It appeals directly to our senses, like rare old stained glass, and seems to be of the very essence of the object itself, here it shows the Nature.

On the right hand corner, there is woman nursing a child, nude but a white garment draped discreetly around her shoulders, symbolizing purity and innocence. The round belly, full breast and act of nursing symbolize fertility. A young tree sprouts from the bank of the pool, screening her legs without concealing them.There is an air of modesty about this young woman and she neither looks nor towards the man, but in the direction of the beholder with an expression of mingled confidence and calm. We are notionally separated from them by the water in the immediate foreground, just as this same body of water isolates the two main figures from each other. Behind the man, a pair of broken columns appears, as a symbol of fortitude,along with a portion of wall with marble revetment. The fail of buildings also proves the instability of all things in nature, the predisposition of matter to always assume new forms. In the background is a fortified city, at one of the rooftops, there is a stork, which in Western culture symbolizes childbirth. The walls illuminated by an event which has given the painting its name--a flash of lightning signaling the onset of a tempest. Iser talks about blanks and negations, “when the reader bridges the gap, the communication begins, and structured blanks function as a kind of pivot on which the whole text-reader relationship revolves.” (Iser, 64).

Giorgione's rendering of this atmospheric density with blended layers is a product of a synthetic perspective on the natural world, where the visual field is composed not of objects and void, but as a totality of matter.Sky and air have been rendered with a plain texture, with a sense of their intermingled composition from moisture, and air. Iser also points out, that negations motivate the reader to think what has been left out,thereby changing his attitude towards the text hence forming a relation with the reading (65). Both the man and the woman in the painting see the storm not as an omen or as the raging of a deity,but as the indifferent motion of the elements. Using the color shades, dark and light, Giorgione seems to depict the four elements (the pool of water, the moist earth, and the dense clouds that of sky and the lighting bolt as that of fire).

Iser points out, “in Fielding’s Joseph Andrews where the actual hero is described by a set of virtues, is an example formed by negations, is paradigmatic axis of reading, there by allowing the reader to quest on what’s missing (66).Some have proposed the classification of The Tempest as a painted equivalent for a poem, or a work which produces "poetic" effects through painterly means. Giorgione presents the confrontation between mankind and an indifferent, but potentially violent, natural realm that is central to Lucretius' poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). In the poem, the storm looms as a constant sign of that which keeps man in a state of benighted ignorance, Lucretius, writes "if at that time very many thunderbolts are made, and a turbulent tempest is stirred up in the sky; since all is confusion with well-matched warfare on both sides, on this part flames, and on that, winds and water commingled." It is interesting how these elements are brought by Giorgione in his painting. In this rich masterpiece, so impossible to reduce or summarize, Giorgione is surely suggesting the durability as well as the vulnerability of mankind.

Setti points out, “The search for beauty behind the meaning of an image thus involves, in the first place, attaching greater significance to form; secondly it means maintaining indifference to content for the purposes of aesthetic judgements (Setti,4).” For every individual, knowledge is gained from their experience and their explanation of what they perceive differs from the other. Reception theory places the reader in context, taking into account all of the various factors that might influence how she or he will read and create meaning from the text, explaining why different people have different opinions when the read a text.

Our imagination, which shares vision's bodily frame of reference, supplements perception by furnishing what is not given by the painting (at least not directly) - the absent viewer. Like perception, the imagination is highly permeable to thought. Only by drawing on the imagination do we genuinely achieve the full experience of depth presented by perspective's structure; it is through the imagination that we, as it were, "enter the picture." The picture is navigated through imagination, either as an internal spectator who enters the virtual space of painting, or as an external spectator, who, from her own perspective, imagines away the distinction between real and fictive.

Semiotic Analysis of Chagall's I and Village(1911-1914)

Signs and relations—these are two of the key notions of semiotic analysis. Art is subjective and created for different purposes. When viewing art, we can never understand its true intent. It may seem valuable to the beholder, aesthetically, but its deep, true symbolic meaning is only known to its creator. This personal symbolism has inner meaning to the creator and is something that is not accessible to everyone, regardless of how old they are or where they come from.

Chagall’s I and the Village (1911-1914) is a good example of the use of symbolism and he has arranged them in a certain fashion as to derive meaning and significance. He has blended his nostalgia for his homeland, a reflection of his dreams with the adopted style of Cubism. Langer says, “A subject which has emotional meaning for the artist may thereby rivet his attention and cause him to see its form with a discerning, active eye, and to keep that form present in his excited imagination until its heights reaches of significance are evident to him; then he will have, and will paint, a deep and original conception of it.” Chagall has used signs both ambiguous and self-focusing, colors, forms and shapes that show landscapes and folk stories of Russia. Russian folklore believes everything bad and sinister comes at the left side, which here is the goat. Right side has more positive connotations such as being auspicious, good, and sacred, here a man wearing the cross chain When we look at the painting, we see the rendering of Chagall’s hometown, a church and some houses. Secondly, a man facing the goat, sign of practical wisdom. There is a hand that offers a plant, which symbolizes that he is worshiping the goat, a symbol of the omnipresent, God, as Chagall has created in almost all of his paintings.Thirdly, on the goat’s face, we see a cow and a milkmaid, typically seen in villages, symbolizes what Nature does provide to the commoners. Cows are primary symbols of passivity, docility and general contentment with life. The cow is mostly a positive dream symbol of prosperity, contentment and happiness.

Culture demands delicate handling of everything in creation. In the Vedic symbolism, the cow stands for the creation and also for Earth. The planet and the creation offer innumerable wealth, pleasure experiences, happiness, joyfulness and bliss. The creation nourishes the beings in creation with its milk. In the background is a man holding a scythe, usually to cut or hack down anything, symbolizing the time of life and death. A farmer cuts down the weeds, depicting death and plant something, to bring into life. There is a lady and some of the houses in the background are drawn upside down, emphasizing a dreamlike quality of the work.

Every thought we entertain circles around us and it never dies, it might get weak in time and then if we continuously think about something it becomes a power of source. Langer says, “the artistic idea is always a deeper conception” (Langer,206). At first glance, one may not see the fine line between the man’s eye and that of the goat, a self-focusing message, an eye to eye interaction between cosmic and human or confrontation between man and beast. The artwork, is an iconic sign, since it reveals an idea-we believe and give our offerings to the omnipresent, we could always win the beast, face it without fear. Our life is nourished and enriched and then finally does come death, it’s inevitable, but that’s a beginning of something new.

Art Critique:Paul Kos's Installation at The Guggenheim,NY

The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–1989 at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, offers a journey through the history of modern and contemporary American art shown through a new lens- a lens that focuses on the myriad ways in which American artists’ engagement with Asian art, literature, music, and philosophical concepts inspired them to forge an independent artistic identity that would define the modern age and the modern mind. These artists developed a new understanding of existence, nature, and consciousness through their prolonged engagement with Eastern religions (Hinduism, Tantric and Chan/Zen Buddhism, Taoism), classical Asian art forms, and living performance traditions. Some of the key artist in the exhibition includes John La Farge, Mary Cassatt, Isamu Noguchi, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Ann Hamilton.

On the ground floor is Paul Kos’ installation Sound of Melting Ice (1970) which comes under the Buddhism and Neo-Avant-Garde section. The installation consists of two twenty-five –pound block of ice, eight boom microphone stands, eight microphones, mixer, amplifier, two large speakers, and cables. The ice blocks are surrounded by eight boom microphones amplifying; literally the sound of melting ice there by the artist reveals to the audience that there is no such thing as silence. Even in the absolute moment of silence, there is something audible beyond the reach of the listener hence there is no emptiness.

Melting of ice need not be an important view for an audience, anyone who would see the artwork would actually think, what exactly is happening? The work first appeared to be funny, since the microphones looks resemble birdlike creatures craning to hear what the blockhead will say? But, the installation has a genuine touch of Zen--school of Buddhism, which values emptiness as something that can help the mind transcend the limitations of ordinary discourse and rational thought. In depth, the installation aims at the concept of life, the twenty-five pounds of ice can be a metaphor for a quarter of life. The melting of ice becomes time span of life and death. At each stage of life, we feel different; same would be the sound of ice. Hence, slowly from solid to liquid, and finally to vapor is a personification of our life, death and after- life, just like a never ending circle, which ultimately is the symbol of Zen.

A close similarity of this installation is Stephen Vitiello’s Tetrasomia who combined physical and natural sound pieces and organized then in accordance with four elements-Earth, Air, Wind and Fire. He recorded sound of fruit-fly courtship(Air), an underwater volcano(fire), poison frogs(water) and extracted fiery sounds of the Saturn 5 lift-off(earth). When each of the icons is clicked you hear these extra-ordinary sounds that are left unheard. Vitiello shows medium of art exists in silence; a concept created by audience, and does not exist.

When so much of the Western culture sees silence as emptiness which mean nothing or absence of thought, Paul Kos’s Sound of Melting Ice(1970) has taken the ideas from Eastern culture, where nothing and everything has a meaning and is valued. Just as the proverb says, “silence is golden”-silence is as valuable as gold is.