The Genesis of "Reading Mont Blanc"
The project entitled "Reading Mont Blanc" began as a faint wisp of an idea while my group and I were browsing the hypertext in search of other topics. Happening upon the wonderful maps and illustrations of Wordsworth's travels through France and Switzerland, one member remarked that perhaps we could make use of these in some manner. Then, as the various images of Mont Blanc passed before our eyes -- some picturesque and others clearly sublime -- we wondered if these could not somehow frame an exploration of how nature was conceived and presented by the various travel writers, 'grand tourists', and (of course) poets of the Romantic era. Our decision to focus on a single natural phenomenon, namely Mont Blanc, allowed us a certain amount of 'experimental control' in assessing the potential disparities in perception between our three 'subject groups.' It is of course only in retrospect that one can reduce an epiphany to such rigid, lifeless terms.
Initially we considered designing a poster whereon the pyramidal contours of Mont Blanc could serve as a sort of hierarchical frame in which to organize the various impressions according to their sublime or transcendent qualities. I believe we expected Shelley's "Mont Blanc" to rise to the top. Had any of one of us been particularly adept with scissors and coloured paper, our presentation might have taken this rather more delimiting turn. As it was, we decided to acquaint ourselves with the literature and artistic renderings of Mont Blanc before determining the format of our project. A book of aerial photography of the Alps convinced us that in order to convey the colossal grandeur of Mont Blanc to a group of people who had likely never seen it befor...
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...ce moments in which to engage Mont Blanc (as text) on a personal level. I was pleased to read in the responses we received that students were indeed reminded by our presentation of their own experiences with the sublime in nature. Music has the potential I think, more so than literature, to raise that which lies buried in the mind and to forge imaginative connections between distant conceptual poles.
Ultimately I think we learned that Mont Blanc cannot mean one thing; its impact on the beholder cannot be distilled into generic emotive states. Although themes of wonder and awe recur in many of the descriptions of Mont Blanc, such fleeting reactions are but shadowy apprehensions of the potential evocative force of this vista. It is through the mediation of the beholder's own imaginative faculties that s/he vivifies nature or, rather, apprehends its vivifying power.
Again, by reflecting on Mozart’s arrangements and the everyday sounds of nature, for example, the simile “dry crickets call like birds” (24), it brings the persona back to her first encounter of love, and the love of music that has been lost due to time. Therefore, as Harwood yearns to become one with her own self through the journey of music, she aims to restore this longing sensation with her spirit and bodily mind with music, but this can only be achieved through time and the journey to understand herself (Beston 1975, p.
It is true that the essence of any story is emphasised through distinctively visual images created for the audience. The ability of any composer- an artist with paint brushes, a musician with chords or the writer with words- to entice and evoke is at the centre of a narrative. Both Peter Goldsworthy’s novel Maestro and Beneath Clouds by Iven Sen evoke emotions in the responder through distinctively visual elements and exploration of the concepts appearance versus reality and influence of environment.
Florian Maier-Aichen is a landscape photographer and drawer.With the computer he is able to alter photographs and make them a piece of artwork that not only pleases his thoughts, but also makes a statement.Since he takes real life images of a landscape and then constructs them in different modes that satisfy him , those images aren’t reality anymore.In Blum & Poe you can observe the strange colors he added to enrich myth-making.He fantasizes landscapes, making them open ended
The main driving element in William Morris’s life has been the nature around him and the houses he lived in. The most prominent influence was the Kelmscott Manor. Therefore, I chose to go with Kelmscott Manor’s layout plan that exhibits the “inspirational garden “ that led to most of his design decisions, a map that depicts the pockets in the manor and how Morris was inspired by it. In addition to this, an original drawing of the Kelmscott Manor’s exterior that depicts how the manor amalgamated within the garden. To reinforce this, I picked a watercolor of the Kelmscott Manor and a photo that captivates the various perspectives of the garden in the manor. Moving on to his designs that interprets his love for nature I picked up the very first of his wallpaper design of the trellis that has a very naturalistic touch to it with the vines which seemed to be an extension of the “inspiration garden” on to the paper. Also chose one of the wallpapers he designed during the middle of his lifetime and one of his last designs as well. The underlying concept behind picking those was to outline the consistency in his design concept throughout his life. William Morris was a poet , whose poetry and compositions were also inspired by nature, and to depict his poetry in form of naturalism concept I picked a stance from one of his compositions that talks about forest, flora and fauna which directly ties to his underlying concept. Also the compositions he wrote always had engraved borders which was ...
Krakauer also adored what nature had in store for his yearning for intriguing natural events. In is youth, he “devoted most of [his] waking hours to fantasizing about, and then undertaking, ascents of remote mounts in Alaska and Canada” (134). Shown by the time he spent dreaming, people can infer him as a person who deeply admires nature. At the age of eighteen, Ruess dreamed of living in the wilderness for the sake of fascination. He wandered to find events that could surprise him until his near death, in which he decided to find the more ...
Many people regarded nature and the world with their eyes only. However, some perceived the world through all their senses. They stopped and listened to what appeared before them, and then they experienced their surroundings. One person who looked beyond his first impression was Francis Parkman. Parkman’s love for history and nature drove him to overcome his physical weaknesses. He pursued his passion with the diligence of a soldier and brought a different perspective to nineteenth century history.
Examining the formal qualities of Homer Watson’s painting Horse and Rider In A Landscape was quite interesting. I chose to analyze this piece as apposed to the others because it was the piece I liked the least, therefore making me analyze it more closely and discover other aspects of the work, besides aesthetics.
The French 1884 oil on canvas painting The Song of the Lark by Jules-Adolphe Breton draws grasps a viewer’s attention. It draws an observer in by its intense but subtle subject matter and by the luminous sun in the background. Without the incandescent sun and the thoughtful look of the young woman, it would just be a bland earth-toned farm landscape. However, Breton understood what to add to his painting in order to give it drama that would instantly grab an onlooker’s interest.
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, explores the stream of consciousness Barthes experiences when viewing his Winter Garden photo. The photo depicts his mother as a child and how Barthes decides to handle the understanding of this image. For this essay my Winter Garden photo will be titled The Father. This essay will be an attempt to work through the ideas and vocabulary used by Barthes in understanding his own photo.
Henri Cartier-Bresson has been called "equivocal, ambivalent and accidental"1 since his debut as a photojournalist. Amplified and enriched, the work of the photographer is revealed in all its grandeur. While he may appear to "be a hurried man or a traveler without luggage"2, to quote a few of his titles, he is a poet, attentive to the act of love made with each photograph, and this is where the genius is revealed. From a desired distance, we discover simultaneously the geographer, who analyses the permanence or vulnerability of cultures; the ethnographer, who captures gestures of work and rituals of religion; the anthropologist, who reflects the spectrum of emotions; and the sociologist, who reveals the development of destinies and histories.3 Cartier-Bresson's dependence and uncompromising view of photography; to rely solely on the moment in time, is why he will always be remembered.
Nature is often a focal point for many author’s works, whether it is expressed through lyrics, short stories, or poetry. Authors are given a cornucopia of pictures and descriptions of nature’s splendor that they can reproduce through words. It is because of this that more often than not a reader is faced with multiple approaches and descriptions to the way nature is portrayed. Some authors tend to look at nature from a deeper and personal observation as in William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, while other authors tend to focus on a more religious beauty within nature as show in Gerard Manley Hopkins “Pied Beauty”, suggesting to the reader that while to each their own there is always a beauty to be found in nature and nature’s beauty can be uplifting for the human spirit both on a visual and spiritual level.
In Alain de Botton’s collection of philosophical essays, The Art of Travel and Tim Winton’s short story ‘Neighbours’ the representation of people and landscapes leads us to a greater awareness of the complexity of human attitudes and behaviours. This is explored through the idea that changes in one’s receptivity to the landscape can determine their perspective of it and thus influence their behaviour and attitude towards those people in the landscape.
Art can be regarded as one of the greatest pastimes. From the several finger paintings of the family created in Kindergarten to the priceless paintings and artifacts found in the Louvre, art is appreciated by all. In Lamen’s terms, art can be defined as a way of expressing oneself. Although many people consider art to consist of paintings and drawings the variety of subjects under this heading are numerous. Some include sculptures, music, and even photography. However, of all these, paintings are regarded as some of the most common inner expressions. Inner expressions range from love to grief, but a specific example is respect for nature. These images enable one to exercise the imagination in ways daily life is not capable. A good painting will allow one to dream into a world unlike their own, feel the terror, or serenity. Also by simply looking at a painting, one can tell about the feelings of the artist at that time. It is rare to not see a depiction of some natural landscape. With their talent, artists express their love and respect for nature through the simple brush strokes. Two paintings represent this fact. One entitled Port of Ostia During a Tempest, by Leonardo Carlo Coccorante, is a depiction of a violent storm. The second painting by Sanford Glifford, entitled Kaaterskill Falls, is a more subtle painting of a valley. This expression has been seen from the beginning of man, when he first drew on the walls of caves hoping to extract the souls from the animals, throughout the course of history.
Nature has inspired countless poets from primitive times to the present. They have used it as a metaphor for virtually all human emotions-his stormy brow, her sky blue eyes, as wild as a summer storm. Very few, however, have so masterfully crafted their verse to fully express the range of nature’s power and influence, or suited the tone of a poem to encompass both human nature and ‘true’ nature. This is true in the poetic works of Robert Frost. The aspects of nature that are continually demonstrated in the poems of Frost symbolize both the physical world and its changes, and the nature of humans.
The Romantic Period is known as a transformative era that brought forth fresh perspectives and unique ways of thinking, flourishing through the 1800s. As a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment that hailed scientific reason and logic in Europe, Romanticism instead celebrated man’s ability to feel and express various emotions, praising aesthetics over rationality. In the preface of The Penguin Book of Romantic Poetry, this period’s focus is defined as the “valuing of emotion, of imagination, a belief in human potential taken beyond its ordinary limits” (xxiii). The artists of this period often explored their imaginations, depicting new ways of perceiving the world around them through their various forms of art. Romantic poets were famous for sharing common themes throughout their poetry. Many of these poems drew parallels regarding extensive outdoor landscapes and the individuals that inhabited these settings. The Romantic poets used vivid imagery and imagination to describe certain elements of nature and the impact these elements had on the human mind.