Tag: Surrealism

The Grifters by Jim Thompson

Posted June 27, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Pulp / 0 Comments

Title: The Grifters (Goodreads)
Author: Jim Thompson
Published: Knopf Doubleday, 1963
Pages: 189
Genres: Pulp
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

There is a reason they call Jim Thompson the Dimestore Dostoevsky; his works really spotlight the moral dilemma his protagonists and main characters face, so I was really looking forward to reading The Grifters. I’ve seen the movie so I was interested in seeing the inner thoughts of the characters. 25-year-old short con operator Roy Dillion suffers an injury when a simple con goes horribly wrong; he finds himself in hospital recovering from an internal haemorrhage. This brush with death has led him to rethink his life, though his mother Lilly feels like Roy still owes her. She’s inattentive and manipulative while trying to care for Roy, but she is also trying to pull off a long con at the race tracks at the same time. Throw in another femme fatale, Moira, Roy’s girlfriend, who we also find out is also a grifter who favours the long con. The three explosive characters make for an interesting and twisted noir story, much to what we have come to expect from Jim Thompson.

I have to admit I do love Jim Thompson’s twisted plotting, he captures the pulp feel well while giving it is own flavour of surrealism. While The Grifters is not is most solid piece it does a good job at spotlighting what this author can do with crime and with is unreliable narrating. The characters are great and they each work well together while making life difficult for each other. His is one of the few pulp authors that break into the world of serious literary while never losing sight of what he does best.

If you haven’t read a Jim Thompson book maybe this is a good place to start, it’s not as dark or gritty, the characters are great, the plot isn’t as twisted as some of his other works and the suspense is a bit watered down. Let’s just call this book ‘Jim Thompson for beginners’; it gives you everything you expect in a Thompson book, just not to the same intensity, making the book approachable and easy to read.

My Art Adventure

Posted September 12, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Art / 9 Comments

While normally I don’t write blog entries about myself, I feel inclined to share some experiences I’ve had recently that do link to the overall theme of this site. I was in Spain and France for a holiday, which was an experience in itself but there was a few cultural activities that were done that I want to talk about.

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

First stop was the Museo Reina Sofía, which is dedicated to 20th Century Spanish art. This meant a lot of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Recently I did a few posts about Picasso and the main reason I went to this museum was to see his masterpiece Guernica. I have to admit seeing this in real life was an experience in itself, there is no pictures out there that really do this painting justice and I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of it anyway. It was awe inspiring, I’m not sure if all the Spanish history leading up to this picture made this an experience or if it’s the painting itself. But there are no words to describe this encounter for me.

A bonus was the Surrealist wing of this museum. There is something about surrealism that I love, it’s weird and wonderful. This wing consisted on a lot of Salvador Dalí paintings, which were exciting to see, but it also included a painting by my favourite surrealist Rene Magritte. Magritte has always been my favourite surrealist, his works are so distinctive, recognisable and often very witty. The painting I saw wasn’t one of his more famous pieces but it was still exciting to see. The particular painting was his 1930’s piece Pink Belles, Tattered Skies.

magritte — Rene Magritte - Pink Belles, Tattered Skies (1930)

Museo del Prado

The Del Prado is the Spanish National art’s Museum which features a lot of Velázquez, Francisco de Goya, Titian, Rubens and Bosch as well as a huge selection of Romanesque, Gothic and Early Renaissance paintings. I was fortunate enough to see my favourite Titian picture; Sisyphus (1548-1549) but the highlight of this museum and possibly the trip was the two Caravaggio paintings. Most readers will know my love of his work, so it was exciting to finally see some of it. On loan from the Vatican; was The Entombment of Christ (1602–1603) and from Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; David with the Head of Goliath (1607).

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

We were lucky enough to go to the Guggenheim during Aste Nagusia (an annual festival in Basque country) and experienced this museum with live Jazz music playing. The music definitely enhanced the experience. While I’m not sure how I feel about modern art, especially Abstract; it was interesting to see some Pollock and other bizarre pieces.

Musée du Louvre

Probably the most visited and even the largest museum in the world, but it’s interesting to see that most of the people go to see the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo. While it’s good to see both, there is so much to see and it would take you days to go through it all. The Louvre has a lot of sculptures and decorative arts to look at as well as paintings by the greats including Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and of course The Death of the Virgin (1606) by Caravaggio. While there was some amazing art at the Louvre, it was so spread out the experience wasn’t as enjoyable as the other museums.

Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio, 1606 — Caravaggio - The Death of the Virgin (1606)

It’s been quite an adventure and later I will tell you more, I just wanted to share with you the great museums and art I saw along the way. There really is nothing like seeing the art in real life, it was a real eye opener.

Guernica; Picasso's Masterpiece

Posted January 27, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Art / 8 Comments

In 1937 the Spain was at war; a civil war between the Republic Government and Francisco Franco’s Francoist army. Franco led a rebellion army to overturn the government and bring communism to the Spanish people. The Francoist army had the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. On April 26, 1937, 24 planes bombed the Basque town of Guernica. The town held no military significants, the objective; to send a message.

This tragedy effected many people including Picasso, and with a commissioning by the Spanish Republican government, Picasso set to work on a mural which would become his most famous piece of work. The painting, Guernica, broke Picasso out of a creative drought and renewed a passion, but now he did not want to be known as an icon breaker. Now, he set to work to create an icon.

The painting was 11 x 25.6 feet reflects the devastating effect of the bombing. while early sketches showed images of hope and optimism, this faded and we are left with this powerful painting. We can pull a lot of meaning from this painting and many spend time analysing it. Like the ever-seeing eye; the focus of everyone’s gaze and could be a symbol of evil or the bombers, the light bulb in the eye symbolising the devastating effect of technology or maybe it’s there because the Spanish word for light bulb is “bombilla”, which makes an allusion to “bomb”. Some symbols in the painting may be easier to recognise, like the open palm of the dead soldier is a stigmata, a symbol of martyrdom. No matter what you see in the painting, it truly is a masterpiece that stirs up a lot of emotion.

I would love to hear what you see and think of the painting but I would like to leave you with a story I’ve heard about Picasso, the painting, during World War 2.

During the 1940’s Picasso’s studio on the rue des Grands-Augustins was often visited by German officers. On one of their raids a Gestapo officer found a postcard of “Guernica,” Picasso’s 1937 lament for the Basque town bombed by the Luftwaffe.

“Did you do this?” asked the German.

“No, you did!” replied Picasso. “Take it? Souvenir”

Poetic Shock

Posted January 29, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Art, Culture / 0 Comments

Possibly my favourite Surrealist would be René Magritte, one of the main reasons what because he ignored the previous 30 or so years of art and went back to basics, combining realism with surrealism. For example: in the painting ‘The Son of Man’ he painted an apple that looks like an apple (realism) but the apple was placed in front of a mans face (surrealism). Another artist that did some similar was Paul Delvaux and his reason for this; “to produce poetic shock by putting heterogeneous but real things together in an unexpected way.”

Poetic Shock has been used a lot nowadays, most notably in the 70’s by British graphics arts group Hipgnosis. The difference between Hipgnosis and the Surrealists was not only LSD, but the graphic design group used Poetic Shock to send very basic messages. Look at two Pink Floyd albums done by the group, Wish You Were Here and Animal. Wish You Were Here depicts two business men shaking hands but one is on fire (Getting burned in a business deal) and Animal simply has an inflatable Pig floating through the air (Pigs can fly). Magritte’s The Lovers shows two people sitting back to back with their face covered by a white sheet. Though Magritte never explained the meaning of his paintings, many have believed it’s a picture of loneliness and alienation.

Poetic Shock has also been used in Movies to scare people, one of the best example of this is the 1980’s horror classic The Shining. Danny was riding his bike around the Overlook Hotel and ran into the twins. Where normally people would think nothing of this, in the movie the twins were not expected to be there, leading to a perfect example of Poetic Shock in a movie.