Blog # 7

The first time I encountered William Blake's Elohim Creating Adam, it struck me by its eery atmosphere and uneasy mood. It is so different from Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam on Sistine Chapel's ceiling. I was puzzled and tried to figure out why these two pieces are like different stories of the same event. From my own feeling, not from a closer study,
these are what I find:

Michelangelo's:
1. God is going to touch Adam lightly
2. Adam is longing for God's touch
3. Adam sits and is able to stand up the next moment
4. an atmosphere of harmony
5. Adam will be perfected
6. a bright future is expected
7. Adam is going to be transformed
8. a sense of beginning, like a prelude


William's:
1. God is pressing hardly on Adam's head
2. Adam appears to have no choice
3. Adam lies on the ground and is restrained
4. an atmosphere of discord
5. Adam faces endless struggles
6. a disaster is inevitable
7. .Adam must be returned to dust (God's one hand is clutching clay)
8. a sense of ending, the fate of human being is doomed

Almost three hundreds years after Michelangelo's work, William Blake found it difficult to be optimistic about human being. Another two hundreds years later, the situation of the world is even more dreadful.

blog # 6

The Little Street, by Jan Vermeer

Little was known about Vermeer's life. Not many are his paintings, only 36 paintins are attributed to him. Few places he traveled, in Delft he lived and worked all his life. For me, Vermeer himself is, like his paintings, very quiet in history.
Heors, mythology, complex symbols didn't seem to interest him. His concerns were at the corner of a street, a place which has not been identified, or does not even exist. Therefore, it might be a scenery in his mind. Though it looks like an ordinary scene, it is full of poetic quality.
Painting is usually for sight, not for hearing. However, Vermeer's works always have a great power on sound- the ultimate quietness. He did not freeze the moment, but created a muted scene. Things in his paintings are in progress, but in a silent way. He was dipicting an everyday scene, but made a space from the reality. He seems to invite us to slow down to enter his poetic world.
I wish one day I can look at the painting closely to see the colors and textures of his cobble stone street, the bricks, the shutters, and the white plaster on the wall, to get a sense of the essence of those things.