ARCH 8224
Form and Narrative
Professor Jude LeBlanc
Winter 1999
ART VS. NATURE
| Media | Literature | Film | Architecture |
| Product | The Tempest | Prospero's Books | The Library of San Lorenzo |
| Author | William Shakespeare | Peter Greenaway | Michaelangelo Buonarroti |
| Time Frame | 17th Century | 20th Century | 16th Century |
In “The Machine in the Garden”, Leo Marx investigates the United States’ pursuit of the pastoral ideal. He does this through an analysis of various texts by US authors, and one British: William Shakespeare. In “The Tempest”, Shakespeare’s possibly last play, Marx discovers hints of the European view of America as a conflicting natural landscape. Two different attitudes are at play, the newfound Paradise and the menacing wilderness.
Each of these attitudes has an underlying implication. The idea of the bountiful garden implies immediate fulfillment. There’s no need to work since nature in its present state is enough. In contrast, the menacing wilderness requires a postponement of immediate pleasures, and becomes another field for the exercise of power.
These attitudes are reflected in the
division of nature in two creatures: Ariel, the spirit of fire and air
and Caliban, the spirit of earth and water. Together, they make the four
elements of nature. In Shakespeare’s play Ariel represents the idyllic
side of nature: one that can be tamed and put to serve man’s will. Caliban
is the fearful wilderness, a hint that nature cannot be completely tamed
(Prospero tried civilizing Caliban and he responded by almost raping his
daughter). Prospero has power over both Ariel and Caliban because of his
magic, which according to Marx can be interpreted as modern technology.
So civilization can dominate nature by ways of technological advancement.
| Attitude | Newfound Paradise/bountiful garden | Menacing Wilderness |
| Implication | Leisure, inmediate fulfillment: sufficiency of nature in its immediate state | Field for the exercise of power, postponement of immediate pleasures, cultivation |
| Representation | Ariel | Caliban |
Strictly speaking, Shakespeare recognizes the island really belongs to Caliban (the dark side of nature), since he’s the son of the previous ruler (Prospero: “This damn'd witch Sycorax” ). Indeed, when he first came to the island, it was Caliban who showed Prospero all its riches, which Prospero corresponded by teaching him science and reading:
CALIBAN. I must eat my dinner.) This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first, thou strok'st me and made much of me, wouldst give me water with berries in't, and teach me how to name the bigger light, and how the less, that burn by day and night; and then I lov'd thee, and show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle, the fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile. Curs'd be I that did so! All the charms of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, which first was mine own king; and here you sty me in this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me the rest o' th' island.1Ariel’s role is more subtle. A slave of Sycorax, he has been left prisoner of a pine for not doing her commands, and is freed by Prospero, who in turn makes him his slave (granted, for a year).
In a way, Sycorax is the primary representation of nature, mother to Caliban and master to Ariel. It is significant that she’s shown as a woman (a witch, a blue eyed hag), as nature has traditionally been depicted (mother nature), and that she’s never defeated: she dies a natural death before Prospero ever reaches the island. All we know about her is that she’s gotten pregnant and sailors abandoned her on the island, which she ruled with what to Prospero were “earthy and abhorr'd commands”. This rage Prospero feels against Sycorax is never explained, since according to the play he never got to meet her or suffered any grievance because of her. Yet it is he, not Ariel, who directs all the insults at her. It could be understood as a representation of the European man’s frustration against the natural element he cannot fully understand or dominate.
In a bigger structure, the play makes a division of the natural or primitive man vs. the civilized man, an issue that was very relevant in the Renaissance regarding attitudes towards colonization. One point of view, argued that the primitive man, being uncorrupted, was artless and unaffected –Rousseau’s ‘noble savage’, Montaigne’s canibals:
"These people, " says Montaigne, "are wild in the same ways that fruits are wild, when nature has produced them in her ordinary way..." These, he says, "the true, most useful, and natural virtues and properties are alive and vigorous." He goes on, "...in fact, it is those that we have artificially modified (meaning us) ,..., we ought to call [those] wild...those we have bastardized and adapted to the gratification of our corrupt taste."
The opposing argument was that the civilized
man ruled over his instincts and had conquered nature. Shakespeare presents
both arguments for consideration, opposing the dual arguments in Prospero,
Antonio, Ariel and Caliban:
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ART
|
NATURE
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| Art vs. Nature | Prospero | Antonio | Ariel | Caliban |
| Initial Situation | Art over Nature | Art without Nature | Nature subservient to Art | Nature resistant to Art |
| Resolution | Comes to term with Nature (Caliban) | No repentance | Obtains freedom from Art | Repentance |
Caliban’s plot could regain him the island, but he’s more interested in destroying Prospero. Inadvertedly, he’s throwing himself into a new master (Stephano). His motives are ruled by instinct, he wishes for inmediate fulfillment of a desire (the death of Prospero) without thinking of the consequences (a new slavery). In the end, Caliban recognizes his errors and shows repentances, contrasting to the silent Antonio.
In the end, Prospero drowns his books
and goes back to Milan to reclaim his political power, “where every third
thought shall be my grave” . Some important lessons have been learned on
the island. Prospero has come to terms with nature and renounced his art
(broken his magic shaft, drowned his book). His new knowledge comes not
from his books (which he had in Milan) but from nature. He is very much
like Plato’s philosopher ruler in his Simile of the Cave:
“…the state whose prospective rulers come to their duties with least enthusiasm is bound to have the best and most tranquil government, and the state whose rulers are eager to rule the worst.”Prospero’s Books
As a 20th Century interpretation of The Tempest, Prospero’s Books should show how the attitudes and themes Shakespeare dealt with in the 17th Century have evolved. The duality of nature is very present in the images of Ariel and Caliban.
Caliban is interpreted more human that Shakespeare describes him (“a freckl'd whelp, hag-born-not honour'd with a human shape”1, a tortoise, a fish, “Legg'd like a man, and his fins like arms” ). The grace in his language Shakespeare gives him is strenghtened by the grace of his dancing. The character is as balanced in the movie as it is in the original play, with the additional touch at the end, were he reclaims the final two books Prospero intends to drown: Shakespeare’s plays and The Tempest. With this twist, Greenaway grants Caliban the last hand.
In contrast, Ariel suffers multiple variations: He’s interpreted as a foursome, four cherub-like creatures in different stages of life (boy, adolescent, adults). Ariel ends the movie, running towards the camera.
An important point in the movie is the
actual representation of nature. We never see a “natural landscape” in
the film. Prospero’s cell is augmented to multiple recreations of italian
and greek buildings, which we assume Prospero has built through his magic.
Nature in the film is represented as a multiplicity of spirits, starting
with Ariel and Caliban but continuing with an endless flow of nude actors,
that significantly come out from under Prospero’s blue cape (the author’s
cape), and can be interpreted as a product of his imagination. These spirits
populate the island and their only purpose seems to be to serve their master,
Prospero. Nature, as a product and in the service of the intellect.
Greenaway considers two sources for
the inhabitants of the island . Mythological creatures created by Prospero,
that literrally come out of his books and are products of his art. And
original inhabitants of the island, “some malign- the evidence of its black
magic past when Sycorax the witch was queen, and Prospero’s power has not
completely transformed them…and some benign- evidence of his new benevolent
white magic.” Some creatures have an ambiguous posicion between these two
cathegories: ‘natives’ of the island, created by Prospero after his idea
of the New World- American Indians, a little stylized to please a European
sensibility.
Caliban tells us:
“Remember first to possess his books; for without them he's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not one spirit to command; they all do hate him As rootedly as I.”Greenaway considers this statement to be true, and further on elaborates “the spirits of the island have an existence of their own which is given to ribaldry- remembering their origins and Caliban’s remark that they would behave very differently if Prospero’s power declined.”
There are some representations of natural landscape, very staged and always with a reminder that civilization (Prospero) that made them.
? Caliban’s pit. A dark, menacing world,
it’s the end of a sewer. Caliban and his environment is presented with
the Book of Earth, which Greenaway/Prospero considers the source of his
knowledge of the island: “With this book Prospero savoured the geology
of the island. With its help, he mined for salt and coal, water and mercury;
and also for gold, not for his purse, but for his arthritis” . Inmediately,
Caliban will deny this and reveal his part in revealing nature to Prospero.
? Cornfields. Ferdinand walks into
the colonadeand meets Prospero and Miranda. Appropriately, the scene is
presented with the book End Plants. The landscape is a field of golden
corn, which actually reminds us more of a plantation, that is, manipulated
nature. The corn is planted in square groups, imitating the square planters
inside the colonnade, reminding us of its artificial nature. Ferdinand
walks through this field into Prospero’s civilization. It is the only scene
in which we see a horizon.
? Formal Garden. Greenaway describes
it as “Alhambra” Gardens, situated below Miranda’s bedroom. It is represented
as a terrace with planters on it. It is a backdrop for the masque and Prospero’s
reconciliation with his enemies
? Antiquarian Beach. A beach, but full
of architectural ruins, which Greenaway describes as products of Prospero’s
art, not real ruins but fabricated elements, thus doubly removed in their
artificiality. A landscape filled with artifacts and with a colonnade as
backdrop.
? River. A setting for a Caliban scene,
dark, dirty and menacing. At the end, the steps of the library’s vestibule
are hinted under the foliage.
? Forest. A forest of columns covered
with foliage, used as background for Alonso and company lost in the island.
A different treatment is given to Sycorax in the movie. She arrived in the island 16 years from the present, 4 years before Prospero. Greenaway first imagined Prospero assiting in Caliban’s birth , an unlikely occurrence since Sycorax is supposed to be pregnant when she arrives. At the time, Sycorax is represented as pregnant, ‘big bellied, thin legged”, bald and quite repelling. She has “carnally consorted with the devil” . But there’s another representation of Sycorax, when she was powerful in Argiers. It is never stated in the film, but it is a figure that keeps appearing in the background, a naked woman with a black feather hat based in Félicien Rops 1878’s “Pornokratés”.
This image can be interpreted then as Sycorax’s spirit that still walks through the island, and appears in key scenes:
? Beside Prospero in the initial credits
? In Caliban’s murder proposal, in
the middle of the island spirits: “they all hate him as rootedly as I”
? In the representation of Summer,
with a male counterpart, before Miranda and Ferdinand are presented playing
chess – probably representing the first state of the island-.
Caliban and Ariel represent the powers
of the island . But in carrying on Prospero’s revenge, Ariel is ashamed:
first after creating the illusion of Ferdinand’s dead body, he escapes
Prospero’s grasp. After pursuing Canibal and company with hunters and dogs,
he finds his own voice, recriminating Prospero and writing in the book:
“Your charm so strongly works 'em that if you now beheld them your affections would become tender.”Thus it is nature that recriminates Prospero’s revengeful plans and turns them into forgiveness, suddenly giving all characters their own voice “Prospero’s imaginings have created the characters, but it is only his forgiveness that has breathed life into them- they are now truly alive.”
Art (knowledge, magic) has dominated nature until now. But the moment Ariel influences Prospero to change the ending, there is a shift. Prospero will use his magic one last time, with the promise of drowning his books.
Although up to now all of Prospero’s
manipulations have shown him as eager for revenge, the consequences, losing
his daughter but regaining his dukedom, leave him forlorn about his return
to civilization. According to Greenaway, Prospero’s initial 24 books have
multiplied in the island, and thus Prospero has found wisdom there, including
Ariel’s final teaching of mercy.
Library of San Lorenzo
The library is the most important space in both the play and the film. In the play, all actions are either before Prospero’s cell, inside or in another part of the island. The library is the place where Prospero writes The Tempest, i.e., plots his revenge, and where he changes his mind and finds mercy. It is an island of Art within the island of Nature.
In the film, it is the center and axis of the action. It connects the bath house in one end with Miranda’s bedroom, on the other end. The reading room lodges Prospero’s cell (Antonello Da Messina’s Saint Jerome in his study). The vestibule is an antechamber for Miranda’s room.
Greenaway describes the reading room as a halfway stage between the vestibule and the study. Indeed, in the first part of the movie (The Past), the action is carried on from the bath house, through the library, to Miranda’s room, and back to the bath house through the library. With panning cameras, we are introduced to the layouts of the rooms, with the library as center of the action.
For this space, Greenaway chose Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Laurentian Library. It is the only specific architectural object, and the most detailed set. (Sets become detailed according to importance- from the staged bath house to the detailed De Messina cell.)
Done by another renaissance man of many talents, the library mirrors some of Prospero’s attitudes towards art and nature. Michelangelo’s interpretations of Roman capitals and entablatures are highly personalized explosions of fancy, a standard that he honoured more in the breach than in the observance . Likewise, Prospero’s ruins and pyramids are personal versions of the buildings he has studied in The Book of Architecture and other Music and The Book of Ruins.
The manipulation of nature can also be found in the library. In the vestibule, Michelangelo molds the structural forces formally reversing the roles of column and wall to their opposite structural function. The columns look ornamental, in fact, they’re bracing the wall and supporting the roof. The walls appear massive, they are really a thin membrane for enclosure. In fact, it’s this “licentious use of classical vocabulary” that results in the obscuring of the relationships of load and support, in the volutes, not used as supporting members but only supporting themselves, in the pilaster frames of the tabernacles, narrowing towards the base.
The camera’s movements mirror the library’s
spatial configuration. In the reading room, always panning along the longitudinal
axis, except in the final scene, when the spirits for the last masque run
towards the camera, which stays fixed. In the vestibule, the camera is
always fixed, and the actors are seen going up or down the staircase.
Common Themes
| Attitude Art/Arch. History | WS takes a real story and changes it to make his play | P builds ruins and architectural monuments to his taste, PG himself reinterprets The Tempest | MB reinterprets roman orders |
| Duality of Nature | Ariel and Caliban | The obedient slave and the rebelling slave | The reading room’s recessed planes vs. the vestibule’s projecting volumes |
| Art & knowledge | Prospero’s magic | 24 books | Knowledge contained in books |
| Structure | Unity of time place and action of classical drama (Aristotle) | Past, Present and Future | Linear |
| Movement & Stasis | General action of the play vs. isolated events (tempest, masque) | Long pannning shots (no advancement of plot) vs. still shots (action takes place) | The reading room and the vestibule |
Art vs. Nature
“…if "Art" is taken in the wider sense, it can also be equivocal, since it is extremely dangerous if misused. If used properly, however, it can control Nature and curb its baser urges or at least prevent them from being carried out. Nevertheless, while the need for control over Nature is asserted continually, the ending suggests that Art must ultimately come to terms with Nature.”
The relationship between art and nature is treated very similarly in these three products. In The Tempest, Shakespeare presents us with the different attitudes present at the time regarding nature. This multiplicity of views is in itself representative of the reinassance.
Peter Greenaway, a reinassance man of sorts, offers us Shakespeare’s different points of view with some postmodern irony. How else can we look at mimics of reinassance paintings brought to life and innocently parading around the set? Gonzalo’s attitude towards a virginal island reminds us of the consequences of colonization.
The Laurentian Library represents a break with tradition: Michelangelo reinterprets the classical orders to serve formalist aims, and in doing so plays with the duality between the structural and formal roles of architectural elements. In choosing the library for Prospero, Greenaway recognizes Michelangelo’s attitudes towards the classical orders.
If Shakespeare intends a reconciliation
of Art and Nature at the end of his play, Greenaway suggests the pretenciousness
of man in intending to control nature: it is nature that ultimately solves
the conflicts in the play, and man is but a stage actor, temporarily on
the island but ultimately bound for Milan.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Peter Greenaway, Prospero’s Books A
Film of Shakespeare’s the Tempest. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows,
1991
Leo Marx, “Shakespeare’s American Fable”,
from The Machine in the Garden
Ralph A. Ranald, Review Notes and Study
Guide to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. New York: Thor Publications Inc., 1964
William Shakespeare, The Tempest. New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1927
Anthony Vidler, “Rebuilding the Primitive
Hut”, from The Writing on the Walls. Princeton: Princeton Architectural
Press, 1987
WEB SITES
http://www.worlds4.com/greenaway/index.html(Greenaway
Guide by Uwe Hemmen)
http://sunflower.singnet.com.sg/~yisheng/notes/tempest/artnatur.htm
http://sunflower.singnet.com.sg/~yisheng/notes/tempest/artnatu2.htm
http://www.michelangelo.com/buonarroti.html