AFVOA Newsletter of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 01 / 2021 Page 67 of 123 What is of singular importance is the play of light and shade, sombre tones of browns, the beauty of the loose blouse echoed in the folds and the lady so adorned with a lustrous string of pearls, bonneted with a floral add on of fresh wildflowers in subtle reds! That painting simply consumed my attention, which made me forget awhile, the gorgeous Turners, the exotic landscapes and seascapes of the Italian Masters and the scintillating impressionists in the galleries! Raphael was forgotten momentarily! Degas, Gaugin, Paul Cezanne jostling for attention while I stood glued to Flora! Ah! I can still recall the lovely pastel hues that Matisse had spread out in an equally large painting. How can one ignore the lovely Monet Water Lilies or the Renaissance painters? The Period rooms at the Met are an enormous fascinating repository of sculpture, ‘objet-d-art ‘simply overwhelming a reminder of the grandeur of the past! A feeling of content, warm as liquid honey simply pervaded my psyche. There was an immense satisfaction ...a sense of profound gratitude in the opportunity blessed upon me. To be able to drown in the beauty captured in a stillness of sorts on Canvas. A natural progression to the Modernists was next when I ventured to MOMA - the "Museum of Modern Art'' or the Guggenheim museum where the bright Picassos and Salvador Dali grabbed one's attention, as too the early American painters like Edvard Munch ...He of the "Scream'" with homespun portraits of the common folk at work on farms/ haylofts and the like. What caught my fancy was the Mexican artist, Tamaya, whose painting graces the United Nations. remarkably detailed, finely chiselled portraits of the ordinary! The cow swishing its tail, the Universe, were truly enigmatic yet beautifully evocative! taken with his woodcuts that vie with those from Chinese artists in their execution of fine details it was indeed mesmerising, to say the least. Later decades saw me devouring the Chicago Museum of Art with the same fervour and zest .. Unimaginable feast for the eyes! The exquisite art collections at Buckingham Palace, then at St. Petersberg a veritable smorgasbord for the eyes to exult in! I had marvelled at the paintings of Michel Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel while the works of Leonardo Da Vinci enthralled us at Florence! I was lucky to have seen an early Da Vinci, of the Madonna and Child Jesus at St. Petersberg! Just a day earlier I saw a course being advertised for Botanical Compositions, Acrylic painting styles and my mind leapfrogged to Rishi Valley ites ... Meena and Valery! At 80 detailed work is a no-no and the eye strain of advancing years is quite a nuisance. Ah! to be young and indulge in the whim of painting and sketching!