For Conceptual Art I find symbols, assemble ideas, and connect it together aesthetically. Researching the lines of Shakespeare, I found this:
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily
To throw a perfume on the violet
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
That got me thinking. Who else refers to the rainbow? The poet John Keats made this marvellous remark:
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wing
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomèd mine—
Unweave a rainbow
They are different but connected ideas. Shakespeare says nature is intrinsically beautiful illustrated with the absurdity of painting on a flower or adding perfume to another. It’s about false appearances, which I refer to here.
There are psychological and sociological reasons for tattoos. For prisoners it means a feeling of control. In society, people are presumably feeling powerless. Large areas of skin are inked and with women in particular, I think why are you painting the lily. Losing a personal centre is another way of understanding this.
The Keats message is about nature and the rainbow. Don’t unweave it he says, meaning the reductionism of science and analysis. The rainbow is a result of optical refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets. But don’t talk like that, certainly don’t feel like that. Nature is not a resource to kill, drill, and plunder unceasingly.
Some years ago I pursued a photography project called Manchester Wild Flowers. I found places where they were growing unnoticed and uncared for. The first picture is the River Mersey where I walk and find flowers. Art is, in one sense, an additional hue to the rainbow. The imagery is from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These words explain one of the details with additional paradox:
A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth.
“Merry” and “tragical”? “Tedious” and “brief”?
That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow!
Don’t unweave the rainbow, so keep it balanced, is the idea for a disused waste area in a rough part of Manchester with industry behind and flowers regardless. The symbols are from John Keats’ poem To Autumn. The moment when trees are full of apples, leaves are full of orange, as a final reminder before winter.
