Merel was our guest speaker for our art class in Amsterdam. She has a unique, profound, and infectious appreciation for art of all kinds, and when she would start explaining a painting she would get so excited she wouldn’t be able to take her eyes off it while she gestured with her hands, trying to express her love for these colors on the canvas. What I’ve been thinking about during Gabe’s lectures finally clicked while I listened to Merel, we think much more similarly and I have a little-sister admiration for her, she was amazing!
In her lecture, Merel explained that “art is not a puzzle, at one point it starts speaking differently to you. The lack of words in great music and paintings mean that they can never be solved, not everything can be explained with words”. That was so true for me! I had never stood in front of a painting and realized that my world was suddenly expressed in the painting in front of me better than I ever could with words. I had been trying to “solve” art pieces like puzzles but during her lecture I took a step back and a few paintings did slide into focus and mean something important.
The first time I ever encountered “The Balcony” by Manet, it was on the cover of our ~$3.95 copy of A Room with a View by E. M. Forester. When I first sat down to read this book (which is now one of my favorites) I stared at this picture and wondered why they always put ugly girls from ugly old paintings on the covers of these books. When I visited the Musee d’Orsay and stood in front of this painting in person it totally changed. There was the initial recognition: “Oh! This is the painting that was on my book cover!” and then the closer inspection to see if my reaction last summer was accurate. It wasn’t. The painting is huge: probably at least six feet high and four feet wide and details you are unable to fully make out in the background are clear in person. The gentleman and the other girl stare demurely to the right at the unknown view beyond the balcony with the attitude that they just arrived to their new hotel room and they’re exploring the balcony and all it offers for the first time. They seem a little travel worn and unsettled, as we all are when we travel. However, what really struck me was the girl in the foreground, the girl I had thought so ugly only a year before. She, unlike her companions, has an intense gaze that is hidden from the man and her friend as she looks off the opposite side of the balcony. It is a moment of privacy for this girl where she exposes what she is truly feeling inside, something rare in her society of the time as it seems by the contrasting blank face of the other girl. She looks out with a look that shows how much she wants to be free, while the other two look frazzled and tired she looks anxious to move and think and experience life in this new place.
This is how I feel, traveling with so many people so often and how I have felt in the past when time alone is rare to non-existent. How often have I looked out at the view with this same feeling inside me, letting my mask slide off as I appreciate the view, the fresh air and the moment of having my own few seconds to let my true emotions come through. Manet has beautifully expressed this complicated moment of vulnerability, truth, and strength. J
The second painting is “Portrait of a Violin Player” by Matisse. Go listen to some violin music before you read what else I have to say, Merel played Mozart’s String Quartet 4 G Minor. With that in your head, look at this painting. This art is more modern than the Manet, the figure is faceless and stands playing the violin while looking out the window (are you seeing a trend here? You’ll see more!). The colors in this painting are also important, I think, they’re all mostly shades of orange and pastel blues. To me, this is peaceful and exhilarating all at once. The man stands calmly looking out the window, playing for no one but himself. But the colors! The bright orange brings in a feeling of intensity and playfulness while the contrasting pale blue accents underline the peacefulness of the man inside. Maybe contentedness is a better word.
How beautiful is that? To be still, looking out a window (psalm 46) while having the feeling of when you purely enjoy something that you find most intensely beautiful, that thing where you know God created it because it was beautiful and knew how much we would soar with joy when we discovered it too. It’s when you sit and let the beauty soak into you just because you love it and don’t have explain why you like it to anyone else! It’s effortless and praiseworthy.
I could keep going but it’s time for bed J Today we had a long day of classes again and then a private concert of a phenomenal violinist friend of Gabe’s in his apartment! To have a private concert of someone so talented (she played at least 30 minutes of Bach from memory and then, after the cookie intermission played at least another 30 minutes of complicated Hungarian folk music) was a chance of a lifetime and I enjoyed it immensely! We also had the chance to talk to her and she was so quiet and adorable and then couldn’t stop laughing when someone found an old P. Diddy CD on Gabe’s shelf—Gabe’s been giving us the impression that he is one of cultured taste and only listens to classical music...
It was a perfect way to end another day in Berlin. Tomorrow we leave to tour Sachsenhausen, our first concentration camp (different from an extermination camp) and it will be intense but I’m so thankful that I am able to 1. Acknowledge that these things were real and 2. Discuss and pray about them with a group who believes the same things I do, enabling us to encourage and pray together in deeper ways. After a few hours to process we'll have our night of karaoke, not to forget what we've just seen but to embrace being alive! Oh geez. I wonder if I'll go up??
I guess I'll let you know. Goodnight!! I love you!
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