Pulp – Disco 2000: I Never Knew That You’d Get Married, I would be living down here on my own…

“I never knew that you’d get married
I would be living down here on my own
On that damp and lonely Thursday years ago…”

Still from the video.

Pulp’s song “Disco 2000” from their 1995 album “Different Class” is a song about the singer Jarvis Cocker’s childhood crush Deborah, but told through the lense of adulthood. The song is based on real events from Cocker’s childhood; there was indeed a girl called Deborah who was popular and pretty, but had no interest in Cocker and didn’t notice him at all. In the song he fantasises about meeting her at some distant point in the future, in the year 2000, when they’re both grown ups. There is a wittiness and a sense of humour, a slight self-deprecation which are all always present in Pulp’s songs but there is also a tinge of sadness, especially as the song’s narrator is realising that his childhood crush is now married while he is single and lonely on that damp Thursday: “I never knew that you’d get married/ I would be living down here on my own/ On that damp and lonely Thursday years ago….” There is even a cute sort of desperation when he sings “Oh, what are you doing Sunday, baby?/ Would you like to come and meet me, maybe?/ You can even bring your baby…” He doesn’t even care that she is with somebody, as long as he can see her.

Stills from the music video.

It is as if in one moment you are a carefree teen sitting bored in school, fantasising what your adult life might be, and you blink and suddenly you are twenty-something and your peers are getting married and having children. Doors are closing, opportunities being limited. We all have a certain someone that we fancied back in high school, or even primary school and we may have had certain fantasies and now we may have the what-ifs. That interest may have been only one-sided, or both parties may have been too shy to act upon anything… Time passes and school finishes. We move on with our life and we forget about that person, but there is always a warm, pure feeling to the memory. And the memory is pure and warm precisely because nothing happened; if something did happen, then it would likely leave us disappointed, as most school-age ‘loves’ do. Something that could have been always has more charm than something that is. For those living in small towns such as myself the feeling is even stronger because there is less people to see and it is almost impossible to avoid certain people even if we want to. Someone that was a rebel-without-a-cause, sitting with you in the last row in biology class and cracking jokes is now delivering pizza and you pretend not to see them when you do see them. I guess we’ll never meet at the fountain by the road.

The lyrics of the song:

“Oh, we were born within an hour of each other
Our mothers said we could be sister and brother
Your name is Deborah (Deborah)
It never suited ya
And they said that when we grew up
We’d get married, and never split up
Oh, we never did it, although I often thought of it

Oh, Deborah, do you recall?
Your house was very small
With wood chip on the wall
When I came ’round to call
You didn’t notice me at all

And I said, “Let’s all meet up in the year 2000
Won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown?
Be there two o’clock by the fountain down the road”
I never knew that you’d get married
I would be living down here on my own
On that damp and lonely Thursday years ago

You were the first girl at school to get breasts
And Martyn said that you were the best
Oh, the boys all loved you, but I was a mess
I had to watch them try and get you undressed
We were friends, that was as far as it went
I used to walk you home sometimes but it meant
Oh, it meant nothing to you
‘Cause you were so popular…

Oh, what are you doing Sunday, baby?
Would you like to come and meet me, maybe?
You can even bring your baby
Ooh ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…”

*

The video for the song features a guy and a gal, played by models Jo and Patrick Skinny, who take time to get ready for a Saturday night disco and they both hope the other will also be there and they are both looking for a hook up. The video for “Disco 2000”, just like the video for the songs “Lipgloss” and “Common People” has that vibrant, artficial, retro aesthetic so typical for Pulp’s 1990s videos. Another thing I liked a lot about the video, apart from the garish, eye-candy, ’70s inspired aesthetics, is that it tells the tale almost in the style of a comic-book. If you pause the video every now and then, as I did to get screenshots for pictures for this post, you will notice that the the video is almost made out of pictures, a few seconds for each scene, and one after another and a story is told. There are even captions, unrelated to the song’s lyrics, which show us what the guy and the girl are thinking. It is interesting to see how they both want the other to notice them, but don’t want to appear to eager as well, so typical for love games. Jarvis Cocker did after all study fine art and film at Saint Martin’s College of Arts from 1988 to 1991 and aesthetic was important to him. I appreciate cleverness in lyrics and videos of rock songs, just as I appreciate art in various forms. This video is artistically interesting to me as any normal oil on canvas paintings would be.

*

It’s Saturday night, it feels like a Sunday in some ways. If I had any sense I’d maybe go away for a few days…

I really love Donovan’s song “Young Girl Blues“, released on his 1967 album “Mellow Yellow”. I find it beautiful and touching, and while Donovan’s version has a distinct sadness to it, I find myself listening to Marianne Faithfull‘s version of the song, released on her fourth studio album “Love in a Mist” also in 1967, more often because it feels more subjective and more intimate. While Donovan is lamenting on the fate of a young girl and her transition to adulthood and finding her way in the crowd, Marianne is the young girl and she is experiencing it first hand. For some reason, whenever I listen to the song, and what is more convenient than to listen to it on a Saturday night, I always have in mind this painting called “Julie Daydreaming” by Berthe Morisot from 1894. The painting shows Morisot’s teenage daughter looking wistful and there is melancholy in her eyes; must I grow up, and what awaits me? Only questions, but no one is there to give answers, and perhaps it is better not to even know the answers… Be that as it may, I can only say I am lonely.

Berthe Morisot, Julie Daydreaming, 1894

It’s Saturday night, it feels like a Sunday in some ways.
If I had any sense I’d maybe go away for a few days.
Be that as it may, I can only say I am lonely,
I am but a young girl, working my way through the phonies.

Coffee on, milk gone, a sad light by fading,
Myself I touch, but not too much, I hear it’s degrading.

The flowers on my stockings are wilting away in the midnight.
The book I am reading is one man’s opinion of moonlight.
My skin is so white, I’d like maybe to go to bed soon,
Closing my eyes, if I’m to rise up before noon.

High heels, car wheels, the losers are grooving.
My dream, strange seem images are moving.

My friends, they are making a pop star or two every evening.
I know that scene backwards, they can’t see the patterns they’re weaving.
My friends they are models but I soon got over that one.
I sit in my one room, a little brought-down in London.

Coffee on, milk gone, a sad light by fading,
Myself I touch, but not too much, I hear it’s degrading.

La la la la la, la la la la la la la la la.
La la la la la, la la la la la la la la la.
La la la la, la la la la la …

Wined and dined, oh it seemed just like a dream (Henri Le Sidaner)

“Wined and dined
Oh it seemed just like a dream
Girl was so kind
Kind of love I’d never seen

Only last summer, it’s not so long ago
Just last summer, now musk winds blow…“

(Syd Barrett, Wined and Dined)

Henri Le Sidaner, Table with Lanterns in Gerberoy, 1924

These late summer days when the air is tinged with a sense of transience, and I am haunted by the memories, the paintings of Henri La Sidaner have been on my mind a lot. Their quiet, slightly mysterious and intimate mood is strangely comforting when I am feeling the way I am feeling these days. It almost seems to represent an image from my memory, or not even memory alone, for nothing is as beautiful in real life, but an embellished memory, a made up memory of a life that never was but a memory that feeds me and helps me live through the days. One motif that repeats itself all throughout Le Sidaner’s painting is that of an empty space and I think that this, amongst other things, is something that gives his paintings that mysterious, slightly ethereal quality. Quiet interiors and quiant street scenes were his favourites motifs to paint but these are always empty spaces and this absence of people, or anything living really, is what draws me to these paintings. Let’s take a look at the painting “Table with Lanterns in Gerberoy” painted in 1924, which seems to be my favourite for a long time now. A simple scene but beautifully atmospheric. A table laid out for people; wine bottles, glasses, fruits, a jug, and a vase with roses. In the background a house with windows overgrown with roses. Colourful paper lanterns. Some clothes laid out over the chairs as if someone had just left the scene. I can still hear the music in the air, melancholy violins and the sounds of crickets, and perhaps a distant sound of a woman’s laughter. But… where are the people? Who knows. Are the roses still echoing with the words from the party guests’ conversations, or are they yet to see the guests? Is the wine in the glasses half-drunk or has it only been half-poured? There is always a hint of someone’s presence in Le Sidaner’s art but never a face painted directly, and I think it better that way because this allows for the mystery and the dreaminess which is the ultimate charm of this painting and many other of his.

Henri le Sidaner, The Table in the Gerberoy Garden at Dusk, 1900s

Henri Le Sidaner, La Table, 1901

Henri Le Sidaner, La petite table, 1920

Henri Le Sidaner, Small Table in Evening Dusk, 1921

Henri Le Sidaner, La Gloriette, Gerberoy, 1929

This painting, and some of Le Sidaner’s similar dinner table in the garden scenes, always bring to mind a song from one of Syd Barrett’s solo albums, one of my personal favourites as well, “Wined and Dined” from the album “Barrett” (1970). The song, just like Le Sidaner’s painting, has that melancholy feeling of a beauty that simply cannot be preserved, the height of such beauty, the most raw; summer that is ending soon, a flower that is wilting, something beautiful is passing and there is nothing one can do to prevent it and it aches the heart like nothing else. In this sense, I am also reminded of Watteau’s paintings, the fragile and delicate worlds of beauty, where beautifully clad ladies and cheerful harlequins engage eternally in a game of love and joy, but still there is a whisper of sadness in the trees. An idyllic garden party on a summer eve is an example of such beauty; a moment in time when one can wine and dine freely and the autumn is not yet there to brush one’s cheek with its cold breath, the leaves are the strongest and greenest, and one cannot imagine that they will ever fall down, the music of the crickets is there and it soothes the ear, and everything seems possible and everlasting. To encapsulate such a moment and live in it would be a dream.

Nick Cave – Are You the One That I’ve Been Waiting For? – Carl Krenek – The Lovers

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’s single “(Are You) The One I’ve Been Waiting For?” was released on the 19th May 1997. It was the first out of two singles from their album “The Boatman’s Call” which Nick Cave personally had expressed a dislike for, claiming the album was too personal and that music shouldn’t be that personal. The other single from the album is the song “Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere” which is sad but very beautiful as well. For some reason this painting of lovers in the month of May by the Austrian painter Carl Krenek seemed very fitting to accompany the song’s lyrics. I do love the tenderness between the lovers and the way the entire natural space is filled with flowers and leaves.

Carl Krenek, May – The Lovers (Mai – Die Liebenden), 1905, tempera

Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?

I’ve felt you coming, girl, as you drew near
I knew you’d find me, cause I longed you here
Are you my destiny?
Is this how you’ll appear?
Wrapped in a coat with tears in your eyes?
Well take that coat, babe, and throw it on the floor
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

As you’ve been moving surely toward me
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed
So I’ve sat and I’ve watched an ice-age thaw
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed
They’re only little tears, darling, let them spill
And lay your head upon my shoulder
Outside my window the world has gone to war
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

O we will know, won’t we?
The stars will explode in the sky
O but they don’t, do they?
Stars have their moment and then they die

There’s a man who spoke wonders
Though I’ve never met him
He said, ‘He who seeks finds
And who knocks will be let in’
I think of you in motion
And just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

10:15 On a Saturday Night Waiting For the Telephone to Ring, Wondering Where He’s Been…

The song “10:15 Saturday Night” was the first song on the band’s debut album “The Three Imaginary Boys”, released on 11th May 1979. Just like many other songs by The Cure, it is about loneliness and despair, on a Saturday night which is very convenient because Saturday is usually the fun day of the week, the day for parties and pleasure, but it can also be the loneliest day, and night, of the week. Even if the party-abstinence and the isolation are self-imposed, as they were with Morrissey for example, one does still feel this slight ache… Robert Smith actually wrote the song when he was sixteen years old while sitting in his kitchen and feeling lonely one Saturday night. The song does have a teenage vibe to it and I love its rawness and simplicity. The water dripping in the sink, as described in the lyrics, is a monotonous reminder of the passing of time and it adds to the overall mood of doom and gloom; he is alone at home on a Saturday night, waiting for the telephone to ring, waiting for the girl to call, wondering where she’s been, and the dripping of the water in the sink is the only sound breaking the moody silence. Now, Millais’ watercolour “Dreams at Dawn”, painted in 1968, has a dawn setting, but who’s to say it’s not 10:15 and the girl is on her balcony, wondering where her beloved is? Is he thinking of her? Is he writing to her? The quietness of the lonely evening is only disturbed by her occasional sigh or a scream of a distant bird. The girl’s pose, her head leaned on her hand, says it all. Her eyes may be turned upwards at the big shining moon, but we know her thoughts are elsewhere… The stars may be shining beautifully but the magic is lost for her because she can’t stop wondering; where he’s been???

John Everett Millais, A Dream at Dawn, 1868

10.15
10.15
Saturday night
Saturday night
And the tap drips
And the tap drips
Under the strip light
Under the strip light
And I’m sitting
And I’m sitting
In the kitchen sink
In the kitchen sink
And the tap drips
And the tap drips
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
Waiting
Waiting
For the telephone to ring
For the telephone to ring
And I’m wondering
And I’m wondering
Where she’s been
Where she’s been
And I’m crying
And I’m crying
For yesterday
For yesterday
And the tap drips
And the tap drips
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip
It’s always the same
It’s always the same

Lovers – Jugend Magazine Cover April 1899: Far worse to be Love’s lover than the lover that Love has scorned, I LET LOVE IN… (Nick Cave)

“Far worse to be Love’s lover than the lover that Love has scorned
I let love in…“
(Nick Cave, I Let Love In)

Angelo Jank, Cover of Jugend Magazine, 8 April 1899

I have been taking great aesthetical delight in this April 1899 cover of the German Jugend Magazine, painted by Angelo Jank, for months now but have patiently been waiting for April to write about it. And write about it I must because I feel it, in a way, encapsulates the romantic spirit of my blog. All the covers for the turn of the century editions of the Jugend Magazine are beautiful and innovative, but this one is by far my favourite. It is simple but stunning. Two lovers are shown kneeling on the grass, holding hands, their lips locked in a kiss. One doesn’t know where one lovers begins and where the other ends, why, even their knees are touching. Locked in a kiss forever, these painted-lovers, in a flowery meadow of a turn of the century magazine. Do they know they have been kissing for more than a hunred years? And has it been enough for them, and do their lips still taste ever so sweet? They seem out of time and place, and even their clothes have a historical flair, especially the man’s attire but the lady’s free-flowing dress as well brings to mind the fanciful princess from some bygone era.

The background is made out of stylised roses and leaves, very simple but fitting. There is a simplicity to this scene, but also a beautiful flow, a rhythm of nature and a rhythm of love. The lovers’ pose with the touching points; the kiss, the hands and the knees, is very much in the Art Nouveau style, though it does bear a great resemblance to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s study for the cover of “The Early Italian Poets”, drawn in 1861. I feel that Angelo Jank’s drawing is more organic and flowing; both lovers are kneeling and seem to be in tune with one another and the nature around them. Even the shades of green on their clothing and in the background are the same. Still, it is interesting to see the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites seeping into the artworks even half a century later, almost, in a completely different artistic and geographical setting. Namely, the Jugend Magazine or simply “Jugend” which means “Youth” in German was an influential German art magazine that was being published from 1896 to 1940, although its peak was at the turn of the century. It was founded by Georg Hirth in Munich and he was the main editor of the magazine until he died in 1916. The legacy of the magazine, apart from the gorgeous and sometimes witty covers, is the promotion of the Jugendstil, which was the German version of the Art Nouveau style.

These past few days I have been listening to the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’s eighth studio album “Let Love In” very intensely and surprise, surprise, I discover that it was actually released on the 18th April 1994. Since the album, as most of Nick Cave’s music does anyway, revolves around the theme of love, in all its faces – the beautiful and the ugly, the angelic and the demonic, I thought it would be a perfect timing to publish a post about this magazine cover and, in some strange way, make it connected to Nick Cave’s album. To end a post, here are some lines from the last song on the album, the part two of the song “Do You Love Me”:

“Do you love me?
 I love you, handsome
But do you love me?
Yes, I love you,
 you are handsome…
Dreams that roam
 between truth and untruth
Memories that become monstrous lies
So onward! And Onward! And Onward I go!
Onward! And Upward! And I’m off to find love
With blue-black bracelets on my wrists and ankles
And the coins in my pocket go jingle-jangle…”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Early Italian Poets (study for titlepage), 1861

You’ve been reading some old letters, You smile and you think how much you’ve changed

The end of the year approaching, my thoughts naturally tend towards reflection. Bouts of a bittersweet wistfulness overwhelm me often these nights. So many different feelings mix and mingle in my soul, to quote Morrissey, “I’m not happy and I’m not sad”. Night after night, when everyone is asleep, I found myself alone in the quiet stillness of the night, flipping through the pages of my many diaries written throughout the years. I don’t even know why I have the habit of doing it, for it only leaves me shattered and in tears, but at times there shines a smile on my face and this song, not originally written but covered by the Welsh band the Manic Street Preachers comes to mind. I love how the video for the song captures the highlights of the band’s early years, especially moments with Richey who looks just stunning with his eyeliner and cool hairdo. I really love how the song combines both sentiments; the looking back at the past and all the wonderful moments that no money in the world could bring back, but also stating ‘this is the day your life will surely change’ so it’s looking cheerfully into the future and what goods things it might bring. It’s almost like the Roman God Janus who represents things such as duality, gateways, passageways, transitions, endings, beginnings, and whose face looks both ways; into the past and into the future. To be able to simply appreciate the beautiful moments of the past days without the ache of yearning in your heart, now that would be a true gift.

William Turner, Moonlight, 1841

You didn’t wake up this morning
’cause you didn’t go to bed
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red

The calendar on your wall is ticking the days off
You’ve been reading some old letters
You smile and you think how much you’ve changed
And all the money in the world
Couldn’t bring back those days

You pull back the curtains
And the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying
Across a clear blue sky

This is the day, your life will surely change
This is the day when things fall into place

You could’ve done anything if you’d wanted
And all your friends and family think that you’re lucky
But the side of you they’ll never see
Is when you’re left alone with the memories
That hold your life together, together like glue

You pull back the curtains
And the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying
Across a clear blue sky
This is the day, your life will surely change
This is the day when things fall into place
This is the day, your life will surely change
This is the day when things fall into place
This is the day
This is the day

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.

Give Me The First Six Months of Love (Michelle Gurevich)

I recently discovered the music of the contemporary Cannadian singer-songwriter Michelle Gurevich. As you may see from her surname, she is of Russian origin and interestingly her fan base is mostly in the Eastern Europe and Berlin. She lives in Denmark at the moment. I discovered her two songs “Lovers are Strangers” and “The First Six Months of Love” one cloudy and rainy afternoon a week ago by serendipity but the lyrics instantly chimed with me and I found the music hypnotic. Needless to say, these two songs became the soundtrack for my gloomy summer afternoon and I still can’t get them out of my head. The foreboding lead-grey sky went so well with the music that I almost felt I was transported to another world. It was definitely one of my little ecstatic moments and so I wanted to share the song lyrics in this post and I hope you check out her music if you don’t know it already.

Lovers, shot by Paolo Roversi for Vogue Italia February 2000

You must know that moment
When the miserable world cracks open
You finally meet someone
Suddenly the chapter’s written

Six months with nothing other
Than a duvet and a jug of water
It’s a chemical jackpot babe
And we’ve got the winning number

Give me the first six months of love
Give me the first six months of love
Before the truth comes spilling out
Before you open your big mouth
One of the finest things in life
Gone on a serotonin ride
God knows I’ve waited long enough
Give me the first six months
First six months of love

Before begin the dissections
Before the therapy sessions
We danced the night we met
Now we need dancing lessons

Remember how it all began
We must not let habit set in
Come up the stairs, let’s recommence
The first six months over again

Give me the first six months of love
Give me the first six months of love
Before the truth comes spilling out
Before you open your big mouth
One of the finest things in life
Gone on a serotonin ride
Babe if we gonna stick it out

Give me the first six months
First six months of love

Give me the first six months of love
Give me the first six months of love
Before the truth comes spilling out
Before you open your big mouth
One of the finest things in life
Gone on a serotonin ride
Babe if we gonna stick it out
Give me the first six months
First six months of love

Darkness on the Edge of Town: Charles Burchfield and Egon Schiele

“You can tell her that I’m easily found
Tell her there’s a spot out ‘neath Abraham’s bridge, and tell her
There’s a darkness on the edge of town
There’s a darkness on the edge of town…..

…Tonight I’ll be on that hill ’cause I can’t stop
I’ll be on that hill with everything I got
With our lives on the line where dreams are found and lost…”

(Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town)

Charles Burchfield, New Moon, November 1917, watercolor and opaque watercolor with graphite

Egon Schiele is a painter whose artworks I have been in love with for many years now and Charles Burchfield is a painter whose work I only discovered two years ago but am getting more and more enthusiastic about. Both of these artists had a particular flair for capturing the houses and townscapes not as mere physical objects made out of wood, brick and mortar, but rather they captured their mood and character. And both artists preferred the medium of watercolour or gouache to the more traditional oil on canvas, and, as my readers here know, watercolour is my favourite medium. Charles Burchfield’s painting “New Moon” and Egon Schiele’s painting “Edge of Town (Krumau Town Crescent) are painted around the same time, in 1917 and 1918 respectively. Whilst Schiele’s painting shows the entire small town of Krumau with many houses crammed close together, Burchfield’s watercolour focuses solely on one house and a particular one indeed.

Burchfield’s watercolour “New Moon” shows a strange and twisted black wooden house which is very close to the road. There is a tree growing in front of the house and it visually disrupts the scene; the tree trunk is in the way of the scene and the black tree branches are thin and clawlike, stretching to scratch whichever intruder passes by it. The facade of the house is contorted in a surreal manner, almost as if it was laughing. A house with a grin and three windows with teeth in them. We can see only a part of the house next door on the left and it looks equally eerie. The sky is dusty pink and yellow and the colours match the blackness of the house. And we can’t even see much of that candy floss-vanilla sky because the house takes up most of the space on the paper; it domineers, almost swallows the space around it, making the scene look mysterious and claustrophobic. There is not space for anything but the house on that paper. I can only imagine what stranger Hawthorneesque characters might inhabit this Gothic abode.

Egon Schiele, Edge of Town (Krumau Town Crescent), 1918

On the other hand, Schiele focuses not on a single houses but on a cluster of houses which, strangely, seem to make up a living organism of its own, a unified skelet that would fall apart if one house was demolished. Schiele’s portrayal of the small and picturesque Czech town of Krumau (which, in Schiele’s life was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) is vibrant and dense. He uses thick brushstrokes of warm, heavy, earthy tones; brown, yellow, orange, warm purple, some muddy green. This combination of colours and brushstrokes makes the town appear old, uninviting and slightly claustrophobic. If you look up pictures of Krumau you will see that the town is as dreamy and fairytale like as can be, and this is definitely just Schiele’s vision of Krumau. This is Schiele’s portrait of the town, its character and mood and the way he perceives it. The town seems uninviting to me, and I can imagine a person walking down those narrow streets and the houses just getting closer and closer, obscuring the sky with their roofs and crushing the person to death. The town is melancholy and decaying but it doesn’t like someone to see it. In his portraits, Schiele usually focuses on the person and ignores the background, he doesn’t care to fill it with colour, but here he takes time to add brushstrokes and brushstrokes of thick, muddy brown.

Both of these artworks disturb me, but in a good way and when I hear Springsteen singing ‘darkness on the edge of town’ this is what comes to my mind… But also, seeing the way Burchfield and Schiele portrayed houses, streets and towns makes me look at houses and street with a pair of new eyes, it makes me notice the strangeness and the character that many houses and builings possess.