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Rins Art

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 12:27 am
by Jkun
I was recently reading a discussion on another forum about Rin (in particular, her artwork, like the mural she painted). I copied an entire essay one anon wrote about her mural (in spoiler tags in case you don't like reading huge walls of text), but the tl;dr seems to be that its a abstract/surrealist painting that talks about the impact that her disability has on her identity.

Basically, I was wondering what you think Rins paintings mean, and if anyone knows their art history (I don't) if the influences the person below talks about are more or less correct. I wonder how the artists who were in charge of actually making the art for Rin tackled the challenge of trying to paint images as if they were in her position. Especially since it seems like a really important factor for her character.

Although abstracted, there is nonetheless a great deal of clear figuration within Rin’s “No Idea”. The thick-bordered figures furthermore stand in front of a clearly delimited background, which alternates from a murky blue to a light beige but is always consistent in colour. The illusionistic depth within which the figure-ground relationship is executed makes this image reminiscent of a Surrealist dream landscape, albeit a highly syncretized one, borrowing elements of fantastical, anatomical forms from Salvador Dali, colour from Roberto Matta, and narrative from Arshile Gorky. And the sheer oppressiveness of the multitude of figures that crowd the image plane perhaps even evokes the labyrinthine drama of Dorothea Tanning. However, the public and explicit nature of its medium (muralism) and the intensely autographic mode of production (painting with the feet) brings us closer to the ideals of Abstract Expressionism, with its emphasis on a communicative, apolitical (yet ironically public) gesture. Here I will argue that “No Idea”, a poignant, yet failed neo-Surrealist oeuvre that borrows themes of Abstract Expressionist production, creates an ambivalent statement about Rins identity and her corresponding search for identification in the face of her disability.

The piece speaks with a confessional intimacy that immediately seems to contradict the large scale and public spectrum of the mural. This contrast is similar in nature to the dynamic of Rin’s search for identity: although she does not say so explicitly, the paintings imagery makes it clear that she is in constant struggle with the overwhelming presence of her disability, a looming force which threatens to eclipse any form of conscious identity she might otherwise assume. In other words, her identity is based on the polarity of her castrative disability and the artistic expression with which she escapes that trauma. That she speaks so loudly here, in this public image, is a sign of this struggle, for it must serve to speak as loudly as her lack of arms always does. Yet the problem is already apparent; for to encompass her whole in an image that must excise her sublimated trauma, that trauma must be present, and it is; but its presence subsumes the paintings voice virtue of its entire production; its imagery and style, her technique. This paradox, she is yet unable to resolve.

That is not to say, however, that this image is not supremely powerful. The confused and jumbled physiognomies crowd together within a dangerous, confining space, their gesticulation, expression, and mutated appendages threatening the viewer with dismemberment and castration. Noses, feet (lots of feet), torsos, breasts, faces, and elbows make a raucous crowd, a melee of Daliesque shapes whose crudeness—they are painted with blocks of colour as if from a fauve canvas, but the colours and pairings are definitively un-fauve, rendered with a sort of eerie cohesiveness like Matta’s “dream colours” and finished off with tacheist impasto—makes them reminiscent of a primitive expression of self . Eyes populate the canvas, both accusing us and claiming our wholeness virtue of their role as witnesses—witness to the trauma and horror of the disability the artist suffers, the appendages she lacks despite the wild proliferation of them here. It is indeed of note that, despite the many body parts we see (even elbows and torsos being visible) we do not see any hands or arms with the exception of a massive thumb and phallic forefinger rising from the bottom of the image.

There is a narrative procession of abstracted forms similar to in Gorky’s work. We pass over shapes evoking castration, such as the looming finger and the closed eye, disassociating forms of self-identification (like the man with a goldfish fused to his head) as well as obviously labeled sexual acts which segue dramatically into scenes of alienation brought about by the artists disability and corresponding passiveness. A progression of colour leads us from rather muted fleshy tones into an inflamed, caustic scheme, as if signifying a climax of suffering and pain, inverting the sexual metaphor that underpins the narrative. Throughout this we are reminded of another duality within Rin, which is the castration anxiety occupying her thoughts—clearly in opposition to her female gender, no? This contrast is perhaps more easily reconciled virtue of her dominant gesturality as an artist picking up a brush (another paradox, the brush’s role-value as phallic prosthesis curbed by her use of feet, a direct result of her disability). However it still remains as an important polarity through which Rins search for identity is carried out. The arms and hands, in performing actions and articulating the world around you are clear manifestations of the will to power that is the corollary of the intact phallic member, or in other words, bodily wholeness. While the ideal of wholeness is arguably unachievable for anyone, there is no disputing the fact that its opposite; dismemberment and dissolution, has left its lasting imprint on Rins body.

Ultimately, while “No Idea” is a product of Rins search for identity, its reading as such is still dependent on the forces of a larger, external narrative and thus it arrives at no successful conclusions within itself, remaining ambivalent to the end. Rather, it places us in the position of the artist, face to face with Rins bodily and metaphysical incompleteness. The trauma that seethes on the surface of this painting is not pretty, and it takes a massive amount of strength to resist its cacophonous, dismembering pull. The injury whose definition Rin resists still reigns supreme, and the tautological crisis of representation mentioned earlier (Rins identity must be distinct from her disability without simply disavowing it) means that this painting does not move forwards: it is static and one-sided. Neither does it excise trauma; rather, it reinforces it.

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:28 pm
by dirtnasty
I'm using this thread on Rin's art to post some screencaps of her mural. It's not as good as I'd want them to be, but I did my best. I hope someone else can extract them or find a way to get this image in its full res. It's amazing.

Image

Image

If you save the images above, they are of the mural's full length. The forum crops them.

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:35 pm
by chicunsu
dirtnasty wrote:I'm using this thread on Rin's art to post some screencaps of her mural. It's not as good as I'd want them to be, but I did my best. I hope someone else can extract them or find a way to get this image in its full res. It's amazing.





If you save the images above, they are of the mural's full length. The forum crops them.
Good job anyway =D

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2012 4:26 pm
by Worthington
I've got to say, I find the conclusions that the essay finds connecting to Rin's disability to be erroneous. Rin's search for identity is borne directly of her psyche, not her disability, which she works around and honestly gives no second thought to. They may have contributed to an ostracization when she was younger that makes her yearn to communicate like she does now, but she most likely doesn't realize this. Also, if climatic read this thread he'd laugh us all off as pretentious hipsters.
P.S.
Why did you spoiler tag that?

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2013 3:29 pm
by jestergl
I want to tell about my own interpretation (comprehension) of Rin's mural.

This mural represent Yamaku and what this school means for all it's residents. These are the bits and pieces missing from all the students.
Rin see all that is missing, starting in the lower left with a pair of lower leg (Emi's) since for her it was a logical starting point, and finishing with a big red heart on the right side.

Among the first thing Rin does when she see you is to identify your illness. I don't remember her exact sentence, but she collect body parts. She doesn't ellaborate on this.

The bits and pieces are missing from everybody, except Rin's arm. They are not there because she doesn't miss them. She just live without them.

I made that connection when I saw the beautiful naked torso, turned to show the right side of someone, the burned side of Hanako. Then I saw the feet on the left side and finally, since I was actually searching for an heart somewhere, realized that the red mass on the right side would be Hisao's heart, the last addition to the mural.

I had to say my 2 cents somewhere.

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2013 3:44 pm
by Oddball
Among the first thing Rin does when she see you is to identify your illness. I don't remember her exact sentence, but she collect body parts. She doesn't ellaborate on this.
She doesn't collect body parts. She collects people and she does elaborate on the fact.

She seems more interested in how people get around their disabilities and whether the person has any real depth to them rather than the disabilities themselves.

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2013 6:31 pm
by Xanatos
jestergl wrote: finally, since I was actually searching for an heart somewhere, realized that the red mass on the right side would be Hisao's heart, the last addition to the mural.
So you assumed the red mass is a heart just to force it into your interpretation here? That's not very credible...Plus you only indicated a pair of legs and an alleged heart. What of everything else? There's a lot in the mural. What corresponds to what?


As for what I think Rin's paintings mean...Nothing, at least in the usual sense of "meaning". She is repeatedly questioned about it and repeatedly has no answer to give. There is no meaning, at least none imbued by herself. Her paintings mean she likes to paint. A seemingly random outpour strung together by only the most tenuous connections and ideas if any at all, a stream-of-consciousness immortalized in colors. The content is ultimately inconsequential because there is no deliberate message or meaning to it. There is only the paint, the canvas, and a handfoot to guide the brush strokes. Any meaning is left to the viewer. And as a viewer, I find it too unpleasant a sight to contemplate any meaning myself.

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2013 6:38 pm
by Loonie
I think Rin puts it very well once herself by saying something like: "So, if you think it has a meaning, then I guess it's the same as this one." and "It's a mural that portrays itself."

So yeah, it does mean something. Namely, whatever you think it does. Paintings of this type in particular are designed to make the viewer draw their own conclusions about it. If it were say...a photo-realistic style, there's a lot less left to the interpretation when it comes to 'meaning.' Something made in this style, though, is almost always primarily made sense of in the viewer's head moreso than in that of the artist.

That being said, it doesn't mean that the artist didn't know what they were doing or that they literally had 'no idea' while making this. It probably just means that they didn't care for whatever that subconscious idea of theirs really was. And that's fine too. Some artists don't need to know what it is that they create. They just 'do'.

There...fancy enough a thought for you?

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 3:45 am
by nemz
Hmm. My thought was that she was mocking the 'normal' people who would be visiting, specifically by showing them what she thinks they expect to see when they visit the school if all the politeness was stripped away... just an endless menagerie of mishapped people. In all that distraction it can be hard to notice that the people we see are for the most part smiling.

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:13 am
by Xanatos
nemz wrote:Hmm. My thought was that she was mocking the 'normal' people who would be visiting, specifically by showing them what she thinks they expect to see when they visit the school if all the politeness was stripped away... just an endless menagerie of mishapped people. In all that distraction it can be hard to notice that the people we see are for the most part smiling.
Why would she mock them?

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:38 pm
by rockin robin
i think she made something that meant nothing. just to shut nomiya and shizune up.

Re: Rins Art

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 9:07 pm
by Dream
It's a great essay and the analysis was very interesting/joyful to read, and while i believe this might apply to Rin's character a lot (i always had the feeling there was something off with that mural, and that there was something about it that Rin never told Hisao), i think that, if there is something there, it's all more a subconscious impulse/drive rather than any theme consciously developed by Rin... She certainly doesn't act like her disability's a big deal at any moment. It's very possible the essay was actually referring to Rin's subconscious thoughs, however.
Xanatos wrote:As for what I think Rin's paintings mean...Nothing, at least in the usual sense of "meaning". She is repeatedly questioned about it and repeatedly has no answer to give. There is no meaning, at least none imbued by herself. Her paintings mean she likes to paint. A seemingly random outpour strung together by only the most tenuous connections and ideas if any at all, a stream-of-consciousness immortalized in colors. The content is ultimately inconsequential because there is no deliberate message or meaning to it. There is only the paint, the canvas, and a handfoot to guide the brush strokes. Any meaning is left to the viewer. And as a viewer, I find it too unpleasant a sight to contemplate any meaning myself.
I think this would be the primary or direct interpretation of her general paintings, i call it such because that is the reason directly given or expressed by Rin/the story during the route. I have to admit that i find Rin's art quite attractive/interesting though, if not overly pleasant.
nemz wrote:Hmm. My thought was that she was mocking the 'normal' people who would be visiting, specifically by showing them what she thinks they expect to see when they visit the school if all the politeness was stripped away... just an endless menagerie of mishapped people. In all that distraction it can be hard to notice that the people we see are for the most part smiling.
It's a good theory and i would believe this actually happens subtextually in the VN if Rin had the awareness or interest in making such a satire, but as it is though i don't think she would care enought. I never noticed the creatures in the painting were smiling though.
rockin robin wrote:I think she made something that meant nothing. Just to shut nomiya and shizune up.
It's quite likely, and probably gives a greater base to the theory of her subconscious restlessness translating on to the canvas.