Redtree Times

RedTree: Continuum— At West End Gallery

In contrast to the flux and muddle of life, art is clarity and enduring presence. In the stream of life, few things are perceived clearly because few things stay put. Every mood or emotion is mixed or diluted by contrary and extraneous elements. The clarity of art—the precise evocation of mood in the novel, or of summer twilight in a painting—is like waking to a bright landscape after a long fitful slumber, or the fragrance of chicken soup after a week of head cold.

–Yi-Fu Tuan, Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture (1993)

I like this description of the restorative power of art from the late geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. Art has the ability to bring us to a place of clarity and stability that often seems far from, as he puts it, the flux and muddle of life. He also points out that our reactions to events in our everyday life are often conflicted and affected by many outside factors that cloud the moment and cause our feelings for it to sometimes change drastically over a short period of time. We are left with a gnawing sense of uncertainty in what we know and think.

The words from Yi-Fu Tuan pretty much lines up with how I see art. I have probably expressed just those sentiments here before. It was the phrase here, the clarity of art, that caught my attention. We live in such a turbulent world in which there is so much swirling around all the time that it is hard to have a clear vision or thought. There is always something in the way of us seeing or hearing or thinking clearly.

Art on the other hand is a clarifying agent. It often provides a clear and set focal point for our mind and feelings, a time and place apart from the flux and muddle.

A place to restore mind and soul.

Yi-Fu Tuan (1930-1922) knew a little about places. He was a prominent geographer, writer, and professor who was a major figure in the field of human geography, also known as anthropogeography, which is the study of how people interact with place and environment. He was also one of the originators of humanistic or critical geography which studies how geography affects issues such as migration, inequality, injustice, and political and social movements.

He also coined the word topophilia which is “the strong emotional bond, affection, or love people feel for a specific place or environment, encompassing feelings like attachment, fascination, nostalgia, and belonging tied to a location.”

It is that sense of home I often write of and hope to capture with my work.

Nice to know there is word for that.

Here’s a song that is very much about the relationship between humans and place. This is a version of the Woody Guthrie song This Land is Your Land. I’ve played Woody’s original here as well as a couple of other covers of it but was surprised I never played this live performance from Bruce Springsteen. It’s a fine version of the song that effectively captures both love of place and the sometime elegiac melancholy that comes in it not living up to its promise. This video has spectacular imagery of the American landscape that make for fine examples of topophilia.

Here’s a little info on the song from prior posts:

Guthrie wrote the song in the late 1930’s in response to the immense popularity at that time of the Kate Smith version of God Bless America, written by Irving Berlin. Guthrie saw the world coming apart due to the nationalistic extremism that had spread through Europe, producing fascist leaders such as Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain.

The original intro to God Bless America had the lines:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea / Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free / Let us all be grateful that we’re far from there, / As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

That phrase that we’re far from there was later changed to for a land so fair.  Guthrie saw it as a call to an isolated form of nationalism, one that cast a blind eye to the perils lurking abroad that were beginning to spread here as well as our own problems at home. Problems like poverty and inequality of both wealth and justice.

Guthrie wanted to address these problems in his retort to Berlin’s song.  At first, Guthrie sarcastically called his song God Blessed America For Me before naming it This Land Is Your Land.

Below are the two verses in the original version of This Land Is Your Land that are always omitted from those cheery civic versions speak to the ills of this country as Guthrie saw them, most noticeably the greed which led to the great chasm of inequality between the wealthy and the poor of this land. He questioned how a land with so much wealth and beauty, one based on the equality of man, could tolerate the extreme poverty and injustice he saw in his travels across this land.

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.
The sign was painted, said ‘Private Property.’
But on the backside, it didn’t say nothing.
This land was made for you and me.

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,
by the relief office I saw my people.
As they stood hungry,
I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.

It’s an interesting song that speaks to this perilous time in the world as blind nationalism rises abroad and here in the USA.