On Defecating Bricks

The action on Facebook tonight: Various friends bemoan the arrival of tomorrow's ATAR scores - the set of numbers that will determine, at least in the immediate future, our career pathways. One warns customers to be prepared for a cantankerous checkout chick while others look into the ether for help on receiving the most "efficient" mode of getting their scores (a surprising, if not unexpected, comment regarding the Nazis was made on one such status).

The culmination of the various portion of 13 years of industrious work - or lack thereof - will become tangible tomorrow. Some may have put in the effort for the 2 years - the technical duration of the VCE but it is possible to stretch it out to 3 - others just the one year and some may have only known good study habits for 6 months. On a personal level, I felt I could have worked harder for the first half of this year before I clamped down for the November exams. This was especially the case when I had already achieved a study score in the top 3.5% of the state for Literature last year.

Whatever situation a student finds themselves in, there needs to be a check-in not with hysteria but with reality. The whole reason that we are subjected to this method of evaluation is that all parties concerned with our education - employers, tertiary institutions, the VCAA, our peers and, most importantly, our own egos - can determine just where we stand. I've heard that, apparently, fellow tortured students in Britain receive only end-of-year grade markings, and their relative worth to universities is determined by extracurricular activities. It's a noble idea, but I've come to believe that statistical moderation is far superior to this sort of contextual determination. At the end of the day, your volunteering at the local soup kitchen for a couple of hours each week has no bearing on how successful you will be in completing your Juris Doctor with honours.

Of course, some will feel disappointment. It's a natural part of the whole scholastic cycle. I can write this with some ease as I have been provisionally offered to study a Bachelor of Communication (Media) at RMIT. I would say to those people that your response to the setback defines you more as a person than the setback itself ever does. There is a beautiful short story by Isaac Asimov - and I'll be darned if I can remember the name of it - that exposes final exams in the future - which are roughly analogous to the importance of my exams for future success on steroids on methamphetamines. The crux of the story is that he seemingly fails all his exams - only in the last paragraph is his result revealed to be special enough to be deemed an educator and smarter than most other people. The whole point is that while it sounds clichéd, it might just be good advice to follow the wisdom of The Rolling Stones - "You can't always get what you want, but you find sometimes that you might just get what you need".

Anyway, I'm off now to watch "Peep Show", possibly one of the funniest shows I have ever seen. I hope to sleep well, and wake up nice and late so I don't stress too much about receiving the SMS with my ATAR score - a score that will influence quite heavily my immediate future. I hope I do well and I hope that you, dear reader, can be satisfied with such an epochal set of numbers 

"The Fonz of the Eighteenth Century"

Well, I'm back from my little sabbatical, but I don't think cramming for my Year 12 exams - since July! - was any kind of break. Anywho, published hereunder - I always wanted to use that word - is my second piece in this year's edition of the Emmanuel College Literary Journal, a small prècis of whom a friend of mine considers to be the "Fonz of the Eighteenth Century" and general meme superstar, Joseph Ducruex.

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After consulting with my Design Editor, Troy Torcasio, about the front cover that should be used for the second edition of the Literary Journal , I suggested a reference to current Internetz culture, viz. the Joseph Ducreux meme. (Okay, there was no suggestion at all; it was actually me exercising arbitrary power in a sign of my becoming mad with power, or the low-fat sugar-free version that comes in the position I hold). Before anyone invokes Rule 1, I offer the following: we must subscribe to the doctrine of Wikipedia, where all human knowledge is available for all. Anywho, the point is that Mr. Torcasio, upon seeing the infamous self-portrait (“Portrait of an artist in the guise of a joker”, left), described him as being “the Fonz of the eighteenth century”. At first I thought it was an interpretation based in the plane of imagination, but as I will prove – eventually – it may be that this is a concept grounded a little more in reality.       

Born in Nancy, to the northeast of Paris, on June 26, 1735, Ducreux trained with his father – also a painter – before moving to the City of Light in 1760. There, he studied portraiture under the tutelage of Maurice-Quentin de la Tour.

His first big assignment came in 1769 when he was sent to Vienna to paint the wife of the future king, or dauphin, for his appraisal and approval. As those who have studied the French Revolution will know, the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette caused consternation and even outright anger in the years before the taking of the Bastille and the eventual establishment of the republic. I am not for one unit of time insinuating that Ducreux has some hitherto-unseen blame to take for the loss of a 200-year monarchy, but one wonders of course, if one were to be endowed with Doctor Who-like time travelling powers, (actually, I’ll think I’ll go with Doc “Great Scott” Brown and his wacko DeLorean) what the consequences would be of preventing Ducreux’s passage to Vienna. The response would surely involve the impossibility of one’s current existence, due to one’s accidental murdering of some obscure relative of one...but, as with most things with me, that’s kindling for another fire.

In any case, Ducreux was made premier peintre de la reine (“first painter to the Queen”, for all you Francophobes) for his work, and also became a baron.

As the first heads were being lopped off at the outbreak of the French Revolution, Ducreux travelled to London to produce the last portrait of Louis XVI, left – a gloomy monarch shows little emotion as he is captured in a stiff, collared shirt, far removed from his days of opulence during the ançien regime.

Upon returning to Paris in 1793, Ducreux stayed at the residence of Jacques-Louis David, the de facto painter of the revolution. He died in 1802, on the road between Paris and Saint-Denis, a small northern suburb.

SIGNIFICANCE

Ducreux’s more memorable works call to mind the tronies, or portraits produced during the Dutch Golden Age (the 17^th century) focussing on the face. These illustrations were the caricatures of the day, emphasising distorted facial features in place of reality. Adriaen Brouwer’s “The Bitter Tonic”, right, is emblematic of this genre – the image depicts a plebeian regretting, with a distaste that is almost audible, his choice of refreshment. Similar to his contemporary Rembrandt, Brouwer sought to challenge the limitations of a two-dimensional representation. In Ducreux reviving what was essentially a disestablishmentarian spirit, he rejected the notions of hierarchy pervading the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture – even though he was a commoner he was able to flourish under the patronage of Marie-Antoinette.

So what is the point of Ducreux’s renaissance on the Internet? I was not around when some random started the meme – “ye olde” English imposed on modern pop culture references (the idea of an ancient Frenchman “speaking” outdated English to comment on current culture is actually quite surreal). But if I were to posit an opinion – and this is presupposing a knowledge of Ducreux’s context – it would be that Ducreux’s rebellionism is an outlet for the anonymous to vent their spleen about the jarring and obfuscating nature of current English use, a crime of which I am guilty as much as Kevin Rudd and any communicator of his ilk. By continuing this meme, people are able to tangibly subvert what has become of leitmotif of our political life: the intersection between the politicians that speak and write the almost-meaningless words, the media that report and compartmentalise them and the consumer that digests them – in both the original and reported forms. This subversion takes place because of the frustration that takes place when witnessing this never-ending cycle of political discourse. In a word (yeah, right), Ducreux’s rebirth could be just as important as the Occupy movement that is currently occurring worldwide.           

Raised from the dead to be feted throughout the hallowed pages of the Internet, Joseph Ducreux and his wonderful self-portrait have become, for me at least, an icon for freedom and individualistic joie de vivre. Upon further consideration, it may be that Ducreux’s oeuvre is illustrative of rebellionism, a trait shared by everybody’s favourite 1950s sitcom character (or at least my Design Editor’s) – the Fonz.