Rousseau's mysterious painting is a license for me to be mysterious.
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| What animals are above the nude in Rousseau's THE DREAM? For two weeks into finding inspiration from THE DREAM, I still assumed, without looking closely, the light orange with a gray streak was one exotic bird. After reading that there are two monkeys, I examined the painting more closely. One howler monkey is just left of the snake charmer, maybe. Above the nude, in my opinion, are ambiguous profiles. Two smiley faced sloths? |
Being open to mystery, symbols of female strength, and the lushness of a jungle are three take aways from Rousseau's THE DREAM.
I am making a fresh start midway in completing my painting. Out of sight is Rousseau's painting. My painting is about making my own choices. I want to celebrate my wild garden before allowing my husband to take the garden in his preferred direction - planned order. With the drier summers I agree with him that we need to plant according to the new normal. Besides trimming away at my jungle is not sustainable.
The three entities from my recipe to overcome painter's block are again each of equal importance. They are an unfinished canvas with thick rectangular strokes of oil paint, our flowers and Henri Rousseau's THE DREAM. In process I am distracted from my attention to painting foliage, flowers and fruit. People and animals are more in my comfort zone and I find it laborious working on plants. The thick impasto makes it difficult to paint leaves and flowers. I do not scrape the thick paint away very often because I want to paint in my style - not Rousseau's.
The three entities from my recipe to overcome painter's block are again each of equal importance. They are an unfinished canvas with thick rectangular strokes of oil paint, our flowers and Henri Rousseau's THE DREAM. In process I am distracted from my attention to painting foliage, flowers and fruit. People and animals are more in my comfort zone and I find it laborious working on plants. The thick impasto makes it difficult to paint leaves and flowers. I do not scrape the thick paint away very often because I want to paint in my style - not Rousseau's.
My husband's and my flower garden was worth celebrating. I loved seeing biennials reseed themselves and pop up in quirky places. Our Snapdragon seeds germinated between rocks or in a crack in a rock. New relationships of color and shape were gifts to discover rather than control. For two years the rock was a planter for Snapdragons; This year Cosmos took hold in the rock. Our garden was like escaping into a dream where plants had personalities. A Geranium originating from Northern Africa dyed as the Cosmos originating from Mexico fell over it. Many Cosmos sprouts from years past popped up around the failing Geranium.
Doing research I found that some of our flowers are from Africa like the Gladiolas. The glads grow many small bulblets that are impossible to remove once they get started. So many small starts sprout each year along with second year bulbs creating a dense patch of vertical spiked leaves like they grow on the foothills below Mount Kilimanjaro. The Amaryllis Belladonna Lily with several other common names as Naked Ladies originated from South Africa. Symbolically the lily was named after Amaryllis, a love struck nymph in Greek mythology. Or as another source goes into detail Amaryllis was a Shepherdess in the Greek "Amrysso" in Virgil's pastoral "Elogus".
A portrait of a nineteenth century British-American actress born in Jersey Island, Lillie Langtry was painted by Frank Miles. She had an Amaryllis Belladonna in her hair. Miles called the painting Jersey Lily. Because of her fame, the lily is often called Jersey Lily.
In my painting I decided to replace the first nude with a mermaid. We have a mermaid sheet metal sculpture by our front door for years. Amazing that I never cared about what she symbolized. Not any more! I looked up her symbolic meaning. According to a tattoos web site, Bydie, "Mermaids can signify this particular sweet freedom of life, helping us pay tribute to our primordial home. By singing her song, the mermaid beckons us to return to the calm ( and at times turbulent) water, and seems to promise our protection if we follow." Another reference found on the Internet is from Carl Yung's theory. He says that mermaids are associated with spiritual messengers of transformation. Messengers for things associated with the spiritual element of water; Emotion and inspiration. People often associate them as something that touches them deep in their souls. For my painting I would like an aquatic symbol of creative transformation away from painter's block.
My painting is about painter's block and the wish to return to a flowing art process. So the water in the painting symbolizes to me my painting flow. There are many other less meaningful for me symbolic meanings for waterfalls, streams, and oceans and so on. I like water in the Biblical context of regeneration and renewal.
Geraniums also surround the mermaid. They break up her body making her less dominate while the Geraniums are more immediately recognized. Geraniums usually symbolize happiness, positive emotions, friendship or wishes for good health.
This week I am continuing to be selective with how I present the symbolic significance of images in the rest of the painting. Perhaps i will pull out the mermaid to make her more significant.
I have a strong desire to keep to my original recipe of making my painting process more personally rewarding spawning new ideas and greater engagement in the painting process. I am continuing to connect with both our flower garden, and the heavy palette knife textures from an unfinished abstract. If Rousseau was a catalyst for Picasso and the Surrealism, I can tap into Rousseau's naive style as well.
By this weekend the paint will be dry enough so the last efforts in pushing and pulling images will be doable on this thick impasto painting.
A portrait of a nineteenth century British-American actress born in Jersey Island, Lillie Langtry was painted by Frank Miles. She had an Amaryllis Belladonna in her hair. Miles called the painting Jersey Lily. Because of her fame, the lily is often called Jersey Lily.
In my painting I decided to replace the first nude with a mermaid. We have a mermaid sheet metal sculpture by our front door for years. Amazing that I never cared about what she symbolized. Not any more! I looked up her symbolic meaning. According to a tattoos web site, Bydie, "Mermaids can signify this particular sweet freedom of life, helping us pay tribute to our primordial home. By singing her song, the mermaid beckons us to return to the calm ( and at times turbulent) water, and seems to promise our protection if we follow." Another reference found on the Internet is from Carl Yung's theory. He says that mermaids are associated with spiritual messengers of transformation. Messengers for things associated with the spiritual element of water; Emotion and inspiration. People often associate them as something that touches them deep in their souls. For my painting I would like an aquatic symbol of creative transformation away from painter's block.
My painting is about painter's block and the wish to return to a flowing art process. So the water in the painting symbolizes to me my painting flow. There are many other less meaningful for me symbolic meanings for waterfalls, streams, and oceans and so on. I like water in the Biblical context of regeneration and renewal.
Geraniums also surround the mermaid. They break up her body making her less dominate while the Geraniums are more immediately recognized. Geraniums usually symbolize happiness, positive emotions, friendship or wishes for good health.
This week I am continuing to be selective with how I present the symbolic significance of images in the rest of the painting. Perhaps i will pull out the mermaid to make her more significant.
I have a strong desire to keep to my original recipe of making my painting process more personally rewarding spawning new ideas and greater engagement in the painting process. I am continuing to connect with both our flower garden, and the heavy palette knife textures from an unfinished abstract. If Rousseau was a catalyst for Picasso and the Surrealism, I can tap into Rousseau's naive style as well.
By this weekend the paint will be dry enough so the last efforts in pushing and pulling images will be doable on this thick impasto painting.
2 comments:
It seems you've found a rich new direction-- colorful and fun
It is fun and richly rewarding to see my garden in a new way. More next week.
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