I like boring things.
Anthony Browne
You might or might not have heard already but Anthony Browne made it to the new Children’s Laureate a while ago and I’m sad to say that I only heard about him till then! Simply one image of him posted with this happy news had got me feverishly looking for more! He is so damn wonderful! I can’t get enough of him. Please, oh please, sky rain some Anthony Browne books? For I don’t have the money to buy them yet I shall not live peacefully till I can stroke the wonderful illustrations.
I think I needn’t go into his life or whatnot to make you appreciate him (though it certainly is heart-warming to read his opinions on illustrated children’s books and his dealing with his father’s death – as heart-warming as the latter can be, of course). So I’m just going to post some images I found around the web because I found it rather hard to find several of his illustrations in one spot.
First of all, Browne is mostly known for his gorgeously detailed gorillas.
“Gorillas are just fascinating to draw in the way that old people’s faces are more interesting to draw than young people’s faces. And gorillas are so much like us. Looking into a gorilla’s eyes is like looking into a human being’s eyes. You sense the intelligence and emotions there. Feel so familiar. It is the ultimate father figure.”
Part of Bill Viola’s I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like
So quick post again because I should be studying again… But I can’t not post this!
I’m not much of a Bill Viola fan since I don’t agree with his theories and explanations but I can appreciate some of his work such as this… So here’s a short explanation of this Viola video:
The work juxtaposes images of animals, both wild and domestic, and natural environments with human activity as it takes place in an apartment and during a fire walking ceremony in Fiji. Documentary-style footage is combined with staged events. Despite the piece’s lack of a traditional narrative, it bears some relationship to nature works. The credits indicate that the work is divided into five named sections, but the beginnings and endings of these sections seem deliberately blurred. The juxtaposition of images, along with the title, suggests some comparison between human and animal behavior, but no single or clear relationship is defined.
So seeing as I love animals so much and that this owl’s eyes PIERCE into my soul I’d pretty much do anything to see this entire thing. So why is it that even though this kind of medium should be relatively cheap but still costs 40 dollars on Amazon? Sigh, I’ll never understand this world…
Art Spiegelman’s Maus
I’m writing a paper about Art Spiegelman’s Maus and I just need to mention how good it is and how I feel like everyone with the least bit of interest in either comix or the Holocaust should read this! I had (and I shamefully admit this) never heard about either Maus or Spiegelman so I didn’t know what I was getting into when I choose that subject. But I couldn’t be happier that I chose this! The metaphor of the animals (Jews are mice, Germans cats) is uncomplicated and direct without being simple and is designed to make you think about such stupid allegories. The harsh style combined with an even harsher story draws you in immediately and the breaks between the ‘now’ and ‘then’ are heartwarmingly personal and as funny as they are crude.
And now just a quick synopsis…
The book alternates the stories told by Spiegelman’s father Vladek Spiegelman about life in Poland before and during the Second World War with the contemporary life of Art, Vladek and their loved ones in the Rego Park neighborhood of New York City. The book recounts the struggle of Vladek Spiegelman living with his family in Radomsko, Częstochowa, Sosnowiec and Bielsko in the late 1930s and his tragic odyssey during the war which ultimately led him to Auschwitz as prisoner 175113.
Throughout the book, Art Spiegelman confronts his complex and often conflicted relationship with his father. For example, Vladek exhibits racial prejudice against blacks despite his own experiences of anti-Semitism. He is also presented as stingy and a person who makes life very difficult for those around him, including his first wife Anja (Art’s mother, who committed suicide) and his second wife Mala, themselves concentration camp survivors. The personality of the present day Vladek seems quite different from that of the man in the concentration camps, where he was resourceful and compassionate.
I suppose what fascinates me most is how real it is. Spiegelman draws his father’s story as it was and is. He choose not to make a hero out of him (as many other films and other forms of stories about the Holocaust do) and not to make the Germans The Bad Guy, Vladek’s story is shown in utmost honesty. For example, Vladek can be a real ass.
But (though Spiegelman didn’t intend this) you still empathize enormously with him.
Mostly it’s the absolute misery and people’s reactions to it that’s so gripping though.
