What a Picture Says

Dreams, visions of the past, present, and future all wrapped into one incomplete piece of confusion. There are possibilities where belief refuses to breath, and rainbows where black and white appear to live. Restless clouds break the bond of smooth transitions, reeling in the reality of life's cruelness.

Angst is disguised by memorizing, grey clouds separating colorful yards of euphoria. Reality refuses to allow such kind visions of an absolute mess. The twilight hours pore sand into the open cuts of anxiousness. Sleep tight through the unknown world, deep relaxation, and wake with the sweet knowledge you will see the light again.


Poetry Picture & Formalism

The reading I have done on Formalism leads me to believe that the theory has a lot to do with poetry, and which the images they conjure up for the reader. Viewing this picture, instantly, brought me to an unscientific form of writing, which some call poetry or verse writing. If one were to read the verse, they might see this painting in their imagination. This piece of art stirred my thoughts.

In defining poetry, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan state, “In the analysis of poetry, the Formalist focus was on the qualities of poetic language that distinguish it from ordinary, practical language, the distinction between the literary and the non-literary being more pronounced in this genre” (4). While, there is no strange word, the concept could be considered of the cosmic world. Rivkin and Ryan also point out that, “American New Criticism - was anti-scientific and interested in the nonrational dimension of art” (5). Dreams have the tendency to be quite irrational.

Perception of the painting is also a part of Formalism. Viktor Shklovsy states, “If we start to examine the general laws of perception, we see that as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic” (15). The painting brought many perceptions. Beautiful colors, images of rainbow lace, broken up by clouds of doom presented the image, or perception, of happiness on the outside of depression and gloom.

The colors, however, can be perceived as a sign of the hope of better days to come. The sporadic use of lace, clouds, and blue skies carry visions how sometimes one has no order to what he/she dreams. They are all mixed up. Formalist, Shklovsy says, “art exists that one may recover the sensation of life, it exists to make one feel things as they are perceived and not as they are known“(16). One really does not know what was in the artist mind when they drew it, and this is the beauty of it. The audience can decide what it means to her.

This picture meant creating a poem, or verse, whatever one wants to call it. So, it may be kind of formalism in reverse, but I think it still counts.

Work Cited
Rivkin, Julie & Michael Ryan. “Introduction: Formalism.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 4-6

Shklovsky, Viktor. “Art as Technique.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 14-21.