Hip, Hip, Hurrah!

Hip, Hip, Hurrah! (Danish: Hip, hip, hurra! Kunstnerfest på Skagen) is an oil-on-canvas painting from 1888 by Norwegian-Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer. It shows various members of what Krøyer referred to as the "guild" of Skagen Painters: a group of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish artists who formed a loose community in Skagen at the northern tip of Jutland in the 1880s and early 1890s. Hip, Hip, Hurrah! is typical of the work produced by the Skagen Painters; very much in the style of the French Impressionists and Naturalists, it celebrates the play of light in the scene (and in composition and subject draws obvious comparisons to Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party), but at the same time it harks back to the freundschaftbild tradition of artists of the Danish Golden Age such as Ditlev Blunck and Wilhelm Bendz in depicting artistic communities spontaneously drawing together.

The painting was started in 1884 after a party at Michael Ancher's house; the composition was inspired by photographs taken at the celebration by the German artist Fritz Stoltenberg, although the individuals featured are not all the same. Krøyer returned uninvited to Ancher's house the morning after the gathering with his easel and paints, eager to start sketching and expecting the freedom to come and go as he pleased. His lack of consideration annoyed Ancher who had only recently moved to the house in an attempt to escape the hustle and bustle of town life; as a result, the two artists suffered their first serious falling-out. Although they reconciled soon afterwards, Krøyer did not get the unlimited access to Ancher's garden that he had expected and, frustrated, he struggled to progress with the work. He made do with the garden at Ancher's old apartment and worked from photographs and from life when he got the chance. It was four years before he could complete the picture.

From left to right the people pictured are: Martha Møller Johansen, her husband, the painter Viggo Johansen, Norwegian painter Christian Krohg, Krøyer, Degn Brøndum (Anna Ancher's brother), Michael Ancher, Swedish painter Oscar Björck, Danish painter Thorvald Niss, teacher Helene Christensen (who was romantically involved with Krøyer), Danish painter Anna Ancher and her daughter Helga Ancher.




I thought this was a good painting and perhaps an unintentional metaphor for our own group dynamic, sometimes. It's interesting to think that everyone in this painting is now dead, and the only reason I know they ever existed at all, and probably you as well, is because you're looking at this painting and the story that accompanies it. And yet, the painting almost didn't happen over something as trivial as isolationism, miscommunication and irritation. I can almost guarantee none of them saw this painting and thought in a hundred years that it would be their link to a single moment in time for people who never witnessed it, even if the nuanced context may not have been fully understood. Even though art is a medium specifically for expressing yourself and in a way trying to immortalize yourself, or at least little moments of your feelings, thoughts, or opinions, it seems that artists rarely have an appreciate for how the decisions they make can effect the lives of people hundreds of years later, even if in a small way. It's one of the reasons I love art; it's knowing that the man who painted this had no idea that someone 200 years later would insert their own context into what they saw and read and feel bemused and maybe slightly regretful.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my own art, my place in it and how much of it is derived from just trying to figure myself out. I have written characters that are able to do the things that I want to do in many moments of my life. Petty, cruel things, irreverent and amusing things. I find it interesting though that ultimately, these characters feel just as trapped in their lives as I sometimes feel. Does that mean that I feel like we're all stuck? That there is no escaping this weird feeling? I hope not. I honestly don't feel like I've tried hard enough to get away from that. It's really easy to bemoan your situation and how you feel about things. And the weird thing is, I'm not sad. I just feel...misappropriated. And I probably am. I'm not a desk jockey by nature. I want to create things. But it's difficult for me to get motivated, and stay motivated. I don't know why. It's not difficult, it's not daunting. Or maybe it is, but in an unconventional way that I'm failing to recognize. Maybe I'm depressed. Not in the mopey, "I don't wanna live any more sad face" kind of way. More like in the perennially tired, "if I could just get enough days to myself of doing nothing, then I could get started on everything" kind of way. The annoying kind of depressing. I wouldn't be surprised if I read this later with more knowledge and say, "Jesus that shit was obvious" and also "look at how dull and droning this dreck reads." Because I fancy myself as quite the future alliterator.

I've been told before that creativity is subject to a kind of inertia. You just have to get the ball rolling down the path and then it sticks. I've pretty consistently had trouble with that in all manners of things that require consistent effort. And I'm so goddamn distracted all the time, which I will freely admit is by my choosing. Maybe I'm a victim of ADD culture, because I'm pretty sure I'm the ADD Kid. Alt+Tab is the first commandment in my godless heathen bible. I'll give you an idea of some of the things that I've done variable amounts of or at least tried to fit into a schedule in the last month, and this I guarantee will not be the full story, just what I can remember off the top of my head:

- Level up a druid in Diablo 2
- Max out on multiplayer CoD
- Purchase more art and switch up/add to decorating
- Watch the first season of Breaking Bad
-Watch the first season of X-Files
- Watch the eighth season of First 48
- Level up my characters (4) in DC Universe Online
- Finish my Civ 5 campaigns (5 of them)
- Organize and file my most recent Met Art downloads
- Resize the ENTIRE LIBRARY to afford more disc space
- Get ready for Dead Space 2 by getting reacquainted with the plot from the first

Notice how nothing on that list actually matters in real life in any conceivable way. And yet every day I'm doing at least something on there and it is very truly time consuming. This doesn't even take into account the art side. On that front I want to work on:

- My own assassins story
- The Cynder comic with Lovalle
- Some sort of collaboration with my girlfriend
- The Killer/Cop story with Lucio (still waiting)
- Let's Not Play with Travis
- Some kind of serious piece in regards to filming

As for the assassins story, I need to have a fully edited chapter ready for presentation by March 1st for the class I re-enrolled in since forced deadlines are the only thing that motivate me artistically at this point. I'd prefer to write an all new one, and that means getting reacquainted with the material I have and getting it up to speed with where I want the characters to be as I have them currently in my head.

For the Cynder comic, I need to do a four issue outline of what my vision for Lovalle's piece is, then get together with him and see what sticks to the wall. For this case I feel that at least one new completely original character not included in the material he has given me needs to be generated, and right now I'm having an internal argument over what race I want her to be and if that plays into her character or not. I want to do sort of a loner indian girl that's adopted and trying to figure out her place societally through exploring her own supposed heritage that she has no knowledge of (I want her to be adopted and at the beginning of the story not have anyone she can rely on, somewhere between 17-19 years old, but all of this is totally in flux now) and I have no idea where any of this fits just yet. Nevermind that I know nothing about indian culture or being a teenage girl, and that I'm a stickler for being authentic.

Nothing else have I had the time to even think about in depth. I'm at a point where I'm tired of talking about things. I just want things to start happening. I'm literally overwhelmed by all the nothing that's happening right now, and not in an energized, let's break down the wall sense as I mentioned previously. I'm tired, frustrated, dissonant. I feel like I don't have the resources to get done what I want to get done. Add to that that I spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, which is a lot of driving back and forth and emotional energy. I'm glad for it and it has made me into a much better person than I was before as far as general morality goes. I am much less negative now than I was before. Sure my sense of humor is still mostly evil but it's no longer a reflection of my own self-loathing. I feel like I have a kind of legitimate place in someone else's life now. But it is a very engaging experience and I am sorely lacking in energy. I'm in need of some kind of system but I am lacking in discipline. If I had a better system, more energy, more time, I think honestly I'd be going into greater detail right about now in terms of where my emotional/romantic life has taken me instead of giving you that blurb. But maybe later, after I've gotten some rest and some shit done.