BPV 1 TC

Kunstgeschiedenis

The high importance of the progress of an artwork in conceptual art

 

Barbara Potyka

DTFO 2

 

 

During the lectures of History of Art, that I had opportunity to take during the first year’s course I found the work of conceptual artists very interesting. My first and the strongest association with conceptual art was the mentioned during the lectures work of Sol le Witt as well as the work of my favourite polish author of concrete poetry – Stanislaw Drozdz. The chosen by me two absolutely different artists reminded me about something I might forget in the last few months, namely, that the progress itself in creating of an artwork can bring much more joy and interesting experiences with than the end result. I could notice that few weeks ago while helping Saskia Noor van Imhoff with finishing her sculpture “Mijn archief” for Fotofestival Naarden. Since then I’m in doubt if documentary photography the right for me choice was; I’m thinking still more and more about autonomous visual art, which leaves definitely more space for the imagination and makes a concept happen without the pressure, that the end result is the most important in the whole process of creating.

When I was at grammar school, my teacher of literature passed on to me her love for poetry. And so I got to know my for years on end favourite author of concrete poetry – Stanislaw Drozdz. His poems are far from the classical perception of poetry, but for me his work is more than only poetry; it’s a quintessence of love for words. As Drozdz said: “I think that everything I had to say, holds my work (…)”. Drozdz was born in 1939 in Sławków and died this year on March 29. Has a degree in Polish philology from Wroclaw University, where he studied between 1959-1964. In 1964, he debuted as a poet with traditional poems in "Arka. Informator Klubu Młodzieży Artystycznej ZSP", and in 1967 started writing his first concrete pieces. He is among the most eminent representatives of concrete poetry in the world and since 1968 has been exhibiting in Poland and abroad. Eleven years later he edited and published the book “Poezja konkretna. Wybor tekstow polskich oraz dokumentacja z lat 1966-77” ("Concrete Poetry. A Selection of Polish Texts and Documentation 1966-1977").

Stanislaw Drozdz became very fast one of the leading animators of concrete poetry in Poland, organizing by the way many exhibitions and academic sessions on the subject. Since 1971, he has regularly collaborated with Warsaw's Galeria Foksal, where his work is shown till these days. His works hang also in museum and private collections in Poland (e.g. National Museum in Wroclaw, Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw) and abroad (e.g. Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Schwarz Galeria d'Arte in Milan, Museum of Modern Art in Hunfeld).

 

He is a full member of the Association of Polish Fine Artists (ZPAP). In 2001, he won the prestigious Koscielski Foundation award for "combining in a creative and visionary manner two spiritual disciplines: art and poetry". In 2003, he represented Poland at the 50th Venice Biennial.

Concrete poetry emerged as an artistic genre in 1953, when its manifesto was proclaimed at an international symposium in Stockholm. It was particularly popular in the West in the 1950s and 1960s. Concrete poets create poems in the shape of visual compositions formed with arrangements of letters and typographic signs that do not follow any semantic or syntactic relations. Drozdz himself so characterizes the discipline:"...concrete poetry consists in isolating the word, making it autonomous. In isolating it from the linguistic context, as well as from the context of the non-linguistic reality, so as to make the word signify in itself and unto itself. In concrete poetry form is determined by content, and content by form. Traditional poetry describes an image. Concrete poetry writes with it."

Drozdz has throughout his career referred to his works as "ideaforms"; has been creating them since 1967 and already a year later exhibiting (he debuted at the now-nonexistent Galeria Pod Mona Liza in Wroclaw). The term "ideaforms" derives from the forms of ideas, or concepts, that are realized at the moment of their formation in physical space. "Ideaforms are substantial-formal, self-analyzing codifiers of reality, integrating science and art, poetry and the visual arts.”

Ideaforms are both text and image, the categories, without losing their specificity, flowing into each other. The artist creates texts on two-dimensional surface and texts in three-dimensional space. Drozdz's texts are highly varied: there are letter texts, word texts (e.g. KLEPSYDRA / SANDGLASS, ZAPOMINANIE / FORGETTING, 1967), digit texts (e.g. SAMOTNOŚĆ / SOLITUDE, 1967), sign texts (e.g. NIEPEWNOŚĆ-WAHANIE-PEWNOŚĆ / UNCERTAINTY-HESITATION-CERTAINTY, 1968), and texts-objects ( ).

Because I’m limited to three pictures only I’ll try to describe his according me most interesting texts, beginning from ZAPOMINANIE / FORGETTING, which is one of Drozdz's early poems. The artist wrote the word "zapominanie" a number of times one below the other. The word on top has all the letters, and in each consecutive line the word "zapominanie" is reduced by a single letter, until it is but alone period. At some point, the word's original meaning gets lost.

The three-part composition UNCERTAINTY-HESITATION-CERTAINTY incorporates punctuation marks only. The upper board is covered evenly with question marks, in the middle one question mark is mixed at equal proportions with exclamation marks, and in the bottom the artist has placed exclamation marks only.

 

 

 

In 1977 Drozdz executed at Galeria Foksal his famous work MIEDZY / BETWEEN.

 

      

 

 

The space of the gallery, a white cube, was covered with even rows of randomly chosen letters forming together the word "miedzy". The latter however never appeared directly. The artist in a way led the viewer into the text and into the word "miedzy". As Tadeusz Slawek, one of the commentators of Drozdz's work noticed, the viewer had the impression of being read by the text rather than the other way round. The artist himself described the process of looking at a text so arranged as watching it "from a fly's point of view."

In 2001, as part of the AMS Outdoor Gallery, Stanislaw Drozdz's piece LUB / OR was displayed on 400 billboards in a dozen cities throughout Poland. The presentation accompanied the artist's major exhibition at Cracow's Bunkier Sztuki.

In 2002, Drozdz once again transformed the space of Galeria Foksal. This time letters or words proved unnecessary. The artist used a thin, semi-transparent fishing line that filled the whole space. Several persons worked for two weeks stretching 1,200 meters of a 1 mm-thick line between the gallery's walls, floor and ceiling. The viewers were not let inside, the work could only be viewed from outside, from the hallway. I was then one of the viewers and need to admit that the long, uncomfortable trip from Krakow to Warszawa was worth to see that happening. It was an incredible feeling to experience fishing line as a part of art. Since then I’ve changed my way of looking at ordinary use gadgets. After the first impression I was thinking, that it could be actually much more interesting if all the activity of the last two weeks of hard working were recorded and exhibit alongside the happening. I know that that was not the intention of the author, but anyway… I would do it.

A bit later, at the 50th Art Biennial in Venice, Drozdz showed a project called ALEA IACTA EST - THE DIE HAS BEEN CAST.

The walls of the Polonia pavilion were covered with about 250,000 slightly enlarged (3x3 cm) rolling dice, demonstrating all the possible combinations that can be obtained by throwing a set of six dice. In the centre of the space stood a billiard table with exactly such a set. In a user manual printed in 40 languages the artist invited the viewer to roll the dice and then find the combination obtained among the 46,656 possible results on the wall.

Drozdz's works are at once timeless and contemporary. Thanks to its autonomy and lack of reference to any specific context, the word in concrete poetry refers the viewer solely to the linguistic system as a relational grid. And that’s exactly, what still captures all the viewers to his artwork and make them see ordinary things in a different light.

 

After my first experiences with conceptual art in my own country, I met the work of Sol LeWitt during the lectures of History of Art. I’m burning with shame, that it had place that late in my life, that I never before had the opportunity to see his work or I’ve seen it but had no idea who is the author of a particular artwork. Anyway, I was probably the only one among my classmates (and probably not only among my classmates…), who has never heard before about LeWitt. So I’m not going to describe his work or his biography, but I’ll try to explain what I find so fascinating in his way of thinking by creating and what absorbs my thoughts while admiring his artwork.

The most interesting for me was his assumption, that the idea or concept itself (in conceptual art) is the most important part of the artist’s work. In any other form of art the concept or idea may change in the course of realization; in the conceptual art the concept precedes the realization and is actually ready before the artist begins to work on it. “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art” – exactly this sentence stirred my imagination so much, that I started to look for more information about this trend. Sol LeWitt in turn, divided the idea from realization and passed off none of those two aspects; he divided the conceptual aspect of working from the perceptional; the idea of working from its sensual manifestation. The conceptual art is according LeWitt an obverse of the perceptual art, where the last one is intended for senses, an eye and the emotions, while the first one to the humans mind.

This what makes his assumptions even more interesting is that an artist should eliminate any subjective element like the taste or caprice, because an artwork should be objective; the artist should make basic rules and forms, which he will ply with during realization of his work. The idea itself, even if it’s not going to be played out, it’s an artwork as well as the finished product. That’s why all of the steps he takes - sketches, memos, drawings, models, studies, thoughts, successful or unsuccessful trials – are very interesting. They show the process of thinking of an artist, sometimes much more fascinating than the end result, because “conceptual art is only good when the idea is good”!!!

I find also very important a fact, that according LeWitt the artist is not a kind of ape, whose behavior must be explained by a civilized critic. We are artists and we can clearly express the assumptions of our work; the text must not be considered as a manifest but a description rather of our art practice and that’s why it can change together with the changes in our experiences! It’s obviously not a suggestion for all artists, because there is no only one way of creating art and that’s why the propositions of conceptual art of Sol LeWitt has been earlier read in the context of his own artwork as a conceptual aspect output of minimal art (LeWitt was also one of the main exponents of minimal art).

And here I would like to mention his work “Four Colour Drawing” from 1970, where the artist operates with four colours (yellow, black, blue and red), four types of line (vertical, horizontal and diagonal) and an instruction how to connect the colours with the lines. Separation of the conceptual aspect of work from the perceptual let the artists manipulate with two different ways of exposing.

There is one assumption more, which I find by the way very unusual, namely that the conceptual artists are mystics and not rationalist, because they achieve results that are not reachable in the way of logical speculations. Only the very illogical way of thinking leads to new experiences. The formal art is rational itself. When we use definitions like painting or sculpture, we usually associate those disciplines with tradition, and tradition - according LeWitt – limits an artist. A notion is something totally different than an idea; a notion implicates a general direction of which an idea is a component. An idea gives to a notion the power of making. The ideas itself can be artworks; they create a chain, which leads to particular forms, but the ideas do not have to take any physical form. So, for each artwork, which took the physical form, exists a lot of other variations that the form didn’t take. An artwork thus might be understood as a link between the artist’s mind and the mind of a receiver, but… might never reach the viewer or might never leave the mind of an artist. Because none of the form of expression is better than the other, the artist can use many different forms, from the expression of word till physical objects. All ideas are art if they only pertain to art. The conventions of art can be also changed by artworks. An artwork that succeeds changes our insight of the art’s conventions and changes our perception. The artist, according LeWitt, doesn’t have to understand his artwork; his perception is not better or worse than the perception of the viewer. When the idea of work is fully formed in the artist’s mind and the final form of work is chosen, the process of realization goes self-contained.

When I look at the work of Sol LeWitt, my very first impression is – a happy artist, who likes to operate (or rather play…) with colours and different kind of lines; an artist who likes order and chooses very conscious the form of work. Most of the time he plies with geometrical figures and if painted on walls – filled in with colours, if sculptures – mostly covered with one colour. That brings me memory about my childhood and youth, when I was passionately drawing sequences of geometrical figures, literally everywhere. I liked drawing generally, but the greatest satisfaction appeared when the whole page in A5 format was very aesthetically filled in with sequences of figures and colours according my own concept. At the grammar school I continued drawing, but mostly unconscious; a page of a notebook and a black-lead or pen made me do it. I do not even remember anymore when I stopped drawing, it was kind of fun and surely aroused my imagination. Probably that’s why is the artwork of LeWitt so important for me; I find there a little bit of myself from the past…

But coming back to the present I would like to introduce very shortly one person more, with who I came in touch during the Fotofestival Naarden – Saskia Noor van Imhoff. She was probably the only artist graduated in direction Visual Art, thus not like the rest of photographers present at the festival. Saskia’s exhibition differed from the rest of the exhibitions; she started working on her sculpture a month ahead and the idea was to make registration of the whole process of building the mentioned sculpture; on this way came the sculpture into being under her hands with a respectively title “Mijn archief”. On the pictures placed here and there the viewer could observe the development of Saskia’a project. “De installatie in de Bastion van Oranje van Saskia Noor van Imhoff is een leuke aanvulling op de meer documentaire werken. In een hoekje van de vesting worden wij gevraagd een smalle gang in te lopen die tegen het einde nog smaller wordt. Wat zou zich daar verbergen, aan het andere eind van de tunnel? Er is in elk geval licht, dus daar lopen we op af. De foto’s zijn hier niet opgehangen aan de muur, maar ze liggen over elkaar heen op een langwerpige structuur die aan een werktafel doet denken. Het lijkt op een verborgen laboratorium, hier wordt er gewerkt aan een idee. Of aan een machine? Verschillende elementen, zoals een rond wit licht komen op meerdere afbeeldingen terug. Foto’s, tekst en verschillende materialen zoals glas en hout roepen herinneringen op, maar het verhaal lijkt nog niet af.” And it will be long not ready. Saskia will continue working on her “Archief” and that takes time.

I liked her story, her own answer on the term conceptual art. She had a clear concept, introduced it to some sponsors and finally received subsidy to be able to work on her happening. And she did succeed.

I hope I will get the opportunity one day as well to develop my own performance. My head is full of ideas somehow limited by documentary that I’ve chosen. At this moment I’m convinced to change the study direction from documentary photography to autonomous visual art, just to make sure that I made the right choice…

 

 

 

SOURCEES:

 

Taschen – Kunst van de 20e eeuw

J.Gage – Colour and culture

V.Finaly – Kleur. Een reis door de geschiedenis

S.LeWitt – Geometric figures & color

Internet

Galeria Foksal in Warszawa (Polen) – the performance of S.Drozdz

Competentie Assesment

Eerlijk gezegd, heb ik de grootste gedeelte van dit schooljaar gemist; mijn studievoortgang was voor jullie bijna niet zichtbaar, wat betekent zeker niet dat er helemaal geen voortgang plaats vond. Ik heb net als een jaar vroeger echt veel geleerd, maar zeker minder, dan als ik regelmatig op school was.

In de PERIODE 5, namelijk

“DE WERKELIJKHEID VAN 101 BIJ 100, 10 BIJ 10 EN 1 BIJ 1 METER”...

...heb ik geleerd:

-       hoe groot de verband (relatie) is tussen beeld en betekenis; dat een beeld die mooi is hort niet altijd bij een bepaalde thema/onderwerp; dat er meestal beter is om een bepaalde beeld weg te gooien en een sterkere eindresultaat ontvangen;

-       dat te veel esthetische effecten stort de toeschouwer en geeft soms een ander uitspraak/betekenis aan een bepaalde beeld of maakt de betekenis niet duidelijk;

-       dat een plan van aanpak en/of bedenken van verschillende ideeën, die binnen het kader van de opdrachtstelling passen   belangrijk is voor de hele ontwikkeling van een project;

-       en dat foto’s en alle schoolmateriaal opbergen moet op het minst 2 verschillende harde schijven gebeuren in geval van beschadiging van een van die twee;

In de volgende PERIODE - “LICHAMELIJK GENOT”...

...heb ik niks gelaten zien. Maar zag wel, dat:

-       zonder concrete advies of aanduiding van een docent en/of klasgenoot  is het soms erg moeilijk om door een idee te gaan;

-       dat een gekozen onderwerp, maakt niet uit hoe moeilijk het is, moet je onderwerp blijven; en precies de moeite, die de onderwerp oplevert is een belangrijke stap in je ontwikkeling; op dit manier bereid je je voor om als een opdrachtnemer te werken dankzij bedenken van verschillende oplossingen en kiezen voor de volgens jou de beste;

-       dat een goede onderzoek en kennis van de problematiek helpt in ontwikkeling van een project alsook in creëren van je eigen beeldend handschrift ;

-       dat aanwezigheid in combinatie met regelmatige tonen van een werk verplicht is;

 

En na de periode 6 kwam de MINOR PERIODE, ANIMATIE namelijk. Tijdens die periode heb ik geleerd:

 

-       wat zijn de technieken van animeren en hoe gebruik te maken van verschillende animatie programmen;

-       dat animeren heel veel energie en tijd kost;

-       dat goede script en een storyboard alsook een goede tijdsplanning noodzakelijk is om een animatie te maken; mijn organisatie van tijd was heel slecht, daarom de laatste drie weken heb ik erg hard moeten werken en heel weinig slapen om alles op tijd klaar te hebben. Dat kostte mij aanwezigheid op school en een voldoende;

-       animeren heeft niks te maken met documentaire fotografie – er is alles toegestaan, je verbeeldingskracht is dus helemaal onbeperkt;

-       maar, animeren is ook urenlang zitten voor een computer en als men alleen werkt, ook een gevoel van eenzaamheid en aliënatie; ik vind dus het idee van animatie echt fantastisch, maar het animeren zelf is niks voor mij;

-       wat ik wel goed vind is, dat ik mijn kennis van Photoshop heb uitgebreid en een paar andere programmen geleerd (hier bedoel ik After Effects, TVPaint en Encore); ook dankzij de les van tekenen is mijn blik, voor wat betreft compositie en kadrering, wat scherper geworden; hoewel ik geen echte liefhebber van tekenen ben, hoop ik dat het mij in fotografie verder kan helpen.

 

Waar sta ik nu / wat nu?

Pas nu zie ik wat een goede beeld betekent en hoe groot mijn aandacht moet zijn om de juiste resultaat te bereiken. Voordat ik de ontspanknop druk let ik eerst op de compositie van een beeld; nu weet ik dat niet alleen de voorgrond belangrijk is, maar vooral de verschillende lagen van achtergrond met combinatie van de onderwerp vormen een goed bedachte beeld. Daarom werk ik tegenwoordig het meest met mijn Rolleiflex, die mijn keus van een onderwerp, compositie en kader heel veel bewuster maakt.

Ook kies ik steeds vaker voor bepaalde weersomstandigheden/lichttechieken om een verwachte effect te bereiken en een juiste sfeer aan een beeld te geven, ik fotografeer dus nooit meer sinds een tijdje op een semiautomatische stand; heb uiteindelijk geleerd om gebruik te maken van handmatige instellingen.

Bovendien vind ik het heel fijn om bewerkingsprogrammen voor beide: foto’s en bewegend beeld in te diepen – er zit kracht in. Alles wat in de werkelijkheid misgaat kan ik met behulp van bijv. Photoshop corrigeren. Na de laatste periode is mijn kennis rondom het manipuleren van een beeld ook heel breder geworden, en tja, het is ook mogelijk om een simpele animatie in Photoshop te maken (dat wist ik vroeger niet..).

Tijdens de vorige drie perioden heb ik gemerkt, dat ik heel slecht ben in het organiseren van tijd; ben meestal iets te afwachtend in het begin van elk periode en de paar weken voor een beoordeling werk ik extra hard om aan de juiste resultaten te komen. Dat kost me meestal de aanwezigheid op school.

 

Wat voor een fotograaf wil ik worden?

 

Op dit moment weet ik zeker dat ik een fotograaf (documentarist/reporter) wil worden, geen filmmaker of animator dus. Dat was de reden waarom ik de studie ben begonnen – om foto’s te kunnen maken, en niet nemen of schieten; in die foto’s mijn standpunt te laten zien en mijn eigen stijl en beeldtaal ontwikkelen. En ja, ik hou me nog steeds bezig met mensen fotograferen – de meest interessante en onvoorspelbare onderwerp. Sinds een tijdje probeer ik ook een mens te gebruiken als een aanvulling voor een landschap, en dat lijkt me erg interessant; een (nieuwe) betekenis aan een bepaalde plek te geven.

 

Wat wil ik bereiken in de volgende fase?

 

Vooral een goede fotograaf te worden die bewust kiest voor media en technieken die het best bij een bepaalde situatie/opdracht hoort. Ik wil verder met de studio fotografie gaan om vooral de lichttechniken binnen een gebouw volledig te kunnen beheersen. Ik wil ook bij een expositie opbouwen assisteren en helpen om te weten hoe dat werkt en wat zijn de belangrijkste criteria bij het samenstellen van een tentoonstelling. En de allerbelangrijkste, ook mijn grote schaamte,  ik wil namelijk een betere planner zijn van mij eigen tijd om alles te kunnen bijhouden en ook altijd aanwezig op een les te zijn. Dat wil ik in de komende periode bereiken, voordat ik voor eventjes met de opleiding stop. Ik wil laten zien, dat ik waardig als een fotograaf ben, dat ik goed kan presteren en als een fotograaf functioneren, zonder dat ik iemand met mijn verwerpelijke houding stor. 

Anaysis of the cartoon: OH WHAT A KNIGHT

Analysis of the cartoon:

OH, WHAT A KNIGHT of Paul Driessen

 

SYNOPSIS

It’s a short cartoon about a gallant knight who braves various dangers in order to rescue a damsel in distress. Will she realize who the real saviour is?

SCRIPT

There is a knight and his horse. The horse is pooping while patiently waiting with his knight. After a while a female voice is calling for help. The knight moves immediately ahead to rescue the women in distress. He’s riding the horse.

There is storm with thunderbolts that seem to follow the knight and smashes up everything on his way to the goal. That probably scares the horse, which shakes the knight off and leaves. From now on must the knight rely just on himself. And here appears the first opponent – a huge, green monster with three heads. But the fearless knight begins to cut the monsters heads and easily defeats him. Suddenly appears another head of the mentioned monster and pulls the knight inside the cage. The knight checks quickly where he is and moves on tiptoe ahead. In the same moment appears another monster and the knight jumps to a big kettle.

The monster ladles out his soup together with the tiny knight (compared to the opponent), who defeats him by smashing up his eyes and runs away. On the way to his goal emerges from nowhere another monster, which has been trickily defeated by the clever knight. With the aid of the hanging rope (or this what remains after the monster) the brave knight moves to the edge of a mountain, to his final destination.

The knight finally sees the damsel captured by a little monster that holding a dagger above her head. He suddenly hit upon a brilliant idea to rescue her. He leaves his armour and slips down (escapes anyone’s notice) to move along the edge. In this way he gets around the mountain to ambush and defeat the monster. And so do he.

The knight rescues the damsel who thanks but doesn’t take him serious. It escapes her notice that the tiny men, who just killed the monster is the knight to who belongs the empty armour. So she falls in love with the armour, runs to kiss it and together with it falls down the gaping void and dies. The knight looks disappointed and angry.       

DESCRIPTION OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS (TOONS)

A KNIGHT

In the analysed cartoon is he the main character whose face and the shape of his body is shown just at the end of the short film. Most of the time we see him hidden inside armour that is few times bigger than the medium-sized knight self. The most important attribute of the grotesque steel armour is its mobility – the knight can change his/its shape very easily and whenever it’s necessary, what brings immediately an association with his indestructibility and great power. The main task of the knight in this short film is fighting and annihilation monsters standing on his way to rescue a damsel in distress.      

A DAMSEL

The mentioned damsel is rather a passive character in this animation. Her only activity seems to be calling on anyone who can rescue her in distress. She has red hair and wears dress with a conic cap, both in pastel shade. Probably is external appearance more important for her than extraordinary feats and merits. And that is the reason she finally dies.

MONSTERS

They all look the same. Some of them are huge, some of them - chubby, some of them have more than one head etc. but all of them are dark green, have big yellow eyes, acute white teeth and are trying to kill the damsel and disturb the knight in his mission to rescue her.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

THE KNIGHT…

…is waiting. Sitting on his horse (which is by the way pooping in the meanwhile) and looking down into the gaping void. After he hears someone’s calling for help, he moves immediately ahead on horseback and rides no matter what paths he crosses. Being left by his horse, he has to make a stand against the first monster. And from now on he tangles with several different monsters that he meets on the way and defeats them by fighting with them or using his imagination and cleverness. In the final scene, after he defeats the last opponent and set the damsel free, he feels disappointed and angry of her choice and stupidity.

THE DAMSEL

Right in the beginning of the presented story we can hear only her voice calling for help. Then few times (while the saviour is fighting the opponents to rescue her) we see her frightened face, still calling for help. In the very last scene, after the damsel has been set free, she thanks very superficially to her saviour. Falling in love with the standing in front of her armour she runs towards “the knight” and kisses “him”. Accidentally she falls together with her “knight” into the gaping void and, as well disappointed as the knight self, dies.              

EDITING

SCENE 1

The knight sitting on his horseback and not moving. The pooping horse. The credits are displayed.

SCENE 2

Zooming in the main character and his horse.

SCENE 3

The knight riding through obstacles on a straight way.

SCENE 4

Running back of the horse and falling tree.

SCENE 5

The horse shaking the knight off and leaving. 

SCENE 6

Zooming in the first monster and the back of the knight.

SCENE 7

Screaming face (zoomed in) of the damsel.

SCENE 8

Little knight against a big 3-heads monster.

SCENE 9

A sword cutting a head of the opponent.

SCENE 10

A head of a monster spitting with fire.

SCENE 11

The knight swiping with his sword.

SCENE 12

The sword cutting the long throat of a monster.

SCENE 13

The last head of the opponent pulling the knight inside him/a cage (?)

SCENE 14

The knight looking around. Another monster standing up/raising.

SCENE 15

Screaming face (zoomed in) of the damsel.

SCENE 16

Jumping knight.

SCENE 17

A kettle with boiling liquid. A monster staying behind and ladle out the (probably) soup.

SCENE 18

A monster tasting the soup. The knight showing up on the spoon and hurting the monster’s eye.

SCENE 19

Waving/flying hands of the monster.

SCENE 20

The knight falling down and running ahead.

SCENE 21

Another monster appears in front of the knight.

SCENE 22

Screaming face of the damsel.

SCENE 23

The knight visible from behind with a monster hanging in front of him. The knight swings on the rope to the damsel.

SCENE 24

The knight standing on the edge of a rock. In front of him the damsel and another monster holding her. The knight leaves sneaky his armour and moves along the edge.

SCENE 25

The knight getting around the mountain. Riding cars below.

SCENE 26

The front of the armour standing on the edge. The monster and the damsel visible from behind. The knight watching them from above and jumping on the opponent.

SCENE 27

The back of the armour and in the middle the damsel watching her saviour who is defeating the monster. Winning knight. The damsel thanks him.

SCENE 28

The damsel running direction armour and falling down the gaping void. The knight watching frightened. After she dies he turns around and looks angry.

TIMING

The movements in this animation are very fluent or maybe another term is better to specify what I mean, namely runny, like honey or scrambled eggs. Everything looks a bit like a dance seen in slow motion. We don’t see at all the weight of the steel armour in movements of the knight. Or we have impression that he’s so brave because there is in his movements no even little hesitation implied fear. But…

…it’s visible that the sword is sharp or that the knight is not only brave but also strong/powerful, that the huge monsters are heavier than the knight, who (in this case) moves faster and that the damsel is scared and a bit nervous. So there actually are differences in timing; differences that shows the weight or scale properties of the characters or even emotions.     

FRAMEWORK AND COMPOSITION

The cartoon contains pictures that are clear in reception according the rule: what you see what you get. Driessen is a very spare person what concerns the selection of pictures he used in this animation. He emphasises or the background or the action/characters on the foreground, depends on what he wants the watcher to focus on. He is playing with the close up as well. All scenes, where pure action has place (e.g. fighting the monsters, frightened damsel etc.) are shown from very close distance to make it more dynamic and keep the spectators eyes focused on, the rest we see is typical registration. In this way we see exactly this what we need to see to get the point. Driessen’s drawings are more like photos than drawings. He uses the Rule of Third very conscious and consequent and probably that makes this cartoon so absorbing.

SOUND

There is no typical music or voice sound used in this cartoon, except for few screaming/vowing of the damsel (aaaaaaa!!!), hoarse sound of the yelling monsters and the  ‘aauuuuuu!!! sound’ of a crying injured monster. The sound what gives an appropriate character to this animation is almost totally based on Foley sound, which I described below =>    

FOLEY SOUND: birds singing, cow’s mooing, xylophone, bells, light wind, bouncing ball, sheep, smoking pipe, gallop of the horse, lightning, an armour falling into pieces, fire, hiss, clang/rattle of the steel armour, dropping water, splash, boiling water, sipping, swallowing, breathing, different kind of rustle, sound of traffic (cars), throwing down a heavy fabric, throwing cutlery, wheeze, dusting off the hands, sighing.

GRAPHICAL CHARACTER

The cartoon is drawn with very simple bar – looks almost childish, albeit is not so. Some of the drawings/scenes are surely meant to be drawn for adults. The colours grey, green, black and yellow are dominant but not the only, Driessen uses also different colours but rather in pastel shades. The background looks like drawn with a child hand, however the conscious choice of gradient and shadows shows high professionalism of Driessen’s style. The background by the way differs in structure from the first plan; however are the characters fully filled in with colours, the background remains drawn with bars.

CREDITS

MAKER – Paul Driessen

CAMERA – Toon de Wit

SOUND – Ronald Nadory and Marcel de Vre

PRODUCENT – Nico Crama

WITH THANKS TO – Karen Alfred

 

 

SHORT BIO OF THE ANIMATOR

Paul Driessen (born in Nijmegen in 1940) is a Dutch film director, animator and writer. His short films have won more than fifty prizes all over the world, including the Life Achievement Awards at both Ottawa and Zagreb animation festivals, and a Academy Award nomination for “3 MISSES”.

After studying graphic design and illustration at the Art Academy in Utrecht, Driessen began animating TV-commercials in Holland in the 1960, although he had no training in that art at all. When George Dunning, in search for talent, found Driessen at the Cine Cartoon Centre in Hilversum, he hired him as an animator for his feature animation film YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968). He also helped Driessen to emigrate to Canada where he became a member of the National Film Board of Canada in 1972.

Driessen’s unique style can be easily recognized by the delicate quality of his ever-moving and wiggling lines, as well as by the fluid but awkward movements of his characters. His storytelling sometimes splits up the screen into three or even six different parts, with all actions nicely woven into each other.

In the 1980’s Driessen taught animation at the University of Kassel, Germany, after Jan Lenica. Two of his student’s films, “BALANCE” by Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein, and “QUEST” by Tyron Montgomery and Thomas Stellmach, won Academy Awards.

PERSONAL FILM CRITICISM

I’m a huge fan of animations, but till now I didn’t realize how much time must be expended to make one minute of a well-done cartoon. And Driessen is a master in his profession. After “OH, WHAT A KNIGHT” I had to watch the rest of his work and I find his personal style not only incredible funny but above all very unique.    

I love this cartoon for its simplicity and minimalism of colour, structure and shape. The choice of hue in this animation makes it so special in reception, because it’s so close to my own interests. The shape and the structure of the background for example, make me thinking that the simplest is also the best. All characters look perfect… puerile – we take a quick look at and we know who they are or what is their role in the story. A similar impression I have while watching drawings drawn by little children where is no place for abstraction or indistinct message.

Oh, …what funny and grotesque is this cartoon: the huge monsters that sound so ridiculous, or the pooping horse, or the knight self, who defeats monsters not only with sword but also with the aid of his clever and funny tricks. I was laughing like crazy while watching it for the very first time. The ostensibly simple story contains a lot of surprising details that make it so incredibly appealing and funny. Anyway, everything that was already written in this analyse is how I do experience this animation and, I’m sure, it will help me in the future with making my own.            

SOURCE STATEMENT

OH, WHAT A KNIGHT (cartoon)

http://www.every10mins.com/video/1538_oh_what_a_knight.html

BIO AND ACTIVITY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Driessen_(animator)

http://www.niaf.nl/niaf2006/nl/actueel/interviews/interview_driessen.htm

http://www.nfb.ca/