Stan Brakhage - The Dante Quartet!!!

this took 6 years to complete and is hand-painted on IMAX film, an achievement at the very least. Brakhage has said himself he is over this paint style. The context is a hard working artist with a desire to communicate his unique whimsical obsessions. Great, if you ask me.

Brakhage was a great artist but his work suffers heavily from obsession with randomness, common to all contemporary artists. Also the idea that art should provoke thought, and not feelings, or it becomes manipulative, is inherently flawed. I won't even comment on John Cage's saying that: "art begins where beauty ends". And Brakhage agreed with him, unfortunately. If he didn't his works might have been even better. Way better.

I really really really don't know what to say to you if you don't find these paint works beautiful. Well I know to say you have no taste but other than that uh

I saw this a week or so ago in class. We watched several of his films and this was my favorite. I don't pretend to be able to derive some profound meaning from it but I thought the imagery was really quite stunning. The parts where it gets darker reminded me of when you see footage of monarchs swarming on a tree, bringing it to life.

I'm going to have to disagree with that. I have an abstract self-portrait hanging on my bedroom wall to help me reason through my life.

I believe this was Brakhage's interpretation of Dante's Inferno, but even then - whatever you get out of a piece of art is what you put into into it. Instead of thinking of this piece with the left-sided, linear part of your brain, just don't expect anything out of it. Just watch it and think. That is ultimately the point.

there is actually a great art to translating emotional experiences into abstract patterns and shapes... some experiences are so complex and deep they can actually only be said through abstraction, for example what is said in Mark Rothko's work. Abstract art is also much much older than figurative art, and has been around for at least 30.000 years.. if anything can lead to 'suicide of the artist, it is to abuse art for representing things like a photograph.

"Doctor, Doctor, I think I'm invisible!"

I'm sorry but i prefer several of the much earlier films of Len Lye and Norman McLaren.

brakhage was a true artist, this was just fuckin beutiful