40″x30″
Acrylic on canvas
And Moving Thro’ a Mirror Clear
Acrylic on canvas
40”x30″
Please contact me for purchase information.
My challenge: combine three distinctly different art periods
19th century Victorian ballad–repressed desires.
17th century Dutch painting small intimate interiors.
20th century conceptual art -characterized by its use of text.
Title: Excerpt from an 1832 ballad by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott.” The “Lady” is banished to the island of Shalott near Camelot and must never leave, or a curse will befall her. She must not look directly at Camelot, only look at it through a reflection in the mirror in her room. One day she glances out of the window and sees Sir Lancelot – with that glance the mirror cracks. Desire unfulfilled.
Content: Based on the 17th century painting, The Music Lesson by Johannes Vermeer. The mirror behind the harpsichord, reflects the room, but the subjects look directly at each other rather than through a reflection –desire fulfilled.
Layout:The structure of Vermeer’s painting has strong horizontals, verticals, and diagonals — Somewhat like a highly structured Mondrian painting. The rectangles interwoven throughout the painting represent the cracked mirror from the poem. Since text is a strong visual element, I decided to “speak” directly to the viewer: I am not now nor have I ever been Johannes Vermeer.
