Acropolis Fall 2021: Dreams

ACROPOLIS

ART & ART HISTORY JOURNAL

DREAMS Fall 2021

Dreams Editor: K’Vahzsa Roberts Staff: Elizabeth Brady Bridget Collins Martha Darbre Madeline Dort Rebecca Golden Sofya Goncharenko Renny McFadin Katrina Raab Chandler Rawson Isabella Stark Anna Wilkinson

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from the Editor

In this issue of Acropolis, we wanted to focus on the art of introspection, or the art of dreams. At some point in every life, there will come a time when one has to confront the images of desire and fear that plague their innermost thoughts. This semester, we took a deeper look into the aesthetic manifestations of these visions.

Dreams free the suppressed, and uncover new possibilities for the mind to interpret. The organization compiled a number of writings and artworks to explore the influence of the subconscious on fine art. We hope that the analyses of William and Mary students display the creative and contemplative potential of dreaming, in all of its capacities, and challenge you to face the reality of your own imagination.

K’Vahzsa

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dream (n.) a series of thoughts, images, and sensations usually occuring in a person’s sleep

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ART HISTORICAL WRITING AND INTERVIEWS

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CONTENTS 6 … “Dreaming of Sexual Desire and the Eroticism of Sleep in Gustav Klimt’s The Virgin”

by Renny McFadin (Class of 2024) 9 … “The Dreaming Woman Motif in Salvador Dalí’s Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening”

by Martha Darbre (Class of 2024) 12 … “Odilon Redon’s Closed Eyes: The Unreachable Subconscious”

by Rebecca Golden (Class of 2022) 15 … “The Nightmare in Salvador Dalí’s The Dream”

by Sofya Goncharenko (Class of 2024) 18 … “Alphonse Mucha and Art Nouveau’s Repurposing”

by Elizabeth Brady (Class of 2025) 21 … “The Blank Space in Adrian Piper’s Vanilla Nightmares #2”

by K’Vahzsa Roberts (Class of 2023) 24 … “John Faed’s A Poet’s Dream: The Intensity of Romantic Dreams”

by Chandler Rawson (Class of 2023) 27 … Bibliography 29 … “Interview with Seth Pitt”

by Katrina Raab (Class of 2025)

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Dreaming of Sexual Desire and the Eroticism of Sleep in Gustav Klimt’s The Virgin

by Renny McFadin

Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was a key figure and originator of the Austrian Secessionist Movement in fin de siecle Vienna and is most well-known for his 20th century painting, The Kiss. While The Kiss is ethereal and dreamy in nature, due to Klimt’s use of his signature patterned motifs in combination with the gold paint and posing of the two figures, his 1913 painting The Virgin is far more emblematic of dreams.

Through its use of color, pattern, figure-composition, and subject, The Virgin is demonstrative of a highly erotic dream-like state, that emulates both the nebulous nature of dreams and the sexual character that they may take on.

The painting itself depicts a mass of both highly colorful and patterned nebulae, intertwined with naked women in various contorted states done in oil. The patterns imbued in the shapes surrounding the figures

are reminiscent of flowers; bright yellows, blues, purples, and greens create organic motifs that further emphasize the simple beige skin of the nude women wrestling these shapes.

In the center of this amorphous concoction of women, and what can be perceived as fabric, is a single woman’s resting face. She is distinct in two special ways: she is the only woman resting, eyes closed, in the piece, and she is the only woman whose nude figure is covered by the patterned motif.

Presumably, the central woman is the Virgin, untouched by the inherently sexual contortions of the other subjects and protected by the patterned shapes, reminiscent of quilted blankets. However, the case could be made that she is quite the opposite: Jane Rogoyska and Patrick Bade, in their 2011 book Gustav Klimt, describe the 6

central woman as having a “rapt expression” and “outstretched arms” that signify “awakening of sexual desire rather than virginal innocence” (pp. 179).

Both of these analyses, my own and that of Rogoyska and Bade, respectively, are demonstrative of

in the throes of passion. My perspective therefore proposes that Klimt is demonstrating a sexual innocence found in sleep. Alternatively, Rogoyska and Bade are suggesting that the Virgin is also going through a profound erotic experience,

the thematic element of sleep. In my own analysis of the central female figure, she is asleep in the innocent sense. The Virgin’s sleep is that of non-sexual nature, while the surrounding figures, who are awake, are deep

as demonstrated through her expression and body language.

This point of view, then, supposes that sleep is the place where the Virgin can experience her sexual desires. Another perspective of The Virgin could 7

could be that the nude women surrounding the central figure are figments of the Virgin’s own dream. This interpretation is more in line with what Rogoyska and Bade are suggesting. No matter the interpretation, there is a case to be made about sexual experiences through dreaming.

It’s also important to emphasize the effect of the abstract organic patterning on this interpretation.

Without the patterned ornament surrounding the women, the oil painting would lose its nebulous quality. Not only are these patterned renderings characteristic of Klimt’s more famous works, but in The Virgin they serve the purpose of both emphasizing the figures of the painting as well as creating a more abstract, intelligible atmosphere of the painting.

The purposeful obstruction of the figures through these forms makes the piece read even more erotically: drawing the eye to the breasts of some women or to the arched backside of another.

While there seems to be no particular patronage nor

reason for the painting of The Virgin, its inherent appeal to both sexual desire and the dream world are indubitable. The Virgin fits well within Klimt’s more well-known canon of works through its use of the female figure, organic quasi-floral pattern motifs, and the gold accenting. The piece is highly evocative of a freedom of sexual desire and ecstasy that some may argue is only attainable in a state of dreaming, whether the actual figure of the Virgin is experiencing that herself is up for debate.

IMAGE CAPTION: Gustav Klimt, The Virgin, 1913, oil on canvas, National Gallery (Prague, Czech Republic), https://artsandculture. google.com/asset/the-virgin/ PQHEO7ecgZxI8A?hl=en

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The Dreaming Woman Motif in Salvador Dalí’s Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening

by Martha Darbre

Salvador Dalí’s (19041989) 1944 work, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening, perfectly demonstrates one’s internal and external thought processes coming into life. Whether in distress or euphoria, Dalí analyzes the inner desires and fears of a human being in their dreams, a place unknown to others. The dreaming woman is a theme portrayed in Dalí’s paintings, where many of his works are focused on a female figure called Gala, his wife.

Dalí’s elements of symbolism attempt to explore the world of dreams in a figurative landscape.

Dalí paints his wife in a dreamlike state while sleeping as the foreground of the painting.

Gala’s dream manifests, where two tigers and a rifle leap toward the resting figure from the mouth of a fish, which in turn emerges from a bursting pomegranate. As

the title suggests, the onslaught of the dream will wake her moments later. These succession of events juxtaposes one’s knowledge of what is deemed the most threatening in the real world, which is the tiger. This artistic element conveys an unorthodox understanding of how powerful one’s dreams can be and ultimately are reality. The depiction of the pomegranate in the foreground helps to paint the cultural and historical context of the artist. The pomegranate is a common symbol of fertility and beauty in, not only myths, but in real life. In Christian symbolism (Hieronymus), the numerous seeds in this fruit represent the Church, unity in faith, and a community of believers. Dalí’s painting gives an intentional dialogue into the teachings of Catholicism.

The ideas of Surrealism go against the teachings of the 9

Catholic Church. Dalí’s experience of religion was divided at an early age. Growing up with a devout Christian mother and Atheist father, he had a distorted view on Christianity. Later in his life, Dalí’s paintings explored both

intention was to incorporate religious symbols in his work in spite of the Catholic Church.

Although it doesn’t explicitly state Dalí as an anti-feminist, it proves he supported the institution of Spain as a patriarchal society.

his religious roots and Spanish mystics where the subject’s art, science and religion were unified. Dalí’s religious views give an origin to his ideas about feminism in his pieces of work.

It could be said that Dalí s

Dalí’s characterization of women shows the effort to maintain the female image as sexual objects in Spain during the Surrealist Movement. Although Dalí popularized surrealism, he was one of the artists of the era 10

whose objectification of women made him controversial. Gala is portrayed as a passive figure, who is powerless due to her sexualization in the nude. Clearly being portrayed as a sexual being, Gala does not exhibit an independence of her own.

Salvador paints these women’s bodies to project male emotion and very rarely, if ever, gives women their own voice or story.

All at once, Dalí gives the viewers access to the woman’s dream world while simultaneously removing them from it. This illustration paints Dalí’s view of women as only an exoticization not capable of reasoning or having such thought processes.

Dalí conveys images of dreams that speak to the emotional, social, sexual and artistic values of the artist and audience.

vuelo-abeja-alrededor-granada-segundoantes-despertar.jpg

IMAGE CAPTION: Salvador Dalí, Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening, 1944, oil on panel, Sammlung Thyssen-Bornemisza, https://www. museothyssen.org/sites/default/files/ imagen/obras/1974.46_sueno-causado-

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Odilon Redon’s Closed Eyes: The Unreachable Subconscious

by Rebecca Golden

The late 19th century was an era when people were fascinated with the self, especially the unconscious self. The rise of psychology contributed to the interest in states of existence that differed from the standard conscious state, such as sleep, hypnosis, hysteria, and similar phenomena. Questions about the unconscious state pervaded.

What is the nature of the unconscious state? What are the capabilities and limitations of the human psyche? Is the unconscious mind entirely closed to the outside world, or is it still capable of being influenced?

Artists and scientists alike wondered about the nature of the innermost depths of the mind. For artists, this wonder naturally crept into their work.

The symbolist artist Odilon Redon (1840-1916), like many of his artistic peers, entered an exploration of the unconscious through depictions of immaterial

concepts, seeking to visually represent many of the pervading questions about the self.

Redon’s painting Closed Eyes is, at first glance, a deceptively simple image. A bust of a sleeping woman is pictured, lightly painted onto the canvas.

She seems to be barely present as her shoulders fade into her hazy background, almost as if her ties to our reality are hardly sufficient to keep her image in front of us. The cool, ethereal colors used by Redon enhances the dreamy atmosphere of his painting. Although we are simply observing a dreamer, it is almost as if we too are dreaming.

The long, flat plane that runs in front of the woman serves to emphasize the separation between the painting and the viewers, and to remind us of the personal, closed-off nature of the unconscious state. While we may wonder what enables the 12

dreamer to appear so serene and peaceful, we may never enter her dreamscape due to the barrier between her and us. Instead, she remains tranquil and unreachable while we can only look on, entranced. Redon further emphasizes the closed-off

outer world and completely unreachable. Overall, the painting seems to propose that to enter the unconscious state is to enter a unique reality that is, by its very nature, inaccessible to others.

Only we can enter our own dreams; we can never enter the

nature of the unconscious state through the title of the painting.

If we understand eyes to be the “windows to the soul,” her closed eyes serve as a reminder that, in her unconscious state, she is shut off from the

dream of another.

Many symbolists saw the unconscious state as having great potential for heightened creativity and experimented with tapping into their unconscious minds when creating artwork.

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Redon himself was reported to sometimes work using “automatic” methods.

However, if we accept that unconsciousness is the optimal creative state for the artist, and concede that it is impossible to enter another person’s unconscious as Closed Eyes suggests, we are presented with a troubling conclusion: while we can understand part of what an artist is endeavoring to represent in their creation, we can never enter their unconscious state and fully see the concept as they imagined it. If this conclusion is accepted, then it brings with it a painful recognition of the limitations of art. However, perhaps this recognition is part of learning how to approach and appreciate artwork.

Eyes_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

IMAGE CAPTION: Odilon Redon, Closed Eyes, 1890, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, https://upload. wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ thumb/5/5e/Odilon_Redon_-_ Closed_Eyes_-_Google_Art_Project. jpg/727px-Odilon_Redon_-_Closed_

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The Nightmare in Salvador Dalí’s The Dream

by Sofya Goncharenko

Originating in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Surrealism existed as a literary movement, experimenting with a novel method of expression called automatic writing, which attempted to reveal manifestations of the subconscious. In 1924, the poet André Breton published the Manifesto of Surrealism, and with it propelled Surrealism forward as an artistic, intellectual, and political movement. Sigmund Freud’s ideas of free association allowed Surrealists to expose the private nature of the mind typically moderated by rationality and societal expectations. One of the most famed Surrealists, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), helped pioneer the movement.

Dalí involved himself in a myriad of artistic creations (painting, sculpture, design, drawing, film, fashion, etc.), ultimately distinguishing him from other Surrealists of the time. His

multifaceted presence in the art world, along with his defiant and unruly attitude toward politics, awarded him a rapid rise to notoriety in the 20th century.

One of Dalí’s lesserknown, yet equally memorable paintings, The Dream, recalls his trademark Surrealist genre quite well. The Dream was painted early in his career in the 1930s; its specific style occasionally referred to as “dreamscape,” featuring the peculiar juxtapositions present in the majority of Dalí’s work. The painting assumes the physical form of the disquieting and disturbing world of dreams and hallucinations.

Beginning with the central figure in the foreground: ants cluster over their face, entirely obscuring the mouth.

Ants relate to Dalí’s famous surrealist film, An Andalusian Dog (considered the most significant 15

film of Surrealist cinema).

Several scenes in the film feature ants crawling over hands or figures; Dalí associated ants with death, decay, and intense sexual desire. The sealed (perhaps, sewn shut), bulging eyelids potentially allude to the restlessness of

the paralyzing quality of dreams; one cannot perform actions in a dream, compelled to stay immobilized.

Now, the background features a man at the far left.

His bleeding face and amputated left foot cite the tragic Greek

sleep; the sensory confusion and frustration of a dream.

Moreover, the figure itself appears to morph into stone.

The combination of forcefully closed eyes and mouth, with the figure unable to move, summons

hero of Thebes, Oedipus, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. The column protruding from the man’s back and promptly burgeoning into a bust of a bearded man follows the Freudian father, the 16

punishing superego who suppresses the son’s sexual fantasies. Additionally, the man holds a golden key or scepter, symbolizing access to the unconscious. In the distance, further in the background, one sees two men embrace, one of whom holds a golden key as well. Behind them, a naked man reaches into a permeable red foam, attempting to enter it.

More columns stand guard in the distance.

Ultimately, the muted, dark colors portray a hostile, haunting atmosphere. In tandem with the gruesome imagery of blood, amputation, and shut spaces, The Dream may be perceived as more of a nightmare. While the nonsensical quality and swirling shapes primarily allude to a different reality, they additionally evoke an almost nauseating feeling, further subjecting The Dream to a nightmare caliber. Nevertheless, the painting elicits mesmerization from the viewer. It is nearly alluring, and perhaps, even sensual. Considering Dalí’s

agenda for such themes, most likely, that is the desired reaction.

True to the Surrealism of the 20th century, The Dream exposes the morose, mysterious, and possibly sinister areas of the human psyche, emphasizing the ideas of Freud and incorporating aspects of Greek mythology.

IMAGE CAPTION: Salvador Dalí, The Dream, 1931, oil on canvas, Cleveland Museum of Art, https://uploads3.wikiart.org/images/ salvador-dali/the-dream.jpg!Large.jpg

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Alphonse Mucha and Art Nouveau’s Repurposing

by Elizabeth Brady

The art nouveau movement was a branch of the Romantic resurgence following the industrial revolution. In response to the “ugliness” of industry, artists took refuge in the floral, the excessive, and the expressly aesthetic. Czech painter Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) is largely cited as the “father” of this movement, with his floaty, ethereal paintings of women with long, flowing hair often accompanied by symbols of femininity like flowers, vines and birds. In 1894, Mucha was commissioned by famous actress Sarah Bernhart to create posters for her upcoming role in the play Gismonda. After this, his work grew in popularity and he was commissioned for a variety of advertisement posters, for biscuits, beauty products, and most notably, Job cigarettes. The cigarette poster is notable not just for it’s in-time influence, but it’s more contemporary

repurposing.

In the 1970s, similar to the Industrial Revolution, people felt as if the world was changing around them faster than they could comprehend. From this detachment and dissatisfaction sprung the hippie movement, predicated on ideas of free love, connection to nature, and rejection of the stifling norms of mainstream society. The parallels between the psychedelic art of the hippie movement and the nouveau art of the Romantic movement can best be seen in the direct co-opting of art from one by another.

The organic, flowing, dreamy style of the art nouveau movement, meant to transcend the increasingly mechanical world the artists found themselves in also worked for the naturalistic, free attitudes of the counterculture of the 70s. The changing of color palettes, 18

delicate pastels for vivid contracting colors, is a nod to the psychedelic art movement and also the practical function this art served in its later reincarnation.

Posters were the way that bands announced concerts, the more eye-catching your poster, the

resurgence, the art nouveau style was meant to be divergent from mainstream capitalist innovation, in both its iterations it ended up serving very commercial purposes. In a world where artists are constantly at risk of being accused of “selling out”

fuller your crowd would be.

Bright colors and difficult-toread fonts were more likely to catch eyes and pack performance spaces.

Although in both its original popularity and its

or other forms of corporate hackery, it’s interesting to see how even throughout history, creativity and commerciality are rarely mutually exclusive.

IMAGE CAPTION:

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Alphonse Mucha, Poster for “Job” Cigarette Paper, 1896, colour lithograph, Mucha Foundation, https://lh3.googleusercontent. com/proxy/Y7YhOJfMfUXRvqwNLGNVcTBSuF2QmN3yrNzcCh8k3IuyPmjkojfs15DS-pOG-ETiP9w 0iIBw07odDjHSzhRR6GqkLdQ3b5eL FjK7rkD7Xg9XhPerriTGzUf9pLECpA

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The Blank Space in Adrian Piper’s Vanilla Nightmares #2

by K’Vahzsa Roberts

Adrian Piper’s (1948-) Vanilla Nightmares is a series of charcoal drawings that portray Black Americans in a very unusual light. The tone of the figures is dark, and most of their eyes are left white, or unrealized, like they are in a trance. Piper utilizes abstract perspectives and dramatic expressions to convey a sense of aggression in the works, which are, to say the least, unsettling. However, as disturbing as the compositions are, there is a feeling of sadness in the images. For all intents and purposes, the people that the artist represents appear to be in a perpetual state of agony, and one cannot help but pity them, in some respect.

Yet, Piper does not want our pity. The dark imagery in Vanilla Nightmares represents the ways in which Black Americans are imagined by their white counterparts. Piper is simultaneously exhibiting and

confronting these delusions in her work. The drawings were done throughout the 1980s, on pages from the New York Times, and the printed background tends to inform the subject in some way. In addition to her dedication in showcasing the complicated plight of Black people in America, Piper took on the challenge of criticizing the issue of race as a whole. The series uses provocative headlines, timeless stories, and convenient advertisements to expose the troubling, and often horrifying, assumptions that many have about those with darker skin.

This critique is particularly relevant in Vanilla Nightmares #2. It is graphic, which is emphasized by the red lettering Piper has done across the center of the composition. The message reads, “SOLUTION—SOLUTION— THE BLACK SPACE.” Notably, 21

the “c” in Black is written in white, and barely visible on the page. Piper’s omission has many implications, but the most obvious is that, without close examination, the message appears to say, “SOLUTION— SOLUTION—THE BLANK

embedded political commentary.

The lettering is framed

by Piper’s illustration of a fullynude Black woman, with her legs sprawled, and a rectangular shape has been cut out of the periodical where her private parts would be. This is another blank

SPACE,” indicating that there is no resolution to be found within the piece. And, when juxtaposed with the articles in the background about South Africa’s apartheid, the significance of this interpretation is amplified by the

space in the piece. Although the eye immediately goes to the missing letter of the red anecdote, this void is just as important. Perhaps, Piper is displaying the lack of humanity Black people are afforded, and 22

rejecting the hypersexual lens that women of color are often viewed within the sphere of fine arts. There is also a closeup of the woman’s face to the right of the figure. By having only the whites of her eyes, it feels as though the artist wants to remove individuality from the woman, in an effort to show how omnipresent these issues are.

Its eeriness puts the viewer in a transcendent state, one that allows for access to this subconscious perception of the Black body. Piper does not just draw figures, she illustrates vessels that are often used for the pleasures of other people. That, rather than shock value, is the true essence of the collection.

IMAGE CAPTION: Adrian Piper,Vanilla Nightmares #2, 1986, charcoal and red crayon on tan wove paper, The Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.artic.edu/ iiif/2/a39cd76e-afa4-983f-ec6bcd59cc953719/full/843,/0/default.jpg

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John Faed’s A Poet’s Dream: The Intensity of Romantic Dreams

by Chandler Rawson

Born and raised on the Western coast of Scotland in the small town of Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, John Faed (1819-1902) began painting miniatures of his neighbors at the early age of nine years old.

Over the duration of his lifelong artistic career, the Scotsman Faed produced a large swath of paintings, one of which, A Poet’s Dream, acts as a hallmark of the Romantic artistic canon which spans the mid-18th to the early 19th centuries. Romanticism, “favoured intense appreciation of natural beauty, the emotions and the senses over reason and logic.” Romantic artists such as John Faed not only intensely appreciated nature’s beauty, the senses and emotions, but utilized contrasting colors, implemented intensely dramatic compositions, and portrayed individuals in intense emotional states within their art. The work A Poet’s Dream by John Faed is imbued

with all of the Romantic intensity of its age.

A Poet’s Dream depicts a darkly clothed man sprawled upon a richly green peak dreamily gazing up into a tumultuous sky of light blues and deep purples. The dreams of the sprawling Poet atop the hill are projected upon the undulating sky, which teems with an innumerable amount of white-bodied individuals in various heroic poses and classical regalia. The cacophonous brightly lit movements of the body-filled sky are in stark contrast to the calm serenity of the stagnantly posed shadowed Poet. The contrast between serene-dreamer and grandiosedream dramatically demonstrates the notion that the Poet’s artistic ambitions are physically limited in the conscious realm, but in the unconscious realm of dreams, anything is possible. The 24

Romantic appreciation of emotional experiences over logic is portrayed here by the physical presence of the Poet’s dreams as they are illogically acted out in the sky of the conscious realm. The emotional power of the Poet’s dreams are

the bounds of a singular page as is the practice of poetics, rather the entire realm of the sky is made a playground for their creativity.

While the Poet is languorously prostrating on the ground, their artistic ambitions

here demonstrated by the fact that the dream itself covers the entirety of the upper portion of the painting’s composition. The emotional power and artistic capabilities of the Poet within A Poet’s Dream, are not limited by

are given full reign, as their dreams create an indomitable scene covering the entire expanse of the sky. The longer one looks at the dream-filled sky the more they are able to glean from all that exists within its complex 25

depths. Interestingly, the source of light within A Poet’s Dream emits from the center of the dream itself. The darkly dressed and deeply shadowed Poet basks in the light shining down upon them from their own dream projected in the sky above. The light acts as an inspirational force within the painting, as it is born from unfretted artistic ambitions and emotional sensibilities seen in dreams. The inspirational rays, freely and creatively produced in the realm of dreams, bathes the Poet, igniting an artistic fire to emulate the boundless passion, energy and emotionality seen in the dream-filled sky above within their poetry.

IMAGE CAPTION: John Faed, A Poet’s Dream, 1882-1883, oil on canvas, Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture, https://artuk. org/discover/artworks/the-poetsdream-186907

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Bibliography Dreaming of Sexual Desire and the Eroticism of Sleep in Gustav Klimt’s The Virgin

by Renny McFadin Rogoyska, Jane and Patrick Bade. Gustav Klimt. New York: Parkstone International, 2011.

The Dreaming Woman Motif in Salvador Dalí’s Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Awakening

by Martha Darbre Bottinelli, Katherine and Susan Laxton. “Psychoanalytic Feminism and the Depiction of Women in Surrealist Photography.” UC Riverside Undergraduate Research Journal 12, no. 1 (2018): 21-27. https:// doi.org/10.5070/RJ5121039158.

Evens, Revd. Jonathan. “Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith.”

Artlyst. Last modified April 19, 2020, https://www.artlyst.com/ features/salvador-dali-enigma-faith-revd-jonathan-evens/.

Odilon Redon’s Closed Eyes: The Unreachable Subconscious

by Rebecca Golden Keshavjee, Serena. “L’Art Inconscient: Imaging the Unconscious in Symbolist Art for the Théâtre d’art.” Canadian Art Review 34, no. 1 (2009): 62-76, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42630793.

The Nightmare in Salvador Dalí’s The Dream

by Sofya Goncharenko 27

“Salvador Dalí and Surrealism.” Dalí Universe. https://www. thedaliuniverse.com/en/salvador-dali Voorhies, James. “Surrealism.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Last modified October 2004, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ hd/surr/hd_surr.htm.

Alphonse Mucha and Art Nouveau’s Repurposing

by Elizabeth Brady “Alphonse Maria Mucha.” Alphonse Maria Mucha: The Complete Works. https://www.alfonsmucha.org/.

The Blank Space in Adrian Piper’s Vanilla Nightmares #2

by K’Vahzsa Roberts MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, New York. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2019.

John Faed’s A Poet’s Dream: The Intensity of Romantic Dreams

by Chandler Rawson “19th Century European Painting: Key Styles & Movements.”

Mayfair Gallery. Last modified July 16, 2018, https://www. mayfairgallery.com/blog/19th-century-european-painting-stylesmovements.

“Reminiscences of the late John Faed, R.S.A.” Kirkcudbrightshire Advertiser (Kirkcudbrightshire, SCT), Feb. 12, 1926, http://www.oldkirkcudbright.net/extracts-articles/newspapers/john-faed/.

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Interview with Seth Pitt

by Katrina Raab

I have had the honor of knowing Seth Pitt for about eight years. He is the kind of artist whose work will capture the imagination of 11 year olds and inspire full grown adults. If you visit the town of Thomas in West Virginia, you will see Seth’s solo gallery, Creature, and his two collaborative spaces: Invisible and Santangelo.

While Seth is a successful gallery owner, the truly impressive part about him is his art. Ranging from miniature pen and ink drawings from his Small Wandering Hearts series to massive works made from melted crayon, all of Seth’s pieces have the same magical quality—they’re like a song you love, the first poem you ever wrote, and a little flower peeking out from the snow. His characters remind you of people you know and people you want to meet.

Seth has always been an artist. Not always the kind who

put things on paper, but the kind who put words together. “I started drawing when I was 22, but I was also making art when I was eight. When I was in third grade I read a poetry book—in Michigan you would get a flier to take home to your parents and you could order them—I got one with rhymes that I was super excited about and from third grade until like 21 or 22. I was like I am a poet and that is it.”

Seth has been thinking about what defines his art a lot recently. He is “desperate to keep [the child inside himself] alive.”

Seth strives to “hearken back to being a kid on summer vacation.”

And it is clear. All his work has the joy of being a child seeing the beach out of the backseat window.

I asked Seth how he starts his art making process. He says, “What the hell am I going to do?” is how it starts. Seth likes 29

to start with color. He grabs blindly, and uses the color he gets. Seth enjoys confining himself to a set of parameters and working within them. He doesn’t like to plan or sketch, instead of “overthinking, just start with a mark.” This is

pieces (Ode) he picks a color palette and lays it out to see a color spectrum. His still life pieces—part of an enchanting new project—are the result of a random assortment of color that Seth makes work. New Worlds, his watercolor series, is

something that sets Seth apart.

Even color, something that seems essential to Seth’s work is fairly inconsequential. He prefers to “throw the color down and follow it.”

With his melted crayon

a “selection of a small, specific group of colors.” Seth’s most iconic works, however, are line drawings. He truly thrives with a simple black marker and an empty space.

One of Seth’s most 30

admirable traits is his loyalty to his work, “nothing is left, almost everything is still being worked on even as new things are brought in.” New for Seth: watercolors. But it works. Seeing Seth’s style and charm in a new medium is exciting, even natural.

“I think when I get, when I feel proficient at a body of work, I need to get back to the beginning where I don’t know what I am doing any more. I can’t do that in a medium I have practiced in.”

Seth left me with a poignant anecdote: “It is amazing that

we are creatures that can make things that never would have existed without our personal stamp. I could draw something that could never occur in the entire universe. So could you.”

All photos come from Seth Pitt’s Instagram, @theartofseth, and his website, www.theartofseth.com

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VISUAL ART

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CONTENTS 34 … Monaco Coast, Danielle Swanson (Graduate Student) 36 … On the Way, Wenfei Yuan (Class of 2022)

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Monaco Coast, Danielle Swanson

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This latest piece by Danielle Swanson is the first in her series, “Escaping Nostalgia.” The image of the Monaco coast was taken as a photograph in 2002 during a quick visit to the country and a drive along the Grand Prix track, and reinvisioned as a painting in 2021, as a memory of inconsistent and incomplete details, much like remembering a dream. The 10”x20” canvas utilizes watercolor, acrylic, and colored pencil. For Swanson, the process of creating and recreating this image was much like trying to relive a dreamlike state, remembering and misremembering the truth about the past.

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On the Way, Wenfei Yuan

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The pictures were taken by Wenfei Yuan at the seaside of Williamsburg to watch the sunrise.

Yuan was inspired by a Chinese proverb that says, “the day is in the morning,” which means that the best time of the day is in the morning, because every morning is a new starting point, flying on the road to chasing dreams, every morning has unlimited possibilities.

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William and Mary Studio Art Major Minimum Required Credit Hours: 37

Core Requirements ART 211 - Drawing and Color, and ART 212 - 3D Design: Form and Space ART 461 - Capstone I ART 462 - Capstone II ART 463 - Capstone III (2) 200-level Art History courses at, or above ARTH 230 (1) 300-level Art History course at, or above ARTH 330 *17 Additional Credits in Two or Three Dimensional Focus Studies

William and Mary Art History Major Minimum Required Credit Hours: 33

Foundational Courses (3) 200 level courses at or above ARTH 230 to ARTH 299 ART 211 - Drawing and Color, or ART 212 - 3D Design: Form and Space Core Requirements ARTH 331 - The Curatorial Project ARTH 333 - Theories and Methods of Art History ARTH 493 - Capstone Seminar *9 Additional Credits at or above ARTH 330 and 1 Elective Course

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