Creator | Title | Emotional Sum (Sense of Life or emotional World View) | Theme |
---|---|---|---|
Myron? | Riace Bronze A | Man is strong and indomitable | Intelligence, Pride, Strength = Man |
Writer: Coward, Noel | Design for Living | Life can be giddy and bright. Facing up to one's anti-conventional values is important. Conventional morality must be questioned if it causes suffering and conflict. |
You should follow your deepest values and accept them no matter how unconventional the outcome. A rare combination of the wittiest, lightest of Noel Coward's style, along with deeper themes of romantic love, proper morality and how should one live. |
Maugham, W. Somerset | Of Human Bondage | Life is a fearful gray spread of actions and in-actions without genuine values. We are all deformed in mind or spirit and should accept convention as demanded by those around us. | Man's life is outside his control. Conventionality is the final ideal. |
Playwright: Shakespeare, William | Othello: the Moor of Venice | Malevolence and horrible tragedy is unrelieved. Evil is potent. |
A great man can be gullible and controlled by an evil character. Or, an evil character can have potency in the world, because of the weakness of a good man.<br> |
Shute, Nevil | Landfall | Heroes and Heroines are self-made, by anyone at any level of intelligence who seriously pursues what is important in their lives. |
Truth will triumph -- with perseverance. |
Painter: Mondrian, Piet | Composition with Red Yellow Blue and Black | [Seems mute] | |
Composer: Catalani, Alfredo | Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (aria from La Wally) | Longing is the overall emotional tone of the music. The lyric gives reason to this overall tone. |
Sadness at having to leave forever the place where you were happy once. |
Painter: Koyo Omura | Blue Phoenix | A pleasing and lush, possibly claustrophobic, world. | |
Director: Hudson, Hugh | Chariots of Fire | A complete feeling of openness of the world to greatness of your own choosing. | Life is achievement. |
Playwright: Rostand, Edmond | Cyrano de Bergerac | Life can be exciting. Life can be grand, literally. There is also some great sadness about consummated love, since it is portrayed as unreachable. |
The importance of independence and independent thought. Compromise is deadly to one's soul. |
Director: McCarey, Leo | Ruggles of Red Gap | Happiness and fulfillment is in yourself. | Personal declaration of independence from servitude |
Painter: Leyendecker, J.C. | Day at the Beach | Fun and cuteness. | |
Creator: Nix, Matt | Burn Notice | Anything can be done if you are smart and motivated enough. | |
Sculptor: unknown | Niobe | Human action is beautiful. | Life is movement. |
Director: Ardolino, Emile | Dirty Dancing | Life is passionate and meaningful. | The joy and passion of love and life and dancing, while learning integrity and independence. |
Director: De Felitta, Raymond | Two Family House | Feelings of benevolence and optimism about life. Happiness comes from making choices for your own good. | Going after what you want in life; Don't be stopped by conventional standards of the people around you. It takes courage to be selfish. |
Sculptor: Tuby, Jean Baptiste (1630-1700) | Chariot of Apollo | The world has thrilling powerful men of action. There are no limits to what can be achieved. |
Elegant, physical power. The fantasy ability to fly through water and air with grace and ease.<br> |
Author: Webster, Henry Kitchell | Real Adventure, The | Life is wonderful as long as you realize that life has to be earned the hard way. | Creating your *self* is the only way to live. |
Director: Korda Alexander | Rembrandt | Life is hard as an independent spirit, and wealth will elude you, but you will be happy, after a fashion. | |
Author: Rand, Ayn | Atlas Shrugged | Life can be good; Men are competent to live happily; The world can be a shining, happy place to exist, if one is free. But novel also presents a dark, dystopian world to help make real that positive view. | The crucial value of the human mind. |
Director: Stanton, Andrew | Wall-E | The world is garbage, and more garbage and humans have destroyed the earth, because of their wanton consumerism. | Mankind is a blight on the universe, and only cute robots (as opposed to evil robots) can save the earth from human degradation. |
Designer: Otar, John | Covered Box | Fun; complexity made from simplicity | |
Sculptor: Fedi, Pio | Rape of Polyxena, The | Strength and complex beauty are central. Vitality, passion and action are hallmarks of this work. |
Life is complex strife, entwined with strong god-like characters. |
Villeroy & Boch | Chocolate Pitcher and Butter Dish | Friendly warmth (arising from the simple graceful lines, and the unadorned simplicity of the colors without ornament) | |
Rodin, Auguste | Shade, The | Life is a gruesome trial. There is no hope. | The world destroys man. (Some unknown evil force is destroying this young strong man.) Given that the sculpture is titled as a "Shade" and is related to the Group sculpture "Gates of Hell", one can presume the evil is some unnamed condition that can overpower life and cause destruction of the good. |