Musings. Ex Libris

* Rogier van der Weyden, The Descent from the Cross (c. 1435) What is most appealing with the religious paintings from Early Netherlandish period is the unabashed display of emotions, but besides the apparent tears and frowns, the ingenious painters would resort to other means to represent a mourning state. Amid the saints’ ruffled garb and the scatter of assorted objects that perfectly emphasized an intractable imbroglio is the rather beautifully parallel posture of the descending Christ and the swooning Mary. The orderly arrangement of those two epitomizes the solemnity, or the serenity, of a hallowed death. People once said when you were born that you resembled a firebird emerging out of an encompassing inferno. The gaping throng marvelled such flaming beauty, but a discreet distance was kept when the sight proved too overwhelming. Not many were aware of the pain that distorted your face when the fire threatening to tear you to smithereens; the pain was a mixed ecstasy of pleasure

Impressionism embodies the most buoyant celebration of colours and rhythm. The motion that best dictates Impressionism is fleet: this statement is best exemplified by Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (1872), in which the artist captured the transient but consistent movement of the sun rising to the apex and its reflection on the placid water. With spring reaching to its maturation, the fashion one displays should be blatantly heralding the coming of summer. The Book of Hours illustrated by the Limbourg Brothers represents aptly the fashion shift from the tail-end winter to the sprout of spring, or what also come into mind are the more serene, uninhabited landscape paintings by J.M.W. Turner. Impressionism, I suspect, keys to the fashion worn in mid-spring. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, On the Terrace (1881) (from left to right: Betsey Johnson, Anna Sui, Doo-Ri, Spring 2012 via Elle.com) Renoir stimulated my earliest admiration for art. The artist’s portrayal of wide-eyed ingénue constructed my ch