Sunday, November 6, 2011

Art Issues

Sting Caused by the Flight of a bee by Salvador Dali

The Kiss by Pablo Picasso, 1969

(Really) Excited to get my hands on the latest issue of ROGUE magazine November 2011. I was glad that LA gave me an assignment for this issue cause I'm still deeply in love with the magazine as I have always been. It's ROGUE's annual Art Issue, featuring a short-haired, Louis Vuitton-clad Vanessa Matsunaga on a gray and yellow cover. Stunning, I tell you.

For this issue, my pieces were about two legendary artists, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso. My art training came in handy. Suddenly I could smell my classroom back in college, the scent of newly copied readings that eat up so much of my room space and my lunch money, and all those sorta-rushed papers for all my Wednesday Art classes (Art Theory and Visual Arts). During these times, I feel incredibly thankful for great education. Cause honestly, great education affords you a say on something...And it's not just mindless gab or making a sound just for the sake of it. With great education, you could say something worth everyone's time.  And while personal style (how people dress up) may not have been offered as a major subject back in college, with education I've learned to write about this topic with (great difficulty still) a little more science to it.



I'll save the personal style for ROGUE reading and instead focus on their works here. I just realized this now that I've seen ROGUE's cover, how Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali have such contrasting styles when it comes to art. Take for example those two paintings above: Dali's Sting has major respect for space, and by space I mean the visual area you see on the work. There is a lot of sky you could see in the background which allows for those jumping, angry tigers a lot of (literal and metaphorical) air time. And then you see a calm sea with a lot more blue in it than the sky which, for me, highlights the semi-floating lady waiting for her gunshot. You also see there Dali's elephant, long and invasive yet thin enough to make room for more space. Amazing. Dali too, for all his trippy coolness, has surprisingly clean, clean lines, like they were painted in his most calm of states. It's wonderful.

On the contrary, we're looking at Picasso's Kiss, all black, white, gray and blue taking up so much of the space with his lovers' bulging, black eyes. While Dali leaves viewers with breathing space, Picasso fills his painting with the lovers, giving---well, obviously, much justice to his title and subject. The space available here comes only in the form of a blue and white striped background. When I first saw this I felt claustrophobic, because I am claustrophobic. Picasso's lovers' hair are all in bold strokes and the overly-curved facial lines too seem angrily done. If a kiss naturally looked like this, maybe I'd save mine for when I'm mad or frustrated. But that's the reason why I like this painting. It's an entirely different look and take on a kiss than the usual ones we see.

See now, I'm showing you how frustrated I am of art. I miss school and learning about art and cursing over "what the hell do these paintings mean?". I'm no expert on art, trust me, but I'm thankful that college gave us a little knowledge and know-how on art. Couldn't imagine life without a pinch of art knowledge.

Vanessa Matsunaga for ROGUE's November 2011 issue.

To read more about my take on their personal styles, make sure to grab a copy of ROGUE for November 2011. Aside from the usual, incredibly vain plugging, ROGUE---which always does a great job covering art, has tons and tons in store for you this month. I've seen some photos of Vanessa Matsunaga and probably all of them are cover worthy. You also have to see how Dan Matutina, illustrator, combines photography with his trademark, (for a lack of a better phrase) "powdery cool" illustrations for the magazine's product promotion pages. Excellent. If you're a big Gosling fan, ROGUE's got your happiness as well, cause one of issue's blurbs reads "Ryan Gosling on the Film of the Year". For classic Pinoy Rock fans, they have "The Eraserheads and the lost El Bimbo Chronicles" for you. And just more reading to do.

All that writing drained me...Well, I'm back to work in a while, so you guys enjoy your Sunday evening! Good night.


-Gerard

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