Many thanks to my friend Edie for the heads-up on this one. Although the in/famous BBC miniseries Desperate Romantics has been available in Region 2 for some time, the DVD now has a release date for North American Region 1 format.
My friend, the talented film maker Lisa Stock, is working on an incredible production. She is blending the character of Titania with the Armless Maiden fairy tale, and making an amazing mythic film series. However, she needs help, support, and backing! Pledges start at just $5, and you will know that you've helped to make this beautiful project a reality.
Lisa is truly a modern mythmaker, and part of a larger community of talented artists. She supports the work of others (she has featured the amazing Linden Sidhe's antlers in her film Brother and Sister, and the Titania prequel she hopes to shoot next month will feature a wing necklace created by Jen Parrish), and deserves support for her own creative endeavors!
A few months ago, I was made aware of a documentary/educational program that aired on BBC called "Why Beauty Matters," an hour-long discussion of the philosophy of art and beauty with philosopher Roger Scruton. I was fascinated, captivated, and wanted quite badly to track down a way to view the show. Well, thankfully, the series is on YouTube, split into 6 ten minute segments.
And what an incredible program it is! Being enthusiastic about Beauty as a philosophy and life passion, I knew I would love this program. And although Scruton sometimes seems more rambling than absolute in his argument, I agree with everything he says in the program. Once I had heard of this program months ago, I started reading up on Scruton. I requested his book (aptly titled Beauty) from the library, and looked for articles by him online. I planned to write a rave review of his work in relation to the Pre-Raphaelites on my blog.
In it, Scruton discusses the second enemy of beauty besides ugliness....kitsch. And he says in the article:
"Look back at figurative art in the Western tradition and you will observe that, prior to the 18th century, there was primitive art, naive art, routine and decorative art, but no kitsch. Just when the phenomenon first appeared is disputable: maybe Greuze shows traces of it; maybe it had even been foreshadowed in Murillo. What is certain is that, by the time of Millet and the Pre-Raphaelites, kitsch was in the driving seat."
Wait...what?? My heart plummeted. This same philosopher whose work I so enthusiastically supported thinks of the Pre-Raphaelites as kitsch? So not only is my favorite art movement dismissed by modern art critics as too sentimental, but the philosopher who advocates a return to art for art's sake and beauty being the supreme value ALSO thinks the Pre-Raphaelites aren't worth a dime??
I was quite disappointed.
But please...watch the video. I may disagree with Scruton quite passionately in his judgment of my favorite art movement, but I wholeheartedly agree with his overall message, and the program captivated me, and even brought tears to my eyes in the end.
A few quotes I loved from the program:
"All art is absolutely useless,” wrote Oscar Wilde, who intended his remark as praise. For Wilde, beauty was a value higher than usefulness. People need useless things just as much, even more than, they need things with a use. Just think of it…what is the use of love, or friendship, of worship? None whatsoever. And the same goes for beauty.”“This returns me to Oscar Wilde’s remark that all art is absolutely useless. Put usefulness first, and you lose it. Put beauty first, and what you do will be useful forever. It turns out, nothing is more useful than the useless.”
And my favorite....
“Through the pursuit of beauty, we shape the world as a home, and in doing so, we both amplify our joys, and find consolation for our sorrows. Art and music shine a light of meaning on ordinary life, and through them we are able to confront the things that trouble us, and find consolation and peace in their presence. This capacity of beauty to redeem our suffering is one reason why beauty can be seen as a substitute for religion. Why give priority to religion? Why not say that religion is a beauty substitute? Or better still, why describe the two as rivals? The sacred and the beautiful stand side by side; two doors that open up into a single space, and in that space, we find our home.”
Some of you may know about this already, but one week ago tomorrow, Target premiered its new Liberty of London line of products sold exclusively in their stores and online. I got a heads-up from a friend on this new line of products (everything from bicycles to dresses, all in LoL patterns) and was eagerly anticipating the day when I could see all that was available.
I searched the website last Sunday, only to find that not only were all the prints newer style (i.e. cute but quite 60s-2000s-looking) but there was no William Morris to be seen! Liberty of London and Morris to me are synonymous, and I was shocked that they wouldn't use his patterns.
So this afternoon I went with my husband to the stores to try on some of their LoL dresses (all unflattering on me) and see what housewares they had. And in-person, I finally found a William Morris pattern. Allow me to introduce the "Dunclare" set of canisters, size medium. Of course size small and size large both are completely unrelated black and white non-Morris patterns, and therefore I had no use for a single canister, but at least it's William Morris at Target. ONE single canister with Morris's Sunflower pattern, uncredited, in the entire Liberty of London line.
(PS: I did also find a clipboard in the office section with the Sunflower pattern on it too...to the best of my knowledge, that's it for the entire line)
I'm simultaneously giddy to see Morris at Target, and disappointed that there isn't more.
Art Nouveau, the New Art, was paradoxically backward-looking, flirting with the Ancient of Days, the Sphinx, the Chimera, Venus under the Tannenberg, Persian peacocks, melusines, and Rhine maidens, along with hairy-legged Pan and draped and dangerous oriental priestesses. Some of its newness derived from the deep dream of the lost past which informed both Burne-Jones's palely loitering knights and porcelain-fine maidens, and Morris's sense of saga-scenes and bright embroidered hangings. But it was radically new also, in its use of spinning, coiling, insinuating lines derived from natural forms, its rendering in new metal of tree-shapes newly observed, its abandonment of the solid worth of gold and diamonds for the aesthetic delights of nonprecious metals and semi-precious stones, mother-of-pearl, grained wood, amethyst, coral, moonstone. It was an art at once of frozen stillness, and images of rapid movement. It was an art of shadows and glitter that understood the new force that transfigured both the exhibition and the century to come. Electricity.
--A gorgeous description of Art Nouveau and its influences, from page 273 of the novel The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, a book I'm reading very slowly, but enjoying.
I apologize for my silence on this blog. Life intrudes sometimes, and distracts me from my always and forever passionate pursuit of all things Pre-Raphaelite. While you are waiting, let me distract you with something lovely.
My friend Christine subscribes to English Home magazine. In their current issue, they feature an article on home-dec fabrics where they feature the fabrics on a stunning redheaded model. This image blew me away, and I had her husband Lee scan it for me. To me, with the blue fabric and the red hair, it looks like the model from The Soul of the Rose by Waterhouse meandered past the gardens on her way back into her manor.
