{"id":1152,"date":"1996-12-23T21:58:11","date_gmt":"1996-12-24T01:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2012-03-23T18:26:33","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T22:26:33","slug":"the-language-of-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/the-language-of-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"The Language of Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\n1996
\nsoft-ground etching, aquatint and lithograph on black German Etching Paper, printed by Vinalhaven Press
\n20 x 30 inches<\/p>\n

The following is from the publication \u201cIn Print: Contemporary Artists at the Vinalhaven Press,\u201d Aprile Gallant, Portland Museum of Art, Maine, 1997:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Language of Birds<\/em> grew out of the artist\u2019s experiments with etching, and was inspired by the poem Manteq al-Tiar (The Conference of the Birds), by the twelfth century Persian poet Farid Un-Din Attar. Attar\u2019s poem relates the story of a meeting amongst the birds of the world who are in search of a \u201cking.\u201d They undertake a quest to find this leader, whom they question through their journey. At the end of the voyage, they find that the king they seek is themselves.<\/p>\n

Manteq at-Tair is based on the teachings of Sufism, a mystical Islamic doctrine of which the poet was a proponent. The tenets of Sufism were not written down, as it was believed that the only way to learn them was a prolonged apprenticeship with a spiritual leader. It is an inward system of belief; the earthly realm is considered God\u2019s \u201cshadow,\u201d and only through reflection into the self (as a \u201cshadow\u201d of divinity) can a follower be led to a recognition, and \u201cself-annihilation\u201d through alliance with God. The word \u201cshadow\u201d is key to Chin\u2019s conception of the poem. While on Vinalhaven, Chin wrote \u201cSONGS TO THE SHADOWS\u2026\u201d in the margins of a copy of Dick Davis\u2019s introduction to a translation of the poem. <\/p>\n

Rather than a congress, Chin\u2019s print The Language of Birds<\/em> displays a deep break. Disembodied bird heads at the margins call toward a black shadow that divides the center of the paper. This configuration also suggests a lack of communication \u2013 the birds of the world become the people of the world, individually calling, in different voices, for life\u2019s meaning. It is not necessary to know the genesis of Chin\u2019s images to make sense of their message. The open, squawking mouths of the birds, separated from their fellows and pointed toward a limitless void, is an evocative image that few could misinterpret. The Language of Birds<\/em> is the ultimate Venus flytrap, an exploitation of the sensuous materials of printmaking to impart a pointed message.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1996 soft-ground etching, aquatint and lithograph on black German Etching Paper, printed by Vinalhaven Press 20 x 30 inches The following is from the publication \u201cIn Print: Contemporary Artists at the Vinalhaven Press,\u201d Aprile Gallant, Portland Museum of Art, Maine, 1997: \u201cThe Language of Birds grew out of the artist\u2019s experiments with etching, and was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,57,16,26,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2d","category-esoteric-associations","category-prints","category-themes","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3130,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions\/3130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melchin.org\/oeuvre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}