chosen de Chirico

[jbor]

Found that reference:

http://www.pynchonfiles.com/Boeingpage3.htm 

     DiChirico's "Enigma of the Hour" is suggested by Pynchon as the jacket
     illustration.

Here's the painting:

http://wings.buffalo.edu/cas/english/faculty/conte/syllabi/377/Images/Chiric
o_Hour.jpg

A very early work: not as flat and linear as his mature style, moody,
Munch-like almost ...  V. & doppelgänger again ...

best


~~~
    "By 1945, the factory system - which, more than
     any piece of machinery, was the real and major
     result of the Industrial Revolution - had been
     extended to include the Manhattan Project, the
     German long-range rocket program and the death
     camps, such as Auschwitz.It has taken no major
     gift of prophecy to see how these three curves
      of development might plausibly converge, and
                before too long. ... "
                                 (T. Pynchon, 1984)
                                                    ~~~

----------
>From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
>To: David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
>Subject: painters preferred (was Re: Sphere, Slab & Mafia
>Date: Fri, Jan 5, 2001, 3:30 PM
>

>
> ----------
>>From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
>>
>
>> The repetition of the painted image makes me think more of Warhol, who was
>> nothing if not decky-dant.  Repetition for him was mechanical, as in
>> "inanimate-expressionism."  For the more fluid and truly "expressionist"
>> painter, repeated themes and images represent an explorative probing of the
>> resonances of an idea or an obsession and are far from catatonic.  Pynchon
>> has been the literary champion of repetitive themes, wouldn't you say?  And
>> why so?  Both Pollack and Johns are painters whom I'd bet my bottom dollar
>> Pynchon respects.
>
> Perhaps so. But maybe that depiction of Slab's painting style isn't so
> negative after all? (Certainly not as anti- as the parody of Mafia/Rand, but
> by the same token not nearly as pro- as the one of Sphere/Coleman et al) I
> might reserve further comments on this until we get to the relevant section
> in the novel I think.
>
> But I was interested to read that Pynchon originally wanted one of de
> Chirico's painting for the cover of _V._ (Can't recall where I read it, but
> I'm pretty sure it was at one of the Pynchon sites, maybe "Pynchonfiles".)
> There is that reference to the de Chirico and his surrealist "novel"
> _Hebdomeros_ later on in the text, of course. I tried reading it once but
> didn't get very far. I wonder which of de Chirico's paintings he wanted? I
> recall one with a bunch of bananas in the foreground, and another with
> artichokes, and another with biscuits. But I think that this might have been
> the one:
>
> http://www.tigtail.org/TVM/B/European/a.%20pre%20WW%20I/chirico_great_metaph
> ysician.1917.jpg
>
> The metaphysician as golem is just so apt.
>
> Of course, thinking of SHOCK and SHROUD, there's this
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6163/muses.html
>
> Or, cf. the "Bad Priest" of Malta and her "good" doppelganger, this:
>
> http://www.tigtail.org/TVM/B/European/a.%20pre%20WW%20I/chirico_two_sisters-
> -jewish_angel.1915.jpg
>
> One for monroe:
>
> http://www.tigtail.org/TVM/B/European/a.%20pre%20WW%20I/chirico_archealgogis
> ts.1927.jpg
>
> And here's a glimpse of those biscuits:
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/de/jwp/
>
> But this one is my favourite de Chirico of all, and certainly comes in with
> a good chance as well (i.e. all that stuff about "the Street" in the novel):
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6163/myst.html
>
> best
>
> ps btw, anyone know anything about these essays/collection?
>
> 'The Faustus of Malta: An Interface of Fact and Fiction in Pynchon's _V._',
> 'Pynchon and an International Dimension of the Sette Giugno', 'Historic
> Truth and Poetic Truth: Between Pynchon and Braudel', in _Pynchon, Malta and
> Wittgenstein_ (by P. Bianchi et al.), Malta, Malta University Publishers,
> 1995, pp. 39-73.
>
> http://www.arts.um.edu.mt/Philosophy/publications.htm
>
>
> ~~~
>     "By 1945, the factory system - which, more than
>      any piece of machinery, was the real and major
>      result of the Industrial Revolution - had been
>      extended to include the Manhattan Project, the
>      German long-range rocket program and the death
>      camps, such as Auschwitz.It has taken no major
>      gift of prophecy to see how these three curves
>       of development might plausibly converge, and
>                 before too long. ... "
>                                  (T. Pynchon, 1984)
>                                                     ~~~