Word: visual
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...refusal to do more than hint at the dread, eventually condemns the film to the realm of the superficial. It is the equivalent of a period piece, a nice love story in an interesting time, and one leaves the film with nothing more than the memory of some beautiful visual scenes--something which seems superficial in the face of the subject matter. Some situations are, quite simply, horrible, but Truffaut, the benevolent, refuses to admit it. And somewhere, the deliberate denial of the horrors, or at least the fears of the occupation, makes Truffaut seem, at best, a romantic...
...Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus. These early modernists were not, after all, deeply concerned with the future, as the avant-garde would be 30 years later. They saw themselves as prophets but obsessed, as prophets often are, with a past they wanted art to recover: a way of visual speech that was archaic, direct and sacramental. If some of the formal reductiveness of modern art begins with cloisonism, so does its hope for "primitive" eloquence about the deepest appetites of the self. The achievement of this marvelous show is to suggest how the two were entwined...
Soviet education seems to have advanced little during the last few decades. There are still no copying machines or advanced audio-visual equipment. While Leningrad State University is the second largest and most prestigious university in the country, there is no course catalogue. Students must look on bulletin boards in each department to find the offerings...
...cowboy and the paintings on the curved walls are from the defunct presidency of Jimmy Carter. The huge grandfather clock installed by President Ford still thumps out its relentless rhythm. Beyond the tall windows, the sun slants across the South Lawn, where Thomas Jefferson had mounds graded to add visual interest. Fresh-cut flowers burst from a vase on the coffee table and a mug of jelly beans sits near a lamp...
...origins of one aspect of the avant-garde lie with Courbet, those of the other are to be found in Manet: in detachment and irony, art contemplates its nature as a language, without hope of changing the world. The quest for formal perfection and the renewal of visual speech are enough...