Honors World Lit 10Mrs. YagelFrom Kafka to Ishida: Surrealism in Words and Images – The Power of the Found

Take some time to read through the brief bio of Tetsuya Ishida, a famous Japanese surrealist painter. The reason you are doing this follows the bio.

Tetsuya Ishida (石田 徹也 Ishida Tetsuya) was a Japanese painter, best known for his surreal portrayal of an ordinary Japanese life. He was accidentally killed by a train in 2005. Ishida's works feature three major themes: Japan's identity and role in today's world; Japan's social and academic educational structures, and Japanese people's struggles to adapt to social and technological changes in Japan's contemporary life. He conveys isolation, anxiety, identity crisis, skepticism, claustrophobia and solitude, incurred by these themes, by making school boys and business men as part of a factory and portraying young people, mostly young men, as physically integrated with everyday household objects such as a wash basin, a radiator, a toilet and a desk. His subjects have faces that resemble Ishida's own face. The resemblance suggests these are autobiographical, but Ishida had firmly denied this. Ishida shared anecdotes of his parents expressing bewilderment over his art style and the dark nature of his works. His mother was particularly upset by one of his self-portraits as she felt it was too dark, but he assured her that it was him at his happiest because he felt he could communicate better through his painting than he could in person. He later reported that his parents came to accept his works as part of his personality and that they, particularly his father, were able to appreciate his works even though they still didn't understand his art. In a snippet from an archived television interview used during Tokyo TV's Kirin Art Gallery's feature "The Grand Art Masters", Ishida had stated that regardless of whether he liked painting or not, he felt compelled to continue painting "people at mercy of Japan's contradicting nature of its social systems for as long as they exist". There are some aspects of his works that still intrigue his art critics. One of most discussed topics is a recurring motif found in the majority of Ishida's works: a plastic shopping bag. Ishida had consistently refused to explain the purpose and the meaning of the shopping bag. With Ishida gone, the question mark over the shopping bag motif is likely to remain for good. Since his death in 2005, a large number of unpublished works have been uncovered in his home,

which brings the estimated total of paintings he produced during his ten-year career as an artist to 186. (adapted from Wikipedia)

Looking at the artwork that follows I trust you will see the potential connections between Ishida’s work and Kafka’s, especially The Metamorphosis. Your task is to discern and put into writing the connections you see, using Kafka’s own words. Here is the process:

1. Carefully consider the works and choose the piece where you see the strongest, most interpretive possibility for connections.

2. Give the piece a thorough visual dissection and analysis to determine the details of the connections you see and intuit.

3. Now go back to Kafka’s words themselves in The Metamorphosis. In a nod to the many forms of Japanese poetry that rely on a fixed number of syllables or lines (don’t worry – I’m not asking you to write a poem, just a kindly nod in the form’s general direction) you are to choose 9 lines from the novella as a whole, preferably 3 from each book. The goal of these choices is that together they will create an extended caption of sorts for the artwork you have chosen, one that explains the artwork as if it were an illustration of the novella. Note: this kind of work is often called “Found” writing – using existing words and phrases found within a piece to create another work that connects topically or thematically.

4. The lines you choose do not have to be used in the order they were written by Kafka – in other words, feel free to begin your found captioning with a line from Book 3 if that is the best placement.

5. You may use only a portion of a line if that is most appropriate for the piece as a whole, but do not cut and condense so much that you lose the meaning, focus, or intent of Kafka’s original..

6. Things like verb forms, singulars, plurals, etc. may be changed as needed for coherence and flow in the piece.

7. You may use more than the required 9 that are asked of you, but please do not go more than 12. The constraint of the line and your choice of them is a big part of the challenge of the assignment.

8. On the next page is a sample piece using lines from Julius Caesar and art by Canadian artist Justin Gedak. The lines from the play are off to the right, shaded in grey. Take a look not only at the lines that were chosen, but also at the placement of the lines within the greater whole of the piece, the punctuation, the repetition, the combination of lines from one place with lines from another. All of those factors work together to make this a successful caption, one that picks up concretely on specific images in the art while alluding to others, as well.

Once you have chosen your image, please print out a color copy of it, if you have access at home to a color printer. If not, let me know and I will try to print it for you here at school.

This assessment will be counted as a writing grade and the usual elements of the rubric will be applied to it with grades for both content and mechanics. The additional consideration in the area of mechanics will be how you break up lines and utilize punctuation – or its lack – in order to emphasize your creative analysis. We will talk about this in class with the sample caption piece, and we will also have time to work in class together on that.

Each portion will be worth 25 points.

I can mend you. 1.1.17

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder and that craves wary walking …but … 2.1.13Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar I have not slept. 2.1.61

I can mend you. 1.1.17

Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully; 2.1.172ffLet’s carve him as s dish fit for the gods,Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.Believe me for mine honour, 3.2.14Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. 3.2.18For I am armed so strong in honesty 4.3.67That they pass by me as the idle wind.

… I am sick of many griefs … 4.3.143

But we must take the current when it serves … 4.3.222or lose our ventures.Good words are better than bad strokes 5.1.29And this same day must end that work the Ides of March begun. 5.1.113Hold then my sword -- 5.5.47Caesar now be still. 5.5.50I killed not thee with half so good a will.

(I thought I could) mend you. 1.1.17 amended