BG - emotions

[Emperor Harkonnen]

This is going to be one of the few objects surviving the destruction of earth in 15 millenia:

How could Odrade and other Mother Superiors be so facinated by this piece of art, which could have the same emotional effect as music? That is why music was banned by the BG.

You could almost draw a parallel to the movie Equilibrium, where emotions are forbidden. How come the BG didn't go further than just banning music?

[MrFlibble]

I think the BG didn't actually "ban" anything. This was against their views on how social interaction and human organizations functioned. They were taught that music was not an "optimal" art, and didn't listen to it. But it doesn't mean they destroyed records or musical instruments. That would be pretty useless anyway, since they had Other Memory with music most certainly stored there too. Same with paintings. Although they probably saw no direct "use" for it, no one could forbid Odrade to have a reproduction of the painting if she liked it.

[Tatar Khan]

Did not Lady Jessica loved to listen to Gurney play the baliset.

I don't really see any reason for music ban, since that would leave BGs unimmunized to it so provoking a strong emotional response that could be exploited.

As for the painting, i really like the renaissance painters and the northern masters so I can't comment on the painting. Maybe Herbert liked it a lot, so decided to mention it the book.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

I did not say that they destroyed everyhthiing related to music. But I am pretty sure they banned it.

I wounder how FH came across the painting, and decided to use it in his books. What do you thiink is the meaning of this painting?

[gunner154]

I'm no art expert, but the scene looks like a mix of chaos and tranquility. It could just be a countryside, but it's marred by smoke-like vegetation (and pretty much everything else). An irony.

[MrFlibble]

I did not say that they destroyed everyhthiing related to music. But I am pretty sure they banned it.

I also did not mean they destroyed music literally. I just feel that "ban" is not the right word when we're talking about the Sisterhood. It's against their views to ban or prohibit anything. They rather explain (teach) what is good or bad, in the BG opinion, and expect people to reasonably accept or reject things in accord with such an explanation. That's my interpretation of what the BG mean by "democratic" approach, at least.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

Yeah they didn't ban it, they just avoided it.

Her manner still icy, Lucilla said: "We of the Bene Gesserit have learned to

avoid music. It evokes too many confusing emotions. Memory-emotions, of

course."

A picture would not evoke emotions to the same degree as music. It is more difficult to associate a picture to memory-emotions than music. Music would instantly give you associations. It takes more time for a picture. Still this picture does not evoke emotions in me, when seeing it.

[gunner154]

That's the thing about music: You don't need to know anything or have any prerequisites to enjoy it. The pervasiveness is sadly what makes it dangerous to the Bene Gesserit. I don't remember reading anything about the Bene Gesserit banning music - I would have noticed immediately.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

I don't remember reading anything about the Bene Gesserit banning music - I would have noticed immediately.

If you read the quote I wrote in my last post, you see that the BG avoied music, they didn't ban it. as I pointed out in the last post, I was wrong about that.

[Egeides]

I'm no art expert, but the scene looks like a mix of chaos and tranquility. It could just be a countryside, but it's marred by smoke-like vegetation (and pretty much everything else). An irony.

With this painting, van Gogh's characteristic blue and yellow are central (but I think they're warped on the pic above).

Someone told me that van Gogh searched, and searched, and searched for this specific yellow. And it might be same for this blue, which is very particular, the two forming the characteristical yellow and blue of van Gogh. It might have been around his periods of craziness.

Don't know if it relates to what you want here, but it's apparently central to this painting.

[gunner154]

Now the analysis of colour is something that really evades me.

If you read the quote I wrote in my last post, you see that the BG avoied music, they didn't ban it. as I pointed out in the last post, I was wrong about that.

No harm adding something in, right? ;)

[Egeides]

Now the analysis of colour is something that really evades me.

Thinking to it a second, one colour is cold and other is warm. Mix cold and warm, add in some gentle chaos and a pastoral landscape, and it is van Gogh here. Everything of normal life in one painting. Looks like some fuzzy feeling of "back in the womb".

Regarding Equilibrium or BG, perhaps FH's Odrade found that in "naive" painting could also be found her ultimate anti-naive BG achievement, some kind of joining "BG hyper-organisation + van Gogh's summer willy-nilly". Well, it's what Odrade seems to be about at first sight.

[gunner154]

Well, I guess normal life is full of ironies and contradictions.

[MrFlibble]

Recalling this experience so near to Teg's accusation, she knew at once why her memory had reproduced the image for her, why that painting still fascinated her. For the brief space of that replay she always felt totally human, aware of the cottages as places where real people dwelled, aware in some complete way of the living chain that had paused there in the person of the mad Vincent Van Gogh, paused to record itself.

Odrade felt "totally human" when she was contemplating the painting. The BG being generally "out of the flow" of humanity (as Teg puts it), the painting might be a symbol of humanity itself, which was in the centre of BG efforts. The Sisterhood could not become completely detached from the rest of humanity and continue to function properly, therefore, the painting was some kind of a reminder to them. That's my interpretation though.