There is a tension at the heart of ‘Matisse: The Cut-Outs’, one that pulls between childish simplicity and complexity; between exuberance and violence; between idealism and a certain kind of wistfulness. It is a tension revealed by the title of the exhibition itself: ‘cut-out’. This is a medium that belongs to the tactility and play inherent in a child’s experimentation with art, but one that has been combined with such sophisticated precision that makes it radical and new; full of bold possibility.

The Tate’s exhibition recreates the spirit of creativity and flux in Matisse’s studio, a succession of hotel bedrooms in the South of France. Riddled with bowel cancer and restricted to a wheelchair, the walls became Matisse’s canvas — his “little garden” — as he filled it with the joys and wonders of the outside world. He de- scribed these final years as “une seconde vie”, a second life, a hint at the energy and rejuvenation that shines through his work.

Paper coloured with different shades of gouache paint was cut out and pinned to the walls, creating formations and designs that were in constant states of change and renewal. They were never still, but imbued with movement. Fish and birds, intertwined in vibrant fauna, dive and circle around each other; circus artists leap and throw knives; mermaids undulate; smoke rises out of enchanted lamps. There is a poignancy in the sheer excess of life teeming off these walls, fluttering in the breeze from an open window, waving gently as people passed by, and the physical constraints of Matisse himself as he conjured up this magical world around him.

The Tate’s rooms are filled with relics from these days: pins, heaps of cut paper shapes, colour scales of gouache paint and glass shards from his design for the Rosary Chapel in Vence. Photographs show the cut-outs as they first appeared in Matisse’s living quarters-cum-studio, jumbled up with the objects of every-day life. Film footage shows Matisse himself as he cuts seamlessly into paper, the shape growing, bending and curling around the scissors as he works.

As we see from the beginning of the exhibition, the power of the cut-out stemmed from its ability to change and be transformed, from its power of experimentation. Two matching still-lifes (Still-life with shell) stand beside each other; one a painting, the other a collection of cut-out shapes. Matisse used the cut-out to experiment with the composition of his painting, right down to the edge of the table, evoked by a piece of string to be re-angled and repositioned at will. It is a combination of precision and experimentation that appears again at the end of the show, in Acanthuses, which — according to the curators — appeared with the perforations of more than a thousand tiny pin-holes in them.

Motifs echo throughout — not just thematically, but in the basic components of each image. Repeating shapes crop up in ever- changing contexts: the bursting red heart and yellow stars in The Fall of Icarus adorn the body of The Clown, lending it a sense of scarring violence, while the two dancers from a maquette studying the ballet Rouge et Noir reappear in print on a magazine cover for Verve IV with the same erupting centres, red superimposed over yellow.

The simplicity and rawness at the heart of this experimentation, that sense of heightened tactility, become more apparent when viewing the Jazz collection, and comparing the original mock-ups to their printed counterparts. The contrast in texture, juxtaposition of serrated and smooth edges, intertwining of paper — all of this is lost in print, where a smooth flatness replaces the maquettes’ bold physicality.

The overflowing exuberance of this exhibition belies the tumult of the external and personal worlds that surrounded Matisse. He was hobbled by illness and left by his wife of forty- one years; his muse, assistant and lover Lydia Delectorskaya attempting to commit suicide; his daughter soon to be arrested and tortured by the Nazis because of her work for the Resistance. A dark wistfulness permeates these beautiful gardens of life and magic, evoking an unattainable idealism, a desire for an impossible paradise. When asked by the poet and writer Louis Aragon how such brilliance could have been produced in a time of such darkness, Matisse’s response was simple and sad: “I do it in self-defence”.

These works will inspire unmitigated joy and wonder, but it is a beauty which does not come untouched by complexity or melancholy.

The way something looks, no matter what it is, has huge relevance to the way in which we perceive it. What a person wears, the shape of their body and the complexities of their face can, whether they should or not, have a signifi cant impact on how we view them and even how we treat them.

This is no different in the world of culture. From 40,000-year-old cave paintings in Spain to the latest Captain America fi lm, visual spectacle has always impressed us. And it’s not just man-made images and visuals that have an impact on us. The beauty of nature has long been a subject dear to Man’s heart. Frescos from Minoan Greece dated around 1500 BC include loving depictions of leaping bulls, mythical creatures and swimming dolphins. Like ancient David Attenboroughs, doubtless these artists were considered national treasures.

Of course, some of the earliest art was devoted to the improvement of architecture. Designing impressive and beautiful buildings was, for the ancients, one of the best ways of displaying their power and Ancient Greek architecture remains to this day some of the most beautiful. Furthermore, one only has to take a trip to Canary Wharf to see that we still display our power through the impressiveness of our architecture.

Beauty for beauty’s sake is not the sole purpose of art, however. In Ancient Greece, most art was created as a form of worship – the iconic Parthenon in Athens and the temple at Delphi are prime examples. Some of the greatest works of art throughout history have been in the service of religion, from the Sistine Chapel and da Vinci’s The Last Supper to the first sculpture of Buddha, which began to appear in the 5th century BC (though none would represent him in a full anthropomorphic manner until the 1st century AD).

Though religion would seem to be an inherently spiritual phenomenon, concerned with how one feels on the inside rather than how things look on the outside, visual culture has always played a large part in the worship of deities. Even aspects of culture which do not seem to explicitly involve visual representations are intricately tied up with what they look like. Yes, we’re not supposed to judge books by their covers, but it seems unlikely that Harry Potter would have been as successful if it had had a vomit green cover and no writing or pictures. 

Even the look of the words on the page is important, as any member of Cherwell staff (who has obsessed over which of two almost identical fonts to use for the culture spread) would tell you. In poetry, it is often vitally important how the words are presented – see Simon Armitage’s poem, Ankylosing Spondylitis, which resembles on the page the twisted spine which it describes.

Early novelists such as Laurence Sterne liked to experiment with ideas like this in their books. In his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Sterne uses numerous visual subversions of the traditional novel. A black page “mourns” the death of one character, squiggly graphs indicate the progress of the narrative line and at one point the author off ers an empty page to the reader so that they can include their own description of a character’s beauty.

And in our technologically advanced age, visuals have begun to play an ever-increasing role in various forms of culture. Every other film these days is described as a ‘visual spectacle’ for its special effects, its use of 3D, its CGI monsters. But visual effects have always been important in performance art. Ancient Greek actors wore exaggerated masks to show what emotions they were supposed to be feeling, for those audience members who were too far away to see.

In the Middle Ages, dramatizations of Bible stories demanded accurate costumes for the participants. Despite modern perceptions of the theatre as a place where one has to use one’s imagination, high-tech stages like that of the National Theatre show that technology is advancing the visual potential of plays as well. What’s more, concerts are getting more and more extravagant. Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience World Tour involved an insane light show, massive visuals of Justin’s face and a section of the stage shaped like a bridge going above the audience. Lady Gaga seems to break some performance boundary or other every time she takes to the stage.

Visual culture is an expansive study, and the philosophy of aesthetics is a popular school covering many of the ideas about beauty and images over which the human mind naturally obsesses. The way our world looks is vitally important to us, and we are constantly transfi xed by its beauty.

The aim of art is at its most simple level to add to or reflect the beauty already in the world, and as technology advances, the scale of visuals that
we can create increases exponentially. It seems we will never cease to be entranced by wonderful and spectacular pictures both natural and man-made.

Black Comedy
Peter Shaffer (1965)

From the playwright who brought us Equus and Amadeus, Black Comedy is a one-act farce written to be staged under a reverse lighting scheme – the title is a pun. It opens to a darkened stage, playing out in complete obscurity until a record player causes a fuse to short circuit.The stage is then illuminated as the characters are plunged into a “blackout”. It is a visual paradox, creating a descrepancy between audience and characters as the balance of what each party sees or doesn’t see is confused.

Seeing Things
Seamus Heaney (1991)

Heaney’s ninth collection is preoccupied with exploring the relationship between the imaginary and real. The poems merge mythical otherworlds where dead and living merge with images of Heaney’s own past. The title poem is a snapshot image of a boat ride to church, with “the deep, still, seeable-down-into water” holding the same terror as the waters of Hades. Heaney ends with telling us that ‘it was as if I looked from another boat’ – he surveys the domestic scene as though from a Godly height.

Christ of Saint John of the Cross
Salvador Dalí (1951)

In a parallel to “Seeing Things”, this painting from the godfather of surrealism depicts Christ on the cross from an extreme upward angle, as though from the perspective of God, or of the altar where such a figure would hang. Christ is seen floating in a black sky over a body of water in which can be seen boats and fishermen. Unlike usual images of the saviour, Dalí’s Christ is devoid of crown and wounds. Both this and the unusual angle of the painting allegedly came to Dalí in a dream.

Leonardo da Vinci spent years of his life obsessively studying the structure of the eye, and the difference between monocular and binocular vision. He questioned the way in which artists depict three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Ever since the Renaissance, artists following in Leo’s footsteps have examined the subjectivity of the human visual process and its effect on art practice.

One artist who has revolutionised the way in which art deals with perception is Bill Viola.Over the last four decades Viola has experimented with videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances and flat panel video pieces. Indeed, many consider him to be the father of video art.

Viola received a BA in visual art and electronic music. In his work he fuses these two mediums, creating pieces which confront all the senses. His installations are all-encompassing environments which envelop the viewer
in image and sound, exploring aural as well as visual perception.

In one of his video pieces, Walking On The Edge, two men side-by-side are seen gradually walking towards the camera on the backdrop of a hazy mountainous dessert. They seem not to be advancing, yet they imperceptibly become closer. Mid-way through the video they cross over each other’s paths. Viola plays with our perception because the exaggerated slow motion makes it diffi cult for the viewer to detect the gradual movement

In this surreal mirage-like setting, the figures walk in a repetitive continuum, seemingly without beginning or end, neither forwards nor backwards. Both the figures and the landscapes are obfuscated, which makes them seem transient and immaterial. Interestingly this piece has no sound accompaniment, which adds to the surreal sense of setting.

In Ascension, the shot opens with a dark expanse of water, punctuated by a shaft of piercing sunlight. The tranquillity of this image is disrupted when a fully clothed man plunges into the pool, his arms raised to his sides like Christ on the cross. Dreamers, consists of seven individual screens which depict underwater portraits of people who appear to be sleeping.

These paradoxical moving stills are accompanied by the sound of water, gently gurgling. As ever with Viola’s work the colours and textures
are hyper-real. The ten-minute long clip evokes historical and religious imagery and raises metaphysical questions about the human experience. Viola often depicts the presence of humans in material worlds enclosed by water, fire or darkness. When exhibited these seven screens create an immersive subterranean environment.

Viola incites experiences which are both intangible and inexpressible in language. The art is as much about the viewer’s reaction as it is about the piece itself. It is left up to the viewers to interpret the work through the lens of their own perspective. The artist does not see himself as the creator of stories, but rather as a ‘secret observer’ who uses his video camera to let the viewer into his process of perception.

They’re the 00s favourite Romanian red-heads that left Louis Walsh speechless. This week Where Are They Now discusses the Cheeky Girls’ career after their seminal release, ‘Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)’. They were an overnight chart topping sensation after auditioning for Popstars: The Rivals with a europop track written by their mother. However, it was not quite enough to avoid their now defunct record label, Telstar Records, getting into debt and failing to pay them £2.2 million.

But with great bums comes great responsibility, and the Cheeky Girls have stayed resilient in the face of adversity. It’s been a reality TV roller-coaster for these two, having appeared on Braniac, The Weakest Link, and Snog Marry Avoid, where they were named “Transylvanian horrors.” They even auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent, but failed to make it to the semi-finals. Also, one of them went out with a Lib-Dem MP, and then got cautioned for stealing from her local Sainsbury’s.

For some HTML goodness, check out www.cheeky-girls.co.uk. It hasn’t been updated since 2003.

Two Stars

Whether you like it or not, there is no denying that Dolly Parton is an icon. Her impact on country music will be everlasting. Anyone who claims to have never enjoyed dancing to the thrillingly cheesy tones of ‘9 to 5’ on full volume is 100% lying. She once said “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap,” and sure enough, her platinum locks, love of denim and sizeable assets will forever make her the face of the genre. But with Blue Smoke marking the 42nd release by the Tennessee musician, it’s inevitable that not everything Dolly does is golden. In other words, Blue Smoke is bad. Very, very bad.

Maybe Dollywood is running out of funds, or maybe the star needs some more botox. In any case, it feels as though Ms Parton’s latest release has come, not from the heart, but more financial requirements. Imagine: an intelligent monkey has been given a keyboard that perfectly assembles country songs when you press buttons that provide the ingredients, that’s Blue Smoke: completely devoid of creativity, or originality. You can forget about hearing any of the classic “songwriting Dolly delivered in her heyday. As I listen to the album to write this review, the friend sitting next to me asks, thirty minutes in, whether I’ve been playing the same Dolly Parton track in a loop. He even missed the cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ amidst the swirl of country commercialism that coats each track.

‘Lover du Jour’ is an especially low point. Dolly sings addresses a “luhvurh boy”, and maintains she “is naht for yourh amoosement!” She insists that she is not a “starter” or “after dinner drink,” but the real deal; a filet mignon rather than prawn cocktail, so to speak. She even attempts to speak some “frayunch” herself, but reveals in a giggly vocal message as the music peters out that her “frayunch is oarfuhl,” but her “lurve iyus oarsuhm!” Christ.

But there is no denying that ‘Lover du Jour’, though awful, is fun. And does Dolly Parton really try to be anything else? Granted, Blue Smoke is not a musical masterpiece or instant classic: there is no ‘Islands in the Stream’, or ‘Jolene’ and God knows, there is definitely no ‘I Will Always Love You’. But it is sort of enjoyable (in limited doses), if nothing else, as something to laugh at, not with.

Lighght, pronounced “light”, is both the title and content of a one-word poem by Aram Saroyan. Kishi Baski, AKA Washington-based indie pop artist and multi- instrumentalist Kaoru Ishibashi, is now using it as the title of his second release.

The decision to use this as the title for his second LP is intriguing; there’s none of the apparent simplicity of the poem in his music. It’s busy and up-tempo, almost frenetic at times, but sounds radiant, as if the luminosity intended in Saroyan’s piece was given aural form. From the outset, staccato violin and vocals are spun and layered, to create a glorious anthemic sonisphere that screams of summer.

However, the most wonderful thing about the album is how un-selfconscious it sounds. Saroyan’s poem sparked huge debate, not only about the merit of a one word poem, but also the question of what gives something artistic value at all. Ishibashi seems entirely uninterested in this question; he doesn’t care what you think pop music should sound like, and so becomes more sincere than some of his musical counterparts.

It’s unconventional and ebullient; some of the most straightforwardly jubilant music I’ve heard in a while, and it’s infectious.

Whilst the album fails to maintain these qualities towards the end, this does not affect the experience of the record as a whole.