In my search for moments of tranquility in the midst of global chaos and suffering, I have been considering how works of art might somehow soothe our troubled souls. Often there is more to appreciate in art than its breathtaking beauty; there is the possibility of a kind of companionship. Sometimes we find an affinity with an artist whose image suggests feelings we carry within but have not yet been able to name.
Many artists, in time, also speak to us differently than they did on our first viewing. An artist’s personal statement, born of instinct or perhaps by a spontaneous nudge from her unconscious, can expand or alter its meaning to us when we view it in conjunction with new self understanding or a new awareness of a changing environment.
Recently while surfing Google Image, I found Susan Rothenberg’s painting titled “Chinese Goat” and felt an immediate familiarity with both the content and her manner of applying paint to the canvas. She painted this image in 1991, but I realized that her image might represent the great forces of nature we have either lost control of or whose powers we refused to recognize over 30 years ago and must now endure. Earlier, I had merely seen a nonsensical jumble of images.
My imagination rushed to meet hers and though I may be seeing and feeling things differently than she did when painting, it is nonetheless the gift of art to stimulate our minds and hearts. We all remain unique interpreters of reality.
I saw fragments of bodies floating in a universe of incessant motion created by her gestures. Illusions simmered as they do in the human mind. Yet, I was driven by my brain to create a narrative woven of my own past visions and what was depicted before me.
Our ability to conceive patterns out the raw material of existence saves us from complete confusion. And the fragility of our conjectures and hopes too became starkly visible. Alas, I thought, we ourselves come and go like shadows do on a sunny- cloudy day before they dissolve with the setting sun. Yeats wrote, “the centre cannot hold.” Rothenberg made me feel this fact of nature.
And how many people have stood before a self portrait of Rembrandt thinking, my god, he knows me! His eyes penetrate my unarticulated and vague feelings of anxiety and loneliness and doubt. For precious moments I am united with a common humanity, all who share my fragility and courage to withstand my fate. I am confirmed.
Recently I re-examined Rembrandt’s etching, “The Fall of Man,” created in 1638 and was struck with his foresight as to how Adam and Eve would be bereft and awkward when cast out of their garden of certainty and beauty. His garden of delight is all gray on gray; the foliage, the clumps of turf, the lichened boulder. The fruit that Eve is fondling in her pudgy hand is overripe.
An elephant ambles in the distant haze; he is indifferent to us now. The connection between us and the beasts has been lost. We speak a different language now. Adam’s heavy muscles slump. He has a paunch. He is becoming petulant and wants to taste Eve’s prize.
The serpent is a conglomerate, as evil often is. And it is never simple to detect or overcome. Rembrandt’s serpent has the tail of a crocodile and an aged monkey’s torso with patches of dirty hair adhering to his withered skin. Bat’s wings. He is a monstrous heft lounging on the fabled tree. And how smug, how slack, the devil’s human face! With his unkempt fringe of hair and horns weaker than a snail’s, he appears to be but a fool idly dangling his bauble on a string.
It reminds me of how very hard it has become to tell the truth from lies! How evil can pose as innocence and how difficult it is to find a path to survival, as either a person or a government, within relentless global strife and man-made divisions.
We may never achieve lasting resolutions for our ongoing conflicts; that may be beyond humanity’s capacity, but we do know we are all connected and need each other to live our lives with courage and with moments of tranquility. Artists can sometimes help us discover our strengths and help us acknowledge, as well, our tenuous place in a constantly fluxing and mysterious universe.
Margot Fleck lives in Northfield.