It’s been a long summer… and I’ve been photographing fields of barley and wheat, videoing the harvest, the internment of the stubble and the crows picking through the remains. What I need to do now is run through some tutorials on how to use Adobe Creative Suit so that I can make the most out of the years long student subscription that I sign up for back in June!
The raw video will be whipped into shape for my degree project, in which I want to investigate the harvest as a metaphor for impermanence, and corporeality. Whilst I know, this is well trodden ground I hope to achieve something new so I have started with some research into a few themes that interest me: –
Picturing and giving thanks for the harvest is older than christianity, the Egyptians for one: –
The Chinese also depicted the Ox plowing the fields. In Chinese mythology the Ox was a heavenly creature before being banished to earth to work as a draft animal. Plowing the fields was a penance for over stating the gods promise to man, that hard work would prevent starvation, instead the Ox quantified the Gods promise stating that hard work would result in a meal at least every three days.
This cave painting was discovered in the Mogao Caves, from the Northern Zhou Dynasty, known as “Cattle, Peacock, Frog and Snake” it symbolises a life-cycle. The frog (although I think it looks more like a terrapin) is eaten by the snake, the snake is eaten by the peacock, allowing the farmer to plow the field and feed the many villagers in safety. Although this seems contrary to the Buddhist mantra that all life is sacred, this seems to suggest a loophole, that you can benefit from death so long as it’s not by your hand, the caption says that it depicts an “enlightenment of the people and animals to kill each other in order to survive”.
Juan Sánchez Cotán painted many still lifes in Spain during the 17th century, known as bodegón. They tended to utilise a black backdrop which contrasted starkly with the specimen vegetables, fruit and foul that hung in the compositions. They appear like the items in the religious festival, embodying the best of mans endeavours to cultivate and reap the land. A very exciting contemporary artist, Ori Gersht recreates Cotán’s painting as photographs and then blows up the produce, photographing the point of impact with a high speed camera.
Gersht also references Harold Edgerton’s photography, such as .30 Bullet Piercing Apple (above)
Referring to the cycle of life I feel that it’s important to touch on death, I’ve drawn on many works of art, in addition to those I’ve previously discussed in this BLOG. I wanted to look at Anya Gallaccio, an artist whose work investigates the ephemeral nature of nature. Her work includes many installations which are typically either self destructive such No place better than this (1996) consisting of burning candles or simple decaying Preserve ‘Beauty’ (2003) comprises cut flowers or as with Absolute (1996) and Lost Art (1996) which incorporates blocks of ice melting at room temperature. She has also made a series which puts cut flowers behind glass panels of used doors Red Door With Handle (2003). Each challenges the viewer to consider mortality, and transcendence, hinting at an afterlife whilst acknowledging the decomposition of dead matter on earth.
To be continued…
