A Painting is Worth a Thousand Words

It was lunch time. Sometimes I wonder why they have to go to the toilet before having lunch. The habit just likes a ritual. Since I am alone in front of the lift and waiting for my friends, my nerve found something eye catching which is a painting on the wall of an office. I forgot the name of that office. :) The painting is abstract without a title. I have nothing to do, so I try to figure out what is on this painting. Just to kill time. Is it a house? Is it a landscape? A man? Flower?
Then something funny came up.

What if this painting represented nothing?
On a certain day, the artist doesn’t have any inspiration to work. Blank... So he just splash the paint on the canvas, scratch the canvas with some color, and doodling. Voila.... you got a painting! And then someone come by to buy art for his/her company. This is a 21st century. Abstract is a trend, classy, and modern. The painting is sold and then places it on the front wall of the office. Every people who look at the painting will use their imagination to appreciate the painting because of its abstract.
If the artist is in that office and watch a guy looks at his painting full of attention, he will smile and say, “There’s nothing on it!! I made it up. Go on your life, okay.” The artist must be more amused if he displays that painting on the exhibition, where lots of people thirst for appreciation. :D :D.

Honestly, I appreciate some people who express their imagination through canvas. I realized that I am a visual people. A picture is worth a thousand words. There are two types of paintings that interest me which are mythological and impressionism paintings. They’re easier to enjoy.

MYTHOLOGICAL Paintings
I love the imagination of the Greek in creating stories. It makes me interested to anything related with Greek mythology, so as the paintings. By seeing the background, the accessories their wear, the motion, we will know who or what is the subject painted by the artist. It could be the god/goddess, heroes, royal house, piece of story, etc. We can play trivia question, for example: “Who is that women with bow and arrow?”. The answer could be Artemis (Diana), the goddess of huntress. Interesting, right?

1. Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille (1796-1875). French painter
Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld
Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

Orpheus can be clearly identified for his lyre. His mother, the Muses, gave him the gift of music. He goes down to the Underworld to bring his wife, Eurydice back from death.

2. Baburen, Dirck van
Prometheus being Chained by Vulcan
1623; Oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam



Against the wishes of Zeus, Prometheus (titan=elder god) gave the humankind the gift of fire. Enraged at this, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to a terrible punishment. He was to be chained for all eternity to a rock by the help of Vulcan (Hephaestus), God of Fire and Smith. And an eagle was to peck out his liver every day. Did you see man with wing were on his low-crowned hat and his magic wand, the Caduceus? It’s Hermes, Zeus’s messenger and Master of Thief.

3. Raphael
The Nymph Galatea
1512-14; Fresco, Villa Farnesina, Rome

The fresco shows Galatea with her gay companions. This scene describes the fair sea-nymph Galatea rides across the waves in a chariot drawn by two dolphins and laughing the love song sing by the clumsy giant Polyphemus, who in love with her. While the gay company of other sea-gods and nymphs is milling round her. The picture of the giant was to appear elsewhere in the hall.

IMPRESSIONISM Paintings
Landscape painting is the most beautiful object I can see. Impressionism focus on light and color to expresses the reality of the external world. We can see contrast between colors to distinguish light intensity. It makes the painting appear not too real as photograph, but that’s the beauty of it.

1. Pissarro, Camille
Les chataigniers a Osny (The Chestnut Trees at Osny)
1873; Oil on canvas, Private collection, New Jersey

I put this picture as my desktop. I like to see the leaf. Each brushstroke that form a leaf, quite contrast with the others (it looks stiff). But somehow, on the whole, the result is beautiful and still in harmony.

2. Cézanne, Paul
Foliage
Watercolor and pencil on paper, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

You will see different view when this painting is seen both from short and long distance. I guess most of impressionism paintings provide us this sensation.