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Dark beautyIn Japan, it is said, beauty is something that is found in darkness. This is one of those statements that, even as it shocked me, it delighted me with its insight. It was one of those revelatory moments where it seems as if the voice comes from our own subconsciousness. Many years ago, when I was in France, a friend asked me why my paintings were so dark. "In France," she said, "We like happy colours, we call them blonde paintings." I saw the sense of this immediately, and ever since I have been at pains to achieve a blonde palette; giving up eventually, more or less, and acknowledging the fact that my paintings will always be dark, because my character is dark. Darkness is more than just deep tones, it is also the abode of mystery, of danger, of intrigue and of passion. While it is easy to spot in a painting, it is just as much to be found in music, and even in literature. Of course the French like blonde paintings. We all do. We all enjoy a good comedy, and a pretty face. But we lose ourselves in the gravity and the danger of those deep, slow, dark eyes which threaten to steal our immortal soul.
Goodbye Venice
Earlier in today I was thinking of what would be a perfect way to spend my last evening in Venice. A quiet evening, doing some packing...? a stroll around the area...? Taking Rosa's lovely big easel back to her, Matteo suggested a boatride around the islands. So, with the sun tinting the western sky and the cold air biting into our faces, we set out in his hand-built boat, first across the rough waves of the lagoon to the Guidecca and cutting through a canal, then all the way around San Giorgio and back towards San Marco. It was just Matteo and I and his little boy, Michele, who rolled up and went to sleep under the canopy. Slowly around Salute and along the Grand Canal as far as Rialto, as the night fell and the shadowy gondolas lined lined the banks like prehistoric crocodiles. As unexpected as it was undeserved, this was the perfect goodbye to Venice. We do have angels looking after us. Venice exists in two places. There is the geographic city, in all its complex beauty; and there is the Venice that exists in consciousness. This one is different for every person who has ever contempated it, and it no more belongs to a 17th Century Doge than it does to the little grey birds that haunt its piazzas. It is just different for each mind that beholds it, as it is for each one of us. The Venice each of us knows is a unique mindscape, and belongs only to us. We can never leave it. Monday classesA lot of new people have been emailing and phoning to book for my Monday classes starting next week. This is problematic, because I may not have space for all my old friends and colleagues. If you are intending to continue from last year, please let me know very soon, so that we can work out how to deal with this. I would hate to miss any of your company and the joy of seeing your work. I also hope very soon to do a 4-day portrait painting workshop at the Simon's Town Library. I'll organise this as soon as I am back in Cape Town. The undefeatedLike Icarus, who flew too close to the sun and became immortal; the only truly great art, as far as I am concerned, happens when we overreach ourselves. Like the one hundred horsemen who charged to their death under the guns in the Crimean War, and live forever; and the three hundred Spartans who died to slow the progress of the Persian Army at Thermopylae; like the sacrifice of Racheltjie de Beer, overwhelming beauty hits home when we try to the point of failure, and then go beyond. If you haven't failed, you just haven't tried hard enough. While we were talking about this, a friend of mine in Venice was commenting on the broken colour in my paintings, asking how I went about getting that quality, and I said, "I hadn't thought of it before, but every one of those colours is wrong. The very thing that makes it work, might be the fact that every one of these brushstrokes is a failure." "That is very interesting," Barry said, "Because I used to work at Intel for some years, and at Intel, they have a policy of rewarding mistakes. Not successes, so much; mistakes, because they want to encourage a dynamic way of thinking." My favourite failure story is that of Maria Callas. In a certain aria, there is a hellishly difficult note to sing, and she was famous as being one of the few to dare to attempt it. "Every night", she reported, "The entire audience is waiting for this climax, and every night I have to work out if I can attempt it this time. Invariably, I do. Half the time I miss it, but when I hit it, the audience goes completely wild." I know that this is true, but I believe that she got it wrong. It is when she failed, that she was smashed and broken, but undefeated, that the audience was moved to tears. I am not interested in successes. I have often thought this might be a kind of jealousy, but no. Give me your heartbreaks, give me your train smashes. Make me cry. |
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