Happy Thanksgiving!

On this, my first Thanksgiving Day as a 'Blogger,' I am thankful for the wonderful people who have visited this site. I wish for you great health and happiness.


Happy Thanksgiving! 
~ Jeanne 

"It's a Wonderful Life" and Iconic Realism (Click onto this title to view clips of the film to the music of PFR's "Life Goes On")

The 1946 film, "It's a Wonderful Life," produced and directed by Frank Capra, illustrates iconic realism through the character of Clarence the angel. Here, an icon of virtue takes the good-hearted man, George Bailey, by the hand to show him the positive impact he has made on the consciousness of his hometown. This juxtaposition of the wealth in righteousness versus the poverty of the inane demonstrates how one individual's benevolent acts  can positively affect the lives and ultimately the culture of that community. 

Brian Eno's Ambient Music and Iconic Realism (Click here to view and hear video of Eno's Earth, An Ending)

Some musical composers apply electronically produced music with natural sounds from the environment to provide the audience with a real association, such as wildlife, bodies of water, seasonal sound sources, and weather phenomena. This particular form of musical presentation, known as ambient music, for its affect on the ambience of one’s surroundings, is often recorded for health facilities.

An example of such musical composition is the healing music of composer, Brian Eno, and his 1978 release, Ambient I: Music for Airports. In the liner of this album, Eno writes, “My intention is to produce original pieces ostensibly (but not exclusively) for particular times and situations with a view to building up a small but versatile catalogue of environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres.” [1] This form of incorporating musical sounds with nature provides the added aesthetic of stimulating the senses with a portion of reality to which the audience relates through memory, transporting an individual to an aspect of memory, aligning the audience with the composer’s perception of reality.

        In his musical composition, Earth, An Ending, he provides the audience with a reality that heightens awareness of the possibility of positive cultural change either within an individual or within Earth’s community as a whole.

[1] Eno, Brian. Music for Airports/Ambient 1. Liner notes. PVC 7908 (AMB 001), 1978. 

Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible' and Iconic Realism

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In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, characterization takes place within the parameters of a seventeenth century New England village. Yet, the message that Miller is sending to his audience parallels the political ramifications of the anti-communist hearings in the United States, when fear of Communism heavily influenced the psychological landscape. He creates a series of events that illustrate iconic realism through his use of lighting, characterization and dialogue. As each member of the town accused of witchcraft is called to trial, the lighting and stage presence illuminates the audience to the author’s intention. Written in 1953, shortly after the anti-communist hearings, known as the House Committee on Un-American Activities,[1] each character could represent some facet of the House Committee’s representation, for actions by the House committee resembled those of the drama’s magistrates.

However, the reality of the play is a seventeenth century New England village, during a time when actual witch hunts did take place. Miller admits to changing a few names and facts regarding the characters, “This play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian… However, I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history.”[2] Miller chooses a tale of human interaction to demonstrate his concern for the cultural future of the United States and humanity in general. (Lakatos 2009)

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[1] Carr, Robert K. “The Un-American Committee.” The University of Chicago Law Review. 18.3 (Spring, 1951) 598-633.

[2] Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. (New York: Penguin Books, 1976) 2.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg and Iconic Realism

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But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust, which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently, some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chapter 2

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg peer across the ‘dumping ground’ of American spirit. This example of iconic realism portrays eyes as the ‘windows of the soul’ of a country steeping in corruption and superficiality. Fitzgerald places these eyes on an old billboard, gazing across a field of forgotten possessions, bringing into focus awareness of America’s consciousness to be ever vigilant of the forefathers’ intentions of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’

Monday Poetry Respite sans le TFE's assignment

While we wait here at the Poetry Bus Stop, I've posted this poem on both of my sites. This doesn't have anything to do with iconic realism, but realism, yes. It's a verse that, hopefully, illustrates the flowing bond of memory and emotions between Mother and Daughter. 


Breath 

by Jeanne, her Mom's Daughter


Behind her sleeping eyes,

a youthful face remains within

the gentle embrace of her heart,

impish blue eyes, trying her patience,

the quiet soft puffs of sleeping breath.

She smiles, wondering

what this wee one dreamt,

so small, so peaceful,

then erupting passion

and the sighing relief in its passing,

growing, knowing that surely

there will return a forgiving kiss.

Eyes closed, she remains

in cherished supplication

wafting on the quiet breath

of the one who calls her Mom.

Imre Madách's "The Tragedy of Man" and Iconic Realism

In the musical selection that TFE chose for us "Poetry Bus" riders to attend, Krizysztof Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima," the musicians create musical dissonance as a memorial to the horrific event that took place on August 6,1945. Adamantly, I voiced my  dissent towards listening to that piece, but the more I consider the music, the more I realize that theThrenody, through dissonance, helped each of us recognize and memorialize the victims as it was intended to do. So thank you Dominic and TFE for bringing this to our attention. Dissonance is an avenue to creative expression for change, indicated in Imre Madách's play...

In his 1860 play, "The Tragedy of Man," Imre Madách uses iconic realism to illustrate cultural awareness of the value in humanity's ability to determine its destiny.  He questions societal expectations by moving his audience through a journey of social outcry against parochialism in his depictions of Adam, Eve and Lucifer, entangled in episodic adventures that transcend historical boundaries.

They travel to ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, the middle ages and London, Madách’s radical, textual dissent against the provincial establishment reveals his personal truth by eliminating story line constrictions of time and space. He deliberately places Adam and Eve in these unusual settings for this couple to illustrate that the journey of self worth and independence includes the worthiness of nation and begins with the attainment of self-knowledge.

He presents Eve as the mother of humanity, with theconviction that her children will move humanity forward in their quest for true knowledge. Similarly, Madách holds onto the hope that his Hungary would develop autonomy and maintain its unique culture and language.  In his 1918 book, The Resurrection of Hungary, Arthur Griffith writes, “Ireland’s heroic and long-enduring resistances to the destruction of her independent nationality were themes the writers of Young Hungary dwelt upon to enkindle and make resolute the Magyar people” (xxiv). Griffith’s association of Ireland and Hungary illustrates that artists living within the parochial constraints of both of these countries use the power of a dissonant pen to motivate.