Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Theses 5-1-1998 Clio-The Youngest of the muses Denise Wellenstein Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses Recommended Citation Wellenstein, Denise, "Clio-The Youngest of the muses" (1998). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rochester I nstitute of Technology Clio-The Youngest of the Muses A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences in candidacy for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. by Denise Wellenstein May 1998 Approvals Chairperson: Patti Ambrogi Date 5---c--p---t Associate Advisor: Elliott Rubenstein Associate Advisor: Stephanie Maxwell Date ) J L 31-~=~:::.....----- Associate Advisor: Margaret Wagner Date___----jJ---l.--j_------ MFA Coordinator: Angela Kelly Date:__--J11...-1ng , (1 J'0 I, Denise Wellenstein, hereby grant permission to the Wallace Memorial Library of RIT to reproduce my thesis in whole or in part. Any reproduction will not be for commercial use or profit. Signature Date "To dance with one's own masterpiece represents the ultimate transference of creative energy, that narrow and frustrating art." barrier between life and -Leonard Mendelsohn, Toys in Literature1 INTRODUCTION It was not until I recently looked back at the work I have made in the past few years that I realized the common threads running through my first graduate projects culminating in thesis show "Clio Muses." my entitled, The Youngest of the My artistic process confronts the struggle to synthesize my different interests, my past experiences with the intuition and present, my imagination with logic and practicality, and ultimately my artistic self with all the other parts of my life. My work is inspired by my interest in Greek myths. I am driven by the challenge to incorporate the history, significance, and magical qualities of these stories into my work. Whether someone sees myth as real or fantasy, literal or allegorical, psychological, scientific, or spiritual, myth occupies a place in most people's minds. The fairy tales we hear as children are examples of stories whose significance sometimes evolve into the beliefs we adopt as adults to make sense of the world we live in. Contemporary culture has bred contemporary myths. Technology, including video and computers, is also a form of magic in many peo ple's lives. The way in which images are created and manipulated is often unseen (or behind-the-scene), and they are able to blur our understanding of reality. My work uses artistic illusions and technology to create a sense of wonder and to provoke the reconsideration of the role of myth and magic in our lives. My desire to make the photograph come to life through movement has been a part of my creative process since I began working with photography. Naturally, this led me to experiment with animation, film, and video. Video projection, black light, and miniature motorized elements are part of the technological magic featured in my thesis project, Clio The Youngest of the Muses. In my thesis work, I deal primarily with the character of the Muse from Greek mythology. I choose to accept the idea of the Muse into my own psyche as a part of myself and to recreate a personal definition for the Muse that works to empower myself as an artist. In this manner, I choose to reverse the position of the Muse as a product of patriar chal objectification of women. Literature," Leonard Mendelsohn, "Toys in in Sharing Literature with Children: A Thematic Anthology, 81-84; ed. Francelia Butler, (New York: David McKay, 1977). Quoted in Lois Rostow Kuznets, Wien Toys Come Alive: Narratives ofAnimation, 180. Metamorphosis, and Development (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994), 0 E F O H I inc MlJSBS FROM A SARCOPHAOUS IN THE LOUVRE, Paris . >...<>. i,.. *.. ttlo. u. tultipe. Polyhymnia, f Cilllopt. 0. Ttrpslchore H urjnln. /. Mti^., THE MUSE In Greek mythology, there are nine Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne, or Memory, each of whom preside over a specific art or science. These Muses inspire2 artists and poets forgotten.3 with their mother's memories so that the past is not However, the more traditional concept of the Muse, emerging from the early Greek myths, is one of an ethereal female who gives inspiration and knowledge unconditionally to the male poet or artist. As the meaning of the word, Muse, changes with cultural influence, Memory, the mother of forgotten.4 the Muses, is The image of the Muse is personified as a female form used primarily by men for access to creativity. In Modernist art practice, the Muse had been reinvented as a mortal woman who provides constant encouragement and inspiration for the artist; usually a male; most often her lover or husband. Since the Romantic era, no other artistic period has used the image of the Muse so heavily as the Surrealist movement. This movement includes artists such as Man Ray, Diego Rivera, Max Ernst, and Andre Breton. Most of these men found the Muse outside themselves in real-life women: their lovers or friends who were artists themselves; Meret Oppenhiem, Leonora Carrington, and Frida Kahlo. The Surrealists were very interested in accessing artistic inspiration. Since feminine,5 inspiration is often related to the the Surrealists sought to access this world through the feminine aspect, the anima of Jungian psychology, which can also be seen as a kind of Muse who conveys the female qualities associated with thefemme-enfant. Qualities valued by the male Surrealists in their Muses were beauty, innocence, and 6 woman- intuition. These qualities embody what they called thefemme-enfant, or literally, child. Thefemme-infant, the immature woman, provided inspiration without the threat of 2 into" To inspire meaning, literally, "to breathe 3Mary K. DeShazer, Inspiring Women: Reimagining the Muse (Elmsford, New York: Permagon Press, 1986). 4Originally, the Muse was a triad, the Triple Goddess of Goddess religions. Unconscious," 5Carl G. Jung, "The Relations Between the Ego and the in Violet S. de Laszlo, ed., The Basis Writings ofC. G. Jung, (New York: The Modern Library, 1959), 158. Surrealism" 6 Gwen Raaburger, "The Problematics of Women and in Mary Ann Caws, ed., Surrealism and Women, 2 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1990), 33. artistic competition. For if she were an immature woman, how could she produce mature works of art? Thefemme-enfant also embodied an insight and openness which was in tune with the subconscious, and the male Surrealists used her as a liaison between themselves and the magical, dreamy imagery of the subconscious world. These women occupied split both objectified women as roles, being Muse by the male artists and working artists in their own rights. Most of these women underwent a trying transitory period during which they integrated themselves as artists, women, and sources of their own inspiration. Through bodies,7 their self-portraits and art depicting their they integrated their inner (that of the personal and the psyche or subconscious) and outer (that of the physical, the persona, the self that others are welcome to see) realities, which have historically tended to be kept separated within our culture.8 Frida Kahlo was one of the female artists of this period whose work depicts this transformation through the exploration of the her body. She suffered from polio during childhood, and when she was sixteen, she was in a bus accident that left her injured.9 permanently and painfully After this accident, she began making art. Her art, which addresses her physical condition, was her journey toward insight, reclaiming the physical or outward self to gain access to the inner or subconscious reality. In Kahlo's painting, Henry Ford Hospital, she depicted her miscarriage and inability to have children. Surrounding her, bleeding in a hospital bed, is the fetus she lost, the broken pelvis which caused the miscarriage, a machine (perhaps to the bus accident), an referring Henry Ford Hospital, 1932 orchid given to her by Rivera, and a snail's shell symbolizing the slow process of the mis carriage. Kahlo used concrete, physical symbols to express what was she was experiencing on the inside.10 Through the integration of two very related selves, Kahlo and other women Surrealists came to accept both their physical selves (external) and psychic selves (internal) as valid realities. Women Bodies as a Source of 7 Louisa Buck, "Faceless Femme Fatales: Louisa Buck Unearths the Surrealists Using Subject," Women's Art Magazine, 19 (Nov./Dec. 1992), 16-17. 8 (Boston: and Company, 1985), 92. Whitney Chadwick, Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Little, Brown, (New York: 290. 9 Mora R. Witzling, Voicing Our Visions: Writings by Women Artists, Universe, 1991), 10 Sarah M. Lowe, Frida Kahlo, (New York: Universe, 1991), 67. Through practice of the feminism, women are gaining a sense of confidence needed to identify and reject some of the limiting stereotypes under which they have been classified. The women Surrealists tended to reject the label of Surrealist for themselves. Frida Kahlo said that even though she was thought of as a Surrealist, she wasn't "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."11 Whitney Chadwick suggests better Realists" descriptions of these women artists as "Magic or "Neo-Romantics."12 When Leonora Carrington, an artist working within the Surrealist realm, was asked about "Bullshit."13 women's role as Muse for the Surrealist artists, her response was, Poet Susan Griffin calls the idea of the male-defined Muse "a cop-out,"14 and contemporary poet, "uninteresting."15 feminist, and critic, Adrienne Rich describes it as However, in completely rejecting the limiting stereotype of the male-defined Muse, women risk losing, along with it, the chance to reclaim or reinvent the concept of the original Muse as source of their own creative inspiration.