Interpretation of Hidalgo's "La Barca de Aqueronte"

Interpretation of Hidalgo's "La Barca de Aqueronte"

An award-winning Filipino painter Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo is the artist behind this exquisite work of art, the La Barca de Aqueronte. Third of the seven children of Eduardo Resurreccion Hidalgo and Maria Barbara Padilla, Felix was born in Binondo, Manila on February 21, 1855. He studied Law in the University of Santo Tomas, which he never finished, yet he received a Bachelor in Philosophy in March 1871. He was simultaneously enrolled at the Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura. In 1876, he previewed his La barca (The Native Boat), Vendedora de lanzones (Lanzones Vendor) and other paintings at the Teatro Circo de Bilibid before they were sent to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of that year. La barca de Aqueronte, a 3666 oil on canvas and allegorical painting, is considered as Hidalgo's most awarded work of art. This painting was awarded a gold medal during the Exposicion General de las Filipinas (International Philippine Exposition) in Madrid. During the Paris Exposition in 1889, the painting was awarded again, this time a silver medal. It has also won other awards such as a diploma of honor from the 1891 Exposicion General de Bellas Artes in Barcelona and a gold medal prize at the 1893 Madrid Exposicion Internacional de Bellas Artes during the 400th Anniversary of the Discovery of America. The Government of Spain bought this painting through a royal decree for the amount of 7,500 pesetas on March 7, 1893. After displaying the artwork at the Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar (Ultramar Library Museum) and at the Museo de Arte Moderno, La barca de Aqueronte is currently placed at Madrid’s Museo Nacional de Pintura (National Museum of Paintings). A smaller study of the same painting is at the Hidalgo Hall of the Lopez Museum in the Philippines.

La Barca de Aqueronte, a neoclassic painting in style, is based by Felix Hidalgo on his reading of Dante's Inferno while in Italy. Translated in English as The Boat of Charon, the painting’s colossal depiction would be Hidalgo’s interpretation of condemned souls on their journey across the River Acheron towards the place of torment which in Greco-Roman literature is known as Hades. Charon, the one who’s operating the boat, is the main character in the painting. Thus, this work of art must largely revolve around his character and his role in this piece, though some details must be given shallow notice. As what is manifested in this work of art, his eyes look like hollow furnaces on fire, he has a bush of unkempt beard upon his chin, and a dirty cloak hanging from his shoulders. He is infuriately glaring at the souls boarding on the boat .While standing on the edge of the boat against the reddish shade of light that looks like a lake of fire, a shimmering reaper’s blade is set in his two hands. It seems like Charon is ready to send the passengers off the gates of Hades. If we are going to have short glimpse of the ancient mythology, passengers must have a coin in their mouth to pay Charon for their transport. If they could not pay the fee, their bodies had to wander the shores for one hundred years. Back to the painting, these people who are in their nude appearance are attempting to board the boat in no particular order. That is why splashes of water and water that dashed on the other edge of the boat, opposite of Charon’s position, are given heavy emphasis on this painting. Palpably speaking, if we are going to assimilate their situation of transport to real life situation or to the latter day way of transport, theirs is cluttered. The naked bodies in this painting are having a huge dilemma on how to form a queue for a more organized and easy way of boarding. Well, maybe they do not have the concept of what we call “fall in line”. It is vivid enough to see that they are pushing against each other, dominating who’s going to board first. However, if we are going to have a closer look at the chaotic nude bodies, there is this one quite near the rim of Charon’s blade who seems like hesitant or afraid to board. The nude body I’m talking about looks like attempting to escape the journey, grasping the arms of the other boarding passengers, making its way out.

As a tiny detail about the Underworld, there is an area where the Judges of the Underworld decide where to send the souls of the person — to Elysium, to the Fields of Asphodel, or to Tartarus. Elysium or the Elysian Fields is separated from the realm of Hades, and is reserved solely for mortals related to the gods and other heroes chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulge in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life. On the other hand, the fields of Asphodel otherwise known as the Asphodel Meadows are the realm of neutrality where the souls of people who are neither good nor evil go. The majority of all souls go here once they are judged. And lastly, Tartarus, the deep abyss, is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans.

Now, if we are going to study the countenances of the nude bodies in the painting, the feeling of fretfulness or unease could be sensed from them. This is just to say that, oblivious about their fate, they lack the verve of boarding the boat. Or maybe, the other reason could be they are already aware of the judgment, and that is they will be sent to Tartarus. The blistering shade of light at the back of Charon pretty looks like the place of torment— Tartarus. Aside from the fiery shade and the splashes of water which are given heavy emphasis in the painting, the upper part is dimmed and the left side of the painting is lacking some details. This is to wind up that the most important detail in this paining is the ferryman of Hades on his boat, doing his very job. The destination of the passengers and their way of boarding or how many are they in that particular scenario are all up to the interpreters. As a whole, this magnificent painting of Hidalgo is worth all the awards and recognition it did receive. Apparently speaking, he is a very skillful and creative artist to have put the words of Dante’s Novel into a more picturesque way, with which spectators can have an ample insight about the man’s destination after life. Believable or not, it is purely made of imagination. Citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_barca_de_Aqueronte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_underworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(mythology)

Fantastic View of Jimmy's Neutron

Jimmy's Neutron


Summary:

At home, Jimmy has inventions to brush his teeth and comb his hair. During show and tell at school, he unveils a device that will shrink people, and inadvertently shrinks his teacher, who is attacked by the worm in her apple. Jimmy also has a communicator capable of picking up signals from space, and becomes convinced he has been contacted by an advanced civilization. "I don't care how advanced they are," his mother says. ''If your father and I haven't met them, they're strangers." A crisis strikes. Alien spaceships suck up all of the adults in town. At first the kids celebrate, but after eating too much popcorn and candy and drinking forbidden coffee, they're as green in the morning as the lads on the Island of Lost Boys in "Pinocchio." Jim-my enlists the other kids in an expedition to find the alien planet and rescue the parents.
Their space travel is conceived by the filmmakers in a way that is not only charming but kind of lovely. Jimmy converts some of the rides in an amusement park into spaceships, and we see a Ferris wheel, an octopus ride and a merry-go-round journeying across the field of stars. In another inspired conceit, they stop for the night on an asteroid, build a campfire, and frighten one another with campfire ghost stories.


Analysis:

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a fantasy about a whiz kid inventor who, with the help of his friends, must rescue all the parents of his neighborhood from the clutches of malevolent space aliens. While there’s nothing new here story-wise, producer/writer/director John A. Davis, producer/writer Steve Oedekirk, and animation director Keith Alcorn, load the film with a lot of cool inventions (a shrink ray, a robot dog, a soda that guarantees one burp per sip) and some funny moments involving Jimmy (voiced by Debi Derryberry) and his classmates. Primary among them is the asthmatic Carl Wheezer (Rob Paulsen) and the smart-alecky Cindy Vortex (Carolyn Lawrence). Together, the kids connive to rocket off to another planet and turn their egg-shaped foes to slime: one method involves slapping a pair of headphones on an alien and blaring The Go-Gos at full volume.

But as a whole, the film lacks the quality of story, character, humor, and animation that we’ve come to expect in the seven short years of computer-animated film history. Davis and Oedekirk try to inject some warmth into the tale by having Jimmy overcome his diminutive size, realizing that his mind is what really counts (pay attention kids: there’s a message there), but the character development feels contrived and takes a backseat to the rapidly paced plot. This plot does its best to entertain with a constant barrage of wacky antics concerning kid empowerment (they’re saving their parents, after all) and peppered with slapstick humor that is often of the gross-out variety (boogers, burps, slime, and flatulence). 
Sources: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jimmy-neutron-boy-genius-2001
               http://www.popmatters.com/review/jimmy-neutron/

Deconstruction Analysis of Design

Design
by Robert Frost

Summary:
In Frost's first stanza, which is a group of lines in a poem, the speaker opens by describing a white spider hunting a white moth on a heal-all. The heal-all is a flower with medicinal properties. The flower holds the moth, but nothing can stop the dark forces of nature, or in this case, the hungry spider. When the speaker mentions the witches' broth, Frost implies that darkness lurks everywhere. Humanity, according to Frost, is as unprotected as the moth on a flower and as dangerous as the spider. 

Analysis: 
The poem begins with a simple setup—the first three lines introduce us to the main characters. We have a big white spider on a white flower, poised to eat a white moth. The speaker sees this bizarre little albino meeting as some weird witches' brew, as all three are brought together for some awful reason.
That observation leads the speaker to a series of questions: Why is this flower white, when it is usually blue? What brought the spider to that particular flower? What made the moth decide to flutter by right then?
Frost concludes that if it were "design" that brought these three together, it must be some pretty dark design. In other words, it's not a comforting thought to think that God went out of his way just to make sure this moth got eaten. But that's the crucial "if" of the last line: if design does govern these small things. (What if—gulp—there's no design at all, and everything in life is just totally random occurrences?) The reader is left with just as many questions as Frost. This short poem takes a simple little thought and pushes us all the way to questioning the very nature of creation and life as we know it.






Sources: http://www.shmoop.com/design-robert-frost/summary.html
               http://study.com/academy/lesson/design-by-robert-frost-summary-theme-analysis.html

Post-modernism Analysis of Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge


Summary:

           In the Summer of Love (1899), young, impoverished British writer Christian (McGregor) arrives in Paris, France to be a part of the Bohemian Revolution, in which writers, musicians, artists, actors, and others gathered to let their voices and work be heard. Some Bohemians living at Christian's hotel noticed his talent. That night, he was to go to the Moulin Rouge (a nightclub, dance hall, brothel, and later theater) to try to persuade its owner, Harold Zidler (Broadbent), to approve of him writing the show. Little did Christian know that he had to recite his modern poetry for Kidman, the most beautiful of all the courtesans in the Moulin Rouge. Meanwhile, Kidman wrongly thinks that Christian is the Duke, the man she was to seduce that night. Later, Kidman finds out who Christian is. They immediately fall in love. However, they must hide their love because Kidman cannot fall in love with any man. The Duke eventually becomes crazy, trying to force Kidman to seduce him. To top all the troubles, Kidman finds out that she is dying from tuberculosis. She was going to elope with Christian, but Zidler persuades her to stay, claiming that the Duke will kill Christian, if she sees him. Kidman unwillingly forces herself to tell Christian she hates him. However, Christian refuses to believe her. The opening night of the show, Christian returns secretly to the Moulin Rouge, as the Duke's "man servant" was guarding the theater. Christian then appears with Kidman on stage by accident. He tells the audience that he hates her, and he leaves the Moulin Rouge sadly. The Duke thought he won, but at that moment, Kidman stood up and sang her secret love song with Christian. Christian joins in, and they forgive each other. Driven by jealousy and greed, the Duke tries to shoot Christian. However, he fails. The audience goes crazy, thinking that this is all an act. When the curtain fell, they were on their feet and clapping. Everything was going so well, or Christian thought. Right before curtain call, Kidman coughed up blood again. She died in Christian's arms.

Analysis:

 Baz Luhrmann film " Moulin Rouge " ( 2001) in the context of post-modern and oriental stylistic device in literature and film is by Strictly Ballroom ( 1992) and William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet ( 1996) , the last work in Luhrmann , Red Curtain Trilogy ' . The focus is on the nature of the story or the narrative form , and not primarily on their content . Moulin Rouge linked elements of American musicals of the 40s and 50s with European chart Hits of the 1990s and narrative techniques from Bollywood films. The main character, Christian, plays with postmodern and post-structuralist phenomena such as intertextuality , multiple narrative levels and the self-reflexivity of the characters and the story. The film is loud, colorful and hectic kitsch or art , or both remains a matter of taste .

 

Sources: http://allreaders.com/movie-review-summary/moulin-rouge-6434

            http://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Oriental-Elements-Moulin-Rouge/dp/3863411447

Archetypal Analysis of Bi-ag ni Lam-ang

Lam-ang

Synopsis of “Life of Lam-ang,” an Epic of the Ilocos Region

Edited by Abe V Rotor

The theme of the epic revolves around the bravery and courage of the main character portrayed by Lam-ang, who was gifted with speech as early as his day of birth, who embarked on a series of adventures which culminated in his heroic death and subsequent resurrection. This series of adventures started with his search for his lost father who was murdered by the head-hunting Igorots in the Igorot country. While on his way, he met a certain Sumarang, whose name connotes obstruction, who tried to dissuade him from proceeding and who taunted him into a fight. The fight that ensued proved fatal to Sumarang as he was blown "three kingdoms" away with a spear pierced through his stomach. This encounter led to another when he met a nine-headed serpent who, like Sumarang earlier, tried to dissuade him from going any further. The serpent having been ignored challenged him into a fight which cost the serpent its heads. Lam-ang went on until he found it necessary to rest and take a short nap. While asleep, he dreamed of his father's head being an object of festivities among the Igorots. He immediately arose and continued his journey until he found the Igorots indeed feasting over his father's head. He asked the Igorots why they killed his father, but the Igorots instead advised him to go home if he did not want to suffer the same fate which his father suffered. This was accompanied by a challenge to a fight, despite their obvious numerical superiority. But Lam-ang, armed with supernatural powers, handily defeated them, giving the last surviving Igorot a slow painful death by cutting his hands and his ears and finally carving out his eyes to show his anger for what they had done to his father.

Satisfied with his revenge, he went home. At home, he thought of taking a swim in the Cordan River with the com¬pany of Cannoyan and her lady-friends. So he proceeded to Cannoyan's place in the town of Calanutian, disregarding her mother's advice to the contrary. On his way, he met a woman named Saridandan, whose name suggests that she was a woman of ill repute. He resisted her blandishments, for his feeling for Cannoyan was far greater for anyone to take. When he reached Cannoyan's house, he found a multitude of suitors futilely vying for her hand. With the help of his pets - the cock and the dog - he was able to catch Cannoyan's attention. He asked her to go with him to the river along with her lady-friends. She ac¬ceded. While washing himself in the river, the river swelled, and the shrimps, fishes and other creatures in the river were agitated for the dirt washed from his body was too much. As they were about to leave the river, Lam-ang noticed a giant crocodile. He dove back into the water and engaged with the creature in a fierce fight until the creature was subdued. He brought it ashore and instructed the ladies to pull its teeth to serve as amulets against danger during journeys.

Back at Cannoyan's house, he was confronted by her parents with an inquiry as to what his real intention was. He had to set aside his alibi that he went there to ask Cannoyan and her friends to accompany him to the river, and told them, through his spokesman - the cock - that he came to ask for Cannoyan's hand in marriage. He was told that if he desired to marry Can¬noyan, he must first be able to match their wealth, for which he willingly complied. Having satisfied her parents, he went home to his mother and enjoined her and his townspeople to attend his wedding which was to take place in Cannoyan's town.

The wedding was elaborate, an event that involved prac¬tically everyone in town. There were fireworks, musical band, and display of attractive items like the glasses, the mirror, the slippers, clothes and nice food. After the wedding, Lam-ang's party plus his wife and her townmates went back to their town of Nalbuan, where festivities were resumed. The guests ex¬pressed a desire to taste a delicacy made of rarang fish. Lam-ang was obliged to go to the sea and catch the fish. Before going, however, his rooster warned that something unpleasant was bound to happen. This warning proved true, as Lam-ang was swallowed by a big bercacan, or shark-like fish. Cannoyan mourned and for a while she thought there was no way to re¬trieve her lost husband. But the rooster indicated that if only all the bones could be gathered back, Lam-ang could be brought to life again. She then enlisted the aid of a certain diver named Marcus, who was ready to come to her aid to look for the bones. When all of Lam-ang's bones were gathered, the rooster crowed and the bones moved. The dog barked, and Lam-ang arose and was finally resurrected. Cannoyan embraced him. For his deep appreciation for the help of his pets - the cock and the dog - and of Marcus the diver, he promised that each other would get his or its due reward. And they lived happily ever after.

Analysis: 
Many Historians believe that this Ilocano epic is similar to the Greek's Iliad and Odyssey, which is also considered as an oral literature. The story was been passed on from generation to generation, hence saying that there might be some alterations that happened. The epic is said to be archetypal in nature. Lam-ang, son of Namungan and Don Juan Panganiban of Nalbuan, is referred to be the hero or protagonist of the epic. He is respected, admired, and feared by his townpeople because he possessed some extraordinary qualities.

First thing is the "unusual birth" wherein Lam-ang immediately spoke and suggested to Namungan as soon as he was delivered from her mother. Next is his miraculous growth. When he was nine months old, he already achieved a body of a full grown man that enabled him to do what an adult can do. That made him quite weird. The rest are his loud voice, leadership qualities, magic powers, victorious moments, and resurection.


“... Lam-ang made an announcement. “Townmates, Please come to my wedding feast; We will ride in my two boats...”
 - Lines of Life of Lam-ang 658-663 (imagine his loud voice here)

“Lam-ang beckoned to the strongest wind—And the straw burn into flames. The people of San Juan were alarmed by the sparks that reached them...”

  -Lines of Life of Lam-ang 250-254 (imagine his magic powers here)

  (Lam-ang was resurrected--Amazing!!!)

Source: http://avrotor.blogspot.com/2011/11/synopsis-of-life-of-lam-ang-epic-of.html