Spartanburg, SC

During the aftermath of World War II Spartanburg, South Carolina began to lay the groundwork for its future as a successful and industrialized community. Spartanburg began as a small railroad town surrounded by farms. In just fifty years Spartanburg has doubled in size to contain many large shopping centers and to be one of the largest, most prominent cities in the state. The original part of the city still contains that old railway town charm, with a small, beautiful park right in the center of downtown. Spartanburg contains a surprising number of European factories and European style homes for such a southern city. Large companies such as Milliken have made this once small town into the city it is today. The author of the book “Guten Tag Ya’ll: Globalization and the South Carolina Piedmont, 1950-2000” upon visiting Spartanburg for the first time, was absolutely amazed at the number of European influences throughout the town. After World War II Spartanburg gained an influx of young workers whom had previously been at war. These workers needed jobs, so Spartanburg began to encourage the building of new companies, most of them European, to give the young workers jobs. Over time, these companies flourished and grew so the Spartanburg was in a steady state of expansion. What is now known as the “East Side” of Spartanburg, was the entire original Spartanburg. In just the past thirty years Spartanburg has more than doubled in size, so that it is now split between the “East Side” and the “West Side”. The East Side features the downtown of Spartanburg, which has had a lot of work done in the past twenty years. Many of the older buildings have been refurbished to contain the new offices and companies that continue to come in. At the center of downtown there is a small, beautiful park called Daniel Square with a bell tower and a large statue of Daniel Morgan. Daniel Morgan was a Revolutionary War commander who is honored in the square because he won the Battle at Cowpens, which is a small town just outside of Spartanburg. The West Side of Spartanburg- the newer part- is very large, much larger than the original Spartanburg. Just thirty years ago the West Side was fields and fields of cow pastures belonging to the farms located near the railway station in Spartanburg. Now it is part of the large and prosperous city of Spartanburg. Spartanburg’s remarkable transformation from a small, unimportant town to a modern city is all due to the presence of European companies. These companies employed hundreds of workers, encouraging other people to move to Spartanburg to find work. They provided a different, more cosmopolitan standard of living for the once small town, country people of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Works Cited “Guten Tag, Y'all: Globalization and the South Carolina Piedmont, 1950-2000” Maunula, Marko. University of Georgia Press. Athens, GA, USA. 08/2009

Rene Magritte

In the book “Contemporary Literature” there is a section called “Visible Poetry: Metaphor and Metonymy in the Paintings of Rene Magritte”. This might seem unusual considering that this is a book of literature, and Rene Magritte is a painter. But as the title suggests, the author of this book claims that Magritte uses literary devices in his painting. The author quotes Magritte in saying that “the function of painting is to make poetry visible” this quote explains Magritte’s work. He is a surrealist in his ideas, but his actual painting is very realistic. Magritte paints very normal, commonplace objects, but he paints them in a way to reveal the irony within them. He paints things that do not seem so completely different to show their actual similarities and connections. Magritte also paints things that seem to go together but leaves out an important part that the viewer must then fill in with their mind. For example, the author of the book quotes Magritte in discussing a dream that he had where he saw a cage with an egg in it. Magritte describes how he immediately knew that the image was missing something- the bird. Magritte also uses a lot of irony in his art. One of his most famous pieces of art is the painting of an extremely simple, realistic looking pipe. Underneath the painting of the pipe Magritte has written “C’est ne pas une pipe.” or, “This is not a pipe.” At first glance this may seem to be a startling contradiction, but actually Magritte is right. The painting is not a pipe. It is oil paint on canvas in a certain shape that we have come to recognize as a pipe, but it is not physically the same thing. In this painting Magritte paints something very realistic looking, but her forces the viewer to think surrealistically and accept that not everything that they see is the absolute truth. In another of Magritte’s most famous pieces, Time Transfixed he shows how two things that seem to have no relation can go very well together. The piece features a small train engine coming out of an empty fireplace. The smoke from the train is being drawn up the chimney, and at first clance the fireplace closely resembles a large tunnel that the train is simply in the process of driving out of. The author of the book discusses how the similarities in the two objects in this painting are very visual, but without the painting to explain it would be very difficult for most people to be able to discuss the similarities between a fireplace and a train. The author also discusses how some of the similarities between the objects in Magritte’s paintings are very logical. In Hegel’s Holiday Magritte shows a glass of water balanced on top of an umbrella. The similarities would be that both of the objects, although very different in their basic nature, are objects invented by humans to control water. Magritte’s incredible ability to paint thoughts is both beautiful and thought provoking. He manages to see the metaphors and irony in everyday life, and then paint them so that they become more evident to the rest of us. The author claims that because Magritte made such significant observations about the similarities of art and literature, his work is still very important and always will be. He showed us a new way of examining our lives and the world around us. Works Cited Dubnick, Randa. "Visible Poetry: Metaphor and Metonymy in the Paintings of René Magritte." Contemporary Literature 21.3 (1980): 407-419. Print.

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Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist who was hailed for his use of color and the fluidity of his artwork. He is regarded as one of the main artists who helped define the revolutionary developments in modern art. He was both a painter and a sculptor, however he is best known for his paintings which can be characterized as decorative. In his critical essay of Matisse’s style, Andrew Lambirth claims that Matisse is one of the few artists whose work allows the word decorative to be used as an exclamation of praise, rather than “ damning criticism.” Many other art historians consider decorative paintings to lack skill and simply employ extra features that hide the flaws in the art, but Lambirth argues that in Matisse’s case, it is appropriate because that is where the expression in his paintings comes from.

A major point that Lambirth utilizes to support his claim is the importance of fabrics in Matisse’s paintings and how they influenced his work. They played such a crucial role in his life that he would “[buy] textiles even when he had very little money.” He even went as far as to call his collection a “working library.” He would use the fabrics to inspire his paintings. This added a decorative aura to his works, but the colors portrayed were the real expressions that he was trying to convey. Matisse himself claimed that “expression and decoration were one and the same thing.”

Lambirth strengthens his argument by using direct quotes about the topic and show that he is siding with Matisse. Matisse himself said “it's a bad mistake to give a pejorative sense to the word ‘decorative.’ A work of art should be decorative above all.” This shows that Matisse did not use decoration in his works simply to fill the canvas but rather to express the main thoughts and feeling of the theme of the painting. It is easy to see in Reclining Odalisque how a certain textile inspired him by looking at the pattern on the wall. The colors displayed in the pattern are not simply for aesthetically pleasing reasons, but rather for bringing fourth the mood of the scene in the painting.

Lambirth also notes Matisse’s use of pattern in his paintings and how it was also influenced by fabrics. When Matisse first began his artistic endeavors, he was considered part of a group of artists that practiced Fauvism. That is, his style utilized wild color use without any regard for the actual color perception of the objects being painted. However, after he became more experienced and his style matured, he moved away from that and more into decorative patterns. These patterns were influenced by his fabrics and they helped draw attention to the overall themes of his paintings.

Henri Matisse’s decorative style can not be scolded because he is one of very few artists whose works bring justice to the word decorative as used in art criticism. The influence of fabrics and textiles in his work allow him to utilize patterns and colors in order to find the appropriate and most effective way to communicate and express the feeling of painting to the viewer.

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