This image does make me feel the intensity of beauty. It is a moment from long ago. Via a small vague picture from a CD cover. Seconds after the sound of music is fading.
This post is short of words. The feeling is so intense, that I can’t find them, the right words. When I do have found them, I’m back.
Mstislav Rostropovich and Emerson String Quartet Schubert String Quintet
Series: Favorite Paintings
Catena Saint Jerome in his Study from the National Gallery
Catena St Jerome in his Study
Standing alone before St Jerome.
Wandering through the National Gallery in London, I am always looking for my favorite paintings. One of them is St Jerome in his Study by Catena. Some years ago, I fell in love with this painting. As no other people seemed interested, I could watch St Jerome for a long time without being disturbed. It gave me a wonderful feeling, to stand alone before this painting. I felt totally quiet.
Readers and silence.
There is silence. The bird does not make noise.
The lion is sleeping. St Jerome is reading.
It is this act of reading which is holding my attention. Reading is an interaction between two people, the author and the reader, actually from author to reader. It is a lonely activity. Readers are alone with their thoughts. Before this painting, I forget all the people, walking behind me through the National Gallery rooms.
I am just there with another reader, although he cannot talk with me. That does not matter. Readers like other readers. Readers like silence.
Colors and composition.
The quiet green and brown colors and the geometrical composition with right lines are greatly contributing to the feeling of rest.
Favorite details.
The reading St Jerome in his red and blue gown.
The view through the window of the blue grey mountains and the sea.
And especially the sleeping lion.
Some thoughts.
I love paintings because of the pleasure of lines and colors.
Moreover, they are arousing old and new thoughts and feelings.
Some feelings are reminding of personal life events, sad and happy ones.
New thoughts are sometimes more interesting. They can produce another way of looking, of thinking, about personal life, about humanity, about the world.
Perhaps this painting is representing another meaning than a reading St Jerome. I am sure it has many different meanings. Sometimes that is important, sometimes not.
The painter creates, the art lover re-creates.
I am an art lover. I value art historians and art books highly. Art books show me details, I could overlook. They help me seeing more. However, when I am standing before a painting, it is between the painter and me. It is about what he wants to show and say, and about what I think and feel.
Jerome – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vincenzo Catena | artist | active 1506 – 1531 | The National Gallery, London
Vincenzo Catena | Saint Jerome in his Study | NG694 | The National Gallery, London
Other paintings of St Jerome
Cavarozzi St Jerome in his Study
Bellini St Jerome Reading in the Countryside
Ghirlandaio St Jerome in his Study
Some years ago, I visited Champmol in Dijon, the grounds of the old monastery of Chartreuse de Champmol, today a psychiatric hospital. I made the journey just for visiting the sculptures of Claus Sluter. After some rather heavy traffic, I drove onto the site. At my surprise, there was a small parking for visitors under beautiful trees. Walking across the site, I met only a few friendly patients and nurses. It was a hot day, but thanks to the trees, it was very pleasant.
Of course, I went straight to the Well of Moses, in a backyard with some scattered construction material. I could walk around the sculpture group as many times as I wanted to. Nobody disturbed me. It is always nice to be alone with a work of art. It is as if you are alone with the artist. It is exciting to stand in front of a sculpture and realizing that ages ago an artist has touched it with his hands.
The second sculpture group was in the chapel. After a short walk under beautiful trees, I went into the portal of the chapel. It was there in the portal that the beautiful statue of Maria struck me. I have seen many beautiful medieval sculptures. Mostly, they were more static and serious. This time however, I saw a very lively Maria. She was moving, turning and smiling, with the child on her arm. It was as if I was seeing my grandmother, my mother, and many other women, washing, cleaning and caring for their child. There was something human between the mother and her child. Maria seemed almost real. I loved it. Never before I saw such a lovely statue of Maria, of any woman. It was worth the trip. Go see it when you are in the neighborhood. Claus Sluter has made a beautiful image in favor of women.
Recently I listened to Ferruccio Busoni Doktor Faust. The opera was waiting on my recorder. Mezzo.tv broadcasted it nearly 2 years ago. The performance was by Opernhaus Zürich from 2006. Thomas Hampson as Doktor Faust impressed me greatly. I immediately bought the Blu-ray disc. In the past, I have read, re-read and seen several times the play by Goethe. I read the play by Marlowe. I have seen the Faust opera of Gounod. However, never the story of Faust had such an effect on me. I will try to explain.
During the second prologue, Doktor Faust opens a book about black magic. According to the guidelines, he conjures up six spirits and chooses the sixth one Mephistopheles as his servant. He asks him to help him with all his wishes, especially for knowledge. In return, Mephistopheles asks him to serve him after death. First Faust shrinks back. Then he surrenders.
It was at this moment of transition from good to power, that Thomas Hampson as Doktor Faust took me into his mind, his thoughts, his hesitation, his weighing up the pros and cons of having power over other people. I was going with him into the life of Faust, and into my life.
Great art is great because it takes you into your own life, your mind and your thoughts. It gives you another way of thinking about life.
In this performance, the creation of many people is converging: The legend of Faust, the libretto and music of Busoni, and Philipp Jarnach, the co-workers of the Zürich Opernhaus. The cast, the conductor, the orchestra, the direction, all are exceptional, even on a recording, certainly on a Blu-ray disc. The music is beautiful, stirring, impressive, fascinating.
However, it is the opera singer, who can bring these reflections on life into your mind.
Thomas Hampson is Faust for the moment. You can go along with him.
If you are susceptible to this kind of experience, listen to it.
The passage is from Prologue II:
Faust: Töte sie.
Mephistopheles: Es ist geschehn. Möchtet Ihr das Übrige abwarten?
Faust: Kaum! – Ich geb mich dir. Aber jetzt – verlass mich.
Mephistopheles: Nur noch ein Geringes.
Faust: Fort, fort, fort! Ich kann dich nicht ertragen!
Mephistophels: Du musst es lernen.
I will ask Arthaus Musik for uploading a part of this section on YouTube.
Thomas Hampson at the end of the opera, stunning:
Naxos Videos Channel:
Doktor Faust Wikipedia
Doktor Faust Blu-ray Disc
Doktor Faust Libretto Stanford
When I am listening to music, looking at a painting or a sculpture or reading a book, I know instantaneously that something is happening to me, a kind of flash. Sometimes a memory of an event in the past, sometimes a memory of a friend, but often an indistinct feeling of happiness, of “je ne sais quoi” or even of melancholy. These moments make a deep impression, I never forget. I don’t know if they are influencing my daily life. But I do know they are remaining in my memory and in my thoughts. They can change with time, mood, ageing or personal development. They never fall out of favour.
For instance, when at the age of twelve first reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace, I looked at Pierre and Andrei as grown-up men. Young, my greatest admiration was for Pierre with his more deviating way of life. Older, I appreciated more Andrei’s social attitude. Yet each time I reread the novel, I feel involved with both and with Natasha of course.
The same, in some other way, is happening with music like the first time I heard Beethoven’s Eroica on a small recorder or the Violin Concerto by Yehudi Menuhin live.
Or when I am looking at a sculpture by Lehmbruck or a painting by Malevich or a .
Earlier I always tried to understand why some works had such an effect on me. Nowadays, I am just happy with the old familiar memories and the future, not yet known, events. They are like old and new friends. They are part of me.
In this blog I’ll write about my favorite music, art and books.
What I hear, see, read, feel, think and love.
Last week, after a troublesome journey, I arrived at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. After some queuing up in the rain I was going at once to Jan Six. There he was, with his beautiful red coat. I liked him at first sight. His appearance, his posture. His polite impatience, was he going out ? His gorgeous cloths. The many buttons. Most of all I liked his eyes. Were they green ? Friendly but a little absent. He had other things on his mind.
In another room his etch, more casual, Jan Six was leaning against a window-sill. Reading some papers. As if not aware of the portraitist.
A reader lives in another world or age. Forgets the other people around. Can a reader be unaware of the attention when pictured ? Is it possible to picture the very moment of reading ?
Both portraits showed a real person. Someone you could give a hand and speak to. I felt the presence of two people. Jan Six or was it Rembrandt that I saw or maybe, interpreting, me ?
