"full of beauty and without subject," Sir John Everett Millais, Spring (Apple Blossoms)
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- čas přidán 9. 01. 2023
- Sir John Everett Millais, Spring (Apple Blossoms), 1859, oil on canvas,113 x 176.3 cm (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool). A conversation with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris.
In four minutes Harris and Zucker look at a painting from many angles: formal analysis, allegorical meaning, historical context, and the evolution of art from narration to aestheticism. Smarthistory is a paragon of public education--astute and accessible. In this series, Harris and Zucker not only dust off well-known masterpieces with new insights, but they also discover and explore unknown objects from the four corners of the earth. All I can say is thank you to Khan Academy. I've learned so much from these videos.
Guys. I am so lucky to be here. Thank you for what you do. You make me smarter. ❤
This painting evokes the unimpeachable need for earnest companionship, which we so heartly need and with which we cope with the vicissitudes of time.
A homage to one of the human race's high points, i.e., the British Victorian Era, captured in the era's young women. The girls are Victorian angelic "light beings," something very few of us can comprehend today.
It brings to mind the Australian film, Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Wow, yes!! Totally! 😊
that is do true!! The aesthetic of that era does have a similar eerie effect, especially because of the scythe. I have watched that movie many time & read the book. Its just such a dreamy, hazy & brilliant work.
Wow, beautiful and amazing
Beautiful
The scythe, far from being a harbinger of death, penetrates the flower basket symbolizing the loss of virginity of the girls as they progress into their rôle of motherhood. The girl in the yellow dress is nearly in a position to deliver a child. The poses of the other girls appears to emulate the movement of midwives performing the various tasks involved in the process of birth. The water being poured into the the bowl signals the beginning. The large basin ready to wash the newborn infant. Far from being a scene of transition from life, this is a scene of fecundity and human creation from its 1st flowering.
While so many Victorian paintings do foreshadow the demise of their subjects, this is not one of them.
Any work of art can have more than one meaning. I've seen dozens of productions of "Hamlet." Each one has been different in how it portrays the prince, and each one has taught me something about the play I did not know before. After postmodernism, no serious scholar would suggest that a work of art is univocal. And it is impossible for anyone schooled in Western traditions of art not to be reminded of death when seeing a scythe. In this context, the scythe can also, as you say, suggest the loss of virginity. The two interpretations enrich each other. In the nineteenth century, many women died in childbirth. In any nineteenth-century graveyard, there is one tombstone for a husband and five for his wives, wives who died giving birth. Any symbol can be polyvalent, but death is always suggested by a scythe. I appreciate your interpretation of the painting as well as that of Zucker and Harris. Putting the two interpretations side-by-side enhances the experience.
Death undoubtedly looms in the picture. What you say about loss of virginity and childbirth doesn't preclude that at all. New life prefigures ageing and potential premature death in childbirth...also, infant mortality was relatively high at the time, regardless of class.
@@vonBottorff Freud, dear friend, is not a ghost. Psychoanalysis may be dead, but Freud was one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century. Freud gave us not only words and concepts that we still use, but he also changed the way we think about the human personality. Freud bashing is out of date. I would encourage you to take a beginner's course in intellectual history,
"Whoa! I did not see that scythe coming..!
... I bet that's what she said."
The figures of death painting was kinda funny to me, I can't lie.
I love a good narrative and symbolism in art, so I'm not sure how I feel about the Aesthetic Movement. It could be nice to just appreciate something for its own sake, but even then, I'd always be wondering why this was drawn this way or why that color was chosen or who I'm looking at.
Very nice analysis. I totally agree with the framing of "religious sentimentality". While I enjoy Millais early work, I find his later work a bit more plain in the feelings they evoke. It's hard to analyse these works as they would have been seen back in the day as the subsequent art movements tended towards sentimentality if not utterly rejecting it. While there are some profoundly beautiful artifacts from the preraphaelite movement, others feel like an endless drum solo. Technically brilliant but not something I'm keen to observe.
Such a lovely painting, with so many details!