Thoughts on Painting "The Sigh"

In an ensuing conversation on Louise's post on Klimt's painting, "Adele," Jeffrey Baldwin-Bott wrote, "The Scream has already been painted, but I think you should ask Tom to take a shot at painting The Sigh. I'm sighing right now too, and it feels borderline expressionist."

Well, Jeffrey, I take all such suggestions seriously. I'm always at a loss for new subject matter, especially subjects that offer interesting visuals, so I went right to work. I first Googled "The Sigh paintings," and came up with numerous sites on "sign painting." Eventually I came upon an article from Psychology Today titled "Why Do We Sigh?" The author reported on Scandinavian studies, where I can only imagine those long winters give rise to a lot of sighing. He concludes, "Depending on who's sighing--and in what context it can be perceived differently by others." Using the author's prompts I came up with a list of times when one might sigh:
Resignation, as in old age (this one hits right close to home for me)
Frustration
Discontentment
Wishful thinking
"What if" or "if only" thinking
Sadness
Failed romance
Passivity
Surrender

But then I stumbled on a particular cartoon character who is adept at sighing. Do you know who it is? Cover your eyes for a moment before reading on.

Yes. It's Charlie Brown. Charles Schultz was merciless with poor Charlie Brown, the perpetually plagued passive victim. Here are some moments of Charlie Brown's sighs:

It's one thing, however, to capture Charlie Brown in moments of sighing, and it's another thing to come up with a painting that depicts sighing and that has any interesting visuals. Not impossible. But challenging. So my mind spins on.

But I do have one idea, Jeffrey Baldwin-Bott. Why don't YOU have someone in your household take a picture of YOU sighing, and I'll paint YOUR portrait and call it "The Sigh"? How about that? All if favor?   

La Danseuse

A friend asked me to tell her about this painting. I suppose a blog is the appropriate place for it. It began with an inspiration from the "Triadisches Ballett," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87jErmplUpA which you can see on YouTube. I saw the original black and white film in Berlin in 1973, and I've never forgotten it. Oskar Schlemmer, the creator, was part of the Bauhaus movement. There's another reference in the painting to Olympia in Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann." Olympia is a robot, with whom Hoffmann falls in love. I love this Olympia by Kathleen Kim at the Metropolitan Opera:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9emRjIMZsVk. I have taught the original literary texts by Hoffmann (German, although the opera is in French). A central theme has to do with "seeing" what is real and what is art and deception and both text and opera develop layers of themes around that. That's why in the YouTube video of the opera there's a moment with eyes everywhere. So yesterday I was thinking about her eyes, turned to T.S. Eliot and ran into the line about daffodil bulbs and eyes: 

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls

Stared from the sockets of the eyes!

In short, it's an autobiographical piecemeal of snippets of my education.

Detail of the eyes:

The Cafe Central in Vienna

One of my favorite restaurants in Vienna is the Cafe Central. In the late 19th Century, it was the meeting place for intellectuals and writers. I cannot say that it fell into disarray in the mid-to-late 20th century, but it needed a facelift. And it got one. It is now a place where people, tourists and natives alike, dine to savor the old empire. The decor is premier Viennese, the menu offers the best of Austrian light deli foods and pastries. A picture may help a bit:

I tried to capture a feeling for cafe patrons in my portrait of this woman in the Cafe Central. The diners reflect nothing of our fast food clientele. Of course America has elegant restaurants. But it's harder to find elegant restaurants in America with the same diners one sees in Europe. 

Sometimes you wake up and look in the mirror . . .

...and you think, WHOAAAA.

The Words, the Damn Words

Mark Twain once said that finding the right word sometimes took him "two or three days." Two or three days of staring at the wall. Two or three days of watching the baby throwing mush around the room. Two or three days of staring at the wall. Two or three days of watching the dog pee on the neighbors' lawn. Two or three days of somnambulism. Words. Did Mark Twain really say finding the right word took him two or three days? That's what I heard. From somewhere. From Wikipedia. I'm sure of it. Yup. Pretty sure.

Which Is the Best Art?

When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Utah, I enrolled in an honors course with the title, "What is art?" I assume that my rationale for enrolling in the course was that it was open to honors students and that it fit into my schedule. Such was my undergraduate brain--and the brain of most undergraduates still today.

The professor was a philosopher, Dr. Charles Monson, who walked into class on the first day, put three pictures in front of the class, which looked something like these three paintings:

He then went around the class of about 12 students and asked each of us which painting we thought was best and why. I am still embarrassed to say that I knew not one smidgen about art, and that I , with the rest of the class, went with picture number one. It looked familiar to me, even if I had no idea who painted it, or in what period, or for what reason.

But when Professor Monson came to the last student, he chose the Picasso. I had not heard of Picasso. The fact that he was still alive is no excuse. I was stunned that this student would choose a painting so "silly" to my young mind. And in response to the professor's question, why he liked that painting, the student said that it was by Picasso, a painting of his model Dora Maar, and that it challenged the way we see. It did not give the viewer a historical  image or a realistic flower. It forced the viewer to stop and look harder.

At least that's the way I remember the student's answer.

I was almost as stupid by the time the class ended as I was when it began, but I have not forgotten Professor Monson's determination to wring an intelligent thought out of me. Thank you, Professor Monson.

Painting is Re-painting

Writing is re-writing, we tell our writing students, and, I have been learning over and over, that painting is re-painting.

A few days ago I posted a picture, which got a lot of "likes" and comments from you, dear friends. It was a woman, her body painted abstractly, with a white mask and clearly painted facial features.

Not everyone was drawn to it. My conversation with Louise went like this:
Louise: That mask doesn't work.
Tom: Why?
Louise: Because its style is completely different from the rest of the painting.
Tom: But it's a mask. It's supposed to look different.
Louise: It doesn't work. You still have work to do.

I got a similar reaction from Charles. "Well," he said, "you have two different styles working here."

And so here is the re-painted figure. Is it better than the first? Were Louise and Charles right? I leave it up to you, dear reader.