Why images of beauty matter in dark times

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":6.65,"text":"It often feels like a complex endeavour to reflect on art and its possibilities when everyday life is filled with urgent global news. And yet, the present moment feels like an essential time to draw on the power of the arts. "}],[{"start":21.1,"text":"Each week, I deliberate over which works of art to discuss in this column so that I can share a rising thought or expanding feeling that might resonate with others. This process often involves trying to strike a balance between a work that takes us into the challenges of the here and now, or the effort of looking more deeply at our own lives, and a work that might offer some reprieve. Because, regardless of where we are in the world or our ongoing preoccupations, I believe that a significant experience or strong emotion felt by one of us is likely to resonate with a wider audience, since we are all connected in this business of being human. I am aware that every point in history has had its own intense challenges but it is also true that all of us are affected by the complexity and apparent chaos of our own era. "}],[{"start":67.5,"text":"This week, I was drawn to images that reminded me of life’s complexity in a different way. As the world struggles to reconcile the value of human experience with the rise of increasingly powerful technology, I’m interested in pictures that capture a sense of our complex individuality; that remind us that being human means allowing room for multiple and sometimes simultaneous emotions, including seemingly disparate ones such as sorrow and amusement, for example, or despair and hope."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

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"}],[{"start":97.05,"text":"I only discovered the work of the Russian-French artist Zinaida Serebriakova a few years ago and since then, I have been looking for the right moment to reference her beautiful paintings. Serebriakova was born near Kharkiv, in present-day Ukraine, in 1884, and she was known for her depictions of children, women and country life. "}],[{"start":116.5,"text":"Her 1923 painting “Tata with Vegetables” depicts her eldest daughter Tatiana (Tata) at a table with fresh fish, radishes, potatoes and green onions. Tata has her hand on a basket filled with other vegetables but she turns her face towards us as though we have called her name while she was in the midst of unpacking market produce. "}],[{"start":135.9,"text":"The fish on the white plate look like they are still squirming with life. The long onion stems are still attached to their bulbs, as if freshly pulled from the soil. The white bowl, napkin and Tata’s clean white tunic add an additional element of freshness to the scene. Aged 11 at the time, Tata is on the cusp of adolescence, even as she gazes at us with her round innocent face and seemingly trusting brown eyes. "}],[{"start":161.3,"text":"The painting seemed to acquire an extra layer of poignancy when I learned more of Serebriakova’s life story around the time that it was painted. Four years earlier, her husband died in prison, having been arrested in Moscow during the Red Terror campaign, leaving her a single mother of four children struggling to look after her family, which included her ageing mother. For me, this painting demonstrates how the beautiful gift of life can endure while the larger world around us, even at times our own worlds, is in unrecognisable chaos. "}],[{"start":192.85000000000002,"text":"More tragedy followed for Serebriakova. In 1924, just a year after this painting was made, Serebriakova travelled to Paris for a painting commission, leaving her children in Russia with their grandmother and expecting to return to her family soon after. But when she tried to return to the USSR, she was denied entry and her mother took care of her children. Later, two children were allowed to join Serebriakova in France but Tata remained in the USSR. Tata and her mother were finally reunited 36 years later when Serebriakova was permitted entry to the Soviet Union in 1960."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

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"}],[{"start":229.55,"text":"I have recently written about revelling in Earth’s flowering abundance. But today, I’m reflecting on the painting “Pinks and Clematis in a Crystal Vase”, by the French modernist painter Édouard Manet, as a symbol of resilience and the ability to appreciate life in dark times. Manet died from complications from syphilis in April 1883 at the young age of 51 and this work, which is thought to have been created during his final year and is housed at the Musée d’Orsay, was one of his last paintings. Extremely ill in the last years of his life and eventually bedridden, Manet was said to have received constant flowers from friends. He began to paint these, creating a series of still-life works of flowers in vases of which 20 are known."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":276.6,"text":"In this painting, several stems of small pink carnations and a large purple-blue clematis flower are arranged alongside greenery in a tall crystal vase. Light seems to come in from the left side of the canvas, falling on to the blue-tinted water, and the painting feels bright and hopeful. During the Victorian era, the pink carnation was a symbol of love and gratitude, and the clematis was an acknowledgment of creative talent or sharp intellect, traits that an artist such as Manet must have still sought in his last years of life."}],[{"start":309.55,"text":"The flower is also seen as a symbol of spiritual ascent and serenity. I was drawn to this painting in a larger sense because of Manet’s own occupation with painting such images of beauty and transience during a time of deep physical pain and, one imagines, emotional turmoil. I am fascinated by how in the darkest times in our lives, the human spirit can still inspire a movement towards the beautiful. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

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"}],[{"start":333.75,"text":"“The Recital” by Italian artist Vittorio Reggianini was painted some time in the late 19th or early 20th century. Reggianini was known for his depictions of high society. In this image, a man, dressed in shimmering silk breeches and matching tailcoat, is shown playing an ornate harpsichord, with his body swung back as he sings out. A young woman stands beside him helping to turn the pages of the score he’s playing while three other young women are listening from the settee behind him. The room and the clothes are wonderfully detailed and almost hyper-realistic. We can almost feel the texture of the mint green wallpaper, press a hand on to the cool marble column or smooth down a wrinkle along the skirts of the dresses. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":376.45,"text":"This particular work might seem an odd one to discuss alongside the other two in this week’s column but I see it as another example of making space for life-affirming feelings or experiences in the midst of wider challenges. The extravagance of the scene might at first seem out of touch but appearances are so often deceptive. Whether intentional or not, there is something subtle and almost subversive in the way the women are depicted in this painting that allows the viewer to laugh a little at this luxurious and supposedly enviable way of life. "}],[{"start":410.15,"text":"The lady in the light green dress is sitting forward, leaning into the lap of another woman. The other two figures on the sofa are leaning back, with their dress skirts crumpled out before them, and the woman at the harpsichord is hiding her face with the fan while she laughs. Flowers, which we might imagine the man brought with him, are strewn carelessly on a stool, a few stems scattered around the floor. Rather than the polite attentiveness and attitude of delight that we might expect, the women appear at ease, somewhat unimpressed and playfully mocking the man’s antics. There’s an element of an inside joke between them and he is seemingly blind to it all. "}],[{"start":450.45,"text":"At first glance, Reggianini’s painting has a light-hearted or humorous air about it but I found I couldn’t shake my own feelings towards the work — the recognition of a thin thread of rebellion against expected norms and compliant behaviour expected by a society at large trying to suggest how these women should live. I think it simply reminded me that our lives are sometimes more complicated than we feel able to acknowledge, or able to radically change, yet despite these challenges, we find ways, both alone and together, not just to survive but to celebrate that survival. "}],[{"start":493.1,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780725325_7156.mp3"}