The Positive Contradiction(s) of Melancholia
Introductory editorial from the editor of the special issue.
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Introductory editorial from the editor of the special issue.
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Ever since Aristotle’s conjoining of the creative and the melancholic state of mind – in the 33rd section of Problems –, much has been written about the relationship between artistic output and melancholy, depression, isolation or even madness. The artist – but also the philosopher – is caught at the centre of a polarising and ongoing debate, with those who wish to see him in a purity of inward contemplation that is unreconcilable with communal living on one side, and those who believe that his main purpose should be to create for others, that there can be no humanity in the search for solitude, on the other. But the figure that best encompasses Aristotle’s description of melancholic isolation as well as its inwardness and detachment from the physical world is none other that the hermit.This paper explores the question of eremitism, the dilemmas between communal living and inward contemplation, using the figure of the hermit also as an image for the melancholic individual. It traces its particular issues and problematics as portrayed in various sources of criticism of the phenomenon and contextualises the discussion as a matter of spatial analysis, focused on the images and places of eremitism and melancholy: the city and the desert. This perspective also emphasises a number of questions related to eremitism and its “problem”: how far away (isolated) should the hermit be? Should he ever return and, if so, when? And the most important question of all: why must the hermit move toward isolation, toward the desert?Looking into not just Aristotle but also texts by Szymborska, Tennyson, Buzzati (as well as the hermit in the visual arts) this paper traces the discussion around these questions and attempts to provide some answers.
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This paper discusses melancholy as an existential solitude that is acknowledged and amplified through the cinematic experience. In order to prove that this feeling is not only a psychological distress, but it is mainly perceived through the manifestations of the body and, paradoxically, through interaction rather that isolation, we will rely on the strong connection between phenomenology and the cinematic perception, as highlighted by film theorists and by philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, but also on some of the ideas belonging to existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that we have thought suitable for the analysis of two melancholy-toned films: Melancholia (2011), directed by Lars von Trier and Solaris (1972), by Andrei Tarkovsky.
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This text examines the history of melancholy starting from Ancient Greece with Hippocrates’s Humorism and going up to its current form, namely an isolated subspecies of clinical depression, the term being almost redundant today. Besides, it showcases several examples of melancholic traits in cinema. On another level this work takes a look at how and why the semantics of melancholy veered towards depression in the twentieth century. Feminine melancholy will be a recurring theme throughout this whole text, with a highlight on women’s place in every narrative on melancholy that I will analyse.
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The paper focuses on the way melancholia can be rendered visible in movie while perceived as a perpetual feeling – an affect in Deleuze’s terms. Existential crises, horrors, traumas and the unavoidable quest for truth are all tackled by Alain Resnais; the paper strives to analyse the way colours (or lack thereof) are used so as to give rise to a perpetual – yet ephemeral – feeling of melancholia. This paradoxical view is at the core of Resnais’s movies and enables the appearance of haecceties – elements which give a sense of uniqueness to the movie – at the intersection of corporal and non-corporal elements. Resnais’ cinematography goes on the same line on which Picasso imagines painting: Painting is a blind man’s profession. The painter paints what he feels and not what he sees. Similarly, Resnais seeks to create cinematography that suggests rather than shows.Melancholia occurs at the meeting point of time and space in Resnais’ cinematography, coordinates which, once intertwined, greatly influence the characters’ configuration, the imagery and the sound. The paper will focus mostly on Nuit et brouillard and Hiroshima mon amour as they envision this perpetual state of melancholia. The second part of the paper will address the subject of memory, affect and becoming, as seen in relation to identity and the way characters are situated in a space in between, nameless and open to development and to new possibilities.
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The melancholic hero in a nostalgic world forms the dominant element of artistry in Jiří Menzel’s films from the beginning of his work in the 1960s to the present time. The theme of this study is the analysis of melancholic elements, focusing on the director’s last two films, in which he utilises similar stylistic and narrative practises as in his earlier work, but also a significant change in style occurs in the construction of the nostalgic world and the protagonist’s character. The melancholy hero abandons the security of the alternative nostalgia and is confronted with the dangerous outside world ultimately to come across self-reflection. These changes profoundly disrupt the functionality of the director’s artistry; the films were panned by both critics and viewers.The conclusion of the study will be based on the analysis of chosen elements that generate melancholic and nostalgic emotion (construction of a melancholic character, structure of an idyllic chronotope, the style of the film) to capture the allegorical function of melancholy in the structure of an artwork which symptomatically portrays social and existential states.
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Starting from a plurivalent theoretical analysis of the Greek term nostos (both as a return to an identity of self, and as a formula for approaching the modern concept of nostalgia), this paper aims to follow the modality in which a literary thinking changes and it is sucombate by a more spatial cinematic thinking. More precisely, from the description of a singular affect (in the case of Thomas Mann’s narrative, Death in Venice, the representation of a nostalgic reality fluctuates into a dilute, synaesthetic exposure (in the case of 1971 Luchino Visconti’s film, Morte a Venezia).The purpose of this research paper is, therefore, to expand the analysis of Visconti’s cinematic intuitionism. The perspective changes through assembly, activating not the need for a fixed point of observation, but, on the contrary, distinct ways in which the sequences outline their own truth in relation to the eternal precondition (both at Mann and Visconti) of death tragedy.
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The purpose of this essay is to investigate the melancholic nature of desire in the films “That Obscure Object of Desire” and “I Only Want You to Love Me”. Firstly, a definition of melancholy will be given and then an analysis of the way in which the nature of desire creates melancholy in these films. Also, an exegesis of these films different aspects, how they interact and how they function together in order to achieve a feeling of melancholy in the viewer. A theoretical support for these ideas will be given by Lacan, Žižek and Freud.
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Wurstisen Lute Book contains intabulations of four Latin motets among its enormous number of pieces. The first three bear the authorship of Orlando di Lasso, while the last one is a barely known piece of music. Before focusing on the musical content and the process of arranging the vocal models to lute pieces, I find it necessary to focus my attention on the outstanding musical figure of Orlando di Lasso and the influence of his music on the lute repertory in the second half of the 16th century. Another crucial topic that needs to be discussed is the problem of musica ficta, its guidelines and positions among some prominent modern musicologists. This preliminary data leads to the core part of the study – the motets of Lasso, intabulated for lute and written down by Wurstisen. It has become clear that these particular arrangements were first published by Melchior Neusidler in his Italian print of 1566, only four years after their original appearance, and were reprinted later in 1571 by Pierre Phalese. The analysis sheds light on the questions of how the intabulations were compiled, which rules were preferable, how the ornamentation and passages were used, and whether any word-painting was involved. The examination supports the notion of the special influence which the two Bavarian-based masters Lasso and Neusidler had on Wurstisen. A further examination of his manuscript has the potential of revealing more about it.
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The study presents two unknown letters in German, part of the epistolary legacy of composer Dimitar Nenov (1901–1953), kept in his personal archive (Scientific Archive of BAS, Dimitar Nenov fund 216). Both letters bespeak creative collaborations: with cellist Slavko Popov (1904–?), popular abroad but not in Bulgaria, while the second letter adds to what is already known from Nenov’s correspondence with conductor Ljubomir Romansky. The article focuses on particular sketches and drafts for piano and cello, kept in the archive, and their possible relation to the letters in an attempt to date and identify these with precision. Using music and historiographic analyses of both text and music, the article exposes an unknown arrangement of Chopin’s Nocturne No 20 Cis Moll Posth for cello and piano, written by Dimitar Nenov. A scholarly insight into source material based on a holistic analysis seeks to piece together a complete picture of the records, both of texts and music, kept in the composer’s personal archive.
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The article seeks to examine the key principles of vocal work with Bodra Smiana Children’s Choir. A musician, who has made an outstanding contribution to the development of choral singing in Bulgaria, Boncho Bochev established new criteria for choral sound. Inspired by the example of foreign choirs visiting Bulgaria, he drew heavily on both music literature and the experience acquired by his collaboration with the greatest composers and conductors of his day. Boncho Bochev developed a chorister selection system, where the entirety of musical abilities, e.g. an ear for music, voice quality, smooth moving between registers, tone colour and artistic skills, mattered in a great degree. After their admission, the children were taught the technique of posture and breathing by the more experienced choristers. The conductor put together the choral parts with a view to correctly developing the young singers’ voices and balanced choral sound, whereas long-term coaching stabilised their choral vocal habits. Choir coaching was practically oriented and based on incessant audio control. Arranging choristers on stage was also very important as it provided audibility and guaranteed the achievement of a homogenous sound mass. Boncho Bochev strove for the typical of Bodra Smiana Children’s Choir crystal and at the same time soft sound, achieved through ‘natural’ sound emission and effortless classical singing without straining the vocal apparatus. Vocal work with his choir was a continuous process: from the specially developed vocal warm-up system to the impactive onstage interpretation. By solving a number of vocal, acoustic and organisational problems, Boncho Bochev achieved world-class artistic performance. He shared his vast experience in a series of publications, courses, seminars and textbooks for comprehensive schools. The sound of Bodra Smiana Children’s Choir became a showpiece for other such choirs, a source of inspiration and an example to follow. This sound, however, should in no way be regarded separately, but as an important aspect of his comprehensive conductorial methods.
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This article concern a theoretical and composition experiment, writing a compound (double) fugue in the style of organ triosonata. This project includes using the style and idiomatic characteristics of the genre, as well as being a polyphonic experiment, using different types of invertible counterpoint. This is a part of a larger project, writing of six fugues, from three- to six-voiced ones, with two, three and four themes, and written in different styles – a Baroque one, as well as Romantic, late Romantic/Impressionist, and Hindemithian. This project studies the technical and creative challenges to the polyphonist and composer.
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Klara Mechkova: “Triphony and Triphonic Musical System in the Life of the Byzantine Octoechos“ Plovdiv: Astarta, 2018, 291 p. (ISBN 978-954-350-265-3) In Klara Mechkova’s new monograph the topic of triphony has for the first time ever become an object of independent research. Triphony has been set forth as a subsystem within the system of tetraphony, which is a basic structural unit of the Byzantine musical system. Triphony creates new points of sound support, reevaluates functional relationships and provides unlimited opportunities for unfolding the melos in the narrow tonal range of tetraphonic voice organization. The musical sources employed in the study of triphony include the manuscript books, rendered in Middle Byzantine notation of the sticherarion type from the 13th and 14th centuries, and kept in Bulgarian repositories – the Centre for SlavoByzantine Studies “Prof. Ivan Dujčev” and the Central Historical and Archaeological Institute. The eighth-mode “Tearchio neumati” sticheron has been analyzed thoroughly on the basis of nine manuscript samples from the 12th-14th centuries. The subject of triphony gets examined on two levels – structural and functional. The terminology is based on source texts, but the author enhances it with terms of her own coinage, such as monophony, complex (compound) triphony, and triphonic martirii. The emblematic forms of triphony, such as nana, nenano and legetos, have been explicated through the phenomenon of “uneven fourths”. Two didactic handbooks, namely “rhomboid graphic” by John Plusiadinoss (15th c.) and the diagram by John Laskaris (15th c.), have been deciphered for the very first time.
More...„Българските църкви-гробници”: преразглеждане на понятието на Андре Грабар?
This article focuses on the cross-analysis of the Grabarian concept of "Bulgarian sepulchral churches". In the light of new architectural and functional comparisons, we will present the elements that go against this classification. Our objections will then be extended to the hypotheses of the principal authors who have attempted to revisit the Grabarian theory.
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The purpose of this paper is to compose an interdisciplinary questioning by going through the methodological studies at the field of translation criticism with reference to discussions about the invisibility of the. Cause to the question the basic problematic is the simple comparisons which are formed by ignoring the subjectivity of the nature of translation. At this paper, by using John Berger's The Ways of Seeing (2018), like reproducing a picture, how indeed every translation is the reproduction of the original will be handled. Also from the argument of that; uniqueness of the original work is not the reason of what it says as a unique but derives from being a unique and how it is evaluated, how the translator is evaluated at translation criticism will be defined. Today many people who make translation critiques are literature critics, translators or scholars of social sciences in the field of translation studies. Sometimes critiques formed with statistical comparisons, which reject the subjectivity of the translation nature, ignore the position of the translator. As Berger says; while the painter's way of seeing is reconstituted by the marks he makes on the canvas or paper, every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing (Berger: 21). Thus, our way of seeing is the most important point that forms a translation critique. At the end of this paper, at translation criticism, the possible contributions to the field of translation studies by questioning and interpreting how the information, which are continually moved in, against the original, which always holds its own place, is translated as in the reproduced paintings and the adventure of the translator will be described.
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From the traces of the first being to mankind, the day-to-day, the abstract system of thought has created a culture full of material and spiritual gifts. Archeology knowledge also contributes to understanding the past by means of traces of this manmade cultural artifact and thus to making sense of the present. The information and data obtained from the archeological science are utilized in all areas of science. The field of art, on the other hand, is nourished from this culture while it emerges as a result of human culture, and its sources are often provided by archeology. Ceramic material has a distinct place in archaeological finds. The characteristics of the material give important information about life and technology. Ever since the Neolithic period, ceramics have been one of the most important parts of human culture with its continuous use. In this study, studies of three different ceramic artists, İrfan Aydın, Şirin Koçak Özeskici and Ayşe Balyemez, which reflect the effects of the cultural heritage in our country, were examined. In the works of each artist, which are shaped by archaeological data, the processes of creating an artistic language and the ways of using the material are examined. The studies are handled on the axis of culture they cultivate. In their works some of the artists, who sometimes question the value of old stories, sometimes a trace, and some of the time, have also been included in their own expressions.
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Various of artistic disciplines such as painting, literature, photography and cinema, visual arts, auditory arts and dramatic arts interact with each other in the creation of items such as composition, color, storytelling. Over time, these images have become images that the classical cinema has enjoyed. While Muybridge's photographs are the starting point for animated films, digital art takes advantage of the idea of moving images. Apart from art branches, video games utilize linear narrative methods (storytelling). The video game, especially Silent Hill (1999), is not to be remotely inspired by other art circles, imitating the scenes of white screen. Bosch, Bellmer in character design; in town design, Lynch, Hitchcock and other directors; The painters like Wyeth are stunning. The purpose of this study is to reinforce the interactions of the art branches with intertextual and picturesque visual examples and to examine them by considering literary, pictorial (picturesque) and cinematic methods.
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In Western World art, in the 1960's get out from galleries and museums to public area; has showed itself in many art's practices which uses various materials, techniques and forms that are combined under the definition of public art. With the 1970s, public art was seen as a part of urban design and artist began to work interdisciplinary with space designer. Public artwork emerges in urban design from landscape design to architectural element design, from placement to urban furnishings or surface designs. These works are now taking on different forms in the direction of the modern technologies and possibilities. Public art is considered in many dimensions from concept formation to urban space components in the design process. Public artwork traditionally requires that an artwork is simply placed in a public space. In this context, the public art traditionally includes many artistic things that have been made and are being made up to day by day in all areas with access to open or closed doors. The works are mostly found in sculpture discipline using stone, metal, wood and similar materials and ceramic applications resistant to outdoor effects. In this article, the design process and application phases of the ceramic surface works which is prepared in cooperation with Ondokuz Mayıs University Fine Arts Faculty and Samsun Metropolitan Municipality in 2015 were handled and its visibility in the city was examined.
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