Donatello's Mary Magdalene - Directed #2

Donatello's Mary Magdalene:

Looking at Donatello's Mary Magdalene, it is evident that the sculpture does not highlight or reflect feminine beauty at all. Unlike the conventional ways of representing Mary Magdalene by showing her beauty, Donatello focused on a different aspect of her. Looking at the sculpture, I was drawn towards the eyes and secondly to the hands folded in prayer. It felt like everything else does not matter. There is a lot of emotion in her eyes. And the way she is bringing her hands together in prayer, talks about the emotion in her eyes. I got a very different feeling from the picture in the Power point slide where she is placed in front of Jesus Christ. It added a whole new meaning to the sculpture itself. The way her body is covered by her hair, tells us how it did not matter to her what she wears. Also, anyone looking at the picture will not be distracted by her clothes or her body but will be taken directly to the actual purpose and meaning of her which is evident from her eyes.

The way Donatello did not follow the classical form and showed us a totally different perspective of Mary Magdalene reminds me of Ballari Raghava (1880-1946) a famous stage actor from South India.

Generally in the plays based on Ramayana, the Hindu epic, Ravana, who is the antagonist of Rama, will always be portrayed by a person with a large mustache, long hair, thick eyebrows and all such things that would frighten the audience. Everyone can make out Ravana just by looking at the costume. Contrary to this, Ballari Raghava playing Ravana in a play, entered the scene wearing a white costume and with a smile on his face. People became very angry and no one accepted the way he was portraying a demon king. He then explained that the good and evil is in our minds and not the way we dress. He wanted to show that Ravana is also a regular human being who looked just like any one of us, but his thoughts and deeds made him a demon. Though it took time for the people to accept this radical presentation of Ravana, his philosophy was later praised by everyone.

Directed blog entry for week1

In many Flemish works, artists used elements in their art that would be familiar to the spectator so that the spectator could identify more closely with the subject matter

I see this kind of phenomenon happening in the Indian Classical music scene these days. Carnatic music is one of the two styles of Indian classical music, the other being Hindustani music. The popularity of this music seems to be coming down among the youth these days. They are being influenced by the western music a lot. The styles and the modern outlook of the western music and the related videos seems to be appealing to the younger generations compared to the classical music.

But now the classical music enthusiasts are spreading the popularity by introducing western beats into Carnatic music. This fusion is slowly catching up and more and more people are beginning to appreciate the music and also trying to listen to the original versions of the songs.
Initially I did not like the idea of fusion, but now looking at how it is brining the current generations towards the classical music, I commend the idea.

The Annunciation by Jan van Eyck.

Hello! Thanks for taking time to read my blog. This is related to the Art course that I am currently doing. This is an interesting course and the text book that we use is amazing; particularly the pictures in the book. If not for the excellent pictures of the art, the course would be like a history course where we would have to just memorize some facts and that’s about it. I spend more time seeing the pictures than I do reading about them.

Anyways, I would like to write about an art that I studied about this week- The Annunciation by Jan van Eyck. I feel it is an amazing piece of art which made me say Wow!!, the moment I saw it. My attention was first drawn towards the robes in the picture. They are just wonderful and they look so real that if we cover the picture and just see only the part with robes, we can easily mistake it for a photograph. The folds, the design, the border – everything is just so detailed and looks so real. Then the floor in the painting is also very good. The three dimensional perspective of the room is very impressive. The details on the floor are simply wonderful – made we wonder how long it might have taken the artist to render such details in such realistic manner. Then there are the stained-glass windows- particularly the light coming through them, the shades of the objects beyond the windows as seen through the three lower windows; everything is just so excellent in details, that anyone would easily mistake them for photographs. To sum up, I was so thrilled when I saw this picture. I recommend everyone to take time and see this picture and I am sure that you will also enjoy it as much as I did.

Cheers everyone!