Gothic art calls for a gothic review."[B]eauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins." Now, shall we talk about modular origami, fashion history, a Japanese twist?
Some concepts are easy enough to sum up, but can a few eloquent words describe the passion and terror lurking in the intricate folds of kimonos, under the high necks, peplum structures, striking shapes and cuts in black, pearl, gold, yellow and blue - and most of all, behind those eyes? Darkness and light, innocence and indulgence, male and female, victim and criminal, beauty and the beast. It's quite unbelievable how much we are drawn to opposites that attract.
Well, there is always a story behind. Corrie’s is a dark dreamscape of the Victorian era and its puritanism, emphasised by the art of the geisha and her seemingly natural poise and restraint. It’s none other than Oscar Wilde’s only known novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a gothic tale of chasing beauty and youth, running from decay and from society by splitting one’s soul in two. We can love or hate Prince Charming Dorian, but it’s our passions and deepest fears his life echoes. "Resist it [temptation], and your soul grows sick with (...) desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful."
Our quest for beauty and youth, fuelled by a violent desire to explore endless impossibilities, is life itself raging against reality as we know it. But far from escapism, a great gothic story, like Corrie’s collection, awakens our senses to the dangerous, the unnatural, the larger-than-life, to contrasts that cut like a knife, to high drama and sexual tensions of epic proportions. "Difference of object does not alter the singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it." Whatever our hearts’ desires, we are free to take the plunge and love every part of it, as long as we remain mindful of this lesser reality we live in.
No comments:
Post a Comment