In my 40’s, learning to like olives and opera as entropy outruns denial: grey hair wildfires, odd aches and slower healing scars; the sad acceleration of days and months noticed with well chosen wine.
And I finally understand still life art. For years I wondered what the fuss was: tumbling bouquets of flowers in vases, bulbous fruit and plump vegetables on plates, dead fish and game flopped over furniture, draping cloth, sunlight glasses and porcelain, the occasional skull thrown in for macabre measure. I never questioned the artist’s prerogative: the mastering of form, perspective and colour, the bringing to life something that is still, movement out of light and shape out of solidness. The poetry of creating something out of nothing, art out of emptiness. But why do people care when they can admire epic landscapes, romantic impressions, life-like portraits, or get mad about modern art? Then, one day - Still Life With Flowers by Jan Davidsz. de Heem - a beautiful, blooming defence against time, a victory against the hyperactive decay of life. I stare at it, entranced by the scent. Monet’s The Peach Glass hinted in orange glassiness that some deeper sense compelled the artist to freeze in a frame the mundane, the momentary, preventing it’s fading, its betrayal. Beloved Vincent’s with his sunflowers holding onto the light, yellowing our minds as his darkens. I saw that the stillness is the moment before loss, before the flowers drop and die, the fruit rots, the light of the day is lost and the shining surface of that house-hold object goes back to being forgotten. The dead animals on platters and the strangely included skulls? The artist’s ironic reminders, cues for humility. So we stare at the paintings and wish Dorian Grey could whisper into the art and age it, the brushstrokes bending to time, the frame folding into its own decay while we remain forever youthful observers. The final lesson is in intonation. The skill is not in stillness, not in what is held, but in movement, what is given. I need to say the phrase differently: there’s still life. Looking at the art, the living, breathing art. Despite the entropy, there’s still life. Thanks, Lizzie Mueller, for the still life postcards..
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AuthorA poetic-essay style blog with a limit of 365 words. 365 like the days of the year - my name being one of those days! Archives
March 2020
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