Twilight

Twilight (pronounced twahy-lahyt)

(1) The soft, diffused light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, either from daybreak to sunrise or, more commonly, from sunset to nightfall.

(2) The period in the morning or, more commonly, in the evening during which this light prevails.

(3) A terminal period, especially after full development, success, etc.

(4) A state of uncertainty, vagueness, or gloom.

(5) Of or relating to, or resembling twilight; dim; obscure:

(6) Appearing or flying at twilight; crepuscular.

(7) The period of time during which the sun is a specified angular distance below the horizon (6°, 12° and 18° for civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight respectively)

1375-1425: From the Middle English twyelyghte (twilight) from the Old English twēonelēoht (twilight), the construct being twi (double, half) +‎ light, literally “second light, half-light”.  Light was from the Middle English light, liht & leoht, from the Old English lēoht, from the Proto-West Germanic leuht, from the Proto-Germanic leuhtą, from the primitive Indo-European lewktom, from the root lewk- (light).  It was cognate with the Scots licht (light), the West Frisian ljocht (light), the Dutch licht (light), the Low German licht (light) and the German Licht (light).  It was related also to the Swedish ljus (light), the Icelandic ljós (light), the Latin lūx (light), the Russian луч (luč) (beam of light), the Armenian լույս (luys) (light), the Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós) (white) and the Persian رُخش‎ (roxš).  It was cognate with the Scots twa licht, twylicht & twielicht (twilight), the Low German twilecht & twelecht (twilight), the Dutch tweelicht (twilight, dusk) and the German zwielicht (twilight, dusk).  The exact connotation of twi- in this word remains unclear but most etymologists link it to "half" light, rather than the fact that twilight occurs twice a day.  In that twilight may be compared with the Sanskrit samdhya (twilight, literally "a holding together, junction") and the Middle High German zwischerliecht (literally "tweenlight").

Enjoying the crepuscular: Lindsay Lohan at twilight.

The meaning "light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon at morning and evening" dates from the late fourteenth century, used often in the form "twilighting").  It was used originally (and most commonly) in English with reference to evening twilight but occasionally, beginning in the fifteenth century, referred also to the light of dawn.  The figurative extension dates from circa 1600.  The "twilight zone" is from 1901 (in a literal sense of the part of the sky lit by twilight), the use extended after from 1909 to refer to topics or cases where authority or behavior is unclear, the origin of that probably the 1909 novel In the Twilight Zone by Roger Carey Craven, the reference is to the mulatto heritage of one character, the idea of what used to be called the "half-breed", one who might be equally be claimed or disowned by either race.  The name was re-used in 2016 by Nona Fernández (b1971) (translated into English by Natasha Wimmer (b 1973)) in a novel about Chile under the dictatorship (1973-1990) of General Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006).  The US TV series of that name is from 1959.  The connotation of “twi” in this context is uncertain with most etymologists concluding it appears to refer to "half" light, rather than the state of twilight which occurs twice a day although in Sanskrit samdhya (twilight) was literally "a holding together” or “junction”, a formation known also in the Middle High German zwischerliecht, literally "tweenlight".  Twilight today is most commonly used with its original meaning of the evening light but from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth, it was used also to refer to the morning twilight.  The figurative extension is first recorded circa 1600.

Götterdämmerung

Richard Wagner (1865) by August Friedrich Pecht (1814–1903), oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ney York.

Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), is the fourth and final part of Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, usually known as The Ring or Ring Cycle).  Lasting some fifteen hours and usually presented over several days, its debut performance was at the Bayreuth Festival on 17 August 1876.

A great set piece drama and the grandest moment in Opera, the Ring Cycle is about the destruction of the gods and in a final battle with evil powers and although based on an old Norse myth, a dubious translation of the Old Icelandic Ragnarǫk (fate of the gods) meant it entered Modern German as Ragnarökkr (twilight of the gods).  In the Norse, the story was of "ancestral voices prophesying war" between mortals and the gods, a conflict ending in flames and flood but leading finally to the renewal of the world.  Wagner's work differs much from the Old Norse.

Part 1: Das Rheingold (Rhinegold)

The Rig Cycle begins with the dwarf Alberich seizing the gold of the Rhinemaidens. Alberich denounces love to gain possession of the magic ring which gives its wearer ultimate power; the ring is the world’s most desired object.  Rhinegold is the story of the gods; one learns of the suffering of Wotan and the problems the gods have in repaying Fafner and Fasolt, the giants who built Valhalla.

Part 2: Die Walkure (The Valkyries)

Brunnhilde and her father Wotan struggle with their pride to decide the ultimate destiny of mortals, the Valkyries being about the deep, tortured relationship between gods and mortals.  The gods also war with each-other but nobleness, especially in love, prevails over the oaths and the divine promises of the gods. Siegmund, the mortal hero, dies because his father, Wotan, is obliged to obey his wife, Fricka.

Part 3: Siegfried

This is the story of the hero, Siegfried, how he grows to manhood, how he discovers love and loss.  Raised by the Nibelung Mime, Siegfried is young, innocent and fearless and with help from a mysterious wanderer (Wotan in disguise), Siegfried finds the pieces of his father's sword.  Notung reforges the blade and Siegfried kills the dragon Fafner who guards the hoard of Nibelung gold stolen from the Rhinemaidens, taking possession of Alberich's cursed ring.  Siegfried is then drawn to follow a birdsong to find the sleeping Brunnhilde whom fate has destined him to awaken and fall in love with.  Waking her, Siegfried gives the ring to Brunnhilde to symbolize his oath of undying love and fidelity.

Part 4: Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)

Under an ambiance impending doom, all face the consequences of their choices; the Nibelung Alberich's curse upon the Ring proving prophetic for whoever holds the ring is ultimately destroyed.  Although Wotan's disempowerment was, in part three, foreshadowed by Siegfried breaking his spear, the doomed fate of the gods is sealed when Alberich's evil son, Hagen dupes and cruelly murders the brave mortal hero Siegfried.  Devastated, Brünnhilde has a huge funeral pyre built by the river, takes the ring and tells the Rhinemaidens to claim it from her ashes.  Brünnhilde then mounts her horse and rides into the flames.  As she burns, the Rhine overflows, quenching the fire and the Rhinemaidens swim in to claim the ring.  Hagen tries to stop them but they drag him to his death in the depths.  As they celebrate the return of the ring and its gold to the river, a red glow fills the sky for Valhalla, the last resting place of the gods is ablaze and the gods are consumed by the flames.

Crepuscule

Crepuscule (pronounced kri-puhs-kyool or krep-uh-skyool)

(1) Twilight; dusk.

(2) By extension, a brief period of transition between two states.

1350-1400: From the Middle French crepuscule, from the thirteenth century Old French crépuscule, from the Latin crepusculum (morning or evening twilight), the construct being crepus- (akin to creper (dark, dusky; obscure)) + -culum, the accusative singular of cūlus (a vulgar term for the buttocks) from the Proto-Italic kūlos, from the primitive Indo-European kul-, from kew- (to cover), the cognates for which included the Old Irish cúl (bottom) and the Lithuanian kẽvalas (skin, cover); it was related to cutis (hide).  Crepuscule, crepuscle & crepusculum are nouns, crepuscular is an adjective; the noun plural is crepuscules.

Before the provision of electricity which by the twentieth century meant much of the world was no longer constrained in their activities by the hours of sunlight, even other forms of artificial light could be variously expensive, unavailable or unreliable so sunlight was important, socially and economically so it’s not surprising a number of words evolved to describe the transition from light to dark including blackness, dark, dusk, gloom, obscurity, twilight, sundown, sunset, black, blackout, brownout, cloudiness, dimness, duskiness, eclipse, lightlessness, murk, murkiness, nightfall, blue hour, gloaming, evenfall, fogfall & smokefall.

Lindsay Lohan in daylight (left), as the crepusculum descends (centre) and in the dark of night (right).

The most attractive of these is twilight, an evocative word and one to which poets have always been drawn, whether to suggest some sense of uncertainty or the last days of life before the darkness of death.  Twilight was from the Middle English twilight & twyelyghte, the construct being twi- (double, half-) +‎ light, thus literally “second light, half-light”.  It was cognate with the Scots twa-licht, twylicht & twielicht (twilight), the Low German twilecht & twelecht (twilight), the Dutch tweelicht (twilight, dusk) and the German Zwielicht (twilight, dusk).  In the Old English, the form was twēone lēoht (twilight).  The curious word twilit (the simple past tense and past participle of twilight) has long intrigued etymologists.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) the earliest known use dates only from 1869 and the speculation is it was coined by someone who found the conventional forms (twilitten & twilighted) inelegant.  Smokefall (the close of the day before nightfall, when fog comes) was apparently used as early as the eleventh century and reflects the use of “smoke” in some regional dialects to refer variously to darkness, smoke and fog.  After thing became more precise, it was re-purposed to describe “the soot which falls from a cloud of smoke” and much later was adopted by those creating special effects to mean “an artificial waterfall of smoke for shows”, the smoke (sometimes combined with a mist of fine water vapor) used to reflect images created by light projection.

The development of languages in cultures of course reflects their environment and priorities although the oft-repeated claim that the Inuit and other nations in arctic and sub-arctic regions had 400 (the number does vary from source to source) words for “snow” are misleading although linguistic anthropologists have explored this on a number of occasions and all have concluded there are at least a few dozen and if the net is cast wider to encompass all aspects of snow (types of tracks in snow, suitability for wildlife etc), then the number is in three figures.  Linguistics is a discipline which illustrates structural functionalism in its pure form: words are created according to need and remain in use if they fulfill a useful purpose.  To most living in urban environments in industrial societies “snow” is adequate for most situations but those running ski-fields need more nuances while for the peoples in arctic regions, the correct description of the type of snow they will soon have to traverse can be the difference between life and death.

Ultracrepidarian

Ultracrepidarian (pronounced uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uhn)

Of or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of expertise

1819: An English adaptation of the historic words sūtor, ne ultra crepidam, uttered by the Greek artist Apelles and reported by the Pliny the Elder.  Translating literally as “let the shoemaker venture no further” and sometimes cited as ne supra crepidam sūtor judicare, the translation something like “a cobbler should stick to shoes”.  From the Latin, ultra is beyond, sūtor is cobbler and crepidam is accusative singular of crepida (from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís)) and means sandal or sole of a shoe.  Ultracrepidarian is a noun & verb and ultracrepidarianism is a noun; the noun plural is ultracrepidarians.  For humorous purposes, forms such as ultracrepidarist, ultracrepidarianish, ultracrepidarianize & ultracrepidarianesque have been coined; all are non-standard.

Ultracrepidarianism describes the tendency among some to offer opinions and advice on matters beyond their competence.  The word entered English in 1819 when used by English literary critic and self-described “good hater”, William Hazlitt (1778–1830), in an open letter to William Gifford (1756–1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, a letter described by one critic as “one of the finest works of invective in the language” although another suggested it was "one of his more moderate castigations" a hint that though now neglected, for students of especially waspish invective, he can be entertaining; the odd quote from him would certainly lend a varnish of erudition to trolling.  Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion, Pliny the Elder (circa 24-79) recording the habit of the famous Greek painter Apelles (a fourth century BC contemporary of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356-323 BC)), to display his work in public view, then conceal himself close by to listen to the comments of those passing.  One day, a cobbler paused and picked fault with Apelles’ rendering of sandals and the artist immediately took his brushes and pallet and touched-up the errant straps.  Encouraged, the amateur critic then let his eye wander above the ankle and suggested how the leg might be improved but this Apelles rejected, telling him to speak only of shoes and otherwise maintain a deferential silence.  Pliny hinted the artist's words of dismissal may not have been polite.

So critics should comment only on that about which they know.  The phrase in English is usually “cobbler, stick to your last” (a last a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning “to follow a track'' hence footstep) and exists in many European languages: zapatero a tus zapatos is the Spanish, schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest the Dutch, skomager, bliv ved din læst the Danish and schuster, bleib bei deinen leisten, the German.  Pliny’s actual words were ne supra crepidam judicaret, (crepidam a sandal or the sole of a shoe), but the idea is conveyed is in several ways in Latin tags, such as Ne sutor ultra crepidam (sutor means “cobbler”, a word which survives in Scotland in the spelling souter).  The best-known version is the abbreviated tag ultra crepidam (beyond the sole), and it’s that which Hazlitt used to construct ultracrepidarian.  Crepidam is from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís) and has no link with words like decrepit or crepitation (which are from the Classical Latin crepare (to creak, rattle, or make a noise)) or crepuscular (from the Latin word for twilight); crepidarian is an adjective rare perhaps to the point of extinction meaning “pertaining to a shoemaker”.

The related terms are "Nobel disease" & "Nobel syndrome" which are used to describe some of the opinions offered by Nobel laureates on subjects beyond their specialization.  In some cases this is "demand" rather than "supply" driven because, once a prize winner is added to a media outlet's "list of those who comment on X", if they turn out to give answers which generate audience numbers, controversy or clicks, they become "talent" and may be asked questions about matters of which they know little.  This happens because some laureates in the three "hard" prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine) operate in esoteric corners of their discipline; asking a particle physicist something about plasma physics on the basis of their having won the physics prize may not elicit useful information.  Of course those who have won the economics gong or one of what are now the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) prizes (peace & literature) may be assumed to have helpful opinions on everything.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956): Blue Poles

Number 11 (Blue poles, 1952), oil, enamel and aluminum paint with glass on canvas.

In 1973, when a million dollars was a still lot of money, the NGA (National Gallery of Australia), a little controversially, paid Aus$1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 11, 1952, popularly known as Blue Poles since it was first exhibited in 1954, the new name reputedly chosen by the artist.  It was some years ago said to be valued at up to US$100 million but, given the increase in the money supply (among the rich who trade this stuff) over the last two decades odd, that estimate may now be conservative although the suggestion in 2016 the value may have inflated to as much as US$350 million was though to be "on the high side".  Blue Poles emerged during Pollock’s "drip period" (1947-1950), a method which involved techniques such throwing paint at a canvas spread across the floor.  The art industry liked these (often preferring the more evocative term "action painting") and they remain his most popular works, although at this point, he abandoned the dripping and moved to his “black porings phase” a darker, simpler style which didn’t attract the same commercial interest.  He later returned to more colorful ways but his madness and alcoholism worsened; he died in a drink-driving accident.

Alchemy (1947), oil, aluminum, alkyd enamel paint with sand, pebbles, fibres, and broken wooden sticks on canvas.

Although the general public remained uninterested (except in the price tags) or sceptical, there were critics, always drawn to a “troubled genius”, who praised Pollock’s work and the industry approves of any artist who (1) had the decency to die young and (2) produced lots of stuff which can sell for millions.  US historian of art, curator & author Helen A Harrison (b 1943; director (1990-2024) of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, the former home and studio of the Abstract Expressionist artists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in East Hampton, New York) is an admirer, noting the “pioneering drip technique…” which “…introduced the notion of action painting", where the canvas became the space with which the artist actively would engage”.  As a thumbnail sketch she offered:

Number 14: Gray (1948), enamel over gesso on paper.

“Reminiscent of the Surrealist notions of the subconscious and automatic painting, Pollock's abstract works cemented his reputation as the most critically championed proponent of Abstract Expressionism. His visceral engagement with emotions, thoughts and other intangibles gives his abstract imagery extraordinary immediacy, while his skillful use of fluid pigment, applied with dance-like movements and sweeping gestures that seldom actually touched the surface, broke decisively with tradition. At first sight, Pollock's vigorous method appears to create chaotic labyrinths, but upon close inspection his strong rhythmic structures become evident, revealing a fascinating complexity and deeper significance.  Far from being calculated to shock, Pollock's liquid medium was crucial to his pictorial aims.  It proved the ideal vehicle for the mercurial content that he sought to communicate 'energy and motion made visible - memories arrested in space'.”

Number 13A: Arabesque (1948), oil and enamel on canvas.

Critics either less visionary or more fastidious seemed often as appalled by Pollock’s violence of technique as they were by the finished work (or “products” as some labelled the drip paintings), questioning whether any artistic skill or vision even existed, one finding them “…mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless.”  The detractors used the language of academic criticism but meant the same thing as the frequent phrase of an unimpressed public: “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”

Number 1, 1949 (1949), enamel and metallic paint on canvas. 

There have been famous responses to  “That’s not art, anyone could do that” but Ms Harrison's was practical, offering people the opportunity to try.  To the view that “…people thought it was arbitrary, that anyone can fling paint around”, Ms Harrison conceded it was true anybody could “fling paint around” but that was her point, anybody could, but having flung, they wouldn’t “…necessarily come up with anything” by which she meant the wouldn't necessarily come up with anything of which the critical establishment (a kind of freemasonry of the art business) would approve (ie could put a price tag on).

Helen A Harrison, The Jackson Pollock Box (Cider Mill Press, 96pp, ISBN-10:1604331860, ISBN-13:978-1604331868).

In 2010, Ms Harrison released The Jackson Pollock Box, a kit which, in addition to an introductory text, included paint brushes, drip bottles and canvases so people could do their own flinging and compare the result against a Pollock.  After that, they may agree with collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) that Pollock was “...the greatest painter since Picasso” or remain unrepentant ultracrepidarians.  Of course, many who thought their own eye for art quite well-trained didn't agree with Ms Guggenheim.  In 1945, just after the war, Duff Cooper (1890–1954), then serving as Britain's ambassador to France, came across Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) leaving an exhibition of paintings by English children aged 5-10 and in his diary noted the great cubist saying he "had been much impressed".  "No wonder" added the ambassador, "the pictures are just as good as his".

Dresses & drips: Three photographs by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), shot for a three-page feature in Vogue (March 1951) titled American Fashion: The New Soft Look which juxtaposed Pollock’s paintings hung in New York’s Betty Parsons Gallery with the season’s haute couture by Irene (1872-1951) & Henri Bendel (1868-1936).

Beaton choose the combinations of fashion and painting; pairing Lavender Mist (1950, left) with a short black ball gown of silk paper taffeta with large pink bow at one shoulder and an asymmetrical hooped skirt best illustrates the value of his trained eye.  Critics and social commentators have always liked these three pages, relishing the opportunity to comment on the interplay of so many of the clashing forces of modernity: the avant-garde and fashion, production and consumption, abstraction and representation, painting and photography, autonomy and decoration, masculinity and femininity, art and commerce.  Historians of art note it too because it was the abstract expressionism of the 1940s which was both uniquely an American movement and the one which in the post-war years saw the New York supplant Paris as the centre of Western art.  There have been interesting discussions about when last it could be said Western art had a "centre".

Blue Poles, upside down.

Although the suggestion might offend the trained and discerning eyes of art critics, it’s doubtful that for ultracrepidarians the experience of viewing Blue Poles would much be different were it to be hung upside down.  Fortunately, the world does have a goodly stock of art critics who can explain that while Pollock did more than once say his works should be interpreted “subjectively”, their intended orientation is a part of the whole and an inversion would change the visual dynamics and gravitational illusions upon which the abstraction effects depend would be changed.  It would still be a painting but, in a sense, not the one the artist painted.  Because the drip technique involved “flinging and poring paint” onto a canvas spread across a studio’s floor, there was not exactly a randomness in where the paint landed but physics did mean gravity exerted some pull (in flight and on the ground), lending layers and rivulets what must be a specific downward orientation.  Thus, were the work to be hung inverted, what was in the creative process a downward flow would be seen as “flowing uphill” as it were.  The compositional elements which lent the work its name were course the quasi-vertical “poles” placed at slight angles and its these which are the superstructure which “anchor” the rest of the drips and, being intrinsically “directional”, they too have a “right way up”.  There is in the assessment of art the “eye of the beholder” but although it may be something they leave unstated, most critics will be of the “some eyes are more equal than others” school.

Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1 as it (presumably correctly) sat in the artist's studio in 1944 (left) and as it was since 1945 exhibited (upside-down) in New York and Düsseldorf (right).  Spot the difference.

So although ultracrepidarians may not “get it” (even after digesting the critics’ explanations) and wouldn’t be able to tell whether or not it was hung correctly, that’s because they’re philistines.  In the world of abstract art however, even the critics can be fooled: in 2022, it was revealed a work in Piet Mondrian’s (1872-1944) 1941 New York City 1 series had for 77 years been hanging upside down.  First in exhibited in 1945 in New York’s MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), the piece was created with multi-colored adhesive paper tape and, in an incorrect orientation, it has since 1980 hung in the Düsseldorf Museum as part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s collection.  The decades-long, trans-Atlantic mistake came to light during a press conference held to announce the Kunstsammlung’s new Mondrian exhibition and the conclusion was the error may have been caused by something as simple as the packing-crate being overturned or misleading instructions being given to the staff.  1941 New York City 1 will remain upside because of the condition of the adhesive strips.  “The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread” a curator was quoted as saying, adding that if it were now to be turned-over, “…gravity would pull it into another direction.  And it’s now part of the work’s story.”  Mondrian was one of the more significant theorists of abstract art and its withdrawal from nature and natural subjects.  “Denaturalization” he proclaimed to be a milestone in human progress, adding: “The power of neo-plastic painting lies in having shown the necessity of this denaturalization in painterly terms... to denaturalize is to abstract... to abstract is to deepen.”  Thanks to the curator, now even ultracrepidarians can understand.

Portrait of Dora Maar (1937), oil on canvas by Pablo Picasso, Musée Picasso, Paris, France.  The image to the right, still recognizably a human figure, obviously is “upside down”.  

One of the early surrealists, Dora Maar (Henriette Theodora Markovitch, 1907–1997) was associated with the artists in the inter-war years opposed to fascism; her relationship with Picasso would last a decade and produce a number of portraits but her attitude to them was ambivalent.  Still, as Picasso's best remembered muse, she gained a kind of immortality.

Although there’s a tendency to divide art into the “abstract” and “realistic”, both categories encompass wide variations and probably the only truly useful binary is between “photo-realism” (ie close to indistinguishable from a HD (high definition) photograph and everything else.  The cubists, futurists and impressionists definitely were abstract artists but their works often could be recognized as distortions of reality (the straddling orphists a bit of a “gray area”) while the nature of the subject was unambiguous.  By contrast, Action Painting (the “drippers” and beyond), Color Field Painting, Geometric Abstraction, Expressionism, Neo-plasticism, Informalism, Op Art and such often wholly was disconnected from anything immediately recognizable as being physical reality and a useful test is compare depictions on the works side-by-side, one hung as the artist intended, the other “upside down”.  Ultracrepidarians and others can then be asked to judge which is which and it’d be interesting to see if professionals are any more accurate than amateurs.  Unfortunately, AI (artificial intelligence) can’t be used as a sort of “control” if well-known works are part of the test because in digitized form their “correct” aspect would be “known” to the bots.

Eye of the beholder: Portrait of Lindsay Lohan in the style of Claude Monet (1840–1926) at craiyon.com and available at US$26 on an organic cotton T-shirt made in a factory powered by renewable energy.

Whether the arguments about what deserves to be called “art” began among prehistoric “artists” and their critics in caves long ago isn’t known but it’s certainly a dispute with a long history.  In the sense it’s a subjective judgment the matter was doubtless often resolved by a potential buyer declining to purchase but during the twentieth century it became a contested topic and there were celebrated exhibits and squabbles which for decades played out before, in the post modern age, the final answer appeared to be something was art if variously (1) the creator said it was or (2) an art critic said it was or (3) it was in an art gallery or (4) the price tag was sufficiently impressive.

So what constitutes “art” is a construct of time, place & context which evolves, shaped by historical, cultural, social, economic, political & personal influences, factors which in recent years have had to be cognizant of the rise of cultural equivalency, the recognition that Western concepts such as the distinction between “high” (or “fine”) art and “folk” (or “popular”) art can’t be applied to work from other traditions where cultural objects are not classified by a graduated hierarchy.  In other words, everybody’s definition is equally valid.  That doesn’t mean there are no longer gatekeepers because the curators in institutions such as museums, galleries & academies all discriminate and thus play a significant role in deciding what gets exhibited, studied & promoted, even though few would now dare to suggest what is art and what is not: that would be cultural imperialism.

Eye of the prompt 1.0: An AI generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one using an interpretation which overlaid "curated drips" over "flung paint".  This could be rendered using Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box but would demand some talent.

In the twentieth century, it seemed to depend on artistic intent, something which transcended a traditional measure such as aesthetic value but as the graphic art in advertising and that with a political purpose such as agitprop became bigger, brighter and more intrusive, such forms also came to be regarded as art or at least worth of being studied or exhibited on the same basis, in the same spaces as oil on canvas portraits & landscapes.  Once though, an unfamiliar object in such places could shock as French painter & sculptor Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) managed in 1917 when he submitted a porcelain urinal as his piece for an exhibition in New York, his rationale being “…everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice.”  Even then it wasn’t a wholly original approach but the art establishment has never quite recovered and from that urinal to Dadaism, to soup cans to unmade beds, it became accepted that “anything goes” and people should be left to make of it what they will.  Probably the last remaining reliable guide to what really is "art" remains the price tag.

Eye of the prompt 1.1: An AI generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one closer to Pollock’s “action painting” technique.

His drip period wholly non-representational, Pollock didn’t produce recognizable portraiture so applying the technique for this purpose demands guesswork.  As AI illustrates, it can be done but, in blending two incompatible modes, whether it looks much like what Pollock would have produced had he accepted a “paint Lindsay Lohan” commission, is wholly speculative.  What is more likely is that even if some sort of hybrid, a portrait by Pollock would have been an abstraction altogether more chaotic and owing little to the structure on which such works usually depend in that there probably would have been no central focal point, fewer hints of symmetry and a use of shading producing a face not lineal in its composition.  That’s what his sense of “continuous motion” dictated: no single form becoming privileged over the rest.  So, this too is not for the literalists schooled in the tradition of photo-realism but as a work it’s also an example of how most armed with Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box could with "drip & fling" produce this but not necessarily would produce this, chaos on canvas needing talent too.

1948 Cisitalia 202 GT (left; 1947-1952) and 1962 Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974; right), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City.

Urinals tend not to be admired for their aesthetic qualities but there are those who find beauty in stuff as diverse as math equations and battleships.  Certain cars have long been objects which can exert an emotional pull on those with a feeling for such things and if the lines are sufficiently pleasing, many flaws in execution or engineering can be forgiven, sometimes to the point they become part of the charm.  New York’s MoMA in 1972 acknowledged such creations can be treated as works of art when they added a 1948 Cisitalia 202 GT finished in “Cisitalia Red” (MoMA object number 409.1972) to their collection, the press release noting it was “…the first time that an art museum in the U.S. put a car into its collection.”  Others appeared from time-to-time and while the 1953 Willys-Overland Jeep M-38A1 Utility Truck (MoMA object number 261.2002) perhaps is not conventionally beautiful, its brutish functionalism has a certain simplicity of form and in the exhibition notes MoMA clarified somewhat by describing it as a “rolling sculpture”, presumably in the spirit of a urinal being a “static sculpture”, both to be admired as pieces of design perfectly suited to their intended purpose, something of an art in itself.  Of the 1962 Jaguar E-Type (informally sometimes as XKE or XK-E in the US) open two seater (OTS, better known as a roadster and acquired as MoMA object number 113.996), there was no need to explain because it’s one of the most seductive shapes ever rendered in metal.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) attended the 1961 Geneva International Motor Show (now defunct but, on much the same basis as manufacturers east of Suez buying brand-names such as MG, Jaguar and such, the name has been purchased for use by an event in staged in Qatar) when the E-Type made its stunning debut and part of folklore is he called it “the most beautiful car in the world”.  Whether those words ever passed his lips isn’t certain because the sources vary slightly in detail and il Commendatore apparently never confirmed or denied the sentiment but it’s easy to believe and to this day many agree just looking at the thing can be a visceral experience.  The MoMA car is finished in "Opalescent Dark Blue" with a grey interior and blue soft-top (there are those who would prefer it in BRG (British Racing Green) over tan leather) and although as a piece of design it's not flawless (indeed, at some angles (notably three-quarter, rear), the two variants of the coupé can look gawky), anyone who can't see the beauty in a Series 1 E-Type OTS truly is ultracrepidarian.   

Acersecomic

Acersecomic (pronounced a-sir-suh-kome-ick)

A person whose hair has never been cut.

1623: From the Classical Latin acersecomēs (a long-haired youth) the word borrowed from the earlier Ancient Greek form ἀκερσεκόµης (with unshorn hair), constructed from komē (the hair of the head (the source of the –comic)) + keirein (to cut short) + the prefix a- (not; without).  The Latin acersecomēs wasn’t a term of derision or disapprobation, merely descriptive, it being common for Roman and Greek youth to wear their hair long until manhood.  Acersecomic appeared in English dictionaries as early as 1656, the second instance noted some 30 years later.  Although of dubious linguistic utility even in seventeenth century English, such entries weren’t uncommon in early English dictionaries as editors trawled through lists of words from antiquity to conjure up something, there being some marketing advantage in being the edition with the most words.  It exists now in a lexicographical twilight zone, its only apparent purpose being to appear as an example of a useless word.  The -comic element of the word is interesting.  It’s from the Ancient Greek komē in one of the senses of coma: a diffuse cloud of gas and dust that surrounds the nucleus of a comet.  From antiquity thus comes the sense of long, flowing hair summoning an image of the comet’s trail in the sky.  The same -comic ending turns up in two terms that are probably more obscure even than acersecomic: acrocomic (having hair at the tip, as in a goat’s beard (acro- translates as “tip”) and xanthocomic (a person with yellow hair), from the Greek xanthos (yellow).  Acersecomic & acersecomism are nouns and acersecomically is an adverb; the noun plural is acersecomics.

Lindsay Lohan as Rapunzel, The Real Housewives of Disney, Saturday Night Live (SNL), 2012.

Intriguingly, even if someone is acersecomic, that does not of necessity mean they will have really long hair.  As explained by Healthline, there are four stages in hair-growth: (1) Growing phase, (2) Transition phase, (3) Resting phase and (4) Shedding phase; the first three phases (anagen, catagen & telogen) encompass the growth & maturation of hair and the activity of the hair follicles that produce individual hairs while during the final (exogen), the “old” hair sheds and, usually, a new hair is getting ready to take its place.  Each phase has its own dynamics but the behavior can be affected by age, nutrition and health conditions.

A possible acersecomic although there is some evidence of at least the odd trim.  This od one of the less confronting images at People of Walmart which documents certain aspects of the American socio-economic experience in the social media age.  Users seem divided whether People of Walmart is a celebration of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), a chronicle of decadence or a condemnation of deviance.

The anagen phase has the longest duration but is variable depending on the location of the follicles; the hair on one’s scalp has the longest anagen and it can last anywhere between 2-8 years.  During the anagen, the follicles “push out” hairs that will continue to grow until they’re cut or reach the end of their life span and fall out.  Over the population, typically, at any moment, as many as 90% of the hairs on the scalp will be in the anagen phase.  Trichologists (those who study the hair or scalp) list the catagen as the “transitional stage” because it lasts only some two weeks, during which follicles shrink and hair growth slows; it’s in this process the hair separates from the bottom of the hair follicle yet remains in place during the final days of growth.  At any point, no more than 3% of the hairs on the scalp will be in the catagen.  The telogen, lasting 2-3 months is called the “resting stage” and gains the description from the affected (some 10%) hairs not growing but nor do they tend to fall out and it’s at this point new hairs begin to form in follicles that have just released hairs during the catagen.  Historically, the exogen (shedding stage) was regarded as the later element of the telogen but the modern practice in trichology is to list it as the fourth stanza in the cycle.  Didactically, that does make sense although technically, the exogen is an extension of the telogen, being the point at which hair is shed from the scalp, the volume affected by washing, brushing and even the wearing of tightly fitted headwear.  Losing as many as 100 hairs per day is typical and the exogen can least several months, new hairs growing in the follicles as old fall away.

Genuinely, 15 year old Skye Merchant was acersecomic until July 2021 when she had her first haircut, part of her fund-raising efforts for cancer research.  The trimmed locks were donated to perruquiers (wigmakers) making wigs for cancer patients who'd suffered hair-loss after chemotherapy.

What all that means is that whether or not acersecomic, the maximum length one’s hair can attain is determined wholly by one’s genetics; in other words, its determined well before birth and while it’s possible to increase the rate of growth by attention to nutrition and maintaining a “healthy lifestyle”, nothing can (yet) change one’s DNA and that means some can grow hair to their ankles while for others it will never extend beyond the shoulders. While, all else being equal, the state of one’s hair depends on genetics and hormone levels (mechanisms largely locked in before birth), trichologists recommend (1) maintaining protein intake (hair being composed largely of protein), (2) ensuring nutriant intake is at the recommended daily level (vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin B12, zinc, folic acid most associated with hair growth although iron is especially important for women) and (3) reducing physical and mental stress, something sometimes easier said than done.  There are also a variety of medical conditions which can affect hair including a misbehaving immune system but in mental health the two most documented are trichotillomania (an irresistible urge to pull hairs from the follicles) and the pica (a disorder characterized by craving and appetite for non-edible substances, such as ice, clay, chalk, dirt, or sand and named for the jay or magpie (pīca in Latin), based on the idea the birds will eat almost anything) trichophagia (the compulsion to eat hair, wool, and other fibres).  A noted feature of the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 (2013)), was the more systematic approach taken to eating disorders, variable definitional criteria being defined for the range of behaviours within that general rubric.

Suspected acersecomic, US suffragist and women's rights activist Maud Wood Park (1871–1955), photographed circa 1896 (the subject thus in her mid-twenties) in the studio of Frank W. Legg, at 18 Montvale Avenue, Woburn, Massachusetts.

These prints in sepia were mounted in a cardboard surround called a “cabinet card”, a popular format for commercial photographers which had first gone on sale in the mid-nineteenth century.  Because the cardboard was effective in protecting the photograph from damage, many cabinet cards have survived in museums or private collections and they’re an interesting part of the historic record, representing the way the middle-class wished to be presented.  In the Victorian era (1837-1901), long, luxuriant hair was valued as a symbol of feminine beauty and not until the 1920s did shorter styles become truly popular.  These images are untypical of the genre because the hair is unbound whereas most were photographed with their tresses restrained in the way stereotypically it’s imagined Victorian women were compelled to adopt; she was after all a proto-feminist and, as it would be for decades afterwards, hair could be a symbol of defiance against social convention.  Many of the surviving cabinet cards are the work of the obviously prolific Mr Legg and the site of his studio in Woburn, Massachusetts is now the Woburn Bowladrome which, off and on, has operated since 1940 although there’s now a large “JESUS” painted on the roof, presumably a recent addition by an owner or perhaps the hand of God.  Now again under new management, the Woburn Bowladrome hosts Candlepin, a variant of ten-pin bowling most popular in the Canadian maritime regions and the north-east of the US.  The game uses tall, narrow pins and a small, palm-sized ball with a scoring system allowing players three chances per frame to knock down all ten pins with the fallen pins remaining on the lane to be used in subsequent shots within the active frame.

In recent interviews, Russian model and singer Olga Naumova didn't make clear if she was truly an acersecomic but did reveal that in infancy her hair was so thin her parents covered her head, usually with a "babushka" headscarf (ie the style typically associated with Russian grandmothers).  It's obviously since flourished and her luxuriant locks are now 62 inches (1.57 m) long, a distinctive feature she says attracts (1) requests for selfies, (2) compliments, (3) propositions decent & otherwise, (4) public applause (in Thailand), (5) requests for technical advice (usually from women asking about shampoo, conditioner & other product) while (6) on-line, men sometimes suggest marriage, often by the expedient of elopement.

Olga Naumova and hair in motion.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Moscow-based model says she doesn't do "anything extraordinary" to maintain her mane beyond shampoo, conditioner and the odd oil treatment, adding the impressive length and volume she attributes wholly to the roll of the genetic dice.  Her plaits and braids are an impressive sight and their creation can take over two hours, depending on their number and intricacy.  She did admit she wears the "snatched high ponytail" made famous by the singer Ariana Grande (b 1993) only briefly for photo-shoots because the weight of her hair makes it "too painful" to long endure.

Greta Thunberg B&A: BB (before-bob) and AB (after-bob).

What's not clear is whether, in the age of global warming, acersecomism will remain socially acceptable and Greta Thunberg (b 2003), something of a benchmark for environmental consciousness, in 2025 opted for a bob (one straddling chin & shoulder-length).  Having gained fame as a weather forecaster, the switch to shorter hair appears to have coincided with her branching out from environmental activism to political direct action in the Middle East.  While doubtlessly she means well, it’s something that will end badly because while the matter of greenhouse gasses in the atmospheric can (over centuries) be fixed, some problems are insoluble and the road to the Middle East is paved six-feet deep with good intentions.  Ms Thunberg seems not to have discussed why she got a bob (and how she made her daily choice of "one braid or two" also remained mysterious) but her braids were very long and she may have thought them excessive and contributing to climate change.  While the effect individually would be slight, over the entire population there would be environmental benefits if all those with long hair got a bob because: (1) use of shampoo, conditioner and other product would be lowered (reduced production of chemicals & plastics), (2) a reduction in water use (washing the hair and rinsing out all that product uses much water), (3) reduced electricity use (less water would need to be heated (an energy-intensive process), hair dryers, styling wands & straighteners would be employed for a shorter duration) and (4) carbon emissions would drop because fewer containers of shampoo & conditioner would be shipped or otherwise transported (ships, trains, aircraft & trucks all part of the supply chain and many are powered (directly or indirectly) by the burning of fossil fuel).