Politics, history and Art, This Book was Written for Me

I meant to write this the day The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver won the first round of the Tournament of Books, but it’s been a crazy week.  I liked the book better than the judge or the commentators, and, I have to say that their reading and review of the book was too superficial for me.  I have a feeling that The Lacuna may make it one more round at the very most, so here’s my opportunity to say I enjoyed it.  In part because I was a Soviet Studies major in college, so I find Trotsky an interesting character (if you agree, try In the Casa Azul by Meaghan Delahut), also because I love history and last, but not least, I enjoy art.

Politics

Kingsolver has a lot to say out the press and public acceptance of whatever appears in black and white.  Repeatedly through the discussions of the press in Mexico and later in the United States with Harrison, the main character, Kingsolver portrays the press as the howler monkeys introduced on the first page:

In the beginning were the howlers.  They always commenced their bellowing in the first hour of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten.  It would start with just one:  his forced, rhythmic groaning, like a saw blade.  That aroused others near him, nudging them to bawl along with his monstrous tune.

Sadly, little has changed, where was the press during the run up to the Iraqi War?  Chasing Michael Jackson or the latest starlet sinking into a life of excess, picking up the latest howl of scandal, rather than asking the hard questions.  Personally, as much of a fan as I am of the New York Times (it’s the paper I read daily), it has a lot to be ashamed of during this first decade of the 21st century.  Kingsolver gives two options for coping with the howling press:  hide in plain sight as flamboyant Frida did, all those wonderful dresses and hairstyles covered her physical deformities and emotional pain, or hide altogether.

The Lacuna concludes with an incredible dialogue during a Committee on Un-American Activities hearing (I’ve always thought the title of those hearings really referred to the activity of the hearings more than the investigation purported to be the focus of the hearings).  A week ago, I would have said those hearings were an embarrassing part of our history, but Liz Cheney’s attacks on lawyers who respect our country and Constitution so much that they represent despicable people reminded me that political persecution is alive and well.

History

Kingsolver uses the book to present a view that history is made up of individuals.  Most obviously, she brings Tolstoy, Rivera and Kahlo to life as breathing, jealous, caring, contradictory people.  The affairs, the meetings, the food, the egos are all mixed together with creating great art and political thought.  We are left with political theory and art that influenced the course of history, but the reader sees the people who created the works.  A conversation between Kahlo and Harrison about his desire to write about the Aztecs reinforces Kingsolver’s intention:

It was a true conversation.  About whether our ancestors had more important lives than we do.  And how they’ve managed to trick us, if they did not.  Frida felt it helped them not to put anything in writing . . . “So we can’t read their diaries,” she pointed out, “or the angry letters they sent their unfaithful lovers.  They died without telling us their complaints.”

She is right about that.  No regreats or petty jealousies.  Only stone gods and magnificant buildings.  We only get to see their perfect architecture, not their imperfect lives.”

That we see the products that last from the past, rather than the reality of lives, gives a distorted view of history.  We examine what we find, which is all well and good, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a better description of history is a striving for truth rather than a documentation of it.

Art

This was a terrific book to read for the Art History Reading Challenge.  In addition to telling the story of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, there are several discussions about the importance of their art.  They painted the common people of Mexico and, especially in Rivera’s case, made them heroic.  It was revolutionary just to paint an everyday Mexican farmer.  There are several discussions about the meaning of art.  Frida says that “to be a good artist you have to know something that’s true . . . [life] has to go in the painting.  Otherwise, why look at it?”  But my favorite passage in the entire book is when Harrison describes the meaning of art:

The purpose of art is to elevate the spirit, or pay a surgeon’s bill.  Or both, really.  It can help a person remember or forget.  If your house doesn’t have many windows in it, you can hang up a painting and have a view.  Or of a whole different country, if you want.  If your spouse is homely, you can gaze at a lovely face and not get in trouble . . . It can be painted on a public wall or locked in a mansion . . . Art by itself is nothing, until it comes into that house.

Writing

Kingsolver uses a variety of devices that create an interesting mosaic of writing.  As mentioned by the judge in the Tournament of Books, the metaphor of the lacuna is used to death.

The point of view is one I dubbed “third person intimate.”  The book is largely journal entries.  I felt like I was looking at the world through Harrison’s eyes, more so than I usually do with third person narratives.  The reader also receives some perspective from Violet, the moral center of the book, and newspaper articles.

My biggest criticism of the book is that Frida’s voice was so vibrant, even through Harrison’s retelling, that once she exits from the book, it gets a bit bland.  I described it on twitter as a reverse Wizard of Oz, going from color to black and white.  Is there an underlying cultural message there because it coincides with Harrison traveling from Mexico to the US?  Maybe.

Michelangelo Distilled

After hours listening to art history lectures, wading through biographies and art history books, I found A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome refreshingly informative and compact.  Angela Nickerson finds the perfect balance between the man, his era, and his art.  Michelangelo’s creations are a product of the intellectual fervor, the spiritual upheaval, and the political patronage system of the Renaissance.  In the opening chapters, the book gives  an overview of the events that shaped Michelangelo’s world.  The book then continues with a focus on his life and his work.  Without any information, Michelangelo’s works are beautiful, but with the right background, their brilliance grows.   

His Art – Technical and Fun

With luscious photographs, Angela leads us through Michelangelo’s life in art, from The Madonna of the Stairs to the Florentine Pieta.   Angela points out the unique aspects of each piece of art and the interesting stories behind them.   While thousands of words could be written about the Rome Pieta, Angela precisely points out Michelangelo’s mastery: 

The composition Michelangelo created involved carving two full-sized figures from one block of marble–a difficult task.  Michelangelo bent the rules of proportion to his own purposes:  Mary is much larger than Jesus to support the weight of a life-sized figure in her lap, but their heads are the same size, making  the difference in size hard to detect.  Mary’s size serves as a structural purpose, but it also allows the grieving mother to hold her son on her lap, creating a tableau that is both powerful and tender.

And the gossip about the piece?  After it was installed in St. Peter’s, Michelangelo overheard someone attribute the work to another artist.  Not happy, Michelangelo carved his name along Mary’s sash.  This is the only work he ever signed.  I love back stories; I frequently find the art more intimate and memorable after hearing them.

I enjoyed the pairing of photographs of Michelangelo’s work of art with the inspiration for the art, something usually only found in art history classes or huge art history books, not in a portable book.  I can’t view the ancient Laocoon and Michelangelo’s Moses at that same time, they are miles apart, but having the photos side-by-side, I could look at one in person and see how it was in dialogue with the other. 

In my very limited experience, Michelangelo’s architectural work is frequently overshadowed by his sculpture and painting.  Angela describes his impact on St. Peter’s and his design for the Capitoline Hill.  When I walked up the Capitoline Hill, into one of the most beautiful piazzas ever, the Piazza del Campidoglio, I was so grateful I had read  A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome.  Without Angela’s guidance, I would have missed all that Michelangelo accomplished there.

Michelangelo – The Man

A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome isn’t limited to Michelangelo’s art.  Angela gives insight into his family relationships, his friends, his spirituality, and his work habits.  I found his relationship with Vittoria Colonna is fascinating.  The book provides a history of the relationship and a map showing where they met to talk for hours about their faith.  Attacked by his enemies, Angela describes Michelangelo’s struggles with other artists, the Pope (the tomb project would plague him) and papal advisors.  Cesena disagrees with Michelangelo’s portrayal of nudes and earns a portrait of himself as Minos in The Last Judgment,  beautiful photo of which is included in the book. 

The Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome extends beyond Michelangelo’s lifetime, describing the drama over the location of his body (it was stolen and sent to Florence), the work on his tomb, and the artists he influenced.  Interestingly, Vasari, who gives a contemporaneous view of Michelangelo in his Lives of the Artists, receives the commission to complete Michelangelo’s tomb.  Vasari’s design, in Florence’s Santa Croce, does not compare with Michelangelo’s Florentine Pieta, which he started to sculpt for his tomb, but never completed.

The combination of both personal and professional, with photos and maps, results in an art history book that invaluable to the Roman visitor and a joy for the armchair traveler.

Vasari’s book provides a deeper understanding to Renaissance art without burying the reader in technical jargon.  I love art, I love discussing it, I love reading about it, but I roll my eyes when I see a sentence full of words that I individually understand, but together are a jumble.  The Lives of the Artists exposed the back story of artists and several of their works.  The experience of walking around the Pantheon and Duomo was richer after learning how Brunelleschi crawled all over the Pantheon measuring and calculating in order to crack the ancient secret of building a dome. 

My favorite stories are the legendary ones.  Brunelleschi comment that Donatello’s crucifix made Christ look like a peasant caused him to challenge Brunelleschi to sculpt a better one.  In secret Brunelleschi does and surprises Donatello with it.  In shock, Donatello drops the raw eggs he is carrying for their lunch and stomps away.  Now both crucifixes are placed across town in separate Florentine cathedrals.  I visited the cathedrals consecutively just to better compare crucifixes.  

Vasari explores artistic obsession in The Lives of the Artists.  Vasari’s described Uccello almost complete descent into madness trying to perfect perspective.  The story of Castagno’s plotting murder of Veneziano out of envy and ambition caused me to pay more attention to both of their works even though the story is completely false.  Since Veneziano outlived Castagno by at least four years, it would be difficult for Castagno to kill him.  Although, I wondered if Castagno was so ambitious in life that he would be happy to remembered even if for a false murder, and that Vasari correctly portrayed the essence of the artist. 

The Lives of the Artists proceeds chronologically through the Renaissance, pinpointing Cimbue and Giotto as the beginning of the period and ending with Michelangelo and Titian.  This timeline for Renassiance art still exists today.  Vasari focuses on Florentine artists and seems to favor them, describing the Venetians as lacking the same drawing ability.  His favorite is Michelangelo:  ”Oh, truly happy age of ours!  Oh, blessed artists! For you must call yourselves fortunate, since in your own lifetime you have been able to rekindle the dim lights of your eyes from a source of such clarity, and to see everything that was difficult made simple by such a marvellous and singular artist!”  The description of the painting of the Sistine Chapel is the stuff of daytime soap operas:  the tumultuous relationship between Pope Julian and Michelangelo; the portrait of a Vatican official as Minos in Hell in the “Last Judgement” because of a nasty comment he made: or, the artist’s fall from scaffolding that caused him to direct a portion of the painting of the “Last Judgment” from bed.

Little did I know that the decision to read The Lives of the Artists before I visited Italy created a quandary, which edition should I chose?  There are several, some in two volumes and others compacted into one.  Again, since I wasn’t researching a historical issue, but reading for my own viewing pleasure, I picked the single volume Oxford edition with a new translation by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella.  It included chapters on all of the artists whose works I would be seeing (and some of them were edited to focus on significant works), added extensive notes for anything I wanted pursue further, and kept the text to 5oo pages.

The Lives of the Artists is a history, a collection of anecdotes and a guidebook all wrapped up together.  I highlighted the discussion of the major works of art that I would visit, then went back to Vasari’s commentary when I was in front of the art.  Looking at the art through the eyes of a contemporary, a gossipy and opinionated one, added a whole new dimension and even some giggles to my visit.  A visit to  Italy isn’t necessary to enjoy The Lives of the Artists, it’s a hoot wherever the reader is located, but a trip to Italy without The Lives of the Artists would be a shame.

I’ll be keeping track of my challenges through the Kim’s Nightstand page, please follow along.  Let me know if you’re joining any challenges and maybe I won’t feel quite so obsessive compulsive.

And check out our own Independent Bookstore Reader’s Challenge, we’d love to have you join!

Thank you Robin for the image!

I recently found scores of reader’s challenges on the Internet, I’d never heard of them.  There is a reader’s challenge for everything:  short stories, WWII books, world citizen (history and politics), art history, graphic novels (Claire should join this one), RYOB (read your own books), essays, chick lit (everyone participating in this challenge should read Claire’s three fiction books), Notable books, chunkie books (books longer than 450 pages), young adult books, and many more.  Then it occurred to me, Claire and I could do the same thing.  I’m really excited about hosting our own challenge right here on Bookstore People.  So we’re announcing the Independent Bookstore Reader’s Challenge.  Claire’s a bit terrified about the prospect, but I’m confident she’ll love it. 

Challenge Guidelines

Here are the rules: go to independent bookstores that are new to you between January 1 and December 31, 2009 and have some sort of interaction.  The challenge comes with different levels you can sign up for:

• Scout – Visit 2 independent bookstores (easy!)
• Specialist – Visit 2 subject matter specialty bookstores (i.e., travel, children, cooking)
• Nationalist – Visit 2 independent bookstores and 1 additional bookstore in a state you do not live in
• Continental – Visit 2 independent bookstores and 1 additional bookstore in another N. American country (that would be the USA, Canada or Mexico)
• Globetrotter – Visit 2 independent bookstores and 1 additional bookstore on a different continent (if you’re going to Europe, check out Bookstore Guide)
• Type A Personality to the Max – Satisfy any two categories

We’ll have a page dedicated to the challenge where you can sign up and leave comments.  Plus, we’d love to have a review of the stores you’ve found and liked (we ignore stores with bad service or stock), we’ll post it with a description of you and a link back to your blog (if you have one), just e-mail it to me at kim@bookstorepeople.com.  In fact, we encourage cross posting bookstore reviews so post on your blog, Indiebound, Yelp, City Search, City Guide and any other place that would like it. 

We’ll Give out a Prize!

But wait, there’s even more, at the end of the year we’ll have a random drawing among everyone who satisfied their challenge for a gift certificate from BookSense.  What more could you want?  Sign up now and start exploring the wonderful world of independent bookstores.