Swan song

It is about the swans. And the women. And the legends, myths, fables and illustrations thereof. Let us dive right in and start with Leda and the Swan (as shown in the painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. Leda's tale is a familiar motif from ancient Greek myth; Leda is married to King Tyndareous and Zeus (of course also married, the randy old goat... or should I say swan) needs to cuckold him somewhat discretely, so he takes the form of a swan. Zeus-the-swan either seduces or rapes Leda. She bares each (swan and husband) two children (Helen & Polydeuces and Castor & Clytemnestra, respectively, depending on the version of the myth). This trope of Zeus disguising himself as an animal to seduce earthly women (such as Europa and the bull) comes up rather frequently. Leda and the swan seems to have inspired many artists from da Vinci to Cézanne, in painting and sculpture. The fascinating thing is that somehow, depicting a woman and a swan mating was acceptable for centuries during which depicting female sexuality would be forbidden.
Also the range of interpretations: da Vinci shows a swan who is affectionate - clearly a seducer rather than a rapist. Corregio's swan is clearly engaged in something mutual, as are the other swans and assorted putti. This is not true of all depictions.



Aubrey Bearsley illustration of Juvenal

Swans can be shapeshifters also for the Swan Maidens - these stories amazingly are found across cultures. The generic form involves the theft of a cloak (of swan feathers) belonging to a swan maiden by a mortal man. This prevents her from flying away and they marry and have children. Somehow the children betray the secret of the hidden cloak, and mummy flies away. Similar stories occur for different animals or composite creatures (Scottish selkies or seal-women, Japanese kitsune fox spirits, African buffalo-maidens, Chinese Peacock Maiden). The ballet Swan Lake is of course a telling of the Swan Maiden tale. In Irish legend the lovers Midir and Etain metamorphose and fly away together as swans. Oenghus and the swan-maiden Caer, the daughter of a Danaan god who spent every day of one year as a beautiful woman and every day of the next as a swan on the lake in Connacht. In Teutonic and Scandinavian myth there is Wayland Smith and his brothers who find three bathing valkeries as swan-maidens divested of their robes.


Björk in her swan maiden dress.




Harry Clarke - The Wild Swan

Senecca legend has Swan sending her daughters to marry the son of Earthquake, Splitface. She is hungry for meat (eventually provided after some Little Red Ridinghood type adventures). The Ojibwe have the lengend of Red Swan retold by Longfellow in the Song of Hiawatha

Can it be the sun descending
O'er the level plain of water?
Or the Red Swan floating, flying,
Wounded by the magic arrow,
Staining all the waves with crimson,
With the crimson of its life-blood,
Filling all the air with splendor,
With the splendor of its plumage?
Yes; it is the sun descending,
Sinking down into the water;
All the sky is stained with purple,
All the water flushed with crimson!
No; it is the Red Swan floating,
Diving down beneath the water;
To the sky its wings are lifted,
With its blood the waves are reddened!

Warwick Gobble: Damayati and the Swan

In Hindu myth, Princess Damayati fell in love with Nala simply from hearing about his virtues and accomplishments from a swan. The Hindu god of creation Brahma uses the swan as a vehicle. The Swan symbolizes the power of discrimination.


Charley Harper: Swan

The swan appears in our sky as the constellation Cygnus. This may be a tribute to Leda and the Swan, Orpheus turned into his swan after death, or King Cycnus. In Chinese myth the constellation Cygnus is the site of the once-a-year magpie bridge between which connects the lovers Niu Lang and Zhi Nu (versions of which legend occur in most Asian countries, and mirror the stolen cloak form of the swan maiden story, with the added sympathy of the magpies).


Andy Council: Venetian Swan
There is of cours the story of the ugly duckling... the baby swan left to be raised by ducks where it is a misfit, grows to be a beatiful swan.


Scott Radke: Swan
In the history and philosophy of science the colour of swans becomes important. Francis Bacon warned against "the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall". It was postulated all swans are white based on observations of only European white swans prior to 1697. Karl Popper uses this as an argument that induction can not produce certainty. It takes only one counter example - an observation of an Australian black swan, like this lovely print (for which I cannot find an attribution! Please let me know so I can credit the Australian artist):



Chelsea Cardinal: Swan Dream

One swan on my wall, by animalsleep:


The symbolism is rich and surprising. Even the expression swan song and its legendary origins could be debated.

Out of this world

Amongst my obsessions are globes - but not just of our home planet, but of extra-terrestrial bodies as well. The photo shows my globe (of the earth, with the transits of many great explorers - sadly limited to the Western sort... but better than nothing), my moon-globe and my celestial sphere. The heavenly-named celestial sphere, is a globe with the constellations 'pinned' to the 2D surface of the sphere - as if there really were geocentric Ptolemaic spheres. I would love to have globes of the other planets and satellites (the natural moon-like sort, not the human-made type) in our solar system. The Map Room has a post about what is currently available: the moon from Replogle, Mars and Venus from Sky and Telescope. The globes for our nearest neighbour planets, as well as the moon, and three of the Jovian satellites (moons of Jupiter - once known as the Medician stars, because Galileo knew how to court a sponsor): Callisto, Ganymede and Europa, are based on satellite photography or topography data, of course. The gores (pieces from which a globe is made, since there is no made to map a 2D rectangle onto a sphere) are available, free from the USGS Astrogeology Research Program (also here, here and here). For Mars, they offer photographic or topological gores, as well as instructions on how to make your own tennis-ball or 6.6 inch size Mars globes! I know what paper engineering project I am tackling next!

Butterflies are the new Pirates

Yes, indeed. There has been an undercurrent of butterflies fluttering through our culture for some time, and soon they will be as omnipresent as pirates. They appear in art, crafts, fashion. Tell me this installation by Japanese artist/designer/stylist Kiroshi Kuroda is not piratical?


or that the graphic impact of this black and white will not catch on:




Consider the hypnotic effect of French artist Phillipe Caillaud's spirals of butterflies;



Aurores 1 and detail

I love how he incorporates ephemera, including vintage photographs, playing cards and especially, maps. Some works are made of dragon or damsel flies, rather than butterflies. Full marks for elegance and simplicity of his web portfolio design! Flash-addicted artists, please take note.


Cramoisis


Vulcains


Mars (detail)


Piérides de la route (detail)

This reminds me of work of the previously-blogged Elsita (Elsa Moro). She had a show in 2007 which involved a lot of flying things. The work "One Hundred Butterflies" also involves a spiral of butterflies (& moths & dragonflies & damselflies). Each one represents a famous woman:




Interesting that there is a sub-theme of spirals of multimedia butterflies.

Speaking of multimedia butterflies, check out these knit papillons by Chevalier-Masson (Belgian duo Anne Masson & Eric Chevalier):


"Les deux font la paire" , 2006 (Galerie Les Drapiers, Liège). {The title means 'the two make a pair'}

Of course, there is the gorgeous work of British printmaker, book and multimedia artist John Dilnot, many of which feature butterflies or moths. His work captures the magic of the microcosm and the Wunderkammer.



Moths Collection (26 x 19x 7cm)


U.S. sculptor "Michelle Stitzlein creates found object art / sculpture from recycled materials, including piano keys, broken china, license plates, rusty tin cans, electrical wire, bottlecaps, and other miscellaneous items." These include enormous (check the dimensions!), amazing butterflies and moths.







I could go on....

{Though familiar with many of these artists, the archives at dear ada were a great resource for finding many of these butterflies in contemporary art.}

tapestry of colour, gems & floating heads

Creature Comforts featured the work of LA artist Sarajo Frieden. This is someone who knows about textures, lines and colour, has a good sense of humour, and a whimsical thing for the birds. See what she has to say about colour:



Some of her work incorporates embroidery, like this:


stitched bird 4 (7.5”w x 11”h framed: 11.5”w x 15”h)


lady leaving chair (7.5”w x 11”h framed: 11.5”w x 15”h)


pinktree (gouache, collage on paper 28 1/2″w x 22″h)


green journey 2 (gouache on paper 23 3/4″w x 15″h 2005)

Recurring images include the "mini me", birds, trees, people dressed as cats, mushrooms, water, silhouettes, ship and gems. Which leads me to ponder, what is it with all the crystals in contemporary art, anyway?


jewelled bush (gouache, collage on paper 22.25″w x 24.5″h 2007)

Crystals appear frequently in a stylized network of lines and explicitly as gems.

These are the work of NYC artist Ramblin Worker (Steve MacDonald), whom I first found years ago on www.craftster.org. He also combines drawing and painting and sewing. For the record, most of his work does not contain disembodied puma heads- I just happen to really like them. Beyond the multimedia, these artists have something in common in their exuberant colours, lines and nets, and layering of pattern (as well as boats and natures as subjects). Some of the tapestries (I can think of no better word) are incorporated into 3D sculptural pieces.

Going Postal

dear ada instroduced me to London-based Glaswegian designer and illustrator Harriet Russell. She has a lot of pretty, whimsical screenprints, design, book covers and illustration and more on her webpage. She can't resist a good pun.





Oh look, a magpie!

Her embellished envelop mailart is delightful. The Telegraph reports that she comes by this honestly;

Harriet Russell is only the latest in her family to seek to amaze and befuddle the men and women of the Royal Mail. Her great-great-great grandfather, Henry Ponsonby, was an eminent Victorian - a veteran of the Crimean War, private secretary to the Queen - who also had a hobby of embellishing the envelopes of the letters he sent with whimsical pictures. The addresses would appear as signposts in snowstorms or as huge envelopes shouldered by tiny people.

Obviously, this is a tradition too fabulous to neglect. Her collection of 130 letters, sent to herself, includes addresses in the form of anagrams, crosswords, tests for colour blindness, dot-to-dot puzzles, cartoon and mirror writing. It makes me happy that the Royal Mail appears to have appreciated the joke and risen to the challenge.