Reading Response: John Cage

John Cage is an example of a very smart and talented artist that is also a philosopher. He was so intelligent  and was brought up in a very normal environment in a very well to do family. He was interested in music and noise as an art medium. The story of his life as the son of a wealthy inventor and composer with great grades and a high college education is very interesting to his practices later as an artist. It seemed that his failings as a composer, even though he did compose simple and beautiful pieces, and his rejection of the idea of becoming a man of religion led him to examine things more closely than some of us do. He had a love for sound, just simple and raw sound being the thing that draws people together as a sort of international language. Sound gives people much pleasure as it is and his work drew on the happiness and universal understanding that comes from experiencing sound. This of course could be done in a dramatic and dark way as well for there are some sounds that we know mean trouble, hurt or pain but I think that John Cage wanted to light people up rather than expose darkness. He did a piece 4'33'' that showed the inner workings of an orchestra and the relationship between the conductor and the musicians that is comedic in a way but also very expressive of how music is done and that the sounds of the people themselves could be examines and considered musical as well. His composition "Dream" is a piano piece that I think is really lovely and relaxing. I used to sit as a kid and play on the piano stringing together notes that sounded good to me and that's what his compositional work reminds me of. I never had any trining in the musical field but I always enjoyed doing this sort of thing.  He had talent for pieces that would be a string of sounds that were nice when put together if nothing else. His work has a sort of existentialist theme to it because it invites the listener to realize their own place in the world and the sound that they make and those that surround them. I also enjoyed listening to his ideas on sound and silence in the Video "about silence on youtube. It tells his philosophy behind his work.
Link to "about silence": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y
Link to "Dream":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExUosomc8Uc
Link to 4'33'': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E

Art Show Review

Today I went to the Santa Barbara Museum or art. I wanted to check it out and see how it compared to the LA museums that I am used to. It was a lot smaller but they did have some good exhibitions going on right now. It is a formal and small museum. I was kind of sad that they didn't have any garden areas but it was really great all the same.

The exhibition that I paid special attention to was the Tsukioka Kōgy exhibition of Japanese wood block prints made from scenes in theatre productions. The exhibition was called Noh Drama. It was an action filled exhibition that featured great traditional style wood block art. The style was a little more modern than that of Hiroshige who died about 50 years before Kogy was boen but I could still see the definite traditional style present in the work. This exhibition was extremely interesting to me because I had seen a massive collection of Hiroshige's work on display at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and was curious to compare the two artists. I think one of the main differences in the work was that in Kogy's pieces the background was often in grey creating a lot of contrast between the subjects of the print and the background whereas Hiroshige preserved a lot of detail in a very vivid background. It was interesting to see the evolution of this tradition and one of Kogy's pieces even reminded me of modern anime. (below). I couldn't help but notice the recurring theme of the ocean. It makes sense that the ocean which is so important to the Japanese because it's a main source of where they get their food from. It is a great symbol of their culture.

Kogy's piece titled Nue (1925-1928)

Hiroshige's Naruto Rapids

I think that the art of wood block printing is so beautiful and so stylistically appealing. I love to go to see these kind of exhibitions when I can.

Press Release of the exhibition that I went to: http://www.sbma.net/library/files/Noh%20Drama%20release%20FINAL.pdf