August 13, 2020 - Art History Thursday - H.P. Lovecraft

It's Art history Thursday! How about a spot light on one of my favorite authors, H.P. Lovecraft!

H.P. Love craft, or Howard Philip Lovecraft was born in Providence Rhode Island on August 20th 1890. Best know for his collective works that framed the basis of the Cthulhu Mythos, his writings have far reaching effects to this very day! Called by some the Father of Pulp fiction, and largely recognize as the Father of Cosmic horror and modern horror, Lovecraft drew heavily on his influence by Greek mythology, Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Shelly, as well as the current political and social climate of the time.

Lovecraft’s cosmic horror is a basic and fairly simplistic fictional ideology. In a nut shell he states that Man, humanity itself, is inconsequential to the vastness of the cosmos and we can be swept aside in a blink of an eye, by uncaring forces, indeed by forces that might not even vaguely realize we exist at all.

But because of this Nihilistic view of reality, he was able to populate it with fantastic terrors, unnamable horrors beyond the comprehension of human thought. In his mind, there were terrors so vast, so incalculable, that mortal man would be totally unable to fathom even the smallest part of it. And many in his stories who tried, went mad with the slightest glimpse of the whole cosmic terror.

A prolific letter writer, he corresponded with some of the recognized master of horror of the day and together they created the universe of the Cthulhu mythos cycle. Writers like August Derleth, Donald Wandrei, and Robert Bloch.

The true tragedy of Lovecraft, was that during his life, he was never able to support himself with his writing, which now is one of the best selling in the genera. He made small sums of money from editing, and sold his stories to pulp magazines for very little money. He died alone and penniless in 1937 at the age of 46.

Now his work is ubiquitous, with volumes of his stories still in print, his work has influenced music, games, movies and multimedia, as well as spawned a whole new generation of writers crafting stories in the Cthulhu Mythos.

Lovecraft the man, was a sickly and introverted sort, he suffered from depression and was extremely Xenophobic and was, as most men of his time, a racist. Reading any one of his short stories, you can see how these beliefs influenced his narratives. Particularly the Red Hook Horror (Aug. 1925) and the Rats in the walls (September 1923). He was also Thalassophobia, he had a fear of living things from the sea and detested all kinds of seafood, particularly squid and octopus. It is no wonder that so many of his creations were tentacled and squid like, or horrors that came from the sea.

H.P. Lovecraft’s first published work was “The tomb” (Written June 1917) But was not published until March 1922. He wrote prolifically for the two decades, always publishing his works for very little, in pulp magazines and as serialized stores in weird tales and others. The last thing he wrote was in November of 1935, the stories “The Shadow out of Time” and "The Haunter of the Dark".

Of coursed his most famous story is “The Call of Cthulhu” September 1926. While it may have been his most famous story, it is by no means his best. It is oddly structured and told mainly in flashbacks and thought newspaper clipping and articles, it is not his best work, but it is worth reading just for the source materials of the entire Mythos Cycle.

For those who never have read Lovecraft, I encourage you to do so, but I must make some warnings. First of all, the language is very formal and very much of its time. His stories are mainly told though narrative of a single character, and often times, done in such a way as to leave you wondering how the characters relate to the story.

Lovecraft is more about ambiance and description than action and character development. Still, it is required reading for any real fan of Horror, particularly Comic horror.

If I were to recommend Lovecraft’s work to anyone, I would tell you, if you didn’t want to read all of it, to start with “At the Mountains of madness” March 1931, “The Call of Cthulhu” September 1926, “The Color out of Space” March 1927, “The Dunwitch Horror” August 1929, “The Shadow over Innsmouth” December 1931, “Pickman’s model” September 1926 and of course, “The Rats in the Walls" September 1923.

There have been several very good movie adaptations of his work and some not so good. The Movies of Stewart Gordon are great, particularly “Reanimator” 1985, “Dagon” 2001, “From Beyond” 1986 and Andrew Leman’s “Call of Cthulhu” are notable. The 2011 Indy “The Whisperer in Darkness” Written and produced by Sean Branney, Andrew Leman, and David Robertson and distributed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society shows that even a low budget movie can be a solid adaptation.

The following movies didn’t hit the mark, but to be far, it is hard to adapt Lovecraft’s writing, since so much of his narrative is mood, and feeling and “The indescribableness of the thing”… But that didn’t stop some from trying! One of the earliest adaptation as for 1970’s “Dunwitch Horror” Staring Sandra Dee and Dean Stockwell. While its not a bad movie, it is not really very faithful to the story.

The SyFy network did a terrible adaption of the story in 2009, and not even Dean Stockwell, this time playing Dr. Henry Armitage and the great Jeffery Combs as Wilber couldn’t save it!

One of the latest adaptions to be made was 2019 “Color out of Space” with Nic Cage. If you’re a Lovecraft fan, or a Nic Cage fan, give it a try, or if you just want a wild movie that makes little sense, this one if for you, otherwise…

Want to learn more? The following links will take you to comic terror!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGIH2nVRcIQ

Click here for the Facebook post & discussion.

---

August 6, 2020 - Art History Thursday - Gauguin

It's Art history Thursday!

Lets talk about Paul Gauguin, one of the worlds leading post-impressionist artists. He did not get the full attention that his work deserved until after his death as was the case of several artists of his time, Vincent Van Gogh being the most famous. Gauguin was born in Paris France on June 7th, 1848. In about 1873, Paul Gauguin painted his first oil. At the time, he was a stock broker and hated the structure of the job. By 1882, he decided to make painting and art his full time job, no matter what the cost.

Gauguin moved, with his family around Europe, studying and paining in Copenhagen and Pont-Aven in Brittany, as well as in France. He painted mainly pastoral and landscape themes, at this time also working in clay and wood cuts. By 1889, Gauguin began to feel that European art was too imitative and similar, so he sough inspiration in Primitivism from Africa and Eastern art from China. Under these influences Gauguin's work evolved towards Cloisonnism, a style given its name by the critic Édouard Dujardin to describe the method of painting with flat areas of color and bold outlines,

In Gauguin's The Yellow Christ (1889), often cited as a quintessential Cloisonnist work, the image was reduced to areas of pure color separated by heavy black outlines. In such works Gauguin paid little attention to classical perspective and boldly eliminated subtle gradations of color, thereby dispensing with the two most characteristic principles of post-Renaissance painting.

Now seen as genius, at the time, no one really understood the depth and the complexity of handling the medium in this way.

In the summer of 1887 Gauguin lived and worked in Martinique, creating 11 finished paintings, inspired by the local flavor of the tropical island. His paintings were exhibited in Paris where they came to the attention of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh. He maintained a tenuous friendship with Vincent until Van Gogh’s death.

Gauguin first went to Tahiti in 1890 or 91, he lived at first in Papeete where he painted prolifically in the tropical paradise and many feel that his first Tahitian period produced some of his greatest work. During this time, he also began to produce wood cuts and helped elevate the traditional illustrating technique into a high art form. He returned to Paris in poor health and almost broke in August of 1893. He stayed in Europe for a few years, becoming poorer and poorer.

After scraping together enough funds to return to Tahiti in 1895, Paul never returned to Europe again. He was able to live a fairly comfortable life, living on steady sales of his work, and gifts by fans, friends and well wishers. There he worked in Clay and sculpture as well as more wood cuts. He moved around the region for several years after, selling his work where he could.

He did wood cut illustrations for several publications and studied ceramics and worked on his art. He wrote his “Intimate Journals” that were later published, outlining his philosophy of Life and art. By 1903 Paul’s heath had deteriorated and he was apt to use morphine for the chronic pain and heart problems, believed to be the result of Syphilis. On the Morning of May 8th, 1903, Paul Gauguin died suddenly and alone.

The legacy left by Paul Gauguin echos though out the history of art, inspiring such artists as Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, André Derain, Fauvism, Cubism and even The American Arts and Crafts movement.

Learn more! https://www.paul-gauguin.net/

Click here for the Facebook post & discussion.

---

July 30, 2020 - Art History Thursday - Classical Sculpture

So it's time for Art history Thursday! Today we will be stepping way back, to the early days of Classical Greek sculpture and investigating the Venus DeMilo. Many people think that the sculpture was made by one of the renaissance artists, but it was created significantly earlier than that!

The Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. Created sometime between 130 and 100 BC, it is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size at 6 feet 8 inches high. The arms and original plinth were lost following its discovery. The statue is named after Aphrodite's Roman name, Venus, and the Greek island of Milos, where it was discovered. It is currently on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Learn more!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo

https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/aphrodite-known-venus-de-milo

Click here for the Facebook post.

---

July 23, 2020 - Art History Thursday - Cosplay

Art History Thursday, it’s all about the Art! Today we take a look at the origins of Cosplay. I have been a professional seamstress since 1988 and amateur Cosplayer since 1987. My husband got me interested in Cosplay when he took me to my first gaming convention, GenCon when it was still in Milwaukee, WI. There the Cosplay I built for my sister, Taarna from Heavy Metal, won 2ndin their costume contest.

So what is Cosplay? The term Cosplay is a combination of Costume and Play and the term can be traced back to a 1984 Japanese article written by Nobuyuki Takahashi of Studio Hard after attending WorldCon in Los Angeles. There he observed the the Masquerade of costumes in the halls and during the contest but Masquerade translates to “an aristocratic costume” in Japanese. This didn’t match his experience so he combined the terms 'costume': kosuand 'play': becomes pure combined they make kosupure in Japanese or Cosplay in English. People who Cosplay wear costumes and many times take on attributes of a specific character as a form of public performance art at conventions and events worldwide.

Cosplay itself existed LONG before the term Cosplay entered our lexicon. The first heavily documented people to ‘cosplay’ were Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas. They attended the 1939 1st World Science Fiction Convention dressed in "futuristicostumes", based on the artwork of Frank R. Paul and the 1936 film Things to Come. The costumes were designed and created by Douglas. Afterwards Ackerman stated he thought everyone was supposed to wear a costume to science fiction events….only he had Douglas did, which is why it stood out to so many. Cosplay grew in the United States from that point becoming a staple at conventions and creating it’s own conventions dedicated to the art of Cosplay.

Cosplayers encompass everyone from amateur to paid professional and everything in-between. Some just enjoy the dress up factor and have their costumes created by commissioned artists, others dive head deep into creating their own costumes right down to the tiny details of a character like tinted contact lenses to recreate eye color. Cosplayers who build their own costumes sometimes spend hundreds to thousands of hours researching, building, sewing, and learning new art techniques in order to bring a character to life. I liken it to being a one person (or small team of people) costume department for a large fantasy show…you need shoes..looks like today you learn to make shoes! You need a wig…time to research how to recreate your characters hairline on a wig.

Today Cosplay has gone mainstream thanks in part to professional cosplayers like J Heart Design and Ichigo Black working in conjunction with large pattern companies to make costume construction easier for beginners and pros alike. Other cosplayers like Kaumi Cosplay have published books on prop and armor design and paired with companies to promote the products needed to create the works outlined in their books. Cosplay continues to expand and large groups worldwide like the 501st ,a group of Star Wars cosplayers who recreate the costumes of the Empire, have taken cosplay out of the convention scene and utilize their skills for charity events, children’s hospital visits, and even acting as extras on Disney Channels series The Mandalorian.

Cosplay has come far from it’s early roots. Today it’s enjoyed by numerous people all over the world. What was once seen as strange and nerdy is now mainstream and continues to grow with new technology making it easier for the actor to become the character! Give it a try!!

Photos; Dragon Dronet and Chad Volpe at Westercon Utah taken by me.
Craig Griswold and myself taken by Tofusnow Photography

-Amy Griswold

Here is our Facebook post & discussion!

---