Inspiration for My Story

Well, I’ve been writing my story again. It’s been an immense pleasure and something that occupies my mind day and night. Having written more than ten thousand words in these few days, I feel it’s about time I gather all the pictures that are connected to my characters, their conversations and settings. Hope you enjoy, and hope some of you decide to do the same, I’d be very interested to see it.

Cheyne Walk c.1840 British School 19th century 1800-1899 Presented by E. Homan 1899 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01719

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel; Blue Silk Dress (Jane Morris)

Picture shows: (l-r) SAMUEL BARNETT as John Millais, AIDAN TURNER as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, RAFE SPALL as William Holman Hunt, SAM CRANE as Fred Walters. Generic.TX: BBC TWO Tuesday 21st July 2009

 

 

 

View shows crowd on typical summer’s evening in the southwestern corner of Cremorne Gardens. The dancing platform and its central pagoda, where a dance orchestra played, are seen in the centre; in distance are double tiers of supper boxes. Cremorne Gardens, opened in 1846, were located west of Battersea Bridge between King’s Road and the Thames. The 12-acre gardens boasted a circus, theatre and orchestra with dancing platform represented here. Pleasure gardens had a reputation as places of debauchery since the 18th century. In this painting Levin depicts many examples of licentious behaviour which gives us a rare insight into sexual freedom in the 1860s. Prostitutes and loose liaisons are shown against a background of drinking and a medley of rough characters.

Story Aesthetics

I started writing a new story. Short story, but still haven’t finished it, probably never will, that’s how it goes with me. The initial idea came to my mind in October, but a few nights ago, lying in my bed, and ‘thinking about life and thinking about death, and neither one particularly appealed to me’ (The Smiths), the story idea occurred to me again so I felt compelled to write it down the following day. It’s awfully charming and tiresome at the same time when you intend to sleep but your mind is full of ideas. Then I’m usually too tired, or too lazy, as you wish, to get up and write my story so I just take a few notes so I don’t forget it. I’m sure those of you who write stories would agree with me. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind seeing other people’s ‘story aesthetics’, so if you do that sort of thing, be sure to let me know. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

SOURCE

Source

Story Inspiration

XKH141325 Waft of Mist, c. 1818-20 (oil on canvas); by Friedrich, Caspar David (1774-1840); 32.5×42.4 cm; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; German, out of copyright

 

She Became Eternity

This is a story I wrote recently, and decided to share it with my lovely readers!

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Every day Gwyn would come to the beach, to watch the sea waves in the magnificent silence, which she praised above all. It was the only place she felt happy and relaxed. Sea was a wellspring of life for her, and the smell of it reminded her of childhood.

Every day of the year Gwyn came there, and watched as the waves clasp one another in eternal harmony. She loved observing the sky too; from the richly coloured sunsets to drab and grey skies in the winter. No matter how she felt or what had happened to her that day, the moment she stepped on the colourful pebble stones with her cherry red rain boots, all was calm again. Voices inside her head were silenced by the sounds of the waves. Tranquility and solitude refreshed her mind from daily worries and despair.

Gwyn has never achieved anything in her life. She longed to be a ballerina; she spent her childhood admiring Degas’ paintings. To her childish eyes they seemed like another world; world of theatre and ballet. On the candlelight the ballerinas came to life; more elegant and vivid than in day light. But this fascination with the fanciful world of theatre, the beauty and opulence of the stage contrasted so much with her drab bedroom in a council house. She thought it strange how one shiny red velvet curtain divides such different worlds; a vivid world of dreams – the stage, and a grey world of reality. Gwyn hoped to be a ballerina too, but fate had other plans – she had nor the talent, nor the money, nor the courage to follow such grand passions. She became an actress instead. The moment light hit the stage and the whispers of the audience stopped, Gwyn shone like a star, her voice trembled, her cheeks blushed, her eyes filled with tears. The theatre life was vivid, the real one – engulfed in solitude.

Which is the real life? The one she enjoys living, or the one she is forced to endure? – These questions wandered through her mind while she sat on the beach, eyes fixated on the sea. On the stage she can be everything she wants, she can feel; love, fear, tremble, cry. In real life, she feels nothing. Her soul is as empty as the sky above. The insignificance of her life was unbearable. She could not endure it any longer.

One drab Wednesday afternoon Gwyn was again sitting on the beach. Sea always reminded her of eternity. She gazed at the waves and the flickering sea foam, overwhelmed by the beauty and harmony that stood right before her eyes. But how little, plain and immaterial she felt compared to the sea! She longed for the power to disappear, not die, but calmly fade away… into the waves, into the cold water, into eternity! These thoughts filled her heart with rapture. She stood up, trembling from excitement, and walked slowly until she was approached by the sea waves. She stepped out of her red rain boots and walked barefoot into the cold seawater.

‘It has been found again.
What? – Eternity.
It is the sea fled away
With the sun.‘*

She whispered into the sunset, her body trembling, not from the cold water, but from delirium. Gwyn continued walking into the sea, finally free from the lightness of living, until, carried by the waves, she became wholly amalgamated with the sea. Gwyn vanished into eternity, fully immersed into the emptiness of life.

All that was left of her were a pair of cherry red rain boots. Until the waves swept them away too.

*Rimbaud

John Constable – Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows

1829-30. Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows – John Constable

The beauty and value of this painting were overlooked because it was thought that a fan had painted it in homage to the celebrated landscape painter John Constable. However, it was revealed only a few months earlier that this painting was indeed painted by Constable. This is certainly not the reason why this painting allured me, I’d love it even if it was painted by a fan and not Constable himself.

Despite the fact that Constable was a Romantic painter, he did not strive to paint from his imagination which was a habit of all Romanticists, he always painted what he saw but his visions of sweet little cottages, trees, skies and the Salisbury Cathedral which he had painted so many times obviously posses a certain charisma because they haven’t been forgotten even after two centuries. Constable said ‘The world is wide, no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of all the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from each other.‘

First glance at this painting filled me with excitement. I have a great deal of affection for powerful and tranquil landscapes; storms, wild trees, mystical buildings in the background, old ruins… Sky plays an important role in all of Constable’s paintings. Here, it is painted in wild and energetic brushstrokes. Dark and massive clouds seem threatening. Trees look so crooked and strange and the mysterious cathedral in the background, painted in sharp lines and grey tones, only adds to the overall gloomy atmosphere. I started writing my story again and this painting is my main inspiration for describing landscapes.