The Met and Fanart

[sistermagpie]

I feel like I haven't been on lj for years. I have been checking in, but I can off the top of my head think of many posts that I read, wanted to comment on, but didn't get a chance to at the time and they are now lost forever.

One cool thing that I did instead of lj was going to a few exhibits at the Met--one was on paintings called American

Comments

[horridporrid]

I read an interesting article in the New Yorker about the Frank's photo. It sounded like a really cool exhibit, so I'm a tiny bit jealous. :) But one of the points the reviewer made was that Frank's editing process was just as important (or at least, nearly important) as the actual photographs themselves. I think one of the examples was of a glum looking elevator girl that, in several shots not chosen, was smiling for the camera and I think laughing at someone or something out of frame.

I think that's something icon makers and wallpaper makers and vidders do. Pick the image that best captures the mood they're trying to convey. It's true, but it's an opinion as well.

Heh. And I didn't even comment on the actual art you're showing us. The expressions are lovely, and I agree, that's what can be so cool in fanart.

[sistermagpie]

I read that exact same article! It's one of the reasons I remembered to go to that exhibit. So I definitely thought for all of them about the person smiling a few frames away.

There was one where he was walking into a bar where it seemed like he snapped a picture without lifting the camera, as if somebody might attack him if he did that. So it gave the place a sort of scary air.

[ava_jamison]

Nice exhibit, nice pics. I love a composition that tells a story or a fully-fleshed moment as well.

I especially like the delivery girl. And yes on the sherry and mirror. You reap what you sow, parents!

And those boys do look scared to death!

[sistermagpie]

Heh--they do look terrified, don't they? Especially with her shadow on the wall. In the audio tour I was listening to the person said that to him it looked like the girl was old enough to take her role as storyreader very seriously, but more like a teacher, so she wasn't mature enough to adjust the story when it got to scary. She thought it was more important to make sure they knew just how the story went. Girl after my own heart.

[truehobbit]

Very interesting! :D

[sistermagpie]

The easy details of life are some of my favorite things too. Though sometimes they're not completely accurate. The famous portrait of Paul Revere that was in the show has him with a teapot--on one hand he's shown as the simple silversmith he was, but that was during the year where nobody got teapots because they were boycotting tea.

The picture with the new bonnet is definitely a lot about the parents--I think mostly about middle class materialism. I do wonder why the food's on the floor rather than a table, though!

That's a great point about the lamp in the last scene. Some of it is presumably because that's where the artist wanted the light source but it does still seem like the girl put it there for a reason, like for the shadow or...I don't know! There's no mirror that I can see.

[kerosinkanister]

Those are all really interesting, and I like the stories they tell (or don't tell). We weren't able to get to the Met (it was closed the day we headed over by the time we got there). Looks like we missed out!

[sistermagpie]

Luckily it will still be here the next time you come--and there will probably be something just as good there!

[bookshop]

i *love* this post. oh, i wish my flist talked about art more. why don't we talk about art more? I agree with you so deeply that fanart is one of the most easily accessible ways for us to get stories through pictures. Did you read Scalzi's Big Idea column by Scott Westerfeld this week? The whole big idea was the concept of returning to illustrated stories, for precisely the reason you're talking about in the post: the value of being able to get an entire story just from a single image. I just read it this morning so this post is a really serendipitous coincidence, because the whole time I read that column, I was thinking: but Scott Westerfeld, the great age of illustration that you are lamenting has not vanished! It has moved to LJ and Deviantart! Though his point was that *writers* have lost something not being able to utilize the image to enhance their story, I feel like the bigger point to be made is that the stories will find their own form. We aren't *losing* the important stories, perhaps; they're just being told

[sistermagpie]

Thanks for that link--I love the illustrations in that book! And totally agree with him on the difference between that and graphic novels. I can remember growing up always being fascinated when books had illustrations like that. Or remember that show on PBS where the guy used to draw an illustration as they read a passage? Was it "Cover to Cover"? awesome.

Sometimes it's even better getting a story from a single image. You wind up thinking about it. Love especially Scalzi's point about how what we know about what Sherlock Holmes looks like comes from that one illustration.