Blowing in the Wind with the Good Vibrations of the Wizard of Oz

The following comes from another class paper where we were told to listen to three NPR clips (from this site) of different American musical pieces. I chose "Blowing in the Wind" by Bob Dylan, "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys and the music film "Wizard of Oz."

The nominated winner:

(my favorite of the three musical pieces)



Listen to Paul, Peter and Mary singing "Blowing in the Wind"



Bob Dylan

"Blowing in the Wind" was originally written by Bob Dylan and became the foremost anti-war protest song of the 1960's. Listening to the NPR clip, I found it interesting that the song was originally based on a negro spiritual from the Civil War era. That gives the song an added layer of meaning as it connects the anti-war protests of the 1960's to the strivings of African-Americans during and after the Civil War to overcome the culture of slavery and discrimination. Both are linked together as struggles to more completely fulfill the American promise of freedom: freedom for African-Americans and freedom from the injustices of war. With this basis in a negro spiritual it is only fitting that the song was performed right before Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech, recalling the struggles of an earlier era and emphasizing the connection between the end of slavery and the civil rights movement.

Peter, Paul and Mary popularized
the song in 1963

Listening to the clip also made me realize how postmodern the song really is. The repeated statement that "the answer is blowing in the wind" has no specific interpretation readily readable from the song. Bob Dylan himself was cryptic about what this meant, saying only that the answers are not found in any book, TV show or discussion group, but in the wind. Whether it meant that the answers were obvious, or not obvious at all, or something else entirely is not clear from the song. This ambiguity or open-endedness is a very postmodern characteristic. By positing a number of questions and then answering them the song also uses a call-response mechanism typical of postmodernism.

I agree with the statement in the clip that Dylan was right not to give the song a specific interpretation because it is precisely this ambiguity that climaxes the song and makes it aesthetically pleasing to me. Had an absolute answer been given to the questions posed, the song would not have caused me to wonder and reflect on those questions as it currently does. That wondering and reflection is the whole meaning of the song to me. I also like the song because the imagery of the wind, while emphasizing the ambiguity of the answer, also leads us back to nature rather than to the established order of civilization for the answers to our condition.

These guys had good vibrations...

The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" is the next song clip I listened to. I like this song a lot because of the multiple instruments used to underscore the presence of "vibrations." The clip points out several different instruments used: the organ, the cello, bass, drums, an electro-theremin invented by Paul Tanner, and a harmonica. This multi-vocal or multi-instrumental attribute (itself a postmodern trait) emphasizes the vibratory nature of the song and makes it more playfully romantic than it would have been had only one or two instruments been used. I like the ability of the Beach Boys to use several instruments in making such playful and fun recordings.

I was surprised that Brian Wilson originally wanted to title the song "Good Vibes." I think the change to "Good vibrations" makes the song much better. The word "vibrations" makes the song more active to me than just using "vibes." When performed, "vibrations" is a more vibratory word because there are more syllables than in "vibes." It underscores the vibratory and playful nature of the song better.

Off to see the Wizard!

Finally, I listened to a clip about the Wizard of Oz movie. I found it interesting that putting in "Somewhere over the Rainbow" at the beginning of the movie was such a controversial or novel move. I like the insertion of that song at the beginning because it defines for us who Dorothy is and thereby sets up the rest of the story line for us to follow. I also like how different musical themes are used and repeated for the different characters in the movie and how these themes are repeatedly used to underscore the development of these characters. Seeing this development is enjoyable because as we learn about the development of others we learn about ourselves.

I like the theme of an escape from reality found in the movie. Having grown up watching the Wizard of Oz, I had never thought much about how it reflected conditions or emotions of the people following the Great Depression. Just as Dorothy was escaping from the cares of Kansas, people were trying to escape from the daily life of the depression and second World War. The film is a message of hope and assurance to those seeking escape: hope that everything will be alright as long as we follow our individual "yellow brick road" and an assurance that the answers are found within rather than by escaping. The heart we are looking for is already in us, the way to get home is in the yellow slippers we already have. In this way, the movie assures us that in spite of temporary lapses, if we live up to who we really are as individuals and as a society, we will continue to realize and fulfill the American Dream.

What Art Means - Most and Least Wanted

In class several weeks ago, we heard about a painting called "America's Most Wanted." This painting (to the side) is part of a project of "Most Wanted Paintings" and "Least Wanted Paintings" made by Russian emigrant artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid. "America's Most Wanted" and "America's Least Wanted" were exhibited at the Alternative Museum in New York.

America's Most Wanted is certainly American--it portrays George Washington, majestic mountains, animals, clear water and the sky. It is not a favorite painting of mine but it does capture my attention and represents the type of artwork I enjoy. It reminds me of the Hudson River School, my favorite American school of art, where grand paintings of nature were depicted, with even the leaves of every tree being painted in detail. Grand, majestic, beautiful, concerned with nature, inspiring -- this is what art means to me, first and foremost. Such depictions inspire me and make me appreciate what is beautiful.

On the other hand, we also have "America's Least Wanted" painting. This is the kind of abstract art that depicts nothing in particular and which either means something deeply symbolic or can mean whatever it may to whoever is looking at it. While we are currently learning about abstract art in my Humanities class and I can sometimes appreciate the way artists seek to depict something internal and mental rather than something external -- it is still not the kind of art that I want hung up in my own house. It may inspire me to reflect upon something but often the confusing shapes and colors are more distractive to me than they are inspirational. The beauties of nature, the beauties of landscape paintings, are much more inspiring to me than are contorted images and shapes on a canvas. I want to look outwards, out at beauty that uplifts and inspires me. I don't want to look inwards at images that may disturb be or reveal something mentally disturbing about myself or society.

I am with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman in nature - not with the abstract art of modernism. I am one of those who believe American art has lost something better and more beautiful found in the Romantic art period. Not that we haven't gained additional insights from Freudian pscyhology-inspired artwork; not that modern art does not help us reflect about important things as well. But you would never find me enjoy a museum of exclusively modern art nearly as much as I would a museum of exclusively romantic paintings. We need models - beauty - to lift us, inspire us, make us look ahead and beyond ourselves to something better, something to strive towards. Not just something depicting our mental psyche.

Komar and Melamid - you've proved it again: I AM American!

Dixon

The following is a paper on one of the lesser known paintings of Maynard Dixon, a late 19th to early 20th century regionalist painter. The painting is held by the BYU Museum of Art.

Destination Nowhere, by Dixon

Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) is best known as a painter of the American West. His paintings of the western landscape, western people, and the Native Americans were what originally established him as an artist. Like many other artists at the time, however, he was significantly influenced by the Great Depression in turning towards a more social realist style. Destination to Nowhere, painted in 1941, is one of those paintings. Depicting two solitary individuals walking through a barren desert with nothing hopeful in front of them, the painting represents a merger of Dixon's regionalist and social realist styles and a poignant social realist description and critique of the Depression era.

Born in California into a Virginian aristocratic family, Dixon started his career illustrating books and magazines with Western themes (Wikipedia). He studied for a while at the California School of Design but was largely self-taught. Drawn by the simplicity of the rural West, Dixon became well known for his regionalist landscape paintings of the West and depictions of Native Americans which were largely based on his own observations. These paintings, particularly those of the Native Americans, were more romanticized tributes than realistic depictions. His return to the West to paint Native Americans following the ending of his first marriage shows the comfort and solitude he found in the West.

Dixon's regionalist style of painting

The Depression significantly influenced Dixon as he turned away from mere regionalism towards a more modern and social realist style. Because of the Depression, Maynard and his second wife, photographer Dorothea Lange, were forced to give up their homes, board their children, and live in their studios to make ends meet. Working conditions at the nearby Boulder Dam construction site, the maritime strike in San Francisco, and his wife's social realist photography were all influential in turning Dixon towards a broader American perspective and a social realist critique (McKay). As Dixon said, "The depression woke me up to the fact that I had a part in all this, as an artist" (Hagerty 206). As a result, Dixon painted a series of paintings depicting strikes, displaced workers and those adversely affected by the Depression.

Destination to Nowhere is one of these Depression-era paintings, depicting the loneliness and insecurity faced by American society by means of two men walking together through a barren desert. Their ragged jeans and hats reveal them as working class people. The bedrolls they are carrying show that they are on a long journey and suggest that they are out looking for work with no more possessions than what they are carrying with them. That they are seen from behind their backs, their faces not visible, suggest that their specific identity is unimportant. The non-importance of their identity represents the hopelessness and insignificance they feel as poor people in the job market following the Depression. It also identifies them, and the theme of the painting, with the larger American populace rather than with specific people.

The first thing that catches my attention about the painting is the wide open sky in front of the two men. The sky covers about three-fourths of the painting and the major part of the bodies of the two men are situated against the background of the sky. This gives one the sense that they are walking toward the empty sky, representing a walk into the emptiness of an uncertain future. Had the painting promised hope and future fulfillment, there would have been something looming instead of the empty sky--a mountain, a temple, or the sun. But no such attainable ideal is presented. The style is modern precisely in that it does not express a distant ideal but a present reality. It is social realism in that this reality has to do with the harsh societal conditions of the time. There is no visible target or goal, merely an open-ended landscape--just as many during the Depression felt there was no hope or end in sight to the problems they were facing. The slightly rising altitude of distant mountains in the left and right side of the painting draws further attention to the center of the painting, emphasizing the wide open area they are walking into. The endlessness of the vista represents the endlessness of the journey they are on to find work and rise out of the poverty--and the seeming endlessness of the Great Depression. The shortness of the men's shadows show that the walk is taking place at mid-day, showing that the two men still have a long ways to go until they can rest with the night.

The postures of the two men emphasize the loneliness of the situation. Their faces and feet are not turned towards each other but towards the landscape in front of them. Had they faced each other or had the one person put his arm on the other's shoulder, this could have been a painting of friendship and cooperation in the midst of hopelessness and despair. Instead, their facing the terrain in front of them gives one the sense that these are not friends but two lonely individuals who decided to walk together in the search for better opportunities and better lives. As soon as they have found their opportunity, they are likely to separate. This, in turn, serves as a valuable commentary and social realist critique of a society where excessive individualism encourages people seeking their own individual success without cooperating with others. Americans have become too selfish and individualistic in their pursuit of the American Dream and they need to overcome that excessive individualism to overcome societal challenges. In this way, not only is this a "destination to nowhere" in geographical terms but in societal terms--if society continues along an excessively individual road without regard to the collective welfare it will get to nowhere. This is an implicit critique that the excessive individualism and greed of bankers and speculators is what led to the Great Depression in the first place. Collective cooperation is needed in the face of excessive individualism to fully solve the problems of the Depression and to get anywhere rather than nowhere.

Forgotten Man, another Dixon Depression Era painting

While a social realist critique of society, the painting also draws upon Dixon's earlier regionalist style in the natural background of the picture. It is a Western landscape, a desert with mountains in the background. The use of the desert as an image supports the feelings of loneliness and insecurity of the time. The dry, barren land represents the economic conditions of the Great Depression, the hot desert the harshness of society. The use of bland red, brown and grey colors rather than more vivid or lively colors signify the blandness of the time. Using the Western landscape as the background in a painting otherwise involved with a social realist critique represents a merger of the two styles of regionalism and social realism by Dixon.

At first glance, I did not like the painting very much. It is bland and there is nothing grand or beautiful about it. But after taking a deeper look I find it more interesting than I did at first. It effectively symbolizes the emotions of hopelessness and insecurity faced by people during the Great Depression and reminds me that similar conditions are still faced by some today.
　
Sources　
Hagerty, Donald J. The Art and Life of Maynard Dixon. New York: Gibss Smith, 1993.
McKay, Jayne. Maynard Dixon: the artist, the poet, and the man.

Wikipedia. Maynard Dixon.