A Rope in the Sky- The Eyes of Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon lived from 1840 to 1916, during a time in history that scientists would call the Darwinian Revolution. It was a time was the ideas of evolution and natural selection were replacing the longheld static definition of the world, as well as the universe, with man as its focal point. Man was being diminished before nature. Through his art, Redon describes the philosophical crists of the times, exploring these new concepts of life for himself, and illustrating what it was like to live in times where waking up each morning was bery much like waking to a dream, grasping for a rope in the sky.

"It is only after making an effort of will to represent with minute care a grass blade, a stone, a branch...that I am overcome by the irresistable urge to create something imaginary." Great leaps were being made in all scientific areas during this time, including astronomy, microbiology, and prehistory. In short, the world that man considered daily had expanded beyond the planet Earth. Redon's drawings are an expression of humanity's eternal search for their place in the world, blending all forms of life through charcoal and pastel in order to even attempt to grasp the immensity of it all.

Redon studied landscapes, landscape artists, and even the bone structures of creatures at natural history museums to master their forms and then twist them with his own imagination. It was during this time that it was being discovered that plants and animals were very nearly the same at their basic cellular level, which can be seen to lend to the conception of some of Redon's creatures. He was also strongly influenced by Armand Clavaud's ideas in which there was one great force behind life and each organism was its manifestation.

Though he perished over several decades aho, Redon's works are full of ideas that society still grapples with today. We still wonder over our place in the universe and the idea of evolution. And the search for life on other worlds has not lost any of its steam. Are we alone in the universe?

Discussion Questions

• How do you reconcile concepts such as evolution and natural selection with your faith tradition/ system of beliefs?
• Do you believe in the existence of life on other worlds? Why or why not?
• Write a response to Redon’s lithograph series, Les Origines. This can be from the viewpoint of a person living during Redon’s time, a more modern approach, or taken from the view of one or more of the creatures in the series.
• Write a creative piece in which you are creating your own world. How would you go about it? What would your thought process be on the organisms you are creating?

Have Fun!

Response to Olympia’s Look by Susan Vreeland: Excavating Dignity

People are threatened by art. I have seen this often with different compositions and poems that I myself have written over the years. In one particular instance my father was laying on a couch in our family room near where I was sitting watching television and reading as I attempted to write. After a time, he interjected, “What kind of smut are you writing?” I looked up, and then turned around to stare at him incredulously. He was joking of course. My father has a good sense of humor. One had to wonder, however, just what it was that would cause him to pose such a sharp question quite so haphazardly and if it was not so simple a question as it seemed. I had the feeling that perhaps it had turned into this joke designed to provoke a reaction from me, but it was rooted in a very real curiosity of what scenes I was creating on the pages of my notebook. For all he knew, his little girl was creating scandalous sexual scenes into which my own fantasies had been thrown. People are afraid of creation, of how they are portrayed, and what other people think of them for it may be the exact way that they privately think of themselves. In short, art incites paranoia.

The driving force behind Olympia’s Look is the question: “What was he thinking?” Indeed, what was Suzanne’s husband, Edouard Manet, the great French painter, thinking? Thought does not become a means to value or devalue, build of destroy, in this world until something physical comes of it. It must manifest itself in our world to be cared about. No one- or shall I say not many- have the ability to read minds, so what goes on inside of our heads is between us and perhaps whatever higher power an individual may believe in (So far, anyway. Perhaps this is just what our government allows us to believe.). It is in this tentative truth that the quill finds itself mightier than the sword. Though both have the indubitable ability to create and destroy, the artist illustrates ideas directly from their source of truth, their experience. Denial of ownership is impossible. It is an irrevocable representation of one’s self.

At Edouard Manet’s funeral, when Suzanne sees all of the models of her husband’s portraits sitting in a row, she finds herself in a surreal situation where all of his paintings have come to life before her eyes, imbued with a life of their own instead of that which her mind has given them. This sets her thinking. What did her husband see in each of these women, and what role did they fulfill that she so obviously could not?

Suzanne exerts as much power, however little she has, at every opportunity over the models that excited her husband’s creative muse as well as other parts. In Victorine Meurent’s case, the model for the painting Olympia’s Look, Suzanne has the chance to confront one of these women and ask the question that every woman who has ever been cheated on wants to know; what did the other woman do that they did not? To which, Victorine responds, “I collaborated with him” (86). After speaking with this mysterious woman that had tainted the sweet memories of her marriage, studying her at leisure, and analyzing her nature, confident that she has humanized and debased this phantom, Suzanne goes away, victorious.

Suzanne takes Victorine’s definition of her relationship with her husband to heart; for, as Lord Henry Wotton said in Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, “To define is to limit,” and humans have a natural, almost carnal, need to place limits on their environments and everything within them (Chapter 17). In doing this, Suzanne, tucking her problems away in a neat little box, has given herself the ultimate comfort that she needs to reach an acceptable level of acceptance with her deceased husband’s shortcomings. Potential, like art, threatens us. In definition there is limitation, and thus a form of freedom.

A Reader's Response to "Children of the Screen" by Hannah Baylon

Nested upon the rough carmine carpet amongst a tussle of blankets, pillows, kid’s meal figurines, and unnaturally colored stuffed animals, I lay in a pool of shifting lights and colors. Shadow diamonds were pinned to the wall behind the wide back of the great wicker chair in my oma’s living room. The dim light from a temperamental touch lamp illuminated the section of the newspaper that had long fallen from elderly arthritic fingers, and the half-moon reading glasses that still held their place over vestiges of great beauty.
A crocodile cruised the muddy waters of a river in southern Africa. Intelligence unbridled by emotion hardened its sharp pupils, preceded only by the end of its snout, and followed by its thick armored tail. An equally unemotional narrative played over the scene, whispering and commenting, falling silent only when it was thought the reptile might have heard. The second player arrived on the river banks. A herd of dully colored wildebeest had stopped along their migration route to steal stomachs full of water, manes lank and oily, horns protruding out and upward from their heads. The camera panned back to the crocodile. He slipped beneath the water’s surface. After a few moments, the water erupted in struggle, the river bank in fright, as the crocodile took the neck of a member of the herd, dragging it further into the river and beginning the finale: the death roll.
I believe I am very much a child of the screen, but of a screen that infused within me a greater curiosity about the outside world. I watched Animal Planet endlessly as I was younger, especially during the time I would spend at my oma’s house. This led me to write stories, go on nature adventures, and even spend hours upon hours in my basement mixing any household chemicals that I could lay my hands on.
Films that I have seen over the years have illustrated the importance of honor, the rewards for striving, and the undying nature of adventure. Of course there are films that some would say contain less savory values; course humor, overt sexuality, and violence. When Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, caused dissent and outrage in 19th century England, the author responded that the story did indeed have a value and a message, but one that the puritan will not be able to find, but will be open to all whose minds are healthy. The trouble is that much of the human population, at least in the United States, does not seem to have as pliant of a sieve as is needed to discern the actions that are healthy to emulate versus those that are not.
At some point in my middle school career, I entered into one of those proverbial social horror stories. It was also somewhere around this time that I began to tape a late night cartoon of Japanese animation called Inuyasha. My parents threatened to keep me from watching the program because they had begun to suspect a change in my behavior onto a more aggressive course and moody course. My denial was steadfast. But then I began to think. I distinctly remember taking one character into mind from the show to face what I knew was going to be a particularly difficult day at school. I used the character’s calm, calculating, uncaring demeanor as a shield, a mode of dealing with a situation in which I would, and had before, folded.
Many young adults absorb, in varying degrees, the television shows that they follow in this way. For instance, a large majority seem to exhibit a strong disposition toward creating dramatic situations and relationships for themselves. Their social lives begin to mirror dramatic programs such as The O.C., One Tree Hill, Desperate Housewives, and many others. They begin to search for certain characteristics in friends, in the opposite sex, and the way in which they present themselves and react to different situations may become all together scripted. This influence is further extended as the lives of celebrities have undergone a sort of osmosis into the daily news. When did that happen?
My mother and I were in the kitchen one day, probably deciding what to consume for a midday snack. The small flat screen television on the counter beside the sink was talking in the background, a few new highlights being rattled off by a trio of anchors sitting around a large wooden desk. Then, all of a sudden, I heard “…and Oprah continues to pack on the pounds…” I stopped what I was doing, listened more carefully. They had to be joking. My mother, already pre-disposed to disliking Oprah, snorted with disgust. Who cares? she exclaimed. I happened to agree. When indeed did someone’s weight become a newsworthy topic? When they became one of the richest and most powerful women in the world apparently. Perhaps the news station was simply curious because obesity is on the rise as a cause of fatality. What lucky S.O.B. would get all of that dough? Her cocker spaniels?
A few days later, my mother passed me, smiling, in the dining room. She giddily declared that the Obama girls had begun their first day at school. I laughed. “So? Oprah gained twenty pounds this week.”
I pondered over this extraordinary concept off-handedly some time ago. News stations would not spend their time and resources over something that would not broaden their basin of viewers. Thus, it follows that people are interested in these topics; the scandals, travesties, dalliances, and triumphs of the rich and famous, world-wide. So much conversation takes place around gossip centered on the lives of other people that I wonder if a percentage could ever be taken, and what the difference would be between the sexes, cultures, and the like. The part that I cannot quite figure is if the public truly has nothing else to talk about, or if these topics are the subjects of great fascination. Which conclusion would be better I wonder?


There is a distinction to be made here. Can one be a child of the screen without being a child of popular culture?


Upon seeing the portrait accompanying the text; the metallic tones, the vacuum of darkness, the blank unrelenting, unnatural hue of the television screen, I smiled at its cleverness and raw controversial potential. It is a limbo, a stagnant state between. One can imagine the chill of the chains wreathing the young child’s throat. The child’s appearance is androgynous, portraying a loss of identity, of gender, and securing the notion that this could be any child, your own, your sister’s, or perhaps even the interminably adorable neighbor kid down the street. Duct tape has been placed over its mouth. It cannot speak, either from a lack of remembrance how to, or from a loss of need, as the television does the communicating for it. On the screen is a miniscule reflection of what appears to be a window; a window to the outside, to fields and mountains, and to the limitless sky.

A Critique of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - America's 1945 Film

In the 1945 American film, The Picture of Dorian Gray, adapted from Oscar Wilde’s first and only novel, first published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in June of 1890, a young wealthy British aristocrat by the name of Dorian Gray makes a Faustian deal with an Egyptian god for eternal youth while his portrait, created by the artist Basil Hallward, bares the weight of time and of his sins. Gray, encouraged by the ever incorrigible Lord Henry Wotton, an old friend of Hallward’s, and the enchantment of a seemingly consequence-free life, begins to weave an intricate web of lies, death, and ruin about him, all for the sake of taking life for all of the pleasures it has to offer. With each new cruelty, however, the young man’s portrait twists with evil until, over the span of nearly two decades, it becomes a horrible decrepit old man. Gray looks on with fascination at the deterioration of his own soul until somewhere along the way he tires of the perverse form that his life has taken; and perhaps partially spurred by the untainted love of his fiancé, Gladys Hallward, Basil’s niece, he decides to undo the damage has been done unto his soul. Dorian destroys the portrait, unwittingly ending his own life in the process. A few good deeds in the end, it seems, are not enough to redeem a lifetime of evil.


The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, sold, and bartered away. Gray was not poisoned by his portrait, nor was his conduct the fault of Lord Wotton’s amoral influences, for one cannot influence what is not already there. The film contains a plethora of themes; such as, appearance vs. reality, the corruption of decadence, and the question of the human condition and the reality of the soul, but perhaps the foremost subject discussed is the importance of art in society. As Lord Henry Wotton declares in Oscar Wilde’s novel: “The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame”; and such is the case with all art (455). A painting, a book, a song, or perhaps even a flower arrangement reflects the desires and thoughts of not only who it is being made for or of, but also the innermost self of the artist. Basil Hallward brings this fact to the audience’s attention by adamantly refusing to exhibit Gray’s portrait because he feels that he has imbued into it too much of himself. A portrait is not just a picture of the sitter, but a portrait of the artist himself as well. This is the importance of the soul residing within the body instead of without. We do not have to stare our mistakes in the eye, the hell within each one of us, every day. We are not tethered to a locked door in the uppermost corners of our house for fear of the discovery of our true selves. Our memories, shameful and redeeming, are carried within, arguably under our control, to be summoned and faced at will.


The scene that I found to be most striking in the film occurred very early on when Lord Henry Wotton first met Gray in Hallward’s studio during a sitting for his portrait. While spinning his usual scandalous yarn of opinions, Lord Wotton takes notice of a butterfly that has perched upon the terrace curtains. His first attempt to catch the insect fails; however, after stalking it for a time, he finally brings his hat down over it on a drawing table. Filled with what appears to be some sort of liquor, he places a small dish within the insect’s enclosure. All the while, Gray’s face is shown intermittently, filled with ecstasy and wonder at the quiet torrent of Lord Wotton’s words. The hat is soon returned to Wotton’s head, and the butterfly, presumably in want of water, has fallen into the shallow pool of liquid, fluttering helplessly as Wotton watches it perish with a removed curiosity. The music grows ever more intense, Gray’s enthralled face and the dying butterfly fading in and out together, quickly and rhythmically, pulsating. This scene is a powerful and none too subtle foreshadowing of Gray’s fate and his relationship with Lord Wotton. One may show a horse to water, but it cannot be made to drink. And just as its thirst is its own responsibility, it is not anyone else’s if it happens to fall in and drown. The spectacle reminded me aptly of Gray’s primary reaction to Wotton’s words in the novel; “Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what subtle magic there was in them…Was there anything so real as words?” (42). It is a moment of pure enchantment, of a door opening and closing, a potent barb of ruin.

Portrait No. 8 Analysis "Who's that person?"

There are two relationships that the two figures in this portrait evoke. One would be that between a clergyman and a noblewoman, revealing a tense and perhaps conspiratorial association between secular and religious rule. The woman could be denoted as noble or high-born in regards to the ornate patterning of her headdress, jewelry, and dress. The designation of the man’s status is a little more ambiguous, but the manner of his dress too seems to imply his occupation. The faces of both figures appear apathetic at first; even weary, with a stubborn steadfastness that indicates that neither has the intention of shifting their position, both metaphorically and physically. Upon closer inspection, however, the expression of the woman, interesting considering her lack of eyebrows, is found to have a sly, confident curve to her lips and to the setting of her eyes. A second possible relationship observed is one between two leaders, or people of significant social standing, from different lands, encountering one another in a meeting of the minds and of cultures. The artist seems to have wanted to make certain that the profiles of the individuals featured in the portrait were of stark contrast; the female having a lengthy slender nose, milky spectral features, and long fair decorated hair, while the male’s features are not nearly as smooth with a hooked squat nose, curly matted hair, and a jutting obtrusive chin. This adds to the sense of the two people being from different worlds, with differing viewpoints and motivations.

The other figure appears to be a steadfast man of his country’s belief, features worn by time and a life lived in service to both a higher power and to the common man. There is not much hidden in his overall amicable expression, suggesting that though he may not be the most physically attractive being to gaze upon, he is honest and fair. The woman is softer in every curve of her face, suggesting that though she seems nearly the same age as the man, her living conditions have been kinder. Perhaps she has seen less of the world, not have had as tough a time of it, or maybe it is simply that someone of her class and wealth has access to make-up. Whatever the case, both people appear strangely detached from the symbolism of their clothing, as if the garments are simply colorful shells that both happen to inhabit. These two may be lovers, old friends, or diplomats filled with respect for one another, forced to stand as they do, as social laws dictate, but peering at one another as human beings.

In relation to their background, the figures tower over the vast landscape behind them, indicating a sense of territorial dominion. The manner in which they face one another suggests opposing interests and perhaps an imminent or ongoing dispute. It is difficult to ascertain the nature of the land in the background, whether it is settled or not, but the tall ships on the water convey a sense of exploration, expansion, and adventure. In fact, the figures appear almost as obstacles to these, the ships sailing between them as rubber toy boats in a bathtub.