As a painter and psychologist, Carus might have been interested too in the flashing white lights that the eye creates (as in a Mondrian) at the junctions of the prison bars.
Many professional painters lack the narrative power of this amateur. The chain places the viewer in the captive's position. Dried reeds underscore the emptiness of the cell. And I love that eloquent spider web across the view of the sky. Thank you for this discovery.
I like this Carus painting most, because it isn't so obviously influenced by his teacher Caspar David Friedrich. Your close analysis wonderfully highlights its immediacy and even where it takes us when we look at it.
About clouds, Carus has a long quote comparing clouds to psychological moods. Of the three close friends Carus, Friedrich, and Johan Christian Dahl, Dahl was considered the cloud specialist. Friedrich always painted his clouds behind closed shutters until Dahl, who lived upstairs, persuaded him to try painting an actual sky in front of him. Dahl was able to capture the clouds as they went by, but Friedrich was a much slower painter. All three painters viewed the sky as a kind of curtain over Heaven. That's why Friedrich turned down Goethe's request that he paint the different cloud types in a kind of Luke Howard chart.
Rona, I always learn something fascinating from reading your posts. This one is especially wonderful. The sky is beautiful, even seen from a prison window. Perhaps more so.
I like the thought of Rona and John-Paul engaged in a public conversation about art. Think of what we'd learn from both of them.
The sky's beauty that you mention also speaks to what is denied the captive and allowed the spider, thus, I think, becoming a kind of torture delivered daily. (Can we live without beauty? I surround myself with it in the form of an eclectic collection that brings joy, too.) Those dried reeds, moreover, underscore for me how life wastes away in a prison, dries up because sustenance - the very stuff that keeps us alive - is denied. Then, again, the spider, on the outside, weaves and waits.
I'm very much drawn to paintings like this one. As Rona notes, it has an undeniable "narrative power," and can sustain more than one narrative, depending on who is viewing the work and what that viewer brings in the way of knowledge and sees from different perspectives; slow and close observation rewards. I like, too, the thought of exploring the space between bars and web, the latter being yet another barrier to freedom, considering how strong spider silk is.
(There must have been many different hangings on the wall where the painting is; the material (wallpaper?) seems to have more than its share of nail holes. They're quite visible.)
As a painter and psychologist, Carus might have been interested too in the flashing white lights that the eye creates (as in a Mondrian) at the junctions of the prison bars.
That is an excellent observation, thank you.
Many professional painters lack the narrative power of this amateur. The chain places the viewer in the captive's position. Dried reeds underscore the emptiness of the cell. And I love that eloquent spider web across the view of the sky. Thank you for this discovery.
I like this Carus painting most, because it isn't so obviously influenced by his teacher Caspar David Friedrich. Your close analysis wonderfully highlights its immediacy and even where it takes us when we look at it.
About clouds, Carus has a long quote comparing clouds to psychological moods. Of the three close friends Carus, Friedrich, and Johan Christian Dahl, Dahl was considered the cloud specialist. Friedrich always painted his clouds behind closed shutters until Dahl, who lived upstairs, persuaded him to try painting an actual sky in front of him. Dahl was able to capture the clouds as they went by, but Friedrich was a much slower painter. All three painters viewed the sky as a kind of curtain over Heaven. That's why Friedrich turned down Goethe's request that he paint the different cloud types in a kind of Luke Howard chart.
Rona, I always learn something fascinating from reading your posts. This one is especially wonderful. The sky is beautiful, even seen from a prison window. Perhaps more so.
I like the thought of Rona and John-Paul engaged in a public conversation about art. Think of what we'd learn from both of them.
The sky's beauty that you mention also speaks to what is denied the captive and allowed the spider, thus, I think, becoming a kind of torture delivered daily. (Can we live without beauty? I surround myself with it in the form of an eclectic collection that brings joy, too.) Those dried reeds, moreover, underscore for me how life wastes away in a prison, dries up because sustenance - the very stuff that keeps us alive - is denied. Then, again, the spider, on the outside, weaves and waits.
I'm very much drawn to paintings like this one. As Rona notes, it has an undeniable "narrative power," and can sustain more than one narrative, depending on who is viewing the work and what that viewer brings in the way of knowledge and sees from different perspectives; slow and close observation rewards. I like, too, the thought of exploring the space between bars and web, the latter being yet another barrier to freedom, considering how strong spider silk is.
(There must have been many different hangings on the wall where the painting is; the material (wallpaper?) seems to have more than its share of nail holes. They're quite visible.)