Notice, Look And Record:
12/09/14Upon entering the gallery the first aspect to draw my attention was the decorative interior on the walls and the ceiling of the entrance hall. the various engraved sculptures and pattern works along with the use of colours of golds and reds gave the gallery a bright regal appearance giving an important and intriguing feel to the gallery. Also the numerous patterns designs and engravings made the walls look busy and lively, with something going on in all angles. this too gave off the impressions of what to expect inside the gallery (lots to look at) and lots of diversity.
Deeper into the gallery was then stopped by the painting 'Sappho' made in 1877 by Charles August Mengin made with oil on canvas as it was a beautiful eye catching painting with a sense of deeper darker underlying tones.
I then discovered after reading about it the painting was created to illustrate a poem written by Greek Poet Sappho who often wrote about love yearning and reflection. The poem that inspired this painting was about one of her poems in which she writes about a woman throwing herself to sea because of love :
Still holding on that fearful leap,
by her love, lyre into the deep,
and dying quenched the fatal fire,
at once of both her love and lyre.
This painting displays the emotion behind this poem by emphasising her ghostly presence as if she is already lost to her own deathly fate. The facial expression of the woman is sad yet determined, so too is her body language, and gives the impression she has accepted that she is to leap into the ocean. The colours used in the painting are dull and grey again emphasising the woeful emotions of the poem. She wears a black shall and trousers that symbolise a grim reaper 'deathly' kind of appearance, again emphasising the theme of death. Her chest however is bare symbolising the love in the poem and the beauty of love which then contrasts with the dark veil along with her face creating a ghostly appearance symbolising the entrapment and darker more vicious side of love. She also holds in her hand an instrument again which could be seen as a symbol of joy, liveliness and warmth, again representing the feeling of love, however when contrasts as is with the miserable dark veiled woman represents how it can torment as well as bring joy as she cant seem to let go of it, even in her final moments. Behind the woman the sea and sky are visible and create a feeling of space, representing freedom and could be symbolising freedom from her feeling of love, freedom in death (and dying quenched the fatal fire of her love and lyre). The compositing of the painting has the woman in the centre of the paining using the rule of thirds making her the direct focal point of the painting and therefore the most intriguing, however due to the use of colour, the sea and sky behind her are prominent and also draw attention as they are relevant to the poem. The painting shows the woman looking fairly secluded in her location and isolated from the world due to her location. This could represent the loneliness and sadness the artist is trying to portray that the woman is feeling.
Over all i felt this painting portrayed the scene of the moments before the woman in the poem jumped, in a beautiful dark way and created an eery mysterious atmosphere to the painting as though the woman cannot be understood however while still explaining her grief. It is a very eye catching and intriguing painting and i liked it even more when i discovered it had the poem along side it to create more of a story tell about the painting.
Gallery walls: Sappho Painting:
No comments:
Post a Comment