ROMANTIC NAFFNESS
What makes romance Naff? Or are all romantic gestures considered naff in this new age.
Have we, as a society over used the word 'Love', making ourselves over familiarised with romance.
Has our over use of romantic candle lit dinners, bouquets of flowers sent to the office and proposals in Paris, been ruined and are now considered naff, and unoriginal ?
My research has led me from love quotations, mastered by Albert Einstein and George Elliott.
To quotes drunkenly slurped by men, attempting to chat up women in a bar.
So when do these quotes become naff?, and does the meaning change, with whom relates them?
I personally feel that romance today has become cliché. Couples, novelists, artists, and poets
exaggerated emphasis on what is romantic, has become unoriginal, and tainted with its overuse.
A spontaneous romantic poem, is neither spontaneous nor romantic anymore.
With its words, sentences and structure seeming far too familiar and leaving you thinking
"Have I heard that somewhere before".
And unfortunately it was probably, an unintentional plagiarism of 'A red red rose' by Robert Burns,
or one of the 154 sonnets, crafted by William Shakespeare.
So does that mean the overuse of others romantic ideas, the stolen personal touches of romantic paintings, mimicked by another, have made this uncontrollable desire, this powerful emotion naff?
I believe that the constant mass produced and recycled romantic ideas, which have been used and re used over decades and even centuries., has tarnished romance, but was it always like this?.
When did romance actually become naff, and what is now considered romantic?.
Whilst researching romantic art ,I came across William Blake, John Constable and J. M. W Turner, the romantics of the painting world. Their works emphasized imagination, and feeling.
So did this freedom of painting bring upon the naffness that is now romance?.
I personally don't feel that their work is tasteless or naff . Or that it even holds a tacky aspect ,to its subject or appearance, but their technique of letting the imagination and emotions, take control of there art, could influence future artists and their work. Which I believe it has.
There are a new generation of artist, that have solely used the subject of romance to influence their works. Artist such as Thierry Bisch, Keith Haring, Raymond Leech, Paul Milner, Romero Britto and
Migdalia Arellano, whom play with the idea of romance, play with the familiar, the cultural acceptance of what is considered romantic. Create perfect and beautifully painted imagery, that we as a viewer, automatically envision as romantic. These artists use the idyllic aspect of romance, the vision that we all want and crave for in life, and use there craft, to manipulating the subject, enticing us into their paintings, their subject, our romance.
An alluring, flawless, immaculate couple, embracing one another , amid a backdrop of Paris.
This painting by Migdalia Arellano is sickeningly cliché, but an image like this is now considered romantic.
And even when I think of romance, I also see something similar to this ,but in reality it holds little romance, or emotion, it is the cultural ideal of what love now is.
And as we see this type of image so much, in our everyday existence, it makes the subject itself, completely unreal. We can't escape its alluring claws, following us around like a thick fog. Changing its form from film, to song, to painting, to poem, to a single day devoted to romance, at its pure naffness '' ST Valentines Day''.
It's canned, pre-packaged, processed, unhealthy convenience romance.
And if we pay too much attention to this artificial vision, this deluded, bewitching but enticing naff romance. Our idea of love will be confined, and restricted to what we see in this '' romantic art''. We will want too much from love, never valuing what we have. A romantic gesture will have to become more ambitious and aspiring, for it to be acknowledged and cherished by a loved one.
Society is easily manipulated by art, weather you know it or not, everything we see is art in some form. Subconsciously we take what we see, and either re create it in some ways, or crave it. I personally feel that its unhealthy to loose the reality of a subject, and in this case its romance. We want perfection, and have created a naff perfection of romance. Its fine to be absorbed within its warmth and comfortable grasp occasionally, but don't get tangled in its claws too long., as its sickly sweet visage soon will crack, pushing you back into reality, back in to the real world.