There’s this painting a favorite of mine. It was simply called The Embrace, and depicted a man and a women with their bodies entwined together. There was a ferocious energy to the piece, and it felt like I could sense the couple’s intense to each other. And yet the piece is far from romantic. It was fraught with angst, as if the two people in the painting knew their embrace was their last. There was a melancholy to Egon Schiele the artist of the painting--it wasn’t for everyone. In my class everyone is enamored by Gustav Klimt’s Art Nouveau masterpiece The Kiss. But for me liking that painting was too easy; it was dorm-room decor, a typical safe choice.
I preferred madness and tragedy, loneliness and torment. Schiele had died young, perhaps of a broken heart. My art teacher was always talking about “redemptive and transformative quality of art”, and as I stood there in front of the painting I completely understand what that meant.
Clyry · Sat Jun 14, 2014 @ 03:18am · 0 Comments |