Rembrandt's "The Philosopher in Meditation"

Dutch painter and etcher Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, arguably one of the greatest portrait painters and printmakers in art history, has created countless works that exhibit his flawless modeling abilities and composition. During a highly prolific period in Rembrandt’s career, The Philosopher in Meditation (1632) was created. Indicative of Rembrandt’s strong sense of lighting and directionality, The Philosopher in Meditation exhibits the painter’s mastery of shading and tonality.

Through a relatively monochrome yet tastefully implemented color palate, Rembrandt succeeds at creating an interesting composition through a minimalist setting dominated by strong light. Through the setting, Rembrandt exhibits his natural sense of lighting, and tastefully adheres to basic principles of motivation and directionality. Through the natural light motivated by the window on the left of frame, and the fire-motivated light on the lower right of frame, an interesting visual and narrative juxtaposition is created through the separation in tonality. While Rembrandt guides us to view the philosopher by the window first, he also guides us to the man tending the fire as our eyes scan from left to right across the frame as if reading words in a book.

Through lighting and composition, Rembrandt creates a rhythmic, visually guided and natural experience for the viewer in The Philosopher in Meditation. The piece naturally guides viewers across the frame in a constantly developing narrative evolution. The Philosopher in Meditation communicates Rembrandt’s mastery over lighting/modeling, shading/tonality, and his respect for the viewer in creating a naturally flowing composition which focuses the eye and communicates the subject matter of the painting.

John Singer Sargent's "Spanish Dancer"

A leading portrait painter of his era, John Singer Sargent has created numerous portraitures throughout his career. One of Sargents more well know portraits, entitled the Spanish Dancer (c 1879-1882) is indicative of Sargent’s earlier work. Unfortunately, Sargent fails to match the artistic skill and prowess of his predecessors, as indicated by the poor use of modeling techniques and motivated lighting developed by the highly skilled portrait painters before his time.

While Sargent maintains an interesting color palate and framing approach in Spanish Dancer, he fails to create visually interesting surroundings in which the subject of the portrait exists. While succeeding at creating minimalist surroundings to draw ones attention to the main subject of the painting, Sargent fails to create motivation for his lighting/modeling, and also fails to maintain basic principles of consistent directionality. With Sargent’s failure to motivate lighting, there is no visual payoff in the artist’s choice to highlight the dancer’s de-saturated dress above her face. There is also no motivation for the back wall to be not only the same brightness level as the dancer’s fleshtone, but the same tone as well.

While Sargent attempted to create a dramatic portrait using high contrast lighting and deep tonality within a monochrome color palate, he fails at creating motivation for shading and tonality, thus alienating the viewer by providing no guidance as to the center-point of the portrait. Instead, he inexplicably places attention upon the subject’s textureless dress, and neglects both the subject’s facial expressions and body movement. Sargent creates an uninteresting image in Spanish Dancer through his failure to motivate lighting and modeling.

Jason Buhrmester's Black Dogs

From our initial encounter with Patrick Sullivan buying Black Sabbath albums, to a near escape from the Haven Street Pawnshop with a 58' Les Paul guitar in hand amidst flashing red and blue lights in the rearview, Black Dogs eases audiences into an entertaining journey with a ragtag team of four outcasts that have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

Jason Buhrmester's debut novel Black Dogs follows the Baltimore-born misfit crew of four; Patrick the ring leader, Alex, Keith, and Pete...or Frenchy, and their attempt to heist a speculated sum of $100,000 from major rock-band Led Zeppelin during a 1973 concert in New York City. The truth of the story: in July 1973 $203,000 of Led-Zeppelin's money did in fact go missing before a concert at New York City's Madison Square Garden, stolen from a safe deposit box at the Drake Hotel. The fiction of the story: everything else. As Black Dogs notes, this is the "possibly" true story of classic rock's greatest robbery, meaning that Patrick and his team perform a historically factually event through undocumented means.

Black Dogs gets off to a medium-paced start, and spends time setting up the crew before delving into the operation itself. Interestingly enough, for a quick 250 page read, Buhrmester's choice to spend time on character development as opposed to jumping immediately into the action serves the narrative well. Although centered primarily on the events surrounding Patrick (the novel's protagonist), one gains a transparent understanding of the three secondary characters comprising the other 75% of Patrick's crew through intense characterization taking place in the initial chapters. Simply put, Black Dogs is a character driven narrative with strong characterization supporting all four of its central characters.

While the plot of Black Dogs is nothing to write home about, and while the first thirty-five pages tend to drag, the narrative is almost certain to improve continually for all readers up to the final resolution with a consistent "one-upping" from one chapter to the next, and an attention retaining setup in what seems to be a literary version of The Sandlot meets Ocean's 11 plus a splash... or rather an entire cup of grittiness. Zeppelin fans are likely enjoy the narrative although they are not so likely to appreciate the protagonist's (or more directly, the author's) opinions of the band, and while classic rock fanatics are sure to understand and appreciate more of the rock-related allusions which Black Dogs hints at, the average reader won't miss out on the story even if a few punch-lines come across as confusing. Black Dogs is a fun read, and while it’s nothing more than a decent debut novel, it's sure to keep you entertained for a couple days.

Avatar

A thrill ride to remember, Avatar is a pioneering film which utilizes unprecedented technology to communicate a futuristic tale of cowboys and Indians. Avatar tells the tale of ex-marine Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington), who enters a surrogate body as a means to learn more about the indigenous “Na’vi” community and their soil, which is ridden with valuable natural elements. Initially it is Sully’s goal to relocate the Na’vi as a means to make their natural elements accessible to American investors, but his interest in Neytiri (portrayed by Zoe Salanda), a Na’vi native, and his eventual understanding of the Na’vi culture give him second thoughts.

With relatively cliché story elements, the plot of Avatar is little more than an animated allusion (with poor social commentary to boot) upon our present day war in Iraq over natural resources. It is the process through which this narrative is communicated, not the narrative itself, that makes Avatar memorable, and in many cases, pioneering. With the use of unprecedented three-dimensional technology, combined with motion capture elements and special effects that could scare George Lucas up a tree, Avatar is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. Much like the success of the original Star Wars trilogy, Avatar relies heavily on its delivery (and less on its content) for its financial, and in this case, critical success.

Unlike many traditional blockbusters of 2009, Avatar is able to maintain its novelty and excitement past the initial explosions and car chases (or in Avatar’s case, “Toruk” chases… just wait, you’ll know exactly what I’m referring to once you see it). Avatar’s ability to remain interesting past its generic plot and mediocre acting exists solely in its technology and visual elements. To put it in perspective, when I first saw the film, I felt as if I finally understood what it was like for moviegoers in the 1920s witnessing their first “talkie.” Avatar is so new, even in this day and age of ever evolving technology, that it is almost certain to surprise you from frame one, no matter how many times your friend told you it was “awesome,” or how many 2D trailers you’ve seen on the internet.

When you finally decide to pony up the dough, and devote the saga-like three hours to whiteness the mind-blowing culmination of A Bug’s Life and Star Wars on steroids, do yourself a favor and spend the extra couple bucks to whiteness the epicness we’ve come to know as Avatar on IMAX 3D. Does Avatar deserve to be nominated for every Academy Award ever conceived, probably not, does it deserve to win the better-known albeit lesser recognized award of “Best Movie Ever Made-” most definitely, at least in comparison to the other titles of 2009.