I have been interested in a variation on one of the traditional themes of representational art for a while, the still life, but a reinterpretation, not only in being a monochromatic portrayal, but in the incorporation of distinctly modern, un-painterly objects.
The flowers that had been in our house recently were very attractive to me as a subject, and in particular the perspective of looking downwards onto them.
(untitled as yet)
Acrylic on linen 90cm x 150cm
It is only in working on this piece that the significance of certain elements emerged, and clearly it became a painting abut loss, about death. The photograph on the mantlepiece is of my grandfather, my mother’s father, who has been dead for many years. I took the photograph from my mother’s house, after she died this year. The light reflection onto it obscures the face, obscures identity. The painted card of a Springer Spaniel next to it is a reminder of Jenny, a companion animal who graced my life for four wonderful years. Since her passing some three years ago not a day has gone by when i do not think about her.
Flowers are of course a traditional tribute at the time of death, and to one side of them is a empty bowl. Something has been emptied out into the light on the other side, into which a leaf is also absorbed.
A principle reason for my interest in the monochromatic portrayal of flowers, is the idea of flowers made of ash, or dust, an image suggestive of Elliot’s Waste Land, and Four Quartets..
There is also an empty candlestick on the left, and the fireplace contains dark fire, that is also a rose, or debris and no fire at all.
On the right on the mantlepiece are a bottle, possibly containing oil as used in anointing, and a candle, again a traditional association of death.
On the left on the mantlepiece are two vaguely defined objects - they could be stones or screwed up paper perhaps ; as the latter they contain the idea of the impossibility of speaking about the ultimate mystery, language of any sort fails.
As always, the painter’s act is never pessimistic, always an expression of hope and faith - not religious faith of course, but faith in the possibility of the worth of human life. Sometimes it seems a rather difficult position to sustain, internally, but as long as I paint I can have no doubt on one level, as a certain belief is inherent in the act.
Death of course is the great mystery, and painting can say nothing illuminating about it. As is true in a way of all painting, the subject is the process itself, and here I am drawn by the possibilities of the monochromatic .
It may be strange that in the dark Winter of Covid, the painting is connected in its origin with the imagery of Vaughan Williams “Folk Songs of the Four Seasons” with its deeply joyful earth symbolism and traditional flower imagery. My reminiscent engagement with flowers also echoes the floral centrality of the poem ”To a Lady” by William Dunbar (1465 - ?1520) , a long time favourite, in which the poet is concerned to find cultivated “rew” as an answer to his incompleteness and longing ; in “A Sprig of Thyme”, perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful of Vaughan Williams’ quoted folk songs, it is conversely as undesirable that “rue” is figured, as it replaces the sought-after thyme .
What permeates both this folk song and poem, with great beauty, is the circular motion of versification, embodying a sort of resignation and underlying acceptance. There is circular motion in this painting also, both in the shape of individual elements, and the rhythm in which they are arranged, which could have a similar connotation.
There is contained within the music of Vaughan Williams, and Dunbar’s words, both wistfulness and joy - perhaps encompassed in the dual aspect of the plant rue, and the dual aspect of love, with its inevitable parting, both rose and thorn.
In my concern with flowers I also look towards Spring, and re-establishing connection with earth, in so far as that is possible for a city dweller, or indeed a human. The loss of connection with nature, of kinship with fellow beings both animal and plant, a rift that seems to deepen by the day, is the fundamental wound of human life, sublimated into the widespread concern of traditional arts with love, loss and longing.
Death involves self-giving back into the primal matrix, perhaps illuminating the tradition of flowers at this time.
