Sunday, October 09, 2005
Dirty canvases to call my own
I was riding the subway home this afternoon, reading The Madonnas of Leningrad (Side Note: Mom, Kim, and Lindsey--you'll really like this book. It's set to be released in March (oh, the joys of my advance copies!), but you should definitely keep an eye open for it). The book is basically about a woman who memorizes every painting in the Hermitage during the seige on Leningrad during WWII, and it speaks particularly about the many, many "Madonna With Child"s that were painted throughout history, by nearly every artist--known and unknown.The whole thing is a fascinating study of the juxtaposition between the deliberately godless society of Soviet Russia and the enduring value, beauty, and truth in the paintings, that were still so valuable and treasured, despite their content. The deliberate memory of the details of the paintings is what keeps the main character sane in the middle of all this suffering, and the art goes with her for years.
One stop before mine, four men got on the train and began singing, a black barbershop quartet of spirituals and gospel, and I got off the train with the descriptions of the Madonnas and the thought of the feat of memorizing each of them playing to a soundtrack of a black gospel song repeating, "Don't weep, Mary," all set against a background of the chapters in Lamentations, and the descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem (which somehow seemed, in this moment, to be a parallel to the seige of Leningrad), that I had read earlier this afternoon.
A most bizarre, fascinating, and haunting melange of cultures, times, and art forms--the visual art against the music against the poetry--stating that Gospel Truth is timeless, and that art has the power to remind us of that in ways that few other media can.
3 Comments:
That sounds like a very interesting book! I can't believe it is being released in March and you are reading it already, that must be lots of fun!! And the whole thing about the men signing in a quartet on the bus is very cool. Definitely something that wouldn't happen here!
~linds~
p.s. I've noticed a lot of J of C lyrics lately! I have been listening to them the past while and then I come and read your entries and the songs start playing all over in my head! Good stuff.
~linds~
I think that Jars just have some fantastic lyrics that can be taken apart line by line! They're on my playlist at the moment, so they're in my head... but I've always loved their songwriting and lyrics...
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