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The Arts Room Painting Into what painting would you like to enter?

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david ELISHA

Into what painting would you like to enter?

Latest Post: July 6, 2011 at 10:39 PM

19 followers

I remember a beautiful sequence of Kurosawa's "Dreams". This film is composed by 8 little stories which are dreams of the author.In the fifth dreams "Crows", an art student who is studying Van Gogh's paintings in a museum is suddenly transported into one of his paintings("The bridge").He finds Van Gogh who talks to him about painting and tell to him he cannot waste any of his time. So he leaves him. Trying to find him again, the student loses track of the artist and travels through Van Gogh's paintings. This travel ends in the "Field with crows"ultimate painting of the artist...It's a magic sequence in which you can hear also the Prelude No.15 of Chopin.
I have often dreamed about it and I think it's in a Veermer's painting that I would like to enter: The Music Lesson (1662).
Inside a large room flooded with light, a black and white tiled floor draws a perspective that leads our eyes toward a young woman. We see only her back and she is playing a few notes on a virginal, a young man beside her. I will not dwell here on the metaphorical relationship between painting and music (repetition of patterns, major and minor accents ...) and virtuosity on the use of unrealistic light but I want to draw your attention to the mirror placed above the instrument, which reveals the face of the young woman. If you look closely, the mirror reflects a portion of the painter's easel(?).
Through the magic of his art, the artist made this scene of everyday life a moment of eternity. May be that so fascinated Proust when he speaks of the little patch of yellow wall in the" View of Delft"(in "A la recherche du temps perdu"): this ability to stop the flow of time.
In this pure masterpiece we could hear whispering the verses of Baudelaire:
Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté
There all is order and beauty,
Luxury, calm and voluptuousness (the invitation to travel, in "les Fleurs du mal")
This miraculous painting expect me for three centuries.
Maybe one day ...

And you,into what painting would you enter?

Postscript (October 9, 2010 at 7:13 PM):

Postscript (January 28, 2011 at 5:37 PM):

This post is referenced by the following other contributors:

Arthur Mont

in "Midnight in Paris / Woody Allens' Midnight in Paris"

(Cinema Room)

Marilyn Miller tagged this post as Very enjoyable.

brinda pant sent kudos and tagged this post as Very enjoyable.

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Edna Stern

February 20, 2011 at 7:27 AM

87 followers

Here is a painting I am certain it will be a pleasure to enter. A mixture of beauty, nature, refinement as well as friendly and musical communication :-)

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david ELISHA

February 26, 2011 at 8:29 AM

19 followers

Watteau ... a nice choice for a musician. Grace, lightness, friendly conversations (just like on Thinkon), a kind of poetic reverie. The characters do not look at us, some of them are shown from behind, but a space in the foreground is empty as to invite us to come to participate in this "fete galante".Have you noticed the opening of sky between the trees to the left (opening on what mysterious paradise? immateriality air echoing the evanescent materiality of the characters ...)? And the music ... Every time I look at all these "fetes galantes"by Watteau, I can almost hear the bright laughter of children and love chatter of men and women carried by the wind that gently simmer the foliage of trees, the silky rustle of satin dresses, the light touch of the fingers of a musician on the guitar strings ... I think this picture fits you well, it looks like you (This topic was for me just based on the principle of Chinese portrait).
Why sometimes we close our eyes when we listen to music while we do not plug our ears when we look at a painting? Perhaps because "the eye listens"( l'oeil écoute) as Claudel said. Then listen...

There are paintings that whisper, singing paintings, paintings that make us hear the silence of meditation, there are others who are crying, screaming ...
An interesting example of one of the greatest masterpieces of art history, but in which we would not want to enter: Picasso's Guernica. A graphic designer has made a 3D animation of this work. It is extraordinary, and a particularly oppressive experience.

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Warren G Wiltrout

February 28, 2011 at 5:01 PM

2 followers

Actually the first thing I thought of was paintings I would not want to be in, and those would be some of the paintings by Salvador Dali, especially the more surreal ones. They make me think of a story and the cover art for "I have no mouth, and I must scream" by Harlan Ellison, especially the ending.