Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Ain't This America What is distinctive about American art and letters

How will you KNOW that, numan? Being that you're dead and all.. .

numan, this thread keeps going because you keep hanging yourself and we seem to be enjoying that.

My knowledge or lack of same is irrelevant. The Source of All Glory surpasses mere knowledge as life surpasses death.

Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate: tunc autem facie ad faciem. Nunc cognosco ex parte: tunc autem cognoscam sicut et cognitus sum.
We see now in a mirror in darkness, then however face to face. Now I know but a little, then however I shall know just as I am known.

Not quite right. Better would be: "there shall be knowledge just as I am known."

There is no human being on earth capable of declaring with certitude who he is. No one knows what he has come into this world to do, what his acts correspond to, his sentiments, his ideas, or what his real name is, his enduring Name in the register of Light... History is an immense liturgical text where the iotas and the dots are worth no less than entire verses or chapters, but the importance of one or the other is indeterminable and profoundly hidden.
--- Jorge Luis Borges


I am pleased to be a source of innocent merriment for all you fine folks.

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you're a good sport numan

I know.

Ah! By wracking my brains, I have thought of another American who may be regarded as great!

My local library has a DVD of Edward S. Curtis' 1914 classic, In the Land of the War Canoes, which I viewed, once again last night. It was, I think, the first ethnographic movie, and is a masterpiece. It shows that America can occasionally produce an intelligent man, and casts yet more shame, if that is possible, on D. W. Griffith, whose Birth of a Nation was made at about the same time.

For those who have been unfortunate enough not to have seen Curtis' film, it is about the pre-contact life of the Kwakiutl Indians of northern Vancouver Island.

Curtis' major work was his stunning photographs of the North American Indians. He was someone of whom Americans could be proud, so naturally he has been ignored by his philistine countrymen.

Here is a clip from youtube. I couldn't find the war canoe scene. Too bad!

numan, I disagree that Curtis has been ignored, but I didn't know he made a film.

EmmaG

curtis has hardly been ignored. but let's be careful not to make too much hay over his work. while much it was beautiful and his heart was in the right place, he also had his critics. curtis managed to travel with a costume bin, if you will, and would create his photographs to his liking, forgoing the tragic state of the american indians at the time he was photographing them.

'

And some people imagine that I am overly critical.of things American!

Sometimes i think that only those Americans who are really worthy of respect are the targets of most Americans' spite and envy!

.

let me be clear here. i love curtis' work. if i could afford the reprints circulating from his original plates i would have them. instead, i have books containing his prints. books i have and continue to por over. however, i am also familiar with the history of his expeditions, what i believe to be a genuine concern for the people he photographed, from the perspective of a white man of his period. but to look at the photographs thoughtfully and respectfully, one should also know the history, what took place and why. to appreciate art, appreciating the beauty is not enough, imo.