Visual Poetry: Variations on a Spanish Landscape (2019)

Variations on a Spanish Landscape is the name of a series of ten short videos by American artist Richard Alpert. These variations are all derived from footage Alpert shot from the window of a high speed train traveling from Barcelona to Madrid. Alpert manipulates the images of the Spanish landscape into different formal arrangements, combining them at times with music and other imagery. The resulting studies are visually arresting and poetically expressive.

In the beginning of Variation #7, the footage is divided into three vertical slices, separated by soft edges so they blend together. The landscape passes the train from left to right, and the three slices all show the same scene, except at slightly offset points in time, making a kind of visual “canon.” This particular visual scheme, of slices of footage from offset points in time, has been successfully explored in different ways by quite a few other artists, such as Scott Stark, Peter Rose, and Andrew Filippone Jr. But Alpert is exploring more than one idea here. The sequences with the vertical slices alternate throughout with sequences in which the entire image from the train window is reconfigured from “linear coordinates” to “polar coordinates,” a mathematical visual effect which turns straight lines into circles. The spectacular result converts the linear experience of looking out of the window into a whirling wheel of a landscape. Note that what Alpert is doing visually is the functional opposite of what the train itself does: the train converts rotational energy into linear energy, whereas Alpert converts linear energy into rotational energy.

In the familiar experience of looking out of the window from a moving train, the parallax effect causes objects far in the distance to appear to be passing by much more slowly than nearby objects. This effect becomes wonderfully changed in the circular format. In Alpert’s version, the layers of imagery closer to the center of the circle move more slowly, whereas the outer layers move the most quickly. Thus, trees in the middle distance are closer to the center and move at medium speed, whereas very distant mountains or clouds in the sky are at the very center and seem almost stationary. As taller and then shorter objects pass close by the train, the circle appears to whirl inwards and then outwards again rapidly.

In the enchanting Variation #9, the footage is again displayed in three slices, but this time the middle slice is flipped so that the direction of travel appears reversed, creating a small kaleidoscope effect as symmetrical mountains appear to grow apart from one another and separate. The rolling Spanish hills take on a gentle, rounded appearance. The landscape is overlaid throughout with footage of curling smoke, streaming sideways, or else with the silhouettes of back-lit nude female forms. Alpert refers to the videos in this series as “visual poems,” and this piece richly partakes of the visual version of poetic metaphor and rhyme. We begin to feel a deep inner consonance between the low hills, the female form, and the smoke. The piece ends with a quote from Emily Dickinson, a poet who also compared mountains to women, calling them “my strong madonnas.” The piece is accompanied by a version of Bachianas Brasileiras #5 by Brazilian composer Heitor Villo-Lobos, arranged for guitar and theremin. The curling, winding melody, with its Iberian flavor, is a fitting accompaniment to the piece.

In #8, the slices of the landscape are horizontal, rather than vertical. The video heightens the parallax effect, as it contrasts the extremely close footage of the empty tracks whizzing by with the more stately flow of the hills in the distance. At times, the slices showing the rails completely fill the frame, reflected symmetrically. These shots are naturally abstract, as the extremely fast motion blurs the details, and the endlessly straight rails hardly vary in shape. These sections quickly become beautifully abstract compositions, in which the feeling of rapid motion is implied rather than explicit. The piece is accompanied by gently purring ostinato melodies, reminiscent of the “train” sections from Glass’ Einstein on the Beach.

In #10, the footage has become fully kaleidoscopic, in six square sections that are all symmetrically reflected from one another. At times, the footage is also treated with a “cartoon” effect, which draws the landscape with flat areas of color, heavily outlined in brown. These blocks of color in symmetrical patterns at times create the feeling of a moving Navajo rug. The toe-tapping music for percussion and guitar has the feeling of pop music with a slightly flamenco flavor, which goes well with this slightly psychedelic way of rendering the Spanish landscape. At times, the music pauses for a couple of beats, and Alpert has the footage freeze at these points, a simple effect which is surprisingly satisfying to the eye and ear.

Taken together, the variations present many different moods, textures and ideas, all created with the same footage. It is a classic example of how an artist (with a poet’s eye) can take ordinary experiences and help us to see them in new ways.

David Finkelstein is a filmmaker, musician, and critic contact lakeivan@earthlink.net.