Hitting the Big Four-Zero

For those of you out there currently under the age of 40 – what do you imagine your life to look like upon hitting the big 4-0? For those of you who have so far passed that age (congratulations!), are you where you expected to be at?

If someone were to ask me what my expectations or desires were about how my life would look at forty, I think I can honestly say that I have absolutely no idea. I’m not trying to use an easy cop-out, but I simply know that life has many surprises up its sleeve! For instance, my dreams of marrying Viggo Mortensen have not yet come into reality (hey – have you SEEN Lord of the Rings?! No judging!). However, I have been fortunate enough to travel extensively, and even live and work in a fair few different countries – which is definitely not what my eleven-year-old self would have envisioned for my  twenty-something self.

So, life is unpredictable. It is often strange. It is frequently absurd. It is equally delightful and sorrowful. But I like it. The mystery of what tomorrow will bring, or even what the next twenty years will bring, is something that I am looking forward to discovering. Hey, if life went exactly as planned, that wouldn’t be any fun, right?


Four Seasons

For the forty under-forties artists whose works are currently being displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, I would bet that the majority could not foresee that they would one day have such a prestigious exhibit in their honour. The inspirational, impressive, and innovative work which is being displayed has been created since September 11^th, 2001, showing how both the artists and the world around them have evolved since that infamous day.

This made me ponder what my life will be like at 40. My challenge to you: Do something inspirational. Become the next artist under forty to be celebrated at a national gallery. Write the next big hit. Invent the next big invention. Train for the next Olympic Games. Win the next Olympic Games. Or, simply, make somebody smile. Help an old lady cross the road. Teach a child how to ride a bicycle. Big or small, do something that you can look back on when you are forty (or the next big -0 birthday) and be amazed. Go on, I dare you.

 


Classically simple, beautifully elegant

To celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the Renwick art gallery, these forty artists are being highlighted – with their works focusing on the theme of modern innovation, why not join in the celebration? You’ll need to hurry to catch the finale, as the exhibition “40 under 40” is being held at the Renwick Gallery  only until the 3^rd of February (2013). Textiles, fashion, industrial design, futuristic jewellery, and interactive displays await you! If, however, you don’t have quite enough time, why not check out Oscar Lovell Triggs’ work on The Arts and Crafts Movement?

Where the Wild Things Are

It is at dusk that our imaginations and fears start to play tricks on our minds.  The sun-filled, logical part of the day is over. Twilight deepens.  Looming shadows, the scuttling of animals, and eerie, indiscernible shapes; the witching hour approaches.  This is the time, walking home from work on a cold winter’s night, when your brain conjures up all those things that go bump in the night.  You walk faster, trying to get ahead of the possible footsteps behind you, jump at the tree branch when it brushes your shoulder, and peer ahead into the gloom, trying desperately to make out what the troll-like shape is in front of you (it’s a wheelie bin).


Now, transfer those feelings of wintery evening walks back to a time when people still actually believed in the creatures of the night, to a time when such mythological creatures were symbols of doom, and to a time when they were used as warnings; to frighten and warn people away from religious and moral transgressions.  In the 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th centuries, witch-hunts were a prevalent issue.  Folk-stories about wolves and other predators waiting in the depths of forests were used to frighten small children into being good.  Tales such as these, which the Brothers Grimm were so good as to collect for us, were allegories for good and evil.  The unknown and the unexplained were evil, the known and explainable were good.

 


Leonardo da Vinci. Study for the Fight against the Dragon, c. 1480. Pen and ink, grey wash, 19 x 12.5 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Artists of these time periods were able to use these stories and their own imaginations to create works to frighten, intrigue, and instruct.  Leonardo da Vinci was one such artist.  Perhaps best-known for the Mona Lisa, the Virgin of the Rocks etc., it is also true that he composed many studies using mythological creatures.  In one such, his study of a knight killing a dragon is both fantastical and allegorical; the dragon being the symbol of evil, and the knight-in-shining-armour... well, being the knight-in-shining-armour.

 


Hieronymus Bosch. The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

 

Artists such as Hieronymus Bosch understood the human fascination with the fantastic, and the mythical.  A fascination we retain today.  (Think Twilight, the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter...)  This understanding of the human mindset led to Bosch’s work ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ to becoming one of the single most well-known pieces of art to come out of the 16^th century.  The creatures which sprung out of his imagination and onto the canvas in the central panel also serve as allegories.  The fictional creatures such as mermaids and mutated unicorns (no longer the pure white of the Garden of Eden panel, and no longer pure horse) serve to portray the indulgences and excesses of mankind, initially fun and exciting, but in the end , they lead to creations far out of the realms of my ‘bump in the night’ imagined creatures.  (See the third panel.)

So, it seems that every century has had a creepy, winter’s night walk feeling. But the best part about experiencing it in this century? For me, it’s getting into my warm, well-lit hallway, and laughing at myself for all the stories I’ve been making up in my head.  I’ll take the walk over a witch-hunt any day!

 

To experience the mythical and the monstrous, without having to endure the feeling that ghouls and ghosties are on your trail, check out the Beautiful Monsters exhibition at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton(Canada).  Being held until the 3^rd March 2013, banish your winter blues by taking a walk on the mythological wild side with artists such as Dürer, Callot, and Beham.  For a perhaps more local night in (and what could be more local than your own sitting room?) try cosying up to a copy of John Bascom’s Beauty of the Beast.