Passion, Ecstasy, and the Heart-o-meter: The Way of Dionysus.

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Kaa - </strong>"To put it crudely, I don't know how would you distinguish something produced by real passion from something produced by highly skilled and cynical manipulation of symbols -- if you know nothing about the author's person."</p>

<p>To answer in an equally crude fashion: I don't have to, and it doesn't matter, unless it's supposedly forensic or documentary photography.</p>

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<p><strong>Then Julie chimed in with - "</strong>Luis, <a rel="nofollow" href="

target="_blank">meet Sally</a>."</p>

<p>Doesn't sound or look like a bee sting, does it? Next thing you'll be "surprising" me by telling me bee stings and orgasms can be faked. See answer to Kaa above.<br>

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<p> </p>

[._kaa]

<p><strong>Luis</strong>: <em>I don't have to, and it doesn't matter</em></p>

<p>Interesting. I don't know whether I have misread you, then. Back in the beginning of the thread you listed four "aspects of passion", notably <em>(3) The encoding of passion into the work,</em> and added <em>Numbers three and four are the most fascinating to me</em>.</p>

<p>I understood you to be interested in how the passion of the author gets transferred into his work -- but now you're saying it doesn't matter whether there was real passion that bled through, or whether there was just a skilled manipulation of the viewer. I am confused.</p>

<p>And, speaking of fake orgasms, how successfully, do you think, passion can be faked? Would you be consistent with your answer above and say that it doesn't matter whether it's fake or not as long as the viewer is convinced?</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I don't quite understand the purpose of the Meg Ryan clip, but it's got nothing to do with passion. Interestingly, though, it was posted as I was wondering if passion had to be serious or if there could be passionate humor.</p>

<p>Lenny Bruce came to mind. Following are two clips. In coordination with one of Steve's points, there is stuff on the edge that's important here. And it's not just for the sake of being edgy. I think passion may come with a deeply centered kind of edginess. Josh mentioned focus. (Many critics put down <em>Piss Christ</em> of Serrano for being edgy for edginess sake. I think they're wrong.) Bruce is passionate especially because he's speaking personally while he's making bigger points. In the first clip, think of Meg Ryan's fake pop romantic-comedy orgasm as you would the cop's restating of Bruce's so-called vulgar comments OUT OF CONTEXT, and how they completely miss the point when they are made out of context. Bruce's <em>passion</em>, on the other hand, comes WITHIN CONTEXT. It <em>emanates</em> (radiance). I have no particular comment on the second clip. It's just worth watching.</p>

<p>

<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TrQxeNEPLo</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Kaa - "</strong>I understood you to be interested in how the passion of the author gets transferred into his work -- but now you're saying it doesn't matter whether there was real passion that bled through, or whether there was just a skilled manipulation of the viewer. I am confused."</p>

<p>Art can be fictional. You're less confused than you think.<br>

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<p>Steve Gubin and Fred, lots of good points, but I am headed out for the evening. More later.</p>

[Alex_Es]

<p>Let's take it from the top:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>We lean towards the Apollonian here. Rational, logical, evidenced, framed in fact, justifiable, etc. Yet the photo world is glutted with well-crafted and lit, perfectly dull, lifeless pictures devoid of any apparent passion, let alone ecstasy. Mud that hasn't been breathed on is just mud. I am talking about passions and ecstasies of all kinds, and of the photographer, subject(s) viewers and reviewers</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>This says in effect that large number of the photographs appearing on this site is stilted, predictable and cliched pictorialist crud. But this is a problem of truncated vision and trivial execution, not of being too "Apolollonian" or wherever. Don't blame rationality and logic for crappy art. "Passion" (or, more exactly, zeal) burns within every artist, as it does ever mechanic worthy of his or her wrench. The execution of a photograph, as any work of art, requires rationality. I mean the creator must know what he or she is doing. There are moments of inspiration, or epiphany, but you gotta know how use your tools. Artists have to be rational to communicate passion in their works. </p>

<p>The Greeks did not create the dichotomy between Apollo and Dionysus. When Nietzsche referenced those two elements in his early work, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) he declared they formed a fusion that made Greek Tragedy truly great until the advent of Euripides. He would later write that this was a work filled with youthful error. He did, however, embrace Dionysus as a personal god toward the end of his life. He concludes Ecce Homo (1888) with, "Have you understood me?: Dionysus verses Christ." </p>

<p>The Apollo-Dionysus dichotomy we got here is a creature more of the popular imagination. It's a way of talking around the strictures of the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity, and of dealing with personal hang-ups like post-adolescent sexuality. </p>

<p>Anyway, the rational mind is truly the most passionate for it sees clearly to object of its passion. </p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Well, that's solved then.<br>

____________<br>

Or not.<br>

The edginess certainly rings bells, but as with other terms than have rung that same bell in this thread: is it cause, or effect?<br>

I think it's effect. One starts to seek edges out of passion for what one is doing. Investigate how big the playing field is, where it starts and where it stops. Test the rules for their flexibility or rigidness.<br>

And yet, when a photo (or any art) is edgy, it does not mean it's made out of passion or with passion. It can be a calculated effect, indeed.</p>

<p>It seems to me that passion in a photographer shines through in enough different disguises to not be immediately identifiable. But in a body of work, a certain consistence and persistence of vision can become visible. A true commitment to a subject or a message, a drive to perfect that message, to show to others what you're seeing.<br>

Maybe passion in a single image happens, but so far all examples work for only some. Maybe it's not the way to find it. But looking at a lot of combined photos, like the Brassaï link offered - the passion of the photographer jumps from my screen. Is it purely Dionysos that I'm seeing? Not really, but it sure isn't all that rational either.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Let's take it from the bottom: Alex, I certainly was not saying what you claim I was. I never insinuated there was a dichotomy between the two, and, among others, made the point that they interleaved in Nietzsche and during Greek times. We're way past what you're saying happened in this thread. You're not the first or only one to come in this forum and tell everyone they're wrong, and that the issue is settled. It's the way you see it, and therefore moot.</p>

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<p><strong>Alex - "</strong>Don't blame rationality and logic for crappy art."</p>

<p>I don't. You're attempting to put words in my mouth. I never said or thought that. If anyone cares to read my OP they will see I did not even use the word "art". If it -- or its opposite -- were only that simple.</p>

<p><strong>Alex - </strong>"Anyway, the rational mind is truly the most passionate for it sees clearly to object of its passion."</p>

<p>I'm sure in your own mind that's true. Let me ask you a rhetorical, no-answer-required question: Do you think your own pictures are most passionate and clear-seeing?</p>

<p>A non-rhetorical one: How a few links to *others' pictures you think are passionate?</p>

<p>By any chance, did you mean to say '<em>the' object of its passion? </em>Otherwise it reads like quite the ironic and reveling Freudian slip.</p>

<p>At least you've made your own position clear: There's one best way to passionate pictures, and unsurprisingly, it's <em>your</em> own! Obviously, others here think that truth to be far from self-evident, 100+ responses' worth, and a question worthy of further exploration and discussion.<br>

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<p>* The reason for my requesting linked pictures from non-PN members is to 1) Sidestep the usual mammoth egos 2) bruised toes 3) The usual thrust to push one's own pictures in others' faces (which rarely happens in this forum) and 4) To avoid trampling the PN dicta regarding the compartmentalization of critiques of members' work, which as we see elsewhere, results in dozens of 'Wow', 'Cool', 'Attaboy' "reviews".</p>

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[luis_g]

<p>Josh, I agree with you about Brassai and passion, still thinking about the limits of looking at one image vs. a body of work, which also relates to the theme on this thread in a way we haven't touched on yet. When Fred was talking about passion in his own pictures, Gerald-2 came to mind, among others. Good to see you here.<br>

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<p>Fred, Titian's Danae speaks to me of passion. Looking at a body of work vs. the idea of a singlet standing on its own merits is too vast to get into in this thread, though we keep skirting the idea. It merits its own thread. I agree with passionate humor, and there's many other kinds as Wouter has alluded to.<br>

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<p>Kaa, this picture speaks to the idea of fictional passion, and that to make it, one has to have a very good idea of what passes for passion.</p>

<p>http://www.lvxphotography.net/media/2009/05/doisneau_kiss.jpg?w=500<br>

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<p>Steve, good to see you back. "Yes, passion and/or ecstasy in neurosis and paranoia. Anxiety over unseen horrors, tragedies, catastrophes that hover at the periphery. Chained, or sleeping, or, for the moment, thankfully unaware or uninterested in my presence. Make the image and move away before it awakens or notices me"</p>

<p>Yes. I think this could be related to the Kantian idea of the sublime. In the Nietzschean construct of this, the wellspring of psychic energy in the creative comes from the friction (or dissonance?) between the Apollonian and Dionysian. This comes to mind because you acknowledge it's not stemming from literal/rational feelings, but: "It's the way the world feels at the edges." Meaty post, beautifully written. In agreement with the comments on Allen, Woodman, Ishimoto, D'Amato and Frank.</p>

<p>A point raised by Steve in this post that is integral to this discussion is the idea of tapping into universal themes, as opposed to more personal ones. This transformation from the personal to the group/tribe/humanity is at the core of the Dionysian experience.<br>

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[Norma Desmond]

<p>Not to dampen any fires, but this is relevant since bodies of work have come up. I just saw a fairly exhaustive Francesca Woodman exhibit at SF Moma. I had only seen a few of her photos on line before seeing the exhibit and actually got more passion from these initial single views than when seeing the body of work. There was an "art student" quality that came through when seeing some of the "experiments" repeated over and over and the lack of change of mood, for me, got a little tiresome. It's not that I wasn't inspired by seeing the show and I learned a lot, etc., but whatever sense of passion I originally had was a bit undermined in seeing the whole show. I sensed more potential than fulfillment.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Fred, it doesn't damp any fire ;-) I brought up bodies of work because I noticed (googling around) how seeing a body of work brought forward qualities that a single image doesn't - and in it, to some extend, I saw passion. Or I think I did. It was more a sharing of thoughts and ideas than it was a statement of any kind.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Wouter, I meant I didn't want to dampen the fires about Woodman, who had been brought up as an example of passion. And I saw it tying into the body of work discussion in an interesting way, as a counterexample. I happen to agree with you that a body of work can manifest passion in a significant way.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Ah, sorry, misunderstood then!</p>

[Julie H]

<p>When, in the middle of a poem, I read the lines:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Those shredded inner tubes abandoned on the shoulders of thruways,<br>

Black and collapsed bodies, that tried and burst,<br>

And were left behind;<br>

[<em>from </em>Come with Me, <em>by Robert Bly</em>]</p>

</blockquote>

<p>... in my mind I get an easily photographic visual that, for me communicates a deeply felt passion from the poet.</p><p>Working in reverse, for me, such a photo without the lines of poetry would still (assuming quality) convey metaphoric passion. However, I can surely see how another person could see and respond strictly to the elegance of the forms of blasted rubber, asphalt, dirt or to some other kind of metaphoric meaning that their personal experience suggested. After all, a photograph of such would not be "bodies" that "tried."</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Odds are it would not. Should we expect a rigid, one-to-one correspondence between the roadside junk and the tried (and bested) bodies in Bly's poetry? Between the photographer's intentions and what the viewer gets? I do not think Bly did.</p>

<p>For that, we used to send telegrams, do mathematical proofs, write Buick Owners' manuals, receipts and bills, or sententious propaganda, not write poetry or make art.</p>

<p>(Besides, that poem was written back when car tires <em>had </em>tubes. Today that would be about tire carcasses.)</p>

<p> </p>

[Alex_Es]

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Alex - </strong>"Anyway, the rational mind is truly the most passionate for it sees clearly to object of its passion."<br>

I'm sure in your own mind that's true. Let me ask you a rhetorical, no-answer-required question: Do you think your own pictures are most passionate and clear-seeing?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Yeah, of course :-)</p>