Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday. Good to know Scouting continues in some areas.
Plans to post about a painting a day through Lent from a little book I bought went to pot when I ended up writing about the stress of moving!
![The Art of Lent: A Painting A Day From Ash Wednesday To Easter by [Sister Wendy Beckett]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61LQTTRfQ8L._SX260_.jpg)
The paintings and writings are divided into sections illustrating Silence, Contemplation, Peace, Joy, Confidence and Love
Some of the paintings in this book are famous, some less well know and some are strange - not things I would choose to put in my house for sure, but then I don't really know much about "proper" art, I just know what I like.
Illustrating 'Silence'.........A painting called Three Greys by Yuko Shiraishi, is just 3 stripes of different greys. Sister Wendy says "A quick glance at Three Greys and we might walk away thinking it drab and over regulated. A slower glance and the painting reveals an infinitude of subtle hues and shifting verticals"
Just looks like three dull stripes to me!
I prefer this painting from the book, also depicting 'Silence" . The Magdalen Reading by Roger Van der Weyden. c.1445
"The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th-century by the painter Roger van der Weyden It shows a woman with the pale skin, high cheek bones and oval eyelids typical of the idealised portraits of noble women of the period.She is identifiable as the Magdalen from the jar of ointment placed in the foreground, which is her traditional attribute in Christian art. She is presented as completely absorbed in her reading, a model of the contemplative life, repentant and absolved of past sins. Iconography of the Magdalen commonly shows her with a book, in a moment of reflection, in tears, or with eyes averted."
"The background of the painting had been overpainted with a thick layer of brown paint. A cleaning between 1955 and 1956 revealed the figure standing behind the Magdalene and the kneeling figure with its bare foot protruding in front of her, with a landscape visible through a window. The two partially seen figures are both cut off at the edges of the London panel."
Since Colin died I've not enjoyed silence in the house but I can easily sit out in the warmth of summer sun in silence in anytime.
I think everyone is looking forward to the warmth of summer and being outside in 2021.
When, in the physical sense, silence is filled with tinnitus it is not an overly attractive state. However as a 'quiet' seeker moving to a city that never goes quiet is the worst possible move I could have made. Even in lockdown with a curfew the traffic, loud music, voices, shouting, over people's televisions and radios, dogs barking, roadworks etc never lets up. Even a silent place to contemplate those grey stripes would be a welcome break.
ReplyDeleteThe Dutch painting is a whole different level as a painting though isn't it? Irrespective of what the good Sister says about the kind of silence it represents, it lifts the heart in a way grey stripes do not.
I've never lived anywhere busier than a housing estate on the outside of a town - can't imagine the city noise.
DeleteI remember enjoying Sister Wendy's art programmes on television some years back. When I look at Magdalen, though her eyes are fixed on the book she seems to me to be tensely aware of the other people around her so though silent I don't find this picture relaxing.
ReplyDeleteThe ointment jar is a model for one of the original tupperware containers!
I agree completely about the tupperware!
DeleteI only ever went to one tupperware party and bought just one piece but I see what you mean about the pot in the painting
DeleteOne of the greatest Northern Renaissance artists. Look particularly at the skill in the drapery.
ReplyDeleteI like the detail of the book
DeleteI must be strange as I find the grey stripes more my thing! I'd have it on my wall. If you look closely and study it, Sister Wendy is right, subtle hues. I guess it's horses for courses! xx
ReplyDeleteGood that we don't all like the same things!
DeleteAlthough grey is one of my favourite colours I would just glance at it and pass it by, but the other picture needs more than just a glance as there is so much to see and take in.
ReplyDeleteLike Tigger I am never totally silent with tinnitus in both ears.
Tinnitus must be so difficult.
DeleteI thought it was interesting to know that the background had been painted over and what was revealed.
Both paintings express different forms of art. But would not choose because neither would be on my wall too contemplate. Interesting about silence in the house Sue, I have only just began to switch off the radio which is the background to my life.
ReplyDeleteI've always had the radio on at home in the mornings but now the TV seems to be on the rest of the time - just for company.
DeleteI can remember sitting in the Museum of Modern Art in New York in front of a painting called something along the lines of Monochromatic Blue by Reinhardt, listening to a guide talk about it...apparently his goal was to strip everything back, strip everything external to the canvas so the focus was on the paint on the canvas. She waxed on for quite a while whilst standing in front of what was, to all intent and purposes, a huge paint chip...quite an attractive shade of blue I do admit....but a huge paint chip.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder how some paintings become so famous and worth so much money when they are so simple!
DeleteDear Sue,
ReplyDeleteWe had not known of this book by Sister Wendy Beckett but think of it as a wonderful idea. Lent is a perfect time for reflection and what better way to do this than through a close inspection of art.
And, a good idea to have such contrasting works included in the collection since this does make one look, perhaps, more deeply and in different ways to things one is less accustomed to or which, at first sight, one might like less than others.
The 'Magdalen Reading' is most intriguing and highly skilful in its execution. So much detail contained within the picture which, of course, was part of a much larger original. Clearly, a master of his art when one looks at the clothes, the face and even the tiniest details such as the jar, the rosary and the nails in the floor painted with such absolute precision and flair. And, two of our favourite things....a glimpse into the world outside with the tiny figures in the landscape, one of whom is reflected in the water, and the jar of oil as an attribution so that we can be clear about who is being depicted in the painting. An outstanding masterpiece.
More pages from this little book will be coming later
DeleteI can imagine that silence in the house is difficult. I hope the weather allows you out in the sunshine soon. (I prefer the painting of the Magadalen too.)
ReplyDeleteI hope I learn to cope with the quiet of home alone sometime
DeleteMaybe the odd or jarring choices will be inspiration to think more deeply into what and why the author chose them, what meaning can you [whoever] find, etc. If one so chooses?
ReplyDeleteA painting 18'x8' called Voice of Fire was bought for the National Gallery of Canada for its permanent collection in 1989 at a cost of $1.8 million. It is 3 stripes, blue, red, blue. In 2014 my city, Calgary AB, the powers that be bought a piece of art called Travelling Light or, colloquially, “The Giant Blue Ring” or hula hoop with antenna-$470,000 price tag. 17 metres tall, bright blue and sports two replica lampposts (not antennae) sprouting from its top. in 2017 for another $500,000 a piece of art called Bowfort Towers was erected. It is slabs of rocks angled on tall rusted-looking steel girders -it looks like a construction site that has been abandoned and it's one of the first things that people see as they drive into our city. I don't think anyone felt peace, calm or silence from any of these pieces. Instead they all sparked great outrage at the prices for what we got. I agree each to their own but it was taxpayers paying for this stuff and most feel we should of had some say in what was chosen!!
ReplyDeleteI don't understand 'art' but I do know what I like and don't. I think having a book like that with notes explaining the painting is a good way to start to appreciate art a little bit more. But as for the stripes ... huh!! I could do that but in much more cheerful colours.
ReplyDeleteI used to love having music on in the house all the time, but over the past year or so I have come to love the sound of silence ... not that there is ever complete silence I nearly always have a background sound of snoring from the Pug.