Post 4: Walter White, a myth, and a paradox.

So, there is a well know and quite beloved series called Breaking Bad. This series, made by the american writer, producer and director Vince Gilligan is a crime drama and thriller with a lot of black humor, staring the awarded actor Bryan Cranston as Walter White, who was also Hal in the comedy series Malcolm in the Middle and also appeared in the acclaimed film Little Miss Sunshine, Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman and the well-known actor Dean Norris as Hank Schrader, among other famous actors.

Jesse and Walter

Hank Schrader

This series shows us the path in which a regular chemistry teacher, Walter White will start cooking methamphetamine, an extremely dangerous drug called by many as "crystal meth", until he builds a drug empire in which he will be the king. Of course, he will not start cooking from one day to another, but he will get "introduced" to this shady market by one of his students, who is a drug addict named Jesse Pinkman, who is not very skilled in the act of "cooking" crystal meth. On the other hand, Walter White is a chemistry teacher, who won a nobel award by taking part in a proton radiography protect, is far more skilled than the latter. Moreover, he has lung cancer, so, knowing that he will die in a few months, decides to help Jesse so as to get enough money for his family to have a good future (for example his son's studies, etc). Furthermore, as his business grows, the Drug Enforcement Administration (a.k.a. DEA) will start looking for him, this of course is quite ironical, as his brother-in-law Hank is a DEA agent, and also will be some kind of introduction for Walter to the world of drug dealing during one of his raids.

Walter White, and Heisenberg, Walter's facette as a "drug lord"

In this series we find a myth and, as paradoxical as it is, hero and antihero at the same time, and that character is Walter White. In fact, this character represents the self-made man, in fact he is a regular man, with a mediocre life, that will become a rich man, having a drug empire. Of course this is not good, but he still succeeds, even if he took the "bad guy path". This also makes him an antihero, but even if we could consider him a "bad guy", he does it for a noble cause, that being his family's future. Also, he still is humanitarian and he is not a bad person. Besides, he manages to "leave the average", and so, he becomes what we know as a hero. Of course, there is a twist to this, that being that he doesn't stop cooking after gathering the money he wanted for his family to live well. He then became a negative character, having to kill some people and being the embodiment of our inner evil. But, even if this seems ironical, his evildoing is still justified by the fact that he finally became important, and finally found happiness, which is what we humans have as a goal in life. 

POST 3: An Art Exhibition Review

So, from June 10th to September 14th there was an exhibition called "Pop Art Myths" in the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum, in the Paseo del Prado 8, in Madrid, Spain. Of course, as we are on 2016 visiting this exhibition in real life is impossible. That is, unless if you go to Thyssen Museum's web page, where you can find the online exhibition, which you can enjoy as if you were there.

There were many art pieces from well known artists from the Pop Art movement such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. This three month long group show was composed by themes, so that one room has all the art pieces of a specific genre. These genres were:

   - Collage Advertising Comics, in which we have paintings such as Look Mickey, by Roy Lichtenstein, or Double Mickey Mouse, by Andy Warhol.

   -Emblems, in which paintings such as The First RealTarget, by Peter Blake where exhibition.

   -Myths, where we can found collages, paintings and more art pieces that represent famous people, such as Marylin Monroe in Marylin Idol, by Wolf Vostell.

   -Portraits, where we can find artworks like Black LightSelf-Portrait, by Andy Warhol.

   -Landscapes Interiors Still Lives, in which we find a reinterpretation of those traditional genres of painting. An example of this is Still Life #34, by Tom Wesselmann

   -Urban Eroticism, where we can find one of the most important Pop Art artworks, that being Woman in Bath, by Roy Lichtenstein.

   -History Pinting, where we find Retroactive II, by Robert Rauscenberg, or Group Hug, by Juan Genovés.

   -Art about Art, like Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482), by Andy Warhol.

When it comes to the exhibition as a whole, it is of course very impressive, as it is full of color, which impacts the viewer. Moreover, the themes represented in the artworks are quite uncommon as they are extremely simplistic in some cases (for example a target in Peter Blake's painting). This mixes with a bit of humor an parody in some cases, such as the painting The Living Room, by Equipo Crónica, which is a parody of the well-known painting Las Meninas, by Velazquez. All this little touches give life to the exhibition, making it funny and lively: the exhibition is not static, it plays with the viewer and keeps him on his toes to discover what will be the next art piece.

The Living Room
Equipo Crónica, 1970
Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 200 cm

Las Meninas
Diego Velazquez, 1656
Oil on canvas 318 x 276 cm

On top of that, this exhibition has some of the most important Pop Art paintings, by two of the biggest artists of this movement, those Being Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, but it also has some more artworks by less well known artist, so that the viewer can gain more culture and more knowledge about this movement, in this case, we can say that this exhibition manages to get people involved in this innovative movement and learn that it is not only composed by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

In my view, it goes whithout saying that I really enjoyed this exhibition, as it always felt lively and different due to the innovation in it. However, it can't be denied that it would have been formidable if there were even more artworks, as the exhibition seemed too short. In addition to the fact that Pop Art is a very predictable movement compared to some other Avant-Guarde movements, such as Surrealism and Abstract art, in fact most of the artworks Pop Art have this "nonsense feel" added to them, which gets repetitive after some time, whereas in the case of surrealism of Vladimir Kush's paintings, such as Arrival Of The Flower Ship, paintings loose the "weirdness" that Dali's paintings had, so there is an enormous variety of what surrealism is, whereas Pop Art doesn't seem to lose this feeling of incomprehension, chaos and mystery.

Still, there is not denying that the choice of art pieces was extremely well thought out, as every artwork was completely different from the last, which makes this exhibition a must-see for people who enjoy art, as myself.

Arrival of The Flower Ship
Vladimir Kush, 2000
Oil on canvas 99 x 71 cm

Also, it is quite clear that the notion Myths and Heroes is embodied by the fact that the whole movement tries to unite tradition and innovation as a whole. With this comes the idea of remaking ancient myths and adapting them to our brand new society, such as Cleopatra, by Mimmo Rotella, by changing the support and the type of artwork.

Cleopatra
Mimmo Rotelli, 1963
Decollage on canvas 134 x 137 cm

Thyssen Museum, Madrid.

One of the artworks of this exhibition, impressed me a lot. That painting is Black Light Self Portrait, by Andy Warhol, as it is a very representative artwork of the Pop Art, and, as paradoxical as it may seem, it differs at the same time from "classic" Pop Art standards.

First of all, I'm a Terminale L student, which means that my study path goes hand to hand with literature, art, philosophy, etc.

So this painting is the self portrait of Andy Warhol made in 1986. which focuses on his face. The colors used in this painting are mostly dark blue and cyan and the image is mostly static on the bottom half, where Andy Warhol's face is, then the shapes get more harsh and sharp on the upper half, around the hair area. We see clearly that the blue palette chosen by the artist differs a lot from the classic Pop Art palette, which is far more colorful. It also gives stability to the image, and mostly to the bottom half.

The person represented, Andy Warhol, seems calm, focused, and mostly neutral, which reminds us of classic self portraits. On the other hand, his hair is extremely messy, as if it was an explosion, which gives a sense of instability to the art piece. We see here a contrast between agitation and stagnation, as would be the contrast between futurism and cubism. The color choice is of course opposite to the dogmas and rules given by Pop Art: the lively and explosive colors are missing.

To put it in a nutshell, this painting shows Andy Warhol's search for the limit of the Pop Art movement by using a cold colored palette to pause the image. This is also corroborated by the artist's face's inertia, which both paralyse the image. Yet, the only touch of life in the painting is the artist's hair, which makes an explosive feel to the whole painting. There is no denying that this gives a velocity and frenetic feeling to the art piece, and is what mostly belongs to Pop Art's dogmas, and even futurism.

In a word, this reflects the idea of the Pop Art movement: to innovate by utilizing tradition.

Last but not least, this exhibition can be visited online, and as it seems, it comes back some years to Madrid, though that is not sure.

POST 2: The myth of the noble/good savage.

Chris McCandless/Alexander Supertramp reading in the film Into The Wild by Sean Penn.

A member of the Awá tribe in Brazil, one of the most endangered tribes in the world.

The myth of the good/noble savage (romantic primitivism) is a concept first introduced by the french philosopher Jean Jaques Rousseau. This myth is based around the concept of the noble/good savage, stock character/stereotyped character which embodies and idealized indigene, outsider. This character hasn't been corrupted by civilisation, so he embodies human's innate goodness. Of course, by savage Rousseau meant a wild person: it doesn't have the negative connotation that this word has nowadays.

This "wild person" would then live in Nature among the other animals, as another inhabitant of this place. So this person would take part in this ecosystem, without endangering this balance and even being necessary for it.

By living in Nature, this "noble savage" would feed from animals he hunt, without any machines or any tool made by modern civilisation, living with his little peaceful and "pure" community, as opposed to civilisation.

So at the end, the good/noble savage is part of Mother Nature and, as he is not corrupted by civilisation, he embodies the innate goodness the human has within himself.

But John Dryden, and english poet, literary critic, translator and playwright, was the one to introduce the expression "noble savage" into english literature, in this case simply meaning the beast that is above the other beasts, or man.

In the film Into The Wild, the main character, Chris McCandless/Alexander Supertramp, thinks about civilisation, society, as something full of hatred and evil, that corrupts people. As opposed to this society, Chris thinks that Nature is a place that is pure, a place that can heal and kill the corruption people get from living in a "civilized society". This is the same idea as romantic primitivism, where civilisation represents the new evil that is corrupting the human race, as opposed to Nature, the embodiment of the innate and original goodness of the human being. And we clearly see that Chris has this idea in mind throughout the film as he is trying to be a good/noble savage, even if he comes from a civilised society. So he is not a noble savage, but he wants to go back to his "wild" roots and human race's origins, to become one again.

At the end, Chris is longing to become pure again, but in order to achieve this, he will have to have a "climactic battle to kill the false being within", his new self, that has been corrupted by civilisation. And to become his "old" and "original" self again, he will go to Alaska, to cut his connections with the society that corrupts him and be closer to Nature, from which he will get the antidote to this new evil that lives within himself.
Sadly, Chris fails to grasp that living in nature is extremely hard, as getting food is very difficult. Also the weather can get him killed, and mostly the cold. We see this from the beginning, where the man who drove him to Alaska's wilderness gives him boots, as he doesn't have some, also he fails to keep the moose's meat in good condition, after hunting it. So we see that he is not well prepared and that he is not really aware of the difficulty of living in the wild. Mostly, one of the truths about Nature that Chris fails to grasp is that his humanity could get him killed, in fact, he is not letting his "wild side"/survival instinct come off, which is extremely important, because in Nature, it's kill or be killed (a.k.a. the law of the jungle). We see this after finding the "magic bus", when he retracts from killing a little moose. Of course this is not done, even among hunters, but when your life is at stake, you don't really have an option.
After all this, one question could be asked: is really Chris a noble savage, or only a romantic. Well, to answer this, we have to know what the differences are between these two. So, first of all, a noble savage is someone that lives in Nature, someone that is pure, and not corrupted by society, this meaning that he is the allegory of man's original goodness. On the other hand, a romantic is someone that wants to be a noble savage, meaning he has the same ideals of a noble savage, so a romantic is idealistic. By knowing this, it is quite clear that Chris is a romantic, in fact, even if he had the same ideals of a noble savage, such as that civilisation is corrupting the people, he fails to grasp what life in Nature really is. He thinks that he can live in Nature without needing to bring out his wild side. He also wants to be a noble savage (being pure again, etc), so he isn't one yet. Finally, he wants to be one with Nature again, to become pure, but when finding the "magic bus", he doesn't reject that opportunity. So he still is way too rooted to material conforts and amenities that civilisation gave him: he can't live in Nature, because this requires him to reject everything about civilisation.

So, at the end, after living in society, it is not really possible to get back to a state of nature, because man needs society to survive, in fact we don't have all the tools animals have to survive, such as claws, fur, etc. So at the end, we cannot live by ourselves in Nature without the amenities society gave us. This is even seen in "primitive societies", where people survive with weapons they made and mostly thanks to the help more humans give us. So we can always try to live in Nature by ourselves, but the result we always will get from doing this is death, would it be caused by another animals, lack of food, bad weather conditions, accidents, humankind's physical fragility (we can easily brake our bones, etc) or even suicide due to loneliness, in fact, as someone one said: "to feel the pain of loneliness, is to feel death's embrace".

POST 1: THE IDEA OF PROGRESS

THE IDEA OF PROGRESS

As an introduction to the idea of progress as a whole, please check the worksheet on.