Comment on “Radical Response to a ‘High-Tech’ World: Contemporary American Street Murals”

purposeful and, for Koenig,is not a limitation. OttoLaske New EnglandComputerArts Association 926 Creendale Avenue Needham, MA 02192 U.S.A. COMMENT ON “THE ODYSSEY OF VINCENT VAN GOGH” I greatly admire Stanley Gedzelman’s reasoned, penetrating and cautious analysis of the skies and clouds in Vincent van Gogh’spaintings (&mardo 23, No. 1, 107-116, 1990).Afewyears ago, I looked at the patterns in Vincent ’s night skiesand I, too, concluded that he was an apt observer of nature. METEOROLOGICAL students a brief seminar on visual aspectsof astronomy. He laughed and said, ”Doyou think it makes any difference?“Then he said something about artisticexpression. My response is, ‘Yes,I do think it makes a difference .” Even a caricaturist must start from a clear understanding of the s u b ject. I would be one of the last to suggest revoking artistic licenses (after all, my own attempts at popular writing have been a seriesof liberties taken in the name of clarity), and I am not about to hold out for verisimilitude above all else. But, isn’t the o p portunity for artistic expression lost when one’s back is turned on nature? Isn’t the vocabularyof art unnecessarily impoverishedwhen it is purged of the vocabularyof science? artists ought to study nature with the Was I wrong-headed to suggest that Two conclusionsconcerning the re- eyes Of a scientist? lationship of art and science spring to CharlesA .whitoey mind. First. Vincent’s evident love of ProfessorEmeritus nature and his insights into natural forms demonstrate that he, along Center for Astrophysics HarvardUniversity 60 Garden Street with many-dare I say all?-greai ar- Cambridge,MA 02138 U.S.A. tists, had much in common with natural scientists.The antique phrase ‘natural philosopher’ epitomizes him nicely. Scientistsand artistsshare a common starting point: careful examination of nature. They differ primarily in what they do with their observations . The scientistinterprets for other scientists in a common language that is intended to be unambiguous , usually at the expense of seeming dull and passive. The aim is to share external experience. (Admittedly , external is hard to define.) I have, from time to time, acted the artist through photography and drawing , and I understand the satisfactions of taking a visual experience and reforming-selecting and dis torting-it for the purpose of declaring an internal experience. But great scientistsand artistsseem to know that the external world is more interesting than the internal world of fantasy , at least as a starting point. This brings me to my second point. I have often noticed peculiar phases of the moon depicted in cartoon-a full moon rising at midnight or an old moon setting in the evening. I always assumed that the artists simply did not know any better, but recently I was told they also did not care. This occurred when I casually suggested to an art school director that I give his COMMENT ON ‘%ADICAL RESPONSE TO A CONTEMPORARYAMERICAN STREET MURALS” Recently, I came across an article on American street murals (Ixonardo21, No. 3,267-271, 1988).The discussion dealt with one Minneapolis mural and the information was unfortunately garbled. The correct information on the mural in Fig. l of that article is the following:Roger Nelson, artist, Berlin Wall, 168x 21 ft, 1978;located on north wall of K-Mart, 29th and NicolletAvenue South; funded by &Mart, Super Valu and Northwestern National Bank; repainted in 1986by Marilyn Lindstrom and Tacoumba Aiken. The design for this mural was called the Berlin Wall by the community because that was how the constructing of the K-Mart store (by blocking off a major north-south street) was perceived. The community regarded the store as a battleship with guns trained on the people. culty in discoveringthe identity of mural artists. In Minnesota some murals are signed and others are not. ‘HIGH-TECH’WORLD: I sympathizewith Anderson’s diESome artistsgive their telephone numbersaswell , and those done by groups often acknowledgeall of the painters. But it can take a lot of searching to discover all of this information. The mural in Fig. 2 was on the north wall of the Mifflin Street Co-op, 32 North Bassett, in Madison. It was replaced by another...