ANDREWSARCHUS: Enter the Void

In 1924, Roy Chapman Andrews discovered a huge skull (which was twice the size of a modern Lion) of a predatory Mammal.  In constructing the animal from the skull, paleontologists came up with their claim that this Beast was the largest of Mammal Predators that have ever lived on the land (even larger that modern Polar Bear).  In honor of the discoverer, this Beast was named “Andrewsarchus”.

            The only evidence of the existence of Andrewsarchus is this one skull.  From that skull, scientists extrapolated this species to be a giant-wolf-like Animal.  Andrewsarchus from the Eocene epoch (60 to 37 million years ago) was a carnivore before the order of Carnivora came into being.  A member of the extinct order of Mesonyx, Andrewsarchus was a part of a group of carnivorous hoofed Animals, and possibly related to Pigs and Rhinos and perhaps Whales.

            Although He was sort of a predatory Pig, Andrewsarchus resembled a cross between a Wolf and a Hyena.  His jaws were so strong that Andrewsarchus could easily crush animal bones and turtle shells.  Scavenging for dead and dying animals, He preferred living near the water.

            However having only a skull to base an entire species on poses many questions.  Where does Andrewsarchus fit in the Mammal Family tree?  Is He really a Mesonychid of the Paleocene or a close Cousin?  Is He a full relative to Pigs, Horses, and extinct Litopterns?  No one really knows fully.  They can only guess at what Andrewsarchus was actually like.

            What comes out of this fog of questions is a wolf-like Predator with hooves, who is a Pig but not a Pig.  All that we do know about Andrewsarchus is that He had a large head and monstrous teeth.  In other words, He was scary.  Whatever He was, Andrewsarchus was also freakishly weird by our standards.

            Andrewsarchus invites us to enter the void, and go beyond our notions of certainty.  Once in the void, we find ourselves questioning everything that we know.  Living between guesses and assumptions, we ponder the grey areas of truth and fantasy.  However when we need leave, we must make sure that Andrewsarchus leads us back out. 

WOOLLY RHINOCEROS: Keeping Important Secrets

From 50,000 to 10,000 years ago, Woolly Rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) roamed throughout Europe and Northern Asia.  As detailed in many cave paintings, Woolly Rhinoceros was well-adapted to life in the Ice Age for He had an undercoat of thick fur and a top coat of shaggy hair.  To survive in the extreme conditions of the freezing cold, He also had a compact body.  In fact, Woolly Rhinoceros was stockier than Modern Rhinos.  (The modern Relative of Woolly Rhino is Sumatran Rhino, who has a light covering of fur.)

            As depicted on cave walls, Woolly Rhino is often shown leaning down scraping the ground with his horn.  When these horns of Woolly Rhinos were first found, people thought that they were the claws of giant Birds.  Made of compacted hair, these horns were flat unlike modern Rhinos, whose horns are rounder.  Living on the plains and in open woodlands, Woolly Rhino would sweep the snow away with his horn to uncover the grass underneath.

            Fossils of Woolly Rhino were found recently in 2011 on the Tibetan Plateau.  From examining these fossils, some scientists believe that He originated there during the Pliocene epoch about 3.6 million years ago.  Meanwhile, other fossils of Woolly Rhino were found near the Beringia land bridge on the Asian side.

            One major mystery that is puzzling to scientists is why Woolly Rhino did not cross over to North America.  What was so different between Asia and North America?  So far, Woolly Rhino has not told anyone why He did not migrate any farther.

            Behind a thin veil of mystery, Woolly Rhino keeps his secrets.  We may know nearly everything about Him, but there are still some things He keeps to Himself.  We know what Woolly Rhino ate, lived, and other facts but we do not know why He did not migrate to North America.  He keeps his own counsel about these things. We may never find out why Woolly Rhino decided to remain where He was.  Learn from Woolly Rhino how to keep important secrets from prying people. 

Art and Nature: The Scream of Nature by Edvard Munch (3 of 3)

The two paintings reflect different times in Munch’s life.  The artist painted the 1893 version whilst in the throes of poverty, drugs, and nihilistic living.  Seventeen years later, Munch had fought his way back from the brink of insanity and perpetual drunkenness.  The 1910 version is his mature perspective looking back on his original experience as a young man.  He divorces his original experience from his emotion.  Now, Munch paints the pure emotions of fear, dread, and insanity.

Edvard Munch said of his art, “It’s not the chair that should be painted, but what a person has felt at the sight of it.”  He wrote about his view on life, “Without anxiety and [mental] illness, I am a ship without a rudder…My sufferings are part of myself and my art.  They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art.”

Reviewing Munch’s artistic statements, I believe that the 1910 version succeeds in what he wanted for his art.  Instead of a graphic representation of the emotions of fear and dread, Munch captures the pure feeling of the soul shattering beyond repair.  The 1910 version draws the observer in and pins them down.  The scream erupts from within us for we are the scream itself.

Unlike the 1893 version, the 1910 painting burrows itself into our inner being.  We cannot separate ourselves from the 1910 version like we can with the 1893 version.  We cannot escape the moment of this painting.  We frantically grasp at the faraway witnesses only to fall back into the abyss.  The scream then erupts from the abrupt breaking of our soul.

Works Used

Bartel, Martin, “An Art Teacher’s Guide to Critique Art Work”, Goshen College, 2008, http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/critique1.html,

---, “Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth”, Art Institute of Chicago, 2011, http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/Munch/index,

Boddy-Evans Marion, “All About Painting”, About.com, http://painting.about.com/,

Brookes, Mona, “Drawing With Children”, G.P. Putnam: New York, 1996.

----, “Edvard Munch – Art History”, Edvard Munch Info, 2011, http://www.edvardmunch.info/,

Essak, Shelley, “All About Art History”, About.com, http://arthistory.about.com/,

Fineman, Mia, “EXISTENTIAL SUPERSTAR: Another look at Edvard Munch’s The Scream”, Slate.com, 22 Nov. 2005, http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2005/11/existential_superstar.html,

---, “Guide to Art History”, ArtHistory.net, 2009, http://www.arthistory.net/,

Janson, H.W. and Dora Jane Janson, “The Story of Painting”, Harry N Abrams: New York, 1966.

Lubow, Arthur, “Edvard Munch: Beyond ‘The Scream’”, Smithsonian Magazine, March 2006, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/munch.html,

----, “Understanding Formal Analysis”, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012, http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/formal_analysis.html,

Art and Nature: The Scream of Nature by Edvard Munch (2 of 3)

Negative space is used differently, as well, in the two paintings.  In the 1910 version, positive space overwhelms the painting allowing no rest for the eye.  What negative space that exists highlights the screaming face.  What relief the eye seeks is thwarted by directing it to the unsettling face.  In contrast, the negative space of the 1893 version settles the eye and gives it time to take in the scene.  However, the negative space created by the clothing and sea gives a sense of balance to the screaming face.  These negative spaces allow the painting a sense of gravitas, and cement the incident in our time and space.

In both versions, the emphasis is on the screaming figure.  The straight lines of the path and railing take the eye directly to the figure.  Moving along these lines, the eye becomes focused on the witnesses who seem detached from the scene.  The curved lines then force the eye back to the screaming head.  There is no escaping the agony of the scream from that soul.

Balance is achieved by the three point triangle of the two witnesses, the bulge of the sea, and the screaming figure.  (In buildings, triangles provide the greatest stability to structures.)  However, this triangle of the painting is inverted with the apex as the screamer.  Since the triangle is inverted, a sense of unease and precariousness permeates the painting.  However the triangle does create a sense of unity to the picture.  It settles the observer enough to see the scene and feel its impact.  The triangle also solidifies the proportions of the art work which are slightly askew.  Because of its inverted qualities, the triangle fools the eye into believing that everything is natural relative to each other.  Also, it allows a certain sense of calmness to pervade the artwork.

Also, the two versions differ greatly in their rhythms.  Although their patterns are similar with alternating light and dark stripes, each one pulsates at a different tempo.  In the 1893 version, the colors move quietly much like a mellow jazz tempo with the riffs being the circles around the screamer’s head and the point of land in the sea.  In addition, the straight lines provide the solid bass tempo, whilst the crashing waves give the staccato beat.  The witnesses act as a counterpoint to the screaming figure.  The rhythm of the 1893 version is calm but relentless.

The rhythm of the 1910 version reminds me of the music of Bella Bartok (Hungarian, 1881-1945).  The pulse is not the usual 4/4 time but a freakish 5/4 time.  It is contains dissonant rising and falling along with the cacophony of music.  There is a melody but it is one of the twelve-tone scale rather than the customary eight-tone one.  The eye and the ear find it hard to follow, but they are impelled to do so.  The waves of blues and purples crash against the oranges and yellow greens of the path.  The witnesses become loud cymbals to emphasize the screaming face.  The straight lines provide the bass rhythm that throbs under the wild syncopation of the curving lines.  The rhythm increases in volume until the observer is drawn into pounding essence of the screaming.  Then the scream erupts inside of the observer, and overwhelms them. 

Both versions focus on the anguish of the soul with the two on-lookers as witnesses to its breaking.  Because the 1893 version placed the incident in the here and now, the artwork attains a certain sense of gravitas.  The 1893 version reflects Munch’s own anguish of his own soul cracking open.  We feel as Munch did at that place and moment of time.  Moreover, the dark tones of the colors give a factual grounding for his time of panic.

In contrast, the 1910 version has no details for us to grab onto.  The swirling clouds and abstract sea combine to convey a sense of free floating anxiety.  The two witnesses become black crows ready to feast on the shattering soul.  The lack of facial features and the dramatically waving lines gives this emotion of total despair an otherworldliness.   The straight lines running through the screaming figure pierce the soul and pin it down.  The swirling, wavy figure then becomes us. 

Art and Nature: The Scream of Nature by Edvard Munch (1 of 3)

1893

1910

“The Scream” (1893 and 1910) by Edvard Munch

The artist, Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944) painted “The Scream” from a visionary experience that he had.  He tells of walking along a path near a Norwegian fjord with his friends.  As the blood red sun was setting, Munch felt “an infinite scream passing through nature”.  While painting this picture as a part of his series, “The Frieze of Life”, Munch described it as “the soul’s final breaking point.”

During his artistic career, Munch painted several versions of “The Scream”.  Since each picture was done at a different point in his life, they reflect the subtle changes in his style and point of view.  Examine the first version of 1893 with the later 1910 one to see how Munch’s perspective changed about his initial experience.  Although the subject matter remains the same, the paintings have become separate entities.

The original 1893 painting is a more realistic painting of the scene at the fjord.  Although the screaming figure is stylized, the observer can tell that he is a male human.  Moreover the sky, sea, railing, and on-lookers are realistically painted.  The scene is stylized but still realistic.

In contrast, the 1910 painting reflects a more abstract style.  The sea merges into the sky, while the path becomes a straight line leading into the horizon.  The screaming figure ceases to be a human male, and the onlookers merge with the sky.

To understand their differences, the elements of each painting need to be examined more closely.  The similarities are that both versions include the diagonal straight lines of the path and the curling wavy lines of the sea and sky.  However, the lines of the 1893 version are calm with natural shapes dominating the space.  Meanwhile, the 1910 version has ramrod straight lines and gyrating curves which become semi-circles.  Also, the shapes of the 1910 picture are the artificial ones of squares and circles.

Comparing the colors of each painting leads to uncovering more differences. The 1893 picture has conventional colors for each of the subjects portrayed.  The railing and path are depicted in various shades of brown.  The clothing of the people is navy and black; the same as the sea.  The sky is filled with oranges, yellows, and light blues of a sunset.  These colors mesh well together to keep the observer from being unsettled by the experience of the screaming man.

However it seems that Munch’s aim in the 1910 version is to completely unsettle the observer.  Nothing is painted in a natural color.  The garish oranges and yellows of the sky flow into the equally garish oranges and yellows of the path.  The yellows, which are tinged with green, then clash with the blood red of the oranges of the painting.  The royal blue of the sea creates discord with the various oranges.  Finally, the blue and purple figures are paired with the yellow greens to create a noxious stomach-churning edginess.