So, I have this prof, see, for my art history class. I'll call him Dr. D. He's crazy. He's passionate. He teaches art history, political science, and western civ. Go figure. I couldn't imagine taking his poli sci class. He speaks in riddles and metaphor, and when he wants you to write down a word he repeats it exactly three times, his voice rising one octave on each repetition. Like this: "art, art, ARRRT!" It's a lyrical melody I know by heart now. He gestures wildly with his arms, and beats on his chest when he wants to make a point. He gets so feverish as he flails that he knocks his papers or books, or whatever is in front of him, on the floor at least once every class period. I heard his textbooks only last one semester.
He gets in your face. He challenges you with weird questions. He gets so excited he spits. Bummer, because I like to sit in the front. One day he brought donuts for the class, two big greasy-pink boxes. At the end of the lecture he asked if anyone wanted the last three donuts: "I didn't spit on them, I promise," he said. "Well, only once." We roared, only because we knew it was true.
One of his favorite paintings is "The Scream," by Edvard Munch. He likes to open the text, hold it up in front of him, and smack the page where the painting he is discussing is located. One day he did that, he grabbed some poor coed's text off her desk in a moment of passion and, holding it to his chest, smacked the pages until they were crumpled. The poor girl. Yeah, he forgot to give her book back, too. Dr. D gets so excited, he yells, usually directly at one student. No one seems to know quite how to react, and yet he is loved--adored--by his groupies. He takes his groupies, anyone who wants to go, on field trips to see art exhibits and concerts. I'm signed up to go this Saturday.
No one took the three donuts.
2 comments:
This scream business... Read somewhere that the sky was actually as we see it in the painting... well not actually... it is too strange for that... but different. The painting took place when the Volcano in Java, Krakatoa blew up and the sky was coloured for a very long time. It also got very cold for a longish time. And of course, inspired the scream business.
Interesting, Eveningson. Thanks for the insight. I found the following at smithsonianmag.com (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/munch.html):
His painting of a sexless, twisted, fetal-faced creature, with mouth and eyes open wide in a shriek of horror, re-created a vision that had seized him as he walked one evening in his youth with two friends at sunset. As he later described it, the "air turned to blood" and the "faces of my comrades became a garish yellow-white." Vibrating in his ears he heard "a huge endless scream course through nature."
Then I found this from metmuseum.org (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/10/eue/ho_1984.1203.1.htm):
A precursor of this image is a drawing of a man (Munch himself) on a similar bridge, with a blood-red sky above. A text accompanying this drawing states: "I walked with two friends. Then the sun sank. Suddenly the sky turned as red as blood … My friends walked on, and I was left alone, trembling with fear. I felt as if all nature were filled with one mighty unending shriek."
Looks like you are right!
Post a Comment