When our children were little, one of our favorite Shabbat activities was leafing through art books. I’d sink into a comfortable chair. One of the children would plop into my lap. We’d look at reproductions of art, and make up stories about various paintings.
The best paintings are like scenes from movies never produced. The characters feel real. They think. They feel. We care about them. We want to know them. Most of all, we yearn to know what happens next.
Here are a few paintings that never failed to capture our imaginations.
Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.
BOOKSPOILERSBOOKSPOILERSBOOKSPOILERS
Dear Robert: Would you like to write a screenplay about a French nobleman who ESCAPES the guillotine, during the Revolution? He escapes to England, with the clothes on his back, rebuilds his life, and is re-united with his long-lost daughter. Look up Elizabeth Goudges’s Gentian Hill.
That poor little boy in Escaping Criticism looks very underfed. His ribs are showing.
The Hopper painting does look like the opening of a movie, a whodunit or a horror suspense story. The girl looks as though she were about to witness a murder-or be approached by a psychopath.
My favorite Fragonard is The Swing.
I like the Hopper too, but in seeing all of these it is amazing that one sees through a window of centuries and still hear the artist talking to us.
One of the most interesting modern trompe-l’oeil artists I’ve found is Kurt Wenner (http://kurtwenner.com/)
Kishke:
Yes, Hopper was a master of absence which creates a mood of melancholy.
Is it absence or isolation?
(Good Shabbos, BTW.)
Hopper was a master of absence
I’m not sure I know what that means.
I should have, as Alter suggests, said isolation.
I can see what you mean about the melancholy, but I also see a peacefulness there, a feeling of, “this is ordinary life, a little boring maybe, but nothing unexpected.” And a richness too, in the depth of color.
Kishke:
Beautiful observation. Perhaps the key to Hopper’s wide appeal. Thanks so much.
Thank you. The more I gaze at it the more I see the beauty of everyday things given resonance through bold shapes and rich color.
Love the mood of the Hopper painting.