iburkard.worklog
Sunday, September 09, 2007
I haven't been up to much, just playing with my HOPF violin, and waiting on parts (real gut strings) for the new one that I repaired. I was using compressed air to blow dirt and steel wool dust out of my newest acquisition, and noticed that there was some writing on the inside, "repaired 1918"! So that was pretty cool.
I printed up a few new shirts last night, and retired about ten or eleven older shirts this morning. Avery has been changing their iron-on transfer formula, and it's making me a little angry. (As most people know, I always print my own shirts, since I generally don't like what most companies print on things... don't like being branded.) They're trying to prevent the transfers from cracking by making the paper thicker, and it's just making the transfers worse (larger treasure map cracks instead of tiny ones, and the transfers are hard). The newest "no cracking/color shield" formula seems a bit better than the last attempt. We'll see how they wear over time.
Here's some more Trnka information. Chapter 4 is super long, so there will be more to go even after this post. I can only type for so long!
I printed up a few new shirts last night, and retired about ten or eleven older shirts this morning. Avery has been changing their iron-on transfer formula, and it's making me a little angry. (As most people know, I always print my own shirts, since I generally don't like what most companies print on things... don't like being branded.) They're trying to prevent the transfers from cracking by making the paper thicker, and it's just making the transfers worse (larger treasure map cracks instead of tiny ones, and the transfers are hard). The newest "no cracking/color shield" formula seems a bit better than the last attempt. We'll see how they wear over time.
Here's some more Trnka information. Chapter 4 is super long, so there will be more to go even after this post. I can only type for so long!
Jiri Trnka
Chapter 4 (continued)
Trnka's urge to paint had found stimulus in both book illustrations and stage design. But he found both these mediums inhibiting, since his imagination was restricted by the text. He wanted a freer means of self-expression, and so he tuned to pure painting. His paintings are deeply revealing of his psychological make-up, probably because he did not really feel at home as a painter, and thus involuntarily betrayed himself. In his art, as in life, it is the weak moments which are the most revealing. But of all the things we learn about Trnka from his painting, the chief is that, whatever else he did, he always remained a puppeteer at heart,
At the time when Trnka came to Prague, artists were seeking for new forms of building up the ruins of shape, which had been broken down by Cubism. Trnka was not interest in problems of that kind, not in artistic conflicts. The worlds of Picasso, Baroque, Leger or Matisse did not concern him. He always remained indifferent to any experiments with pure form. An introspective artist, he was interested in form solely as a means of expressing his own vision. It was, of course, a dream: puppeteer's vision. His worls never extended beyond the little figurines and dolls, toys with their own landscapes, their own houses. He left it to the other painters to attempt to express realty by an attack upon the subconscious mind with bizarre shapes. In his painting he created a reality of his own: his own special world apart. It was a world full of fantastic reams and lyrical delight: a world of dolls removed from the theatre and bewitched into stillness on the canvas. It is this which gives his paintings their remoteness.
Trnka's urge to paint had found stimulus in both book illustrations and stage design. But he found both these mediums inhibiting, since his imagination was restricted by the text. He wanted a freer means of self-expression, and so he tuned to pure painting. His paintings are deeply revealing of his psychological make-up, probably because he did not really feel at home as a painter, and thus involuntarily betrayed himself. In his art, as in life, it is the weak moments which are the most revealing. But of all the things we learn about Trnka from his painting, the chief is that, whatever else he did, he always remained a puppeteer at heart,
At the time when Trnka came to Prague, artists were seeking for new forms of building up the ruins of shape, which had been broken down by Cubism. Trnka was not interest in problems of that kind, not in artistic conflicts. The worlds of Picasso, Baroque, Leger or Matisse did not concern him. He always remained indifferent to any experiments with pure form. An introspective artist, he was interested in form solely as a means of expressing his own vision. It was, of course, a dream: puppeteer's vision. His worls never extended beyond the little figurines and dolls, toys with their own landscapes, their own houses. He left it to the other painters to attempt to express realty by an attack upon the subconscious mind with bizarre shapes. In his painting he created a reality of his own: his own special world apart. It was a world full of fantastic reams and lyrical delight: a world of dolls removed from the theatre and bewitched into stillness on the canvas. It is this which gives his paintings their remoteness.
There was, of course, a paradox in the situation. Trnka had turned to painting in order to express himself, and to escape from the limitations imposed illustration and stage design, which bound the artists to a literary theme. Yet when he tried to interpret his own vision, he found that he could not escape the literary inspirations of folk culture, of theatre, of classical literature. He was conscious of this paradox, and found it hard to accept the fact that his attempt to break away had only led him back to his starting-pint. He tried to avoid 'puppet' themes, and turned to landscape painting and portraiture, flowers and still-life. But a change of subject was not the answer: he could no escape from himself. His lack of involvement in artists movements, a certain slackness, even in his approach to the technical problems of painting, were probably because the paintings were a subconscious substitute for a medium he had not yet found. He was preparing for something that was yet to come.
It is interesting, however to examine his paintings, not for their importance as works of art, but for what they reveal about Trnka himself.
His painting had, of course, a movement and logic of its own. This is shown most clearly in those which are inspired by the theatre. In some of his earlier paintings, such as 'Comedians', 'The Poor Man's Circus', 'Masquerades', he is doing little more than express the nostalgic or exotic atmosphere of the setting. In such later paintings as 'Mime', 'Actors', 'Clowns', the made up face begins to reveal a second, deeper, more real face: the face of the man. Like Degas, he attempted to capture in paint the man behind the mask or costume. The resemblance was purely one of theme and setting: Trnka's paintings had none of the harmony to be found in Degas. The traveling comedians of Trnka's theatre and circus seem to have put on their costumes in an attempt to escape from ordinary life into the world of fantasy and make-believe. He shows the theatre as something apart from life. Often the comedians' effort to escape seems desperate, and the theatre is an attempt to ridicule life. The grinning mask and buffoonery hide fear of the moment when the comedy is over. These paintings can be most fully understood when they are seen in their relationship to the atmosphere of the war years.
By contrast, Trnka's landscapes, especially 'Spring',' Autumn' and 'Winter', were among the purest in feeling of the paintings: the dream of beauty had returned. He did not paint an actual landscape, nor depict nature in any definite aspect. Instead, he created through his imagination the type of Czech winter, autumn and spring, conveying an impression of each season through the predominance of certain colors and objects. Winter is seen in bright tones. In this painting and in 'Autumn' there are scenes which recall those of Trnka's childhood.
'Spring', 'Autumn', and 'Winter' became, with 'Bethlehem', the most popular and best known of all Trnka's paintings. 'Bethlehem' is one of Trnka's largest canvases, and the most complex in composition. It comes closer than any other painting to interpreting his vision of men in terms of puppets and toys. The design and landscape are faintly reminiscent of a Breughel painting. The foreground was painted in thick paint, in a warm basic tone, white and yellow with brown predomination. The more distant landscape was painted in thinner paint, and is expressive of Trnka's lyricism. The crib and the Madonna are in the centre, surrounded by the worshipping Kings and group of carol singers. From the left a gamekeeper with a hare is hurrying to the scene followed by an old man, his ear protected against the frost. Three musicians are hesitantly approaching the crib from the right. In the background are the typical contours of a snow-clad Czech landscape. A wagon is seen driving to the mill; gallows stand on the hill top; in the distance is the onion tower of a church.
In these paintings Trnka was able to paint his own vision: his own inner world of poetic dreams. In the still-lives, the flower paintings, and especially the portraits, he had to depict given reality. He achieved varying degrees of success. He tried to infuse poetry into his flowers and still-lives, but they seemed almost conventional, and he did not manage to overcome his tendency to descriptiveness. Themes that presented painters with problems of from remained alien to him, and he dealt with them only in order to experiment in different genres.
In portraiture he found subjects closer to his heart, for problems in psychology were involved. Trnka's portraits are impressive: in spire of a somewhat traditional style of painting, they reveal the dominant characteristics of the sitters.
The finest is his magnificent portrait of his mother. It is more than a portrait: it is a study in biography, a son's expression of love and respect. The old woman's head is gently bowed, her hair is untidy, her tired eyes and her nose are expressive of content. Trnka shows the inner pride of a simple but unusual woman: determination, clarity, certainty are all apparent in her glance. Trnka and his mother had certain features and certain psychological trains in common, and the look upon her race was to be shown later upon his own in several self-portraits which he painted.
Trnka's self-portraits were made between 1930 and 1945. The first are not particularly interesting. The earliest depicts fairly attractive young man with a moustache and a scar across his face. In the second his strength is emphasized and the scare is shown as a symbol of pride. The others are more revealing. In the self-portrait painted in 1943 Trnka adopts a stylized technique, showing himself in a simple yellow shirt, against a gray background. The head is strong and proudly raised; the scare is again stressed. The technique is simpler than in other two, and more unified. Where they showed a young man, this depicts a man of strong, more mature personality. Even during this period of search and experiment, discontent and scattered activity, Trnka was aware of his own powers as an artist, and confident that he had a future. He did not know in what direction it lay, but he felt certain of great achievement, and he inscribed this certainty on his own face. His last self portrait is not quite so balanced, but it shows a similar confidence. It is a deeper, more expressive portrait.
