Catcher in the Rye Potrays American Dream essays

Catcher in the Rye Potrays American Dream essays A dream cannot exist without another person. The Catcher in the Rye illustrates the American dream by revealing the heartaches one must go through while growing up and finding their place in society. Holden Caulfield is amazed by peoples' "phoniness". He believes that no one is truly real and that the world has lost its innocents. The only creatures that still posses the innocence is a child. His world consists of childhood vs. adulthood. Childhood seems to be made of immaturity and pure innocents, while adulthood is where phonies arewhere the world starts to become evil. At the beginning of the book Holden criticizes everyone for the things they do. While doing this, he isolates himselfcreating his own level of self-protection. He never looks at himself to find the flaws in which he possesses. Like the child he still isquick to point fingers at others but never toward himself. He sees adulthood as a bad turn over in his life. Towards the middle of the novel, Holden Caulfield is approached with a question from his little sister, "What would you like to do when you grow up?" His response is, "Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around-nobody big, I mean-except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff-I mean if they?re running and they don't look where they?re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I?d do all day. I?d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I?d really like to be.? Here is a very symbolic part of the book. Holden wants to save the world from loosing its innocents. He wants to save the children from falling off the cliff?into adulthood?into the phony world. Later on Holden realizes he cannot hold onto adolescence forever, but must become and adult. Here he faces the choice to be "phony" like the rest or simply be himsel ...

The First Review of Van Goghs Paintings

The First Review of Van Gogh's Paintings The very first art critic to review Van Goghs paintings was Albert Aurier (1865-1892), and it happened during Van Goghs Lifetime. Aurier was a painter himself, as well as an art critic. Aurier was passionate about Symbolism, then an emerging art movement. His review, Les Isolà ©s: Vincent van Gogh, was published in January 1890, on pages 24-29 of the magazine Mercure de France. This was a magazine read at the time by everyone with an interest in modern art.1 In it, Aurier aligned Van Goghs art with the nascent Symbolist movement and highlight[ed] the originality and intensity of his artistic vision.2 In his review Aurier described Van Gogh as the only painter he knew who perceives the coloration of things with such intensity, with such a metallic, gem-like quality, his work as intense and feverish, his brushstrokes as fiery, very powerful, his palette as dazzling, and said his technique matched his artistic temperament: vigorous and intense. (Full review, in French.) Aurier also published a shortened version under the title Vincent van Gogh in L’Art Moderne on 19 January 1890.4. Vincent van Gogh wrote a letter3 to Aurier in February 1890 to thank him for the review. Thank you very much for your article in the Mercure de France, which greatly surprised me. I like it very much as a work of art in itself, I feel that you create colors with your words; anyway, I rediscover my canvases in your article, but better than they really are - richer, more significant. Van Gogh then goes on to deprecate himself: However, I feel ill at ease when I reflect that what you say should be applied to others rather than to me and right at the end he gives instructions about how Aurier would do well to varnish the study hed sent him. Source:1. History of the Publication of Van Gogh Letters, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam2. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: Vincent van Gogh, Metropolitan Museum of Art3. Letter to Albert Aurier by Vincent van Gogh, written either 9 or 10 February 1890. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam4. Notes to Letter 845 from Jo van Gogh-Bonger to Vincent van Gogh, 29 January 1890. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam