Metaphors and Stranger things!

As part of our project in the Illustration module, we were asked to consider our response to De Chirico's Melancholy and the mystery of the street and to create images which reflected our own thoughts on this work.  This research on art, metaphor is creating more questions than answers, but maybe that's the point!  This blog will eventually lead to discussion of my encounters with mysterious occurrences here in Zagreb,but that's for another blog.  Laters, dudes! [Wouldn't you know I was watching the Big Lebowski last night!]

In researching this work and the life of De Chirico and metaphysics in general, I stumbled across the work of many intriguing and fascinating artists and commentators on this topic.  De Chirico was well versed in the classics and references to ancient Greek and Roman culture is evident in his work.  He studied the writings of many philosophers  - Schopenhauer who, in brief, believed that all truth in itself escapes us, the essence of it is unassailable; Nietzsche whose Doctrine of eternal Recurrence impacted deeply on his work and Weinninger who explored the significance of geometrical shapes and proposed that the arc represents an element of incompletion that needs to be fulfilled.  De Chirico was   influenced by the Symbolists who proposed that ancient symbols should be understood, not as cultural archetypes but as vocabulary of an elementary language of fear, longing, desire. The symbol became their motifs and they rejected mathematical perspective. They interpreted the imagery of folklore and legends as indicators, as such, of the experience of individual's life in an existential manner that reflected feelings of loneliness, yearning and love.  De Chirico developed what became known as Pittura Metafisica or Metaphysical Art movement [the term metaphysical taken from Greek language and meaning, beyond real things] between 1911 and 1920 and this style was a seminal influence on the Surrealists who hailed De Chirico as their muse and hero. [His crown slipped somewhat when he took to recreating copies of his earlier paintings later on in life].  So, as we say as ghaeilge - tarraingionn sceal sceal eile or as bearla, one thing leads to another! 
We were directed to read about Jose Louis Borge whose talk on Metaphors as part of the This Craft of Verse series, was intriguing and it led me further down the road to an interview  Ronald Christ conducted with Borges [www,theparisreview.org] where the author revealed that good metaphors are always the same -  time as a road, life to dreaming and death to sleeping and that they follow a pattern.  He was particularly fond of old Norse and Celtic metaphors where for instance, a battle is described as 'a web of men' and makes a link to George Eliot's metaphor in Middlemarch - where society is a web and one cannot disentangle a thread without touching all the component parts. He believed in the Stoic theory where everything in the universe is linked and he has been influenced in this by Schopenhauer [like De Chirico] and De Quincy. [I suspect there's something to be researched on this] 
Sometimes, in the middle of an article, one idea/thought strikes me as particularly relevant to my own journey.  Borges feels that with writers of fiction, it is not the idea that is so important but the enjoyment or emotion that one evokes in the reader that is paramount.  He stresses that many famous and well known writers are competent, even brilliant in their craft but that they lack the ability or curiosity to enquire about the poetry and mystery of life.    The same can be applied to painting, I think.  Interestingly, he was an admirer of Yeats, Frost and Sandburg.
George Lakoff is another very interesting speaker on metaphor  amongst other topics. His explanation of  the term 'fiscal cliff'  with reference to stock markets clarifies the importance of the use of imagery that can convey the message.  The image of a cliff being a dangerous place with a downward direction is universal.  
[Where Big ideas Fest 2012 Half moon Bay Ca Fora Tv George Lakoff] YouTube link to George Lakoff.

Jane Hirschfield's animation on Metaphors is deliciously simple yet manages to convey the complexity of the importance of a good metaphor which allows us to experience, feel and know the world we live in differently.  
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0edKgL9EgM ]  You Tube link to Jane Hirschfield.

That's it for now on metaphor and ending with the familiar phrase - 

'There's no shortcut to anywhere worth going'.

 Just as well I have my monthly transport pass so!