My Inspiration for October 2022

This October was a strange month for me; it felt like it was a century long and it feels like it’s still going on… I really enjoyed Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolours, Depeche Mode and Caspar David Friedrich’s landscapes, Yoshio Markino’s wonderful foggy watercolours, also I discovered a painting, and wrote about it here, called “Solitude, If I Must Thee Accept” by a contemporary artist Arjun Shivaji Jain and I must say that it really left an impact on me because it is so relatable. I read Stephen King’s novel “Misery” which I enjoyed immensely, and I finally read Douglas Murray’s brilliant but depressing book “The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam” in which he criticises Europe’s loss of tradition and identity and points out at the horrible damage done by the mass immigration of people from countries whose values don’t match ours, that is, European values. I don’t see the book being “controversial”, I only see it being true and perhaps truth is controversy these days. An artistic hint for November: Georgia O’Keeffe.

“Before the wedding, she had believed herself in love. But not having obtained the happiness that should have resulted from that love, she now fancied that she must have been mistaken. And Emma wondered exactly what was meant in life by the worlds ‘bliss’, ‘passion’, ‘ecstasy’ which had looked so beautiful in books.”

(Flaubert, Madame Bovary)

“And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or lonelines?”
(Charles Bukowski)

“Autumn is no time to lie alone”
(Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji)

Roses, picture found here.

Picture found here.

Picture found here.

Painting found here.

Autumn in Istria | Croatia (by Robert Maric)

Eliot Porter | Frozen Apples, Tesuque, New Mexico (1966) | Artsy

Picture by Ellen Rogers.

Picture found here.

Season of the Witch – Frederick Sandys: Morgan-le-Fay

Frederick Sandys (1829–1904), Morgan-le-Fay, 1863-64

Morgan le Fay is a beautiful and seductive enchantress, a witch we might even say, from Arthurian legends whose only purpose in life is to destroy King Arthur and his wonderful castle of Camelot.

I really liked the portrayal of Morgana in the series “Merlin” where she is played by the Irish actress Katie McGrath. Not only is she gorgeous with her pale skin, black hair and grey eyes, dressed in long, flowing purple, blue and green gown, but I also like the development of her character throughout the series. At first she is this slightly naive young woman and King Uther’s ward who is disturbed by the appaling treatment of druids and other people who practice magic, but over time, as she discovers her own magical powers and as she experiences betrayals from people she trusted, she develops a deep hatred for Camelot and everybody there, including King Arthur of course. Her thorny path from innocence to evil is symbolically represented in her departure from the civilised and beautiful environment of the castle of Camelot to the lonely wilderness of the Isle of Avalon. There Morgana can devote herself to things that she is most passionate about; destroying Camelot, taking over power from King Arthur and hurting him in every way possible. And that is something she is doing in this painting.

Frederic Sandys’ depiction of Morgana is perhaps the most famous one from the Victorian era and it certainly struck the imagination of the Victorians because he portrays Morgana as a dangerous femme fatale. In the painting Morgana is seen in her chamber overlooking the lake, as we can see the glistening blue lake through the window in the upper right corner. She is holding a lamp and passing it over the robe and chanting her spells over the robe that she had just woven for King Arthur on her loom. The enchanted robe is suppose to set King Arthur’s body on fire as soon as he puts it on, but that doesn’t happen, of course, because a messanger had tried the robe before him. Sandys’ depiction of Morgana truly sets a tone for her image as a dangerous and alluring femme fatale; her loose auburn hair is seen cascading down her back, the jewel like colours of her robe certainly don’t speak of modesty, and that animal skin really adds a wild touch. The face expression and the gesture of her hands are both very expressive. She seems very caught in the moment, completely consumed with hatred for King Arthur. The robe she is wearing was actually a kimono and the model for Morgana was Sandys’ lover Keomi Gray. Gazing at the Lady Morgana here made me think of another witch I love; Elaine, also known as the Love Witch from the film “The Love Witch” (2016). Elaine is also an example of a wild and dangerous woman, but she is not consumed with hatred and jealousy but rather with a desire for love. Here are some pictures from the film bellow, along with a painting by another Pre-Rapahaelite inspired painter John William Waterhouse because it’s similar in style and pose.

John William Waterhouse, The Crystal Ball, 1902

Samantha Robinson as Elaine aka “The Love Witch” in the film “The Love Witch” (2016)

Arjun Shivaji Jain: Solitude, If I Must Thee Accept

“There’s a club if you’d like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home and you cry
And you want to die…“

(The Smiths, How Soon is Now)

Arjun Shivaji Jain, Solitude, If I Must Thee Accept, February 2016, watercolour on paper, 1’10” x 1’3″

“Solitude, If I Must Thee Accept” is an interesting artwork that I have recently discovered. It was painted by a contemporary Indian artist Arjun Shivaji Jain during his university days in London in February 2016. Those days were marked by a feeling of loneliness, which is stated on his page also, and the painting’s title was inspired by the lines from a poem by a Romantic poet John Keats; “O solitude! if I must with thee dwell,/ Let it not be among the jumbled heap/ Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature’s observatory…” To see more of his work visit his page here. The painting’s title captivated me and the painting itself instantly chimed with me because solitude is something that I am well-acquianted with. We are not only acquaintances but good friends; solitude and I. At times I wander off from this friend and spend time with other friends, but Solitude is a friend which is always here for me.

This painting puts us – the viewers – in a position of a Peeping Tom. The painting is a magnified view through a keyhole, but there is nothing voyeuristic about it in a way the same motif would have been depicted in the art of the Rococo artists such as Fragonard. Two sides of the keyhole reveal two different worlds; one pitch black and quiet; the other, full of vibrancy, music and laughter. The bright yellow floors, lime green walls and yellow lights all bring to mind the garish interiors of night cafés in Vincent van Gogh’s art. The figures of the party people are elongated and simplified, the girls’ long white limbs are almost doll-like and this makes me think of the people from the video for Pulp’s song “Common People”. I can imagine the brunette in the black dress talking to the guy in the blue coat and him later singing about their conversation, as the lyrics from the “Common People” song go; “She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge/ She studied sculpture at Saint Martin’s College/ That’s where I/ Caught her eye/ She told me that her dad was loaded/ I said, in that case I’ll have rum and Coca-Cola/ She said fine/ And then in thirty seconds time she said/ I wanna live like common people/ I wanna do whatever common people do/ Wanna sleep with common people/ I wanna sleep with common people like you…” Perhaps they are dancing, drinking, talking and laughing but we are still on the other side of the party; observing it, but not participating in it, which brings to mind Morrissey who was well-acquainted with solitude in teenage days and later on. As he sings in the song “How Soon is Now”; “There’s a club if you’d like to go/ You could meet somebody who really loves you/ So you go and you stand on your own/ And you leave on your own/ And you go home and you cry/ And you want to die…”

The painting wonderfully expresses many feelings; the feeling of solitude, not being able to connect with others, a feeling of not belonging etc., but another interesting thing about it is definitely the duality of the two worlds; the black world surrounding the keyhole which is mysterious and we know nothing about it apart from its uninviting, all pervading darkness, and the fun, colourful world where the party is taking place. This duality made me think of a painting style that Milan Kundera’s heroine Sabina from the novel  “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” is using. In the novel Sabina is a free-spirited and freedom-loving painter who was an art student under the strict Communist regime in Czechoslovakia and had to paint strictly in the Realist style but she found her ways of portraying both worlds; the ugly realist one and the other one. This is what Sabina says in the novel: “Here is a painting I happened to drip red paint on. At first I was terribly upset, but then I started enjoying it. The trickle looked like a crack; it turned the building site into a battered old backdrop, a backdrop with a building site painted on it. I began playing with the crack, filling it out, wondering what might be visible behind it. And that’s how I began my first cycle of paintings. I called it Behind the Scenes. (…) On the surface, there was always an impeccably realistic world, but underneath, behind the backdrop’s cracked canvas, lurked something different, something mysterious or abstract. (…) On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth.” Realistic vs mysterious, truth vs lie, colours vs black, quietness of solitude vs loudness of the party; I see the same contrasts that Sabina talks about right in this painting here. All in all, I think it is a wonderful painting both on compositional and on symbolic levels and I especially love it because I can relate to it so strongly because I feel that I am always that person just observing life and ‘other people’s parties’ but never participating in it, and I am not sure i even want to.

Yoshio Markino – Autumn

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”

(Humbert Wolfe)

Yoshio Markino, Autumn, 1904

I have often presented works of Western artists here on the blog, mostly Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, who were inspired, in one way or another, by the Japanese art of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Some of these artists that I have written about were Maurice Prendergast, Vincent van Gogh, Whistler, Henri Riviere, Raphael Kirchner, just to name a few. A lot of European artists have been very enthusiastic about Japanese art ever since Japan opened its borders to the world in the mid nineteenth century but in the case of the Japanese artist Yoshio Markino it is the other way around. Markino was a Japanese artist who from an early age had a fascination with the Western art and he not only took stylistic inspiration from it but actually moved to the Western world; first to USA in 1893 at the age of twenty-four and then to London in 1897. For a short while in 1908 and 1909 he even resided in Italy because of something art-related. Markino loved his life in England and he returned to Japan in 1942 after England had declared war on Japan. Markino lived a very long life and he was a very prolific artist, mostly known for his magnificent depictions of London streetscenes and foggy weather and this is known as Markino’s “fog and mist watercolours”. His art is of a peculiar kind because it is a true mix between the east and the west.

At the moment, and appropriate for these golden and misty October days, my favourite of Markino’s paintings is the one above called “Autumn”, painted in 1904. It shows a woman in the street on a windy autumn day. She cannot seem to open her umbrella and the frustration can be seen in her face expression. Autumnal colours – orange and browns – dominate the painting and the delicate sense of transience is indicated in the fall of the leaves carried away gently by the autumn wind, never to return to their branches, dancing their last dance. There is a dynamic play between foreground and background; at first glance we see the auburn haired woman in the foreground with her umbrella and a tree full of orange leaves above her, and then, painted in a more poetic and dreamy way, is the background with the carriage slowly departing. Our view is clouded from so many leaves flying in the air.

A faint church tower can be seen and also some treetops but these background elements are painted in such a delicate, hushed, and subtle way, almost ghostly or as something seen in the memory. The harsh lines of reality are subdued in Markino’s poetic brushstrokes. Not only the leaves in the air but also the woman’s clothes indicate the presence of the wind and the direction of it. While the background is imbued with a sense of dreamy stillness, the foreground is a place of where dynamic playfulness. A very interesting thing is also the face expression of the woman. It is so particular, even the way her facial features are painted. The cheeks, rosy like a rosebud, the eyebrows, the narrow eyes, all of it brings to mind the faces of the figures in the ukiyo-e art which is known for its expressivness.

9 Years on the Blog: There are places I don’t remember, There are times and days, they mean nothing to me

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean.
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking on the days that are no more.”

(Lord Tennyson – Tears, Idle Tears)

John Everett Millais, Autumn Leaves, 1856

Today my blog is nine years old! At first I didn’t really know what to say on this ocassion, I thought: nine years and that is that, whatever, nothing to say. I am a person who doesn’t usually enjoy birthdays or anniversaries because they remind me of the passing of time, but that is precisely why this nine year blog anniversary does matter and why I decided to celebrate it anyway. It matters because it is not only the nine years of this blog and almost a thousands posts published, it is also nine years of my life. Every year, every season on the blog, every painting, every post is a fragment of my life, and my soul. Every anniversary of this blog reminds me of the passing of time. Thinking about nine years that have passed sets me off into a reverie…

Thinking of transience, I cannot help but hear in my mind the wistful violins from Tindersticks’ 1995 song “Travelling Light”. The song’s lyrics hold a special meaning for me and the older I get the more I can relate to them; people come into your life and leave it without a noise, without a sound and days go on like nothing has changed. People die, and leave, and disappear, and yet you get up the next morning and drink coffee and life goes one. Hearts get broken and brokenly live on, to quote the Romantic Lord Byron whose “muse” I am. Well, I am not really but I named my blog so. Things that seemed so important back then now mean nothing to me, and faces from old photographs are like ghosts from another life. I am usually a person who clings to every littlest thing that has memory for me; a piece of paper, train ticket, pressed flower, for I am hopelessly clinging to the past, in vain trying to stop the unstoppable; the passing of time. But lately I had started to feel like Miss Havisham, suffocating in my little room full of spiderwebs, pretty objects and memories and so I am learning to shed myself from the burden of all those memories, like a snake sheds off its skin, so that I may walk lighter into the future. Here are the lyrics:

There are places I don’t remember
There are times and days, they mean nothing to me
I’ve been looking through some of them old pictures
They don’t serve to jog my memory

I’m not waking in the morning, staring at the walls these days
I’m not getting out the boxes, spread out all over the floor
I’ve been looking through some of them old pictures
Those faces they mean nothing to me no more

I travel light
You travel light
Everything I’ve done
You say you can justify, mmm you travel light

I can’t pick them out, I can’t put them in these sad old bags
Some things you have to lose along the way
Times are hard, I’ll only pick them out, wish I was going back
Times are good, you’ll be glad you ran away….

*

There are many reasons why I chose John Everett Millais’ painting “Autumn Leaves” for this post; firstly, because it is one of my favourite paintings; secondly, because it is poetic and beautiful and represent the mood I have been trying to cultivate on my blog for years; and thirdly, because its autumnal setting is a perfect setting for my thoughts about transience and the passing of time. The painting – a true Pre-Raphaelite gem – shows four girls in the dusk of the day gathering leaves in a pile. What a simple scene visually yet imbued with so much wistfulness, melancholy and lyrical beauty. The dried orange and brown leaves set the time of the year; autumn, a time for farewells and endings. The sky in the background, painted in purples and yellow, so romantic, a perfect twilight, as Millais had put it. The two long-haired girls in black dresses were the younger sisters of Millais’ wife; Alice and Sophy Gray. Their round faces are full of girlish innocence, but still melancholy is casting a shadow over them, and their large blue eyes are filled with yearning. Millais had painted Sophie on many ocassions and her face, with the blue eyes laden with sadness and cherry red lips is perfect for the Pre-Raphaelite art. Rosy cheeks and wistful gazes, these girls are caught at the border between girlhood and womanhood; fragile, sad days. One more autumn passing by, one more year passing by… how many are left?

I will take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been following my blog in the past nine years and everyone who shared their words of encouragment and kindness with me.

Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love – John George Brown, Fragonard, Winslow Homer, Marcus Stone

Heart, we will forget him!

You and I, tonight!

You may forget the warmth he gave,

I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me

That I my thoughts may dim;

Haste! lest while you’re lagging.

I may remember him!

(Emily Dickinson)

John George Brown, Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love, 1865

Carving names, initials or symbols into barks of the trees is a thousands of years old practice that is popular among lovers. The mention of the practice dates back to the writings of Callimachus who was a librarian in the famous library in Alexandria, the writings of Virgil and is even mentioned later in works of Shakespeare. The indiginous Moriori people of New Zealand also practiced the carving of the tree bark. But in this post we will take a look at some examples of love-related tree carving in the art of four artists; John George  Brown; Jean-Honore Fragonard, the Rococo master of frivolity and carefreeness; Winslow Homer and Marcus Stone.

The first painting in this post is a visually beautiful and striking one, but its title alone is alluring; “Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love”, painted in 1865 by the American painter John George Brown. The painting shows a young girl in the lush, vibrant yellow forest. She is turned towards us, but her downward gaze is hiding her eyes, probably glistening with tears. With her left hand she is holding onto the soft tree trunk whilst her right hand is carefully tearing away the love carving which says “W&Mary”. The light falling on her snow white skin and bare shoulders makes her seem almost angelic and pure, all alone in that soft, dreamy birch forest. The detailing on that birch bark is wonderful and birches are one of my favourite forest beauties. Their whiteness, gentleness and delicacy are in accord with those same qualities that the young lady seems to be exuding. But perished have the memories of her love. It’s over between she – Mary – and the mysterious Mr W. (perhaps William?) Oh, William, he must be thinking that it was really nothing! Nothing for him and everything for her. Now this tree is the last memory of the transient ardour shared by those two souls. From sweet hopes to bitter disillusionment, such is the trecherous, thorny path of love.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Souvenir, 1775

Fragonard’s painting “The Souvenir” is a sweet little Rococo reverie with touches of the upcoming Romanticism in the flutter of the leaves and delicacy of the trees. A young girl in a salmon pink gown with a matching pink ribbon in her hair is seen carving something into the tree. Her faithful companion, a cute little dog, is observing her all the while. The opened letter is lying on the ground; presumably from her beloved. And the words he wrote must be bursting with unbearable honey-and-ripe-fig sweetness and juicy with promises because she is enthusiastically carving her and her lover’s initials into the tree, to symbolically represent their love. The 1792 catalogue from the exhibition says that the girl in the painting is the lead character of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel “Julie or the New Heloise” (titled at the time as: “Letters from two lovers living in a small town at the foot of the Alps”) The background is painted in a very delicate and gentle manner with detailing of the tree branches typical for Fragonard. The way he paints trees makes them seem otherworldy, the only other example for this comes to mind in some artworks of Camille Corot. Anyhow, Fragonard’s painting is sweet and slightly sentimental, but definitely shows the merry side of love and so does our next rendition of the motif by the American painter Winslow Homer.

Winslow Homer, The Initials, 1864

Winslow Homer’s painting “The Initials” is an interesting romantic digression in his otherwise nature oriented oeuvre. The painting shows an elegant Victorian lady dressed in her beautiful blue walking attire. She is standing very near the tree and carving something into it, judging by the title, she is carving the initials of herself and her beloved. The blueness of her dress is in contrast with the almost garish orange-brownness of the woods. Visually the painting is similar John George Brown’s painting “Thus Perish the Memory of Our Love” because it shows a girl and a tree upon which something is being carved or taken down and the scenery of the backdrop is a lush forest, but Homer’s painting shares its mood of hope and romance with Fragonard’s “Souvenir”. Homer and John George Brown’s paintings are both painted around the same time, in the mid 1860s, but their ladies are dressed very diffently in these paintings. Homer’s lady seems to be dressed more appropriately for a walk in the woods, but Brown’s is more visually striking for the centre of the painting.

Marcus Stone, Love’s Daydream End, 1880

Marcus Stone’s painting strikes me as fascinating by the title alone; “Love Daydream’s End” because it implies that there is a (day)dreamy aspect to love that will inevitable fade away; wither like a flower, turn to dust like a dry moth… The girl in the painting, dressed in an elegant, white dress which brings to mind the Regency dresses from the first quarter of the century, is experiencing the same sadness and disappointment as the girl in the first painting by John George Brown. And how sombre her furrowed brow appears, how unconsolable and broken. Two hearts are seen intertwined together, carved in the tree against which the lady is leaning her sad little head, silent like a Greek muse. She experienced the very thing that The Shirelles famously sang about. One day you are carving initials or hearts in the tree and exchanging lovelorn glances, and the other you are weeping over the loss of something which but yesterday was the source of all your delights… Ah, love, what a fickle thing!

“Tonight you’re mine, completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure
Can I believe the magic in your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrow?”

(The Shirelles, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow)

Camille Pissarro – Harvesting Potatoes

Camille Pissarro, Harvesting Potatoes, 1884-85

Danish-French painter Camille Pissarro painted many countryside scenes of peasants working in fields, harvesting hay, tending to their cabbage crops and harvesting potatoes. I have seen at least five different paintings by Pissarro of peasants harvesting potatoes, but the one I chose for this post, painted in 1884-85, is my personal favourite. The playful brush strokes and vibrant primary colours, are captivating to me. Intertwined motives of peasants and potatoes have already found their place in the canvas of another famous nineteenth century artist; in Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Potato Eaters”, which was painted around the same time as Pissarro’s painting, in April of 1885. Van Gogh’s painting shows a group of poor farmers eating their potato supper. It is a dark and depressing work, so dense with brown colour that it looks like it was painted with the very mud from which the potatoes were picked in the first place. The faces of those farmers are so ugly and grotesque, or perhaps I should say ‘realistic’ because that is the way that Van Gogh had intended it, that it brings to mind the paintings of the German painter George Grosz. The damp, claustrophobic, and overcrowded room they live in looks like it never sees the light of day.

Pissarro’s painting, on the other hand, offers a much lighter, merrier version of the countryside life. First of all, the scene is set in the open air, in a garden, with grass and trees. Vast sky is above them and there is plenty of fresh air to breathe. Three farmers, a man and two women, are harvesting their precious goods; potatoes. Well, it looks more like the one women is picking the potatoes and that the man and the other woman are just observing or maybe supervising, looking down at her with their hands on their hips. I can imagine that laughing or having a fun conversation, or maybe complaining about the weather or how poorly the crops have grown. There is also another figure in the background on the left but she isn’t the main focus of the painting. I love how an otherwise boring or drab scene turns out so playful and carefree in Pissarro’s canvas. The landscape and the figures in the painting are painted in little dots and dashes. The colours of the women’s aprons and bonnets are painted in blue, yellow and red which are all primary colors. While most of the canvas is painted in browns and greens, these little pops of bright colour are all that is necessary to excite the eye. There are two lines giving some definiton to the otherwise square-shaped canvas; the vertical line of the tree on the left and the diagonal line that stretches on in the background.

Vincent van Gogh, Potato Eaters, April 1885

Tsuchiya Koitsu – Teahouse at Night

Tsuchiya Koitsu, Teahouse at Night (Otsuya Araki Yokocho), 1935

Tsuchiya Koitsu’s art is famed for its skillful depiction of light and shade and his woodbloock print “Teahouse at Night” (sometimes also called “Teahouse Attendant”) is a wonderful example of that. The scene shows a view of the teahouse at night with two ladies dressed in kimono; one seems to be entering while the other is leaving. There is also a third figure in the scene; a shadow on the window on the upper floor which brings a touch of mystery to the artwork. Who is this mysterious woman? The way the nocturnal darkness meets the warm light of the lanterns is just stunning. The whole scene is a playful harmony of contrasts; vertical lines of doors and walls meet the horizontal lines of the floor, wooden fence and windows. There is also a dynamic play of contrasts between light and dark; the dark wooden facade and the windows full of light. These are the elements that make this scene so captivating and full of wonder. Despite there being only two, or three if you will, figures in the scene, there is a mood of fun and playfulness. This looks like the place one wants to be at, the place of tea, music and good conversation. The building of the teahouse is closely cropped and cut off on the right but we can still see a fragment of the night sky in the upper left corner. This is the interesting way in which Japanese artists frame their scenes, as if they are taking photographs.

Tsuchiya Koitsu was one of the group of the Japanese artists who brought revival to the art of the ukiyo-e prints in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The art of Koitsu and his fellow artists such as Shiro Kasamatsu, Hasui, Shotei, Yoshida and many others is prolific and full of wonderful inovations that bring to mind the glory of the original era of ukiyo-e prints. This new Renaissance period is known as “Shin Hanga” or “The New Prints”. From 1930 to his death in 1949 Koitsu made over two-hundred woodbloock prints which are considered outstanding in both quality of design, originality of composition and execution.

Depeche Mode and Caspar David Friedrich: Pleasures Remain So Does the Pain, Words are Meaningless and Forgettable

Autumn is a time for wistfulness, melancholy and introspection, and also a time for one of my favourite painters Caspar David Friedrich whose Romantic landscapes perfectly fit this autumnal mood.

Caspar David Friedrich, Memories of the Giant Mountains, 1835

These days I was listening to Depeche Mode and I especially enjoyed the song “Enjoy the Silence” which is probably their most recognisable song anyway. I also enjoyed watching the video, directed by Anton Corbijn, where the singer Dave Gaham is dressed as a king and is seen walking around through fields, meadows, beaches and mountains; all the landscapes which irresistibly bring to mind the moody landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich. The specific places in the video are the Scottish Highlands, the Algarve coast in Portugal and the Swiss Alps which beautifully showcases the beauties and diverities of European landscapes. All of these places in nature; forests, beaches, snow-capped mountains, can easily be found not only in paintings of Friedrich but also in paintings of other Romantic painters. Corbijn’s concept behind the video was that the King (Dave Gahan) represented “a man with everything in the world, just looking for a quiet place to sit; a king of no kingdom.” I think the video is a good representation of that.

Whilst gazing at the video, I suddenly remembered something that my friend had said. Years ago he had sent me the video to the song “Enjoy the Silence” and pointed at the similarity between the video’s aesthetic and the landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich. I hadn’t seen the video before he had sent it to me because I was mostly listening to Depeche Mode from my mother’s casettes, so this was something very interesting to me. These days my thoughts again turned to Depeche Mode and Friedrich and finally I felt it was the right time to tackle the topic because, as you know, I am always fond of discovering aesthetic parallels between art and rock music and poetry. I had done so previously by connecting the cover of Echo and the Bunnymen’s album “Crocodiles” (1980) and “Heaven Up Here” (1981) to Friedrich’s landscapes. I am writing this post with the memories of my friend who, although estranged from me now, will always have a place in my heart. And, interestingly, Corbijn also directed many music videos of Echo and the Bunnymen too.

Scenes from the “Enjoy the Silence” video.

In some scenes of the video, Gahan is seen as a solitary figure against the vast landscape; a transient figure passing through the ever-lasting landscapes of beauty. In some scenes he is sitting and turning his back to us, which is again something we see often in Friedrich’s art, for example in his famous painting “Moonrise Over the Sea” (1822). In the scenes filmed at the beach in Portugal the sea waves are crushing onto the sandy shore and Gahan is seen looking out at the sunset over the sea, everything painted in dusky pink and purple shades, and this romantic imagery is also seen in many of Friedrich’s beach scenes. In one scene Gahan is walking across a landscape where the tree is the only other thing in the scene and there is a tight line separating the land from the vastness of the sky. This, for example, made me think of Friedrich’s painting “Monk by the Sea” (1808-1810). I also incorporated the lyrics of the song into this post because I like them, I think they are wise and profound and they fit the mood of loneliness and isolation that Friedrich’s landscapes have.

Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me
Can’t you understand?
Oh, my little girl

Caspar David Friedrich, Evening, 1821

Caspar David Friedrich, Seashore by Moonlight, 1835-36

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Caspar David Friedrich, Riesengebirge, 1830-35

Scenes from the “Enjoy the Silence” video.

Caspar David Friedrich, Sunset (Brothers) or Evening landscape with two men, 1830-35

Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasures remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, 1808-10

Scenes from the “Enjoy the Silence” video.

Georgia O’Keeffe – Morning Sky with Houses

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”

(Georgia O’Keeffe)

Georgia O’Keeffe, Morning Sky with Houses, 1916, watercolour and graphite on paper 22.5 x 30.4 cm

From time to time I enjoy feasting my eyes on the art of the American painter Georgia O’Keeffe. The paintings or large, closely-cropped flowers and plants are surely some of the most popular artworks that O’Keeffe has created, but my personal favourites are, of course, her watercolours which are always painted in a vibrant and free-spirited manner and have that lyrical playfulness and simplicity which keep luring me back to gaze at them some more. O’Keefe decided to become an artist at the age of ten and she, along with two of her sisters, took art lessons from a watercolour artist Sara Mann. It is no surprise then that O’Keeffe kept coming back to this versatile medium all throughout her life and career. “Morning Sky with Houses” was painted in 1916 when O’Keeffe was eighteen or nineteen years old. O’Keeffe opposed painting directly from nature in a realistic manner and preferred to paint in a style that always borders with abstraction. In her own words: “Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.”

This watercolour shows the way Georgia implemented her art philosophy in the creation of her art. The watercolour shows a simple scene; two houses, meadow and sky in the morning, but all the elements in the scene are more suggested than strictly defined. We know these are houses by their contours alone and we assume the space under them is a meadow or a garden, but on paper everything is a playful harmony of different shades of purple, burgundy,blue, yellow and orange; a proper autumnal colour palette perftctly fitting for this time of the year. I love the white space between the roofs of the houses and the sky. The only other details in this almost-abstract watercolour are the fence on the left and a smoke coming out of the chimney on the house on the right. And yet, devoid of all details, this watercolour doesn’t cease to be less interesting, quite the opposite, it excites the eyes beyond belief. Exluding the details, O’Keeffe only gives more power to the colour and this is something beautiful. The colours of this painting are, in my view, a perfect way to start October on the blog!