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The First Challenge - Favorite Visual Piece of Art

My challenge: Pick one of your favorite pieces of visual art. Post It. Explore and discuss what exactly about it moves you & then discuss your life in comparison to this work. do you try to live in a way that moves others the way this piece of art moves you? In what ways do you succeed or fail @ doing so?

I am straying away from photography as my visual piece of art of choice only because there is so much that I love and I explore that often. But a painting I often do not dissect.

My first inclination was to post this beautiful painting that I saw at Eddie's Attic in Atlanta- however Maura reminded me of the painting that I am constantly drawn to in the art museum and I realized that it has more staying power in my life. I've been in love with this painting for many years. Now my challenge is to discover why.

Meet Cupid and Psyche - a painting done by Jacques Louis David.
So here it is. A painting of lovers. The God of Love and a woman so beautiful she threatened the eternal beauty, Venus, herself.

As the story of Cupid and Psyche goes he marries her but she is not to see him. He comes to her every evening and slides away every morning at dawn.

This painting captures a dawn where cupid finds himself pinned by wing underneath Psyche in the early morning light.

A predicament he acknowledges in his smirk.

What draws me to the piece. The way the bed looks like a stage with curtains drawn open. The sneak peak we get into the moment of this love's life at dawn. The deep maroon of the velvet, the softness of her sleep. The bow parted from his grip. His failed exit.

This is the trusted moment before she suspects there is a need to mistrust him. This is the moment when their love is still pure. Nothing is lost. The predicament is innocent and rooted from a night of their love, not her failure or a failure between them.

Would I immediately draw ties between this painting and my life? No. Can I? Yes.

I try with everything in me to smirk my way through the predicaments that life throws my way. I feel like the more we can laugh at ourselves the better off we are. And, a smirk in a time of hardship is always more self-empowering than a look of distress (however I will say that I am certainly not above those either).

I would love to be a representation of this moment. Pure love. Predicament with ease.
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As a separate thought - Don't you think that this moment captured is one of the most valuable we can have as humans? The sleep of pure, untainted love. The days and hours where love offers nothing besides blissful exhaustion and comforted thoughts. They turn the rest of the world silent and in those moments nothing else distracts or exists because the reality is plenty.




Comments

Lindy Loo said…
Yay! Great post. Hope to post mine finally this week!
Lindy Loo said…
PS. Just reread this: lovely. I've also always dug that painting as well actually.

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