Oh, Starry Night
Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night portrays an ideal example of organized chaos. The artist utilizes broad and sweeping brushstrokes to create a depiction of swirling clouds, stars ablaze, and a bright crescent moon. The exaggerated features create a sense of caged chaos, provided the sky keeps the viewer's eyes constantly moving about the painting, following each curve and turn relentlessly. Interesting enough, night is associated with connotations of serenity, silence, and peace, but the artist's portrayal directly contrasts this perception with his technique to create an overwhelming yet beautiful piece. Branching from the idea of chaos, Greek mythology identifies Chaos as a "confused shapeless mass from which the universe was developed into a cosmos, or harmonious order." [1] In essence, primal Chaos is the true foundation of reality, giving way to the natural order of life. Van Gogh's painting portrays this same ideology within his Impressionist sense of truth to nature, giving way to the restless and ever-changing perception of nature.
A Formal Game of Croquet
Lewis Carroll's Style of Croquet
This same idea of Chaos is found In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the chapter "The Queen's Croquet Grounds". At the start of the chapter, Alice enters the garden to find herself amidst the Red Queen, partaking in a disordered game of croquet. As defined by the Oxford Croquet Association, croquet is a "tactical struggle with each player trying to maneuver both their own and opponent's balls to make points or their side, whilst restricting their opponent's chances of doing the same." [2] There are strict rules and regulations that require the utmost concentration and restraint. The croquet played within the garden is rendered significantly different in interpretation, as the game has no clear-cut rules nor order. Alice had never seen "such a curious croquet-ground in her life" [3]. The game consisted of "ridges and furrows: the croquet balls were live hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches" [4].
Penguins, Furrows, and a Crazy Croquet Game
Lewis Carroll utilizes this same concept of chaos to create an organized mess within the confines of the already idiotic Wonderland. The Queen's version shares very little similarity to the real-world game and parallels the same concept of organized chaos, given the absurdity of the situation.
Works Cited:
1. "Chaos," last modified January 2, 2000, http://www.pantheon.org/articles/c/chaos.html.
2. "A Synopsis of the Game," last modified March 1, 2011, http://www.oxfordcroquet.com/coach/synopsis/index.asp.
3. Lewis Carroll, The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2000), 84.
4. Carroll, The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, 84.
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