Some may be familiar with this, that I staged an escape from familiarity some time this summer. July, a world and numerous journeys away. In honesty it was the age old, flight from oneself, neither possible nor even desirable. Better to reflect and accept than deflect, deflect - defect.
Craving culture and newness, finding less than expected, but not looking correctly.
I now think of the eyes of others and the things that stopped my own. On the way to Poland, and around it a little, so many stops, reasons to go. Images, pictures, paintings, icons, all of that, I have to unashamedly say, looking over the images in this post, fills me with some kind of great feeling, comfort and joy. Maybe that the eyes of others have lingered on such that mine would also, brings some of that belonging that I'm so desperate for. I think something like this.
These quadrangles of beauty are all paintings and drawings for the most part, I'll give a little run-through of probably important details now, where I can remember they fit. These were accumulated over 4 months, in as many and more cities and museums. Though these are mostly from the Galerie d'Ixelles in Brussels and the WM Warszawa, the former seeming quite small but full of sights, the latter flooded with imagery of Poland's painted past (sadly the 20th Century painting wing was closed at the time of my visit).
The first is only included as a visual preamble into the path of my looking eyes. I look at me, she looks away, I'm always looking at/for something of myself in the works of others, and maybe when I think I see it, I get to like it, I don't know too much, I know this to be true to a degree, but there are very many levels and mechanisms at work behind the eyes which decide what and how much we sympathize with in the works and behaviors of other humans. It's quiet and quite lovely. Additionally, as the beginning it goes fine with the ending (painted by Antonio Santin) of a female twisted slightly under the force of my gaze, empowered by the fact that I can't tell if she's holding mine, or looking further afield, how that look always overshadows the looked at, eh.
For the most part I'm more comfortable in the company of depopulated images, half-lights and obliques. Why should that be? I have many infant theories, another time perhaps.
The second is Ukrainian night during a winter, painted in Oils in the late 1877 I think, by Josef
Chelmonski.
The third,
Swans in the Saski garden in Warsaw by night by Josef Pankiewicz, again in oil, probably around 1896. Four and five are also Pankiewicz.
Chelmonski again at six, painted in 1906, eight years before his death. Titled I think, Moonlight night.
Seventh is
Rewizia nocna (which translates directly as revision of the night), painted in 1872 at the hand of Maksymilian Gierymski.
Adrian Joseph Heymans made the eighth image in the latter part of the 19th Century, it's called Bos bij maanlicht (something like woods, trees or forest in the moonlight I'd guess).
Ninth is Leon Spilliaert with Nuit made in 1908.
Tenth and eleventh are two paintings by Konrad Krzyzanowski, the first called Przy blasku świecy (roughly, by the light of the candle), the second simply Pokoj, or room, from 1902.
Twelfth on the list is a recent painting by Arkadiusz Karapuda.
Thirteen, fourteen fifteen and sixteen are all contemporary paintings by the artist Bert de Beul. All zonder titel.
[Seventeen eludes me at this point]
Eighteen has to be Rene Magritte.
Nineteen through twenty-two are the work of german artist EVOL, all made this century, very recently, all on found cardboard marked with spray paint.
Jenny Brillhart's brilliant Vagabond is twenty third, also a recent work. Twenty four is also her doing.
Now I must sleep, soon to an empty room!
