Intriguing Images

 I live in  a small village  at the foothills of the Pyrenees with a population of seven hundred people  The nature around me is luxuriant, diverse; flowers blooming in the grass, some of them tiny and yet perfect like little jewels, magnificent trees, mountains ringing the horizon,  Time here flows by quietly and steadily like the beautiful Aude river flowing by our house. But sometimes  I want a break from nature and a shot of culture .  I long to see other ways of looking at the world, other realities to stimulate my imagination.  Last Sunday was one of those days . So I persuaded my companion to go with me to visit the Fine Arts museum of Carcassonne  

 

Carcassonne is the closest city to our village. It is known for its medieval fortified township. After a 45 minutes drive we reached the museum. In the museum there are two sections:a permanent section where paintings and sculptures dating from the 17th to 20th century are displayed and another temporary section where there's a rotation of exhibitions based on specific themes, artists, movements etc. 

 

Due to a lack of personnel only a few halls in  the permanent section were open.  I walked through them lingering over  the paintings of impressionists and  post impressionists. Impressionism has long been my dada. 

 

I particularly liked two paintings of  Achille Laugé

 

L'allée de saules 1896 

 Le relais 1909

 

 

These paintings aren't intellectually intriguing but they carry me to a liminal space of solitude and anticipation. In both the paintings - one where the sky is blue and luminous, and another where the sky is clouded,  the light muted,  deserted roads lead you to wider vistas, mountains, fields hazy in the distance. The paintings are suffused with silence.  But it isn't difficult to imagine the wind susurrating in the trees, the occasional chirping of birds.

 

Achille Laugé was born and lived in the Aude region . The landscapes in his paintings are those of Aude. I often go for walks in the countryside and there are times I encounter nobody. What I sometimes feel during these solitary, intimate moments are distilled in these paintings.  

From the permanent section we stepped out into  a  musty cavernous stair hall where there were an amalgam of objects. It was a confusing space. Right in the middle there was a massive black metal safe crushing a dirty white  misshapen fridge . I thought it was junk but apparently it was a work of art.  On one side there was a white bust of a woman, style classic period and on another side a bronze . While walking through the hall I thought it  was a kind of dump yard but now it seems to me we were in a place of transition, between the earlier centurie and the 21st century. But I am perhaps over intellectualising. Anyway we were going towards the temporary exhibit of contemporary art. 

I am  wary of contemporary art exhibitions and cringe at the thought of what I'll find . Here the sublime and the ridiculous co exist. I remember going to a museum and seeing a dead fly on a podium under a spotlight! It was an installation! Luckily there were other exhibits as well but I have forgotten what they were , so perhaps it served its purpose. 

 We climbed up a grand stairway which smelled equally musty, pushed open a door and stepped into a brightly  lit hall where we were welcome by a young, smiling woman. We were now officially into the 21st century. Here three works caught my attention making me think of the  title "Intriguing Images"; a painting, a photograph and a series of three photographs.  The theme of the exhibition  colonisation, oppression, could help interpret these images. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was information about the three artists and  their work . I didn't read the explanations . I preferred to dwell  in the space  between understanding and bafflement. Perhaps that's what art does. It leads or projects you into unfamiliar terrain, twilight zones, making you explore inner and outer realities .

OPPOSITES

 

 

 

Vanity is such a hindrance
stopping me from breathing easy.
Like a vine entwining my being
feeding on my energy,
it thrives on applause,
puts out tendrils and blooms.
It sickens at the slightest chill
infecting my cells with unease.
 

I pray for humility.
not mock humility,
not mere pretension,
but a connection, a flowing
from the Self - the sum
of what we receive
from the earth, from our kin
from the visible and the invisible.

 Arunima CHOUDHURY 

A CHINESE BOX POEM

 

 

 

 In the well
there’s water, black and still.
At the bottom
 a carpet of oozy muck.
Therein 
insects blind and dumb.
Underneath,
round cobbles, strong and firm,
In the centre
A trapdoor with an iron ring
Below it
a passage slick and dark.
At its end,
a river flowing freely by . 

 

Arunima Choudhury 

 

THE WATCHER'S OBSERVATIONS

Salvador Dali (1937)

 

 

I am a watcher.  I may be mistaken as the watchman of this  of valley of sand and rocks. But as I said I am only a watcher . I observe and draw my conclusions. 

Do you see the people in the distance, dancing, gesticulating, playing rope? Micah sitting on the ground expelling  the miasma of his nightmares, Anish prancing around on his make believe horse? They live in that house below the hill .  They come to their playground  and revel in their limited freedom. They shout, sing, shed their selves and for a while become  whoever else they would rather be. They long to be run away, be completely free and  paradoxically  are terrified of freedom. 

They point at me and whisper amongst themselves. Look at him . He's watching us. It's because of him we can't escape. He reports all those who try to run away . Have you seen the heap of bones behind the hills? They are the remains of those who tried to escape. 

They forget that they have made of me what they want me to be,  a watchman against their desire to escape and their fear of freedom. 

And even if they did step out into this endless desert , where would they go? They have long since lost any sense of direction.  They abandoned their compass when they came here. Like those poor people who tried to get away , they would go round and round and eventually exhausted crumple into a heap of bones, bleached white by the sand and the desert wind. 

So is there no way out? Are all those who have wandered to this no man's land  condemned to be here for eternity. I know of some who have left leaving no trace behind them.  They know it too in the deepest, darkest, recess of their minds. But they are terrified. It is too hard. The way is haunted by creatures of their worst nightmares. 

There are some who have done it though, gone down the path , opened the door and taken a leap of faith into the other land;  that land which is so close that only a hairline crack separates it from theirs.  And yet  it seems to them so terribly far, such an impossible journey to undertake.  

Arunima Choudhury