Green Lights

Of all that’s been written about the latest film adaptation of one of the most iconic works in American literature, this much is true: it is inherently faithful to the spirit of the novel — or, as the headline for critic David Edelstein’s review in New York magazine put it, “The Colossal Vitality of His Illusion.” And that’s no small thing.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is all about illusion, and though I approached director Baz Luhrmann‘s depiction of the piece I most cherish in American fiction with trepidation, it is that very faithfulness that won me over. At its heart, the film very much captures those elements so integral to the novel’s lasting hold on generations, and which keeps this sometimes over-the-top interpretation by the maker of Moulin Rouge! from being a sort of hip-hop Gatsby Bergère. (Movie trailer to the contrary.)

Gatsby’s “green light” at the end of the pier has never become a hackneyed concept to me. The poignancy of this enigmatic character, who so doggedly places all his hopes and dreams in someone intrinsically unworthy of the purity of his inspiration, has always had tremendous resonance. Far beyond its significance as a paragonic parable of American culture in the 1920s, and its timeless truths about the callousness of the rich, Gatsby is at its core about one man’s mythical invention, which, though folly, reflects a touching dignity that stands as a testament to the tenacity of the soul.

The beauty of Fitzgerald’s writing carries a luminescence that hovers over any reading (and I think I’ve read it at least half a dozen times). In an article that appeared in the same issue of New York as the Edelstein movie review, writer Kathryn Schulz debunks the novel from a literary perspective with particular relish, yet nevertheless describes Gatsby as “a single crystal, scrupulously polished.”

She also alludes to an interesting aspect that struck me as I watched the film, which has to do with the pronounced lack of romantic chemistry between the actors at the center of the story — Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan in this case, for those who’ve been hiding in a cave — and which I intellectualized as being perhaps not an important thing, because in the end, the character of Daisy Buchanan is no more than a blank canvas upon which Gatsby alone sketches his solitary and imperturbable imprint.

As it turns out, Schulz writes that Fitzgerald himself had once admitted that he “gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relations between Gatsby and Daisy.” It really was all about the green light, bigger in mind and memory than any of the more pedestrian aspects of love and desire.

Call me idealistic (or sentimental), but I’m always moved by those lines at the conclusion of the book about how “tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther,” before it ends with what I think is the most perfect closing in American literature. (Something about boats and currents…)

Gatsby believed in that green light. And he wasn’t the only one.

The Art in Aisle One

“Contemplating Prospect”

Finding art in the mundane is a theme I always return to, and a series of paintings with the evocative title, Cathedrals of Desire,” epitomizes how a unique sensibility can elevate the everyday to a transcendent level.

The “cathedrals” in question are those high altars of American consumerism, the Targets and Walmarts and the like that litter shopping malls across the retail terrain like giant repositories of instant gratification. Artist Michelle Muldrow was inspired by a treatise by the philosopher Edmund Burke that equated the sublime with aspects of terror: “My paintings of big box stores are intended to elicit fear and awe at the vast American consumer landscape,” she writes in a statement about the series. “These environments represent not only the actual structural space and overwhelming chaos of goods, but also the psychology and vernacular of American consumerism.”

I was taken with how Muldrow uses splashes of color and light to capture the underlying clamor inside these mammoth structures that “reveal the most naked of American consumer desires,” according to the artist. The unfocused images ironically convey an immediate familiarity, a testament to how deeply ingrained these contours are in the corners of our minds. If the paintings are intended to create uneasiness, they also result in a curious mix of both dread and recognition.

Something to think about the next time I step into that Home Depot…

Casting Shadows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two pieces with surreal overtones from the exhibit Shadow and Light, a retrospective of the work of photographer Bill Brandt (1904-1983), at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Considered one of the great masters of black-and-white photography (the “pre-eminent British photographer of the 20th Century,” according to the New York Times), his dark and moody images of wartime England were recently (and astutely) described by the writer Ariella Budick as “lyrical grime.” In later years, Brandt liked to focus on the eyes of artistic notables, such as painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet, above left, in a photograph from 1960. (Seaford, East Sussex Coast, from 1957, is shown right). The exhibition traces the evolution of a multifaceted photographic legacy, and is on view through August 12.

Harmonic Convergence

I became aware of the British violinist Daniel Hope from his playing on the wonderful reworking of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons on the album Recomposed by Max Richter (Richter makes a cameo appearance here), released by Deutsche Grammophon a few months ago. Spheres is a project conceived by Hope as a 21st-Century exploration of musica universalis, the idea that the motion of celestial bodies is in itself a form of “music.” (One can’t help but think of Gustav Holst’s symphonic suite, The Planets.)

In his teens, Hope was introduced to the famed astronomer Carl Sagan by the violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin, a meeting that the young musician says opened his mind to the enormities of the universe and to the notion of “music of the spheres.”

“It started with Pythagoras and extended to some of those extraordinary German thinkers, such as Johannes Kepler, who were convinced that music was created when planets move or collide, and that music had a mathematical foundation, a kind of astronomical harmony,” he comments in an interview with Deutsche Grammophon.

The selections on Spheres (which could have benefited from a more creative cover design) feature an eclectic mix of composers, ranging from Bach and Fauré to Philip Glass and Arvo Pärt, as well as several young artists, including Gabriel Prokofiev (grandson of the great Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev), and the refreshing inclusion of two female composers, Lera Auerbach and Elena Kats-Chernin.

Hope’s vision of this melodic brush with outer space has its hits and misses.“Imitazione delle Campane,” from a violin sonata by the baroque composer (and underrated Bach contemporary) Johann Paul von Westhoff, sets a sublime tone, with a piece one finds hard to believe was written more than three centuries ago. It resonates with a timelessness that’s perfect for the conceptual layout of the recording.

Arvo Pärt’s complex and challenging Fratres, for violin, strings, and percussion, is by far the most interesting of the offerings, as well as serving as an impressive showcase for Hope’s talents. And Gabriel Prokofiev shows compelling flashes from a string quartet or two by his grandfather, in a world premiere that provides the title of the album.

Spheres also includes some prosaic New Age-sounding pieces by Ludovico Einaudi and Michael Nyman, but closes, nicely, with the enigmatic “Nachspiel” by Karsten Gundermann, from his Faust – Episode 2, a world debut as well.

Though perhaps a bit uneven in its modernistic interpretation of the so-called sounds of the universe, Spheres provides worthwhile exposure to several younger composers as they pursue their own musical odysseys.

“So, is there anything out there?” the violinist asks in the liner notes. After listening to the otherworldly Spheres, most will probably agree with his answer: “I like to think so…”

[First published as Music Review: Daniel Hope - Spheres 
on Blogcritics.org.]

Silver Linings

Andy Warhol’s pillow-like Silver Clouds (shown in motion here), float dreamily amidst the Clouds: Fleeting Worlds exhibit that opened last week at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. The whimsical helium-filled balloons, adapted from a Warhol installation first created in 1966, are accompanied by an array of cloud renditions throughout history, by artists ranging from William Turner to Rene Magritte, whose surrealistic Summer (1932) is seen below. The exhibition runs through July in the Austrian capital.

The Gould Variations

Those familiar with the life and work of piano virtuoso Glenn Gould would probably not be surprised that his passion for innovation continues to resonate decades after his death in 1982 at the untimely age of 50.

The career of the Canadian pianist, who would have turned 80 last year, is one of the most storied in the annals of 20th-Century classical music. After shooting to superstardom with his landmark recording of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” in 1955, Gould soon developed a reputation for both brilliance and eccentricity (after conducting him in 1957, George Szell said, “that nut’s a genius”). Among his idiosyncrasies were an abhorrence of cold – he was often seen wearing heavy coats and gloves in one form or another — and the distinctive chair, fashioned for him as a child, that traveled with him to all his performances. (His life was memorably recreated in 1993’s award-winning Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould.)

At heart, though, Gould harbored a deep dislike of public presentations. He kiddingly called his credo GPAADAK (the “Gould Plan for the Abolition of Applause and Demonstrations of All Kinds”). Little wonder that by the mid-1960s, he abandoned performing altogether.

Instead, he focused his attention on the studio and a “love affair with the microphone” – and, in the case of the recently released Glenn Gould – The Acoustic Orchestrations, in bringing fresh perspectives to old works. The recordings, originally issued by CBS records in the 1980s, have been fully re-enhanced here with a technique that long intrigued him, consisting of a sort of microphone “choreography,” which in cinematic parlance would be the equivalent of wide-angle and close-up “shots” of the music.

The multiple-microphone method, which positioned sets of microphones not only inside, but at varying distances from the piano, combined with the multitrack recording technology that came of age in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, allowed the artist to choose what thematic and structural elements to emphasize in the works, creating a language of spatial effects equivalent to the color palette of a painter.

Fluid Blueprints

Gehry’s “Fish Lamps” at LA’s Gagosian Gallery

It’s fitting that a legend renowned for his brand of “liquid architecture” would turn out to have a not-so-secret passion for…fish.

Fish Lamps, left, on view at the Gagosian Galleries in Los Angeles and Paris, are the latest aquatically inspired creations from famed architect Frank Gehry, who’s been called the “most important architect of our time,” as designer of such landmarks as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The lamps, made out of plastic laminate, are ironic for the warmth they impart, not a quality usually associated with the subject matter.

Detail of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

What’s fascinating is how Gehry has fused this penchant for the creatures in one way or another in works throughout his career. From the fluid undulations of the Guggenheim Bilbao, to Standing Glass Fish, which graces the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, it’s a motif that has long permeated his projects.

“Standing Glass Fish” at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

The affinity was born of a childhood time when his grandmother would leave the live carp she bought at market in a bathtub, where they would swim until ready for preparation as gefilte fish for the family meals. An indelible impression was born, interesting not only from a creative standpoint, but psychologically as well. Gehry says that fish became “like a symbol for a certain kind of perfection that I couldn’t achieve with my buildings.” It highlights how the artistic mind works in its own unfathomable ways, understandable only within the context of the sensibility and experiences of the creator.

Fish Lamps (created last year) are a return to what Gehry calls that “perfect form,” a continuation of an idea begun as a commission for the Formica Corp. in 1984. Their shimmering iridescence shines new light on an artist’s lifelong and lovely obsession with the shapes and patterns of the denizens of the deep.

Lightness of Being

Seemingly floating in mid-air, this giant sculpture, called Planet, by British artist Marc Quinn, debuted as a permanent installation at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore on January 18. The seven-ton, ten-meter-long painted bronze, which looks deceptively weightless (and depicts the artist’s infant son at the time) was created in 2008 and was previously exhibited at England’s Chatsworth House, followed by an appearance at Monaco’s Oceanographic Museum last year.

Quinn (whose controversial marble sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant sat atop one of the plinths in London’s Trafalgar Square from 2005-2007), says of Planet: “ It’s a piece of art, it’s not a manifesto, and it shouldn’t have a particular answer, it should have a lot of different interpretations, because art that lasts is art that is ambiguous. It’s poetry not prose.”

But is it really nothing more than theme-park-like amusement? Or simply kitsch? (“Art that flaunts its content in an immediately readable way risks vacuity,” wrote Jonathan Jones of the piece in The Guardian.)  Let’s say the jury is out on this one…

(Photo: Stephen Morrison / EPA)

All You Need Is Luck

A story at the New York Times arts blog last week highlighted the eternal conundrum of just what it is that constitutes “art,” which finds a perfect example for discussion in a project called “Aqua Dice,” by an American artist who resides in France, Max Mulhern. As I write this, two huge “dice,” above, conceived by Mulhern and launched to sea on December 12, 2012 (date not coincidental), are headed to parts unknown, with bets being taken on where they will make their eventual landfall. On-board GPS systems send daily signals for those interested in tracking their progress.

One of several sketches for “Aqua Dice”

The seedlings were born of Mulhern’s love of all things sea-related, and a fascination for designing boats as sculptures. Two years ago, the idea was brought to life with start-up funding solicited on the Internet, and Mulhern’s concept – influenced by artistic works ranging from Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man to Milton’s Paradise Lost – was eventually constructed by a French shipbuilder, who specialized in fishing boats. The “dice” (both are about the size of standard shipping containers) took off from the Canary Islands, roughly on the same path as that of Christopher Columbus as he navigated his way towards the New World. Mulhern calls Columbus’ ships “big dice” – and the “Aqua Dice” themselves are seen by the artist as an “ode to chance and luck.”

“I’m placing them in nature’s hands…the waves and the winds and the currents are going to do the pushing, the rolling, the deciding,” says Mulhern. (For those who may see the creations as a maritime hazard, it should be noted that they are designed to collapse on impact, amongst other precautions — such as their color.)

So back to the “Is it really art?” discussion. “Ridiculous,” groused one commenter at the Times blog. “Irresponsible and ill-advised,” harrumphed a second. My own sentiments tend to echo yet another’s:

“Why not? Anything is possible.”

Turning the Page

“The page as an object, like all object-symbols, resonates with meanings that have no mass, no displacement of physical space, their dimensions measured by the degree of reflection they inspire. Our living of the last two millennia is a progression coerced by the turning of pages — they are finger ripples in our clay past. On the surfaces of pages, as on the walls of caves, humans have been fulfilling an imperative crafted by their long-journeyed evolution — they navigate the mind’s stubborn synaptic pathways, forge new passages, shape, sculpt, and conjure ephemeral wisps, map their invisible neuralscapes, and perform the alchemy of a weightless thought, an idea expressed.”  — Stephen Nowlin

[Stephen Nowlin is co-curator of the exhibit, Pages, an exploration of paper as a medium of creativity through the ages -- which runs until January 27 at the Williamson Gallery at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.]

(Photograph: Cara Barer)

Film: Alfred and “Anna”

The problem with Hitchcock, an ironically harmless retelling of the making of the 1960 horror classic, Psycho, is both the largeness (girth aside) of its protagonist, and the prodigious talents of the actor who portrays him. Though a hugely successful chapter in the career of the “master of suspense,” the film’s focus is way too limited to adequately accommodate a legend of Alfred Hitchcock’s magnitude, and — apart from one or two noteworthy moments which rise above caricature — a performer of Anthony Hopkins‘ caliber.

Helen Mirren (who’s already garnered both SAG and Golden Globe nominations) plays the no-nonsense spouse who provides indispensable grounding for the corpulent and driven director, in her role as Alma Reville, his partner of eventually 54 years. In truth, Mirren really has only one important scene in the production, so it’s baffling as to why Hopkins is not similarly feeling the love as far as award-season plaudits are concerned. His orchestral-like conducting of the screams from the audience at the Psycho premiere, as he surreptitiously stands outside the doors to the theatre, is inspired.

But a handful of good moments do not a memorable movie make, and in the end, Hitchcock is a missed opportunity for what could have been a fascinating combination of great actor and subject material.

If I was anticipating more from Hitchcock than was delivered, I have to say that Anna Karenina in some ways surpassed expectations. Director Joe Wright’s imaginative interpretation of the epic Tolstoy novel demands suspension of disbelief from the beginning: its theatrical setting serves as a fluid backdrop that continually transforms itself in quite remarkable ways, and though perhaps initially cumbersome, you soon adapt to the creative transitions of the unorthodox mise-en-scène without a second thought.

It’s a lush, captivating experience, which may have proven even more so had it not been for an essential lack of chemistry between the principals at the heart of the time-honored drama. Keira Knightley‘s beauty serves her well in the role of the tragic heroine, and I was looking forward to seeing who would be paired with her as the fateful paramour, Count Vronsky. Alas, Aaron Taylor-Johnson sorely disappoints (yes, I like my Vronskys tall, dark, and handsome — not inauthentically blond and pouffy) — and though shallowness is not necessarily a bad thing for this part, Taylor-Johnson has nowhere near the kind of magnetism that can make you believe that the title character, living a highly comfortable and respectable life in 19th-Century czarist Russia society, would leave her husband and young son, bear a child out of wedlock, and endure the ostracization that ultimately ends in her suicide, all for the sake of being at his side. (Fortunately, the real depth in the acting department is provided by a nearly unrecognizable Jude Law, as the long-suffering husband, Karenin. It’s a performance that’s stoic, understated, and quite moving.)

Despite the key miscasting, the film is grandly transporting, and unexpectedly lingers in the mind. It’s gorgeous to watch and a standout addition to the crowded list of Karenina remakes.

Reinventing the “Seasons”

It isn’t your grandfather’s Vivaldi. But echoes of the baroque original are always near enough for even the most die-hard purists to marvel at Max Richter’s reinvention of that classic chestnut, The Four Seasons.

Recomposed by Max Richter is the latest in a series developed by the record label Deutsche Grammophon that features modern interpretations of classical music by contemporary artists. (The last release was a reworking of Mahler’s so-called Tenth Symphony, by Matthew Herbert.) For The Four Seasons, one of the most popular works in the classical canon, DG chose the 46-year-old British-trained musician, whose background, seeped in the sensibilities of such minimalists as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Arvo Pärt, as well as an affinity for the electronic genre, boded well for a drastic dusting-off of the old standard.

Of course, the challenges posed by such a project are obvious. There’s a fine line when tackling the tricky work of tinkering with pieces that are the stuff of history and have thrived intact through the ages. But Richter proves himself more than up to the task.

Listeners are put on immediate notice that they’re in for something quite different at the very start of the piece, with a 30-second sonic “dubby cloud” as Richter describes it, that “functions as a sort of prelude, setting up an electronic ambient space for the first ‘Spring’ movement to step into.” The section’s joyous and anticipatory opening strains are far from anything recognizable in the original, but suddenly, from around the corner, you’ll be hit with a blast from the 18th-Century past that’s signature Vivaldi. It’s an ingenious navigation that surprises at every turn.

As is also the case with ”Summer,” and its third-section “storm,” which pulses with an urgency that shifts in and out of connections to its predecessor, ending with an eerie descent into calmness, accompanied by a progression of enigmatic knocking sounds in the distance. The aurally mesmerizing second movement of “Autumn” is made memorable by the electronic harpsichord of Raphael Alpermann, while the stunning “Winter” section, with its sharp pizzicatos of the first movement, are a showcase for violinist Daniel Hope, who also displays a softer side to his playing, concluding “Winter” — and the Seasons — with an air of contemplation.

In the liner comments for Recomposed, Richter says that he “wanted to get inside the score at the level of the notes and in essence re-write it, re-composing it in a literal way.”

His magnificent melding of past and present shows again that great works of art are organic things, which, in respectful hands, can be reshaped into something fresh and wondrous and altogether new. I have a feeling Vivaldi himself would be pleased with the result.

Richter, center, with violinist Daniel Hope, right, and conductor, André de Ridder, left

          [First published as Music Review: Recomposed By Max Richter - 
           Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, on Blogcritics.org.]

Dreaming in Dalí

A step inside the surrealistic face-like installation designed by Salvador Dalí (known as the “Rita Mae West Room”), at a preview of the largest retrospective of the eccentric Spanish artist’s work in decades, at Paris’ Pompidou Centre. The creation, from 1934, showcases Dalí’s characteristically audacious imagination, with elements of Pop art that were way ahead of their time. The exhibition — which includes many of Dalí’s signature masterpieces, including The Persistence of Memory (melted clocks and all) — is on view in the French capital until March 25; it moves to Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum from April through September of next year.

(Photo: Benoit Tessier / Reuters)

Illustration/left: © en-masse

The Emperor of Ice Cream

The title comes from a famous American poem, by a writer who epitomized paradox in avocation and appearance, as exemplified in the portrait shown left, from 1952. “Poet” would not be the first description that comes to mind in this photograph of Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), who looks more like a buttoned-up CEO than any cliché image of a creative type. Indeed, Stevens’ day job was as an insurance executive, but he became one of the great voices of modernist poetry. (The image is among those featured in Poetic Likeness: Modern American Poets, on view through April at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.)

As I read through that great compilation of his work, The Palm at the End of the Mind (including the aforementioned “Emperor,” with the indelible line: “bid him whip in kitchen cups concupiscent curds”), there were two poems that especially brought me back to the percipience of Stevens, both offering intriguing connections to the realm of art.

In an analysis of the astonishing “Sunday Morning” the writer Robert Buttel saw Stevens as establishing himself as a kindred spirit to Henri Matisse, in that both artists “transform a pagan joy of life into highly civilized terms.” Based on a languid woman’s spiritual reveries on a Christian sabbath, and replete with religious allusions, its opening lines are among the most descriptively scene-setting in modern American poetry:

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

And while the kindred-spirit aspects that Buttel alluded to in the connection to Matisse were no doubt philosophical, it’s not a stretch to see a visual bridge between the opening tableau of “Sunday Morning” and a piece like Interior with an Etruscan Vase (left) by the French painter, which followed many years later.

If the Matisse comparisons are subtle and under the surface, “The Man With the Blue Guitar” is an overt homage to another artistic soulmate, Pablo Picasso, whose The Old Guitarist was painted in 1903. Again, a poem that features a striking Stevens opening:

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.

They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.’

The man replied, ‘Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.’

David Hockney played that guitar forward when he reexamined the Picasso work after being fascinated by the Stevens poem, in a series of drawings from 1977 (one of which is seen right), entitled The Blue Guitar: Etchings by David Hockney Who Was Inspired by Wallace Stevens Who Was Inspired by Pablo Picasso.

Talk about full circle. Which, incidentally, is so much of what art is all about.

No Place Like Home

As if dropped from the sky in the most casual fashion, this installation that recently appeared at the UC/San Diego School of Engineering, by South Korean artist Do Ho Suh, is more than just a conversation piece. Like most of his projects, Fallen Star, as it’s called, addresses notions of physical space and impermanence, eliciting questions regarding boundaries, identity, and displacement. (Modeled after a cottage in Providence, Rhode Island near where Suh once lived, the one-bedroom house is pitched at a 17-degree angle, complete with a front yard and well-furnished interior. Visitors get a real taste of what it’s like to live on the edge after a walk-through.) What I find most interesting is its contrast between bucolic and disturbing, and larger still, how it makes you wonder about so many symbols of comfort that are based on fleeting foundations, along with their fragile underpinnings. (And on a more pop-culturish level, it brings to mind a certain topsy-turvy house from The Wizard of Oz…)

(Photo: Philipp Scholz Rittermann)

The Kubrick Eye

An exhibition setting from “The Shining” (1980)

It’s a testament to the breadth of the genius of film director Stanley Kubrick that even the most comprehensive exhibition ever devoted to his work barely touches on one of his most extraordinary ancillary talents: the uncannily perfect choices in music he so exquisitely utilized for his classics, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to his final opus, Eyes Wide Shut. Just this aspect alone would probably require an exhibit in itself.

Diane Arbus, “Identical Twins” (1967)

So we’ll leave his brilliant musician’s ear for another occasion and take in some of the visual-arts influences that permeated his films and are among the themes explored in Stanley Kubrick, which has opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for a six-month residency, after appearing at a number of European cities before landing in the U.S. this month.

An installation comprised of over 600 objects and materials including props, cameras, scripts, and sketches, it’s the largest compilation to date of the director’s contributions to modern cinema. (Kubrick died at the age of 70, in 1999.)

It’s no surprise that the relationship between the filmmaker and art would permeate any examination of the Kubrick legacy. A striking example is revealed in the ghostlike twins who made a memorable appearance in The Shining; it’s safe to surmise that the seminal photograph, Identical Twins by Diane Arbus, made an impression on the director, who was a photojournalist early in his career.

Likewise, another scene from the same film, which has Jack Nicholson slumped over next to his typewriter before he begins a nightmarish descent into psychosis, harbors elements of the creepy 1799 etching by Francisco Goya, with the unforgettable title, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. (Also featured in the collection are the geometric planks by artist John McCracken that are believed to have influenced Kubrick in the creation of the mysterious black monoliths that figured so prominently in 2001.)

Film as canvas: “Barry Lyndon” (1975)

But the artistic apotheosis is probably the long-neglected masterpiece Barry Lyndon, now considered one of Kubrick’s greatest achievements, where the 18th Century was brought gorgeously to life in settings — inspired by such painters as Gainsborough and Watteau — that are stunning in their period beauty. Kubrick scoured numerous art books devoted to the epoch in order to accomplish the effect.

I can’t think of another director with quite as many levels of sensibility as Kubrick. I ran across a quote from fellow director Martin Scorsese where he said, “Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountaintop. You look up and wonder, how could anyone have climbed that high?” And how lucky for film lovers, who’ve been privileged enough to share the incomparable views.

A young Kubrick with camera, in the ’40s

More Than Words

Paul Klee, “Alphabet II” (1938)

As both medium and subject matter, the newspaper has had a long history of serving as inspiration for some of our greatest artists, and with print journalism seemingly going the way of the dinosaur as we continue our inexorable transition to digitally-based means of communication (bye-bye Newsweek, as seen last week), an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is an intriguing retrospective look at a richly creative relationship that has spanned more than 100 years.

Shock of the News (the name is a bow to the late and famed art critic Robert Hughes, whose TV series and book Shock of the New educated millions as to modern art), brings together pieces ranging from Picasso to Rauschenberg (Warhol had his own similarly themed show, Headlines, at NGA last year) as examples of the influence that the newspaper has exerted on some of the most imaginative minds of their time.

It’s not a “shock” that Picasso would be among the first to connect the cross-disciplinary dots, with a snippet from France’s Le Journal appearing at the corner of his 1912 Guitar, Sheet Music, Glass (above left), followed by such noteworthies as Max Weber (The Sunday Tribune from 1913, left), and Paul Klee, whose 1938 Alphabet II is seen at top. Ellsworth Kelly contributed his own playful self-portrait in cut-out newsprint. One of my favorites is the piece shown at bottom, Untitled (Diver) by Paul Thek, a 1970 watercolor-like acrylic drawn on newspaper, where the waves in the water were created by creases borne down by the weight of the paint.

Though the curator of the current exhibition maintains that 21st-Century artists have been incorporating newspapers in their work as much as their predecessors did, it’s safe to assume that this venerable interplay has pretty much seen its zenith. Which makes Shocking News (running through January 27) an even timelier tribute to all the news that was fit…to paint.