The Shadow of the
Vulture (Conan #23, 1972)
The Shadow of the
Vulture, page 415
Once you have
shadow you are no longer in “lightspace” (see next post) since the light
is eclipsed by the geometric shape (like a half moon). I know that sounds like
something from Marvel Comics but it’s mainly a case of knowing what a scene is,
man.
REH has some
prize examples, I particularly like his historical yarns published in Swordwoman
and Other Historical Adventures (Del Rey), and illustrated by John Watkiss
Red Blades of Black
Cathay, page 234
Here, the Norman
adventurer Godric gazes from a stone balcony. In foreground are rounded dark
pillars and vases, Blossom, vines and rough-hewn stone frame the view of
soaring mountains and birds. Watkiss’s grainy lines are enough to give a good
sense of the geometry, both manmade and natural, the dramatic setting.
Here, the drama
is all in the darkness of Sonya’s looming form, the lodge sketched-in with grey
wash for rough-hewn stone walls, grainy lines for wooden beams. Watkiss’s
charcoal approach is bold, effective and expressive. Effective scenes are often
tightly framed, circular as here or hemmed in by mountains as at Black Cathay.
Light is
everywhere obstructed by geometric forms, so that is more or less the
definition of a scene. It’s pretty apparent in the Sonya scene that the play of
dark and light is very defining and dramatic. So, Euclidean space can only be
defined by a state of constant tension.
Light is the
primary technique in nature, and once you obstruct it you are no longer in
“lightspace”, you are in Euclidean space. His evocation of Sonya on page 403
has her waving tresses practically backlit, vigorously defining her profile as
she no doubt utters some profanity.
The Shadow of the
Vulture, page 403
In all things,
it’s pretty obvious contrast is one of the main features in the representation.
A scene, or a representation, is simple by virtue of the fact that it employs
contrast. The only problem with contrast is it’s not possible to resolve it;
you’re not in technical or “lightspace”, you’re in a world of shadow since that
is often what defines forms.
The world you
create with shadow is a very different one to a technical one that seemingly
expands like radiation into space. In effect, it creates interesting enclosures
and a world where actually closeness and dramatic tension are the norm. It’s
not resolvable, it’s not logical, but it’s interesting. Also decadent. Romantic
decadence, or heroic romance.
To clarify
things, decadence means the decay of light. This is what makes things
interesting because the geometry is atmospherically lit. The moment that
happens you are in Euclidean space, the moulding of shadows round forms.
When Einstein
said “Time is an illusion” (see quotes at top), he seemed to mean technically it’s
not there. No, but it is there in the motion of objects, shadowed in
interesting ways. If the moon is side-lit we have a half-moon; the phases of
the moon tell the time in a simple enough fashion. Why do we assume things are
technical when in looking at a crescent moon we are seeing the absence of
technique?
The crescent is
the sign that light has been cut-off, you only have a rim-lit scene. You are
now not in a world explicable by technique, you are in a romantic scene. These
things are not resolvable because it’s simply the result of geometry. Geometry
creates space which is lit in interesting ways. Then you are no longer in
“lightspace”; you are in Euclidean space.
Euclidean space
is enclosed space since shadows have a way of enclosing things. A shadow is
simply the absence of technique, shape pure and simple. That is what a scene
is, so you already have the means for simple stories with dramatic tension.
I was watching
the Monterey Pop Festival commentary by Pennebaker and Adler, and you get the
sense of photographing things very directly, just people as they move about,
the performances with no preconceived ideas, a record. Pennebaker’s main aim
seemed to be interesting lighting, so he often shot from stage-side or even
into the stage-lights for an “eclipse” with Slick and Redding.
It was a
wonderful dream and, in the sleeve notes, Jann Wenner seemed to make the case
that petty local politics clamped-down on a rerun of that dream that creates a
Monterey Pop “tradition”. Whatever the historical case, I would just say it’s
not just politics, it’s the actual ontology of the scene and how it’s
experienced. The technical and corporate world can’t replicate these things;
it’s 100% impossible through no fault of their own, just because they are not
in the scene and can never be.
Yes, Monterey is
a dream, but I’d like you to imagine for a moment that, in a historical context,
anything with a bold simplicity has a dreamlike resonance. Monterey is just 3
days in time that happened to make waves round the world; what you want is a
circular scene that is Monterey all the year round.
I don’t mean
“like Monterey”; I just mean with a bold, dreamlike resonance. What is the
dreamlike resonance? It’s the shape of things, the geometry and how they’re lit.
Simplicity is what a corporate, technical world can never be.
Don’t get me
wrong. I’ve nothing against industry. This is simply an ontological point. The
way we experience things; we can’t be told what is there because we experience
it. Then we express what we experience.
In Cynthia
Harnett’s The Wool-Pack - a
children’s yarn that lodged in my mind about the 15th century
English wool trade – the very vividness might strike us as fanciful. In fact,
the vividness of description, the blood and sweat, is what is truthful. Authors
are describing the vividness of settings, what’s there in bold outline and
harsh shadow. If the artistry of it to us may appear a stage-lit fantasy, that
is mainly because good artists are describing a Euclidean world. Just what is
there, the sweat, the smell, the clangour.
A huddle of houses, pitched roofs framed
by copices, on the edge of what is probably common land. The commoners occupy
the common land, so it’s another type of communal enclosure. Round about are
fields, pasture for flocks. The Wool-Pack is about the wool-trade in 15th
century England, so what’s very obvious is that a scene in those days had also
economic and social value (as Prince Charles might say!) So, ok, that might be
a hippy’s lotus dream, what’s it to do with us?
It’s a
discussion-point, basically, and, since human beings are verbal animals, that
can always lead somewhere. There are various things you can say about the
picture, for a start. The foreground doesn’t appear to be what we call
designed, but just follows the contours of the ground, leading to the tree on
left. This leads to the entire question of how Man designs the landscape. Going
by the cover, it has more of a feng-shui aspect to it; the picturesque quality
isn’t planned, it’s the disorderliness that looks right.
This raises the
question of is what we call public design actually anti-design in this sense?
There is a place for design, but there is also a case for design that just
happens because it looks right. This is just people, craftsmen, expressing
themselves. If you take a thatched roof, it’s a vernacular artform or trade, so
it automatically fits into what’s there. The craftsman expresses that through
their work.
Now, this is
quite a vital point since expression is not design; it’s informal not formal.
Expression is a main element of vernacular architecture. Going by the White
Rabbit lyric, “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead”. Yes, there is
proportion in a thatched roof, but it’s almost a disproportionate proportion.
It’s the waywardness that’s good, that appeals to our sense of the picturesque.
So, yes,
proportion is there, but so is expression. That is a vital point because proportion
by itself is technique; it’s just numbers, basically. Once you add expression
then you are outside of technique.
This is the land
that I want to re-enter; not a land that has no technique, but a land that is
shadowed and variegated. This is the land of dream and myth, but also of
historical tales like The Wool-Pack. The sense of location and place are
so powerfully imprinted, with Harnett also doing the illustrations. That is
what I mean by a sense of enclosure that has a sense of happening to it.
In order for
that to happen, yes we need technique, but we also need the destruction of
technique through vernacular craft. We need proportion but also lack of proportion.
And we need logic but also emotion.
Bruce Lee has an
expression (in Artist of Life, see first post) - “a war between a robot
and a wild beast”. On the one side you need the training and disciplined
routine. On the other you need the complete opposite, the flexibility of pure
expressive response. These two are not compatible, and you need to destroy
routine in order to act.
There is no
resolution of the issue, in the same way there is no resolution of a moonlit
moor. What you are seeing is what there is. Which is atmosphere, or you are
feeling the air flow, hearing an owl hoot. There is no resolution of this issue
because you are not in technical space, you are just communing with nature in a
Jack London way.
You are also
being enclosed, because shadow is a form of enclosure. If you look at the illo
by Harnett of Fetterlock House (from a Cotswold locality), there is a strong
sense of vibrant texture and almost of burrowing into the surrounds; stone and
foliage as one.
The house I
would say is Tudor style with a strong vernacular element. When you look at
that house you cannot be told what you see because a lot of it is pure
expression. Expression of craftwork is what I see as a happening; a direct
response of the craftsman to the material and the setting. It supplies a
variegated texture that fairly ripples with atmosphere.
Atmosphere is
seen in the constant play of light and shade, in the lack of definition. What
appeals to us is actually the lack of resolution. We feel comfortable in a lack
of resolution, and why is that? Because there are two things going on; one is
technique and one is expression and they can’t be resolved.
If one feels
comfortable, I would also say it’s a type of enclosure. If enclosure can’t be
resolved, if it’s just a type of variegated shadow, then we can’t be told what
it is. It’s not a technical issue, it’s outside of technique.
In the same way,
time is not a technical issue, but you can see it in the lengthening of
shadows. Basically, not everything is technical, and it doesn’t matter what
technicians say, even if it happens to be Einstein! We know, and can sense and
can see the passage of time. We play our folk songs, we sing and dance in the
summer breeze. None of these things need to be told, they’re experiential.
So, the lost
world that one can possibly glimpse in Monterey is the experiential one. It’s
not lack of technique, but it is highly informal and subtly spiritual. It has
no resolution, it’s a happening. It’s not political, it’s a place. It’s a
tradition, a “Good tradition”. Tanita Tikaram’s song is in the tradition of
urban pop-folk. A tradition that isn’t resolvable but, in the lyrics:
There’s a
good tradition of love and hate
Staying by
the fireside
The rain may
fall
You still
feel safe inside
This world can
be governed politically, but it is also much more socially and economically
independent. Because you are essentially recreating an atmosphere I see it as
an alternative to the social-media future. The atmosphere is stone and wood,
hill and rock, heather and grass and, critically, it is enclosed. What I mean
by enclosure is something that is not resolvable, just what is there to the
senses.
Smailholm tower
near Kelso in Borders, early 16th century seat of Pringle family
near Stichill village
Enclosure
is variegated line, a constant sense of shadowplay, that essentially the
surroundings are not technical but expressive. I know it’s quite a difficult
thing to get conceptually, as you just have to “get it”. It’s something
children probably have an affinity with; in this link http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=14&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjg34jo57vNAhVYF8AKHc0ADmkQFghdMA0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdovegreyreader.typepad.com%2Fdovegreyreader_scribbles%2F2009%2F03%2Fthe-woolpack-by-cynthia-harnett.html&usg=AFQjCNEgT0okYsGG9kugdSxaUp-6JZYQ_w&bvm=bv.125221236,d.ZGg
Dovegreyreader
describes the attractions of doing a school project on The Wool-Pack –
the joys of tracing paper.
The
idea of tracing endless contours that go round and round. Nothing is
resolvable, but in the end it’s one thing. The grainy rock poking through the bracken,
the sturdy fort on the rock outcrop, the wavy wall descending to the byre. It’s
not design, but it’s not lack of design either. It is expression, and the
variegated shadows of stone, rock, heather and hill give a sense of enclosure.
Basically, the shadow is moulded into the forms, they are made of shadows.
Shadow,
as you can also see, tells you roughly the time of day. This “scene world” is
the opposite of “lightspace” or the technical world. It has a sense of time and
I would say also enclosure, since shadows enclose forms.
The
trouble with atmosphere is that you can describe it and experience it, but only
if it’s there. It’s the product of two unresolvable things, technique and
expression (or order and disorder). Of course, this doesn’t appeal to some,
especially those of a blatantly futuristic train of thought. The Daily
Telegraph’s head of technology, Madhumita Murgia, said recently..
..their immense
scale also means social networks have got a finger on the pulse of
humanity – the perfect vantage point from which to help. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/19/facebook-leads-the-way-in-online-compassion-but-others-need-to-f/
What
Murgia is actually talking about is transhumanism. The doctrine that humans are
special (apart from nature), that they are bright enough to design machines
that can design algorithms, and that the algorithms are what count.
It’s a future,
but it recks without the unresolvable quality of scenes. Now, scenes have an
impact on human health, social order, economy and historically government. You
could imagine a future in which humans become more scenic; in other words
retook the scenic places; started crofting; made a going concern of goat’s
cheese or whatever.
Algorithms in
actual fact can’t measure humanity because not everything is measurable. That
is the mistake that transhumanism makes, you can’t measure a scene because it
is actually literally immeasurable. Start drawing the contours.
