Let's do it again. Share some solitude.
James McNeil Whistler: Sea and Rain - 1865
The original is here in Ann Arbor, at the UofM museum. I visited it last week. I love how everything about this painting is suggestive. It's ethereal and effective.
My favorite painting ever is "The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich. This speaks directly to my heart. I love it. I am also a huge fan of Edward Hopper. "Automat" is one of my favorites from him: Most people talk about sadness and being alone, when they see this picture. For me, I see it very differently. This was a time when women rarely went out, our could go out alone. Also, this is an Automat - an early type of cafeteria - so she is not having to make dinner. So what I see is a single, independent woman, enjoying her freedom to go out on her own, and purchase a meal she didn't have to make. I see independence, rather than solitude.
This is one of my favourite Hoppers as well. Interesting that you interpret it as independence. The painting makes me remember a moment I had alone in a cafe in Barcelona at the age of 18 or so. I've never felt as independent as I did then, or as alone. Perhaps independence and loneliness go hand in hand.
Or maybe Independence is where you wind up after passing through Loneliness? That kinda resonates with me... I know I have felt lonely at specific times in specific locations, and not lonely in the exact same locations at other times, while still being alone. Are Independence and Loneliness just different states of mind, rather than different places? I like that idea... Perhaps independence and loneliness go hand in hand.
Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Vuurtoren in de Branding (Lighthouse in Braking Waves). 1907. When I saw it in the Rijksmuseum it really stood out to me, in part because of the paint texture that this picture does not do justice, in part because the little lighthouse felt like a lonely beacon of hope in a sea of despair.
This painting and The Scream are the first two pieces of 'Art' I can remember being exposed to in any formal way. I've always felt a tension associated with this one. Some unspoken, tightrope taut, barely concealed tension. Looking at the way the hands touch the ground, the set of the knuckles, gives me a bit of anxiety.
I think it's a very disturbing image, personally.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. When our art teacher was talking about symbolism and other kids were like 'oh she's about to go into the house for a snack' I think I said something like, 'It's really sad, it looks like she might have trouble seeing and can't find her way back home.'
The subject, Christina, had a degenerative muscle disorder and she refused to use a wheel chair. She would drag herself around the property. Here is a nice write up on the piece:Andrew Wyeth painted this in 1948. His father, N. C. Wyeth, had been killed at a railway crossing just three years earlier, and Andrew's work underwent a significant change after the loss. His palette became muted, his landscapes barren and his figures--if present--seemed plaintive. Christina's World epitomizes these traits, and conveys the impression that it is an outward expression of Wyeth's inner grief.
"Solitude" by Alexander Harrison at Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Found by flagamuffin about three years ago on his epic trip to Paris and noted here: 
