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Intense Tranquility, by Arthur Secunda | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal Reflections, by Arthur SecundaIntense Tranquility is about space and dreams. The horizontality of the forms moving from left to right and right to left are simple in terms of structure and composition. Basically, they divide four spaces in layers or depths. The dominant blended blue-brown shape in the foreground establishes a frontier or a plane of separation. The "distance" is a dreamlike space between the upper ground and the ethereal, amorphous mountain. Against the pale beiges, the omelette-like sun setting in the background bathes the scene in a mood of tranquility. Conversely, the intensity comes from the hewed shapes of the forms in the foreground and the gold band filtering across the surface of the picture in an eel-like, spatial dance. I inserted the slithering band there to give the line freedom to move into this deep illusion of space. The color of the sky and the background mountain remind me of the color of some of the landscapes of Redon in their transcendence and iridescence. It's as if a pale covering were put over the mountaintop to hide the roughness and the earthliness of the mountain. The setting sun has always been a special, private symbol to me since I was a child. I experienced the magnificence of setting suns around lakes and coasts as a little boy spending summers in and around Lakewood, New Jersey. Watching sunsets with my family made for a total experience of joy and love, translating those emotions into a mental picture for me. That "picture" connotes emotions of peace, wistfulness, and fulfillment in a Whitmanesque embodiment of harmony with nature. Without that psychological wholeness, I think landscape painting would be just an abstract figuration of generic objects. For me, inclusion of the setting sun is akin to seeing the words "The End" or "fin" at the end of a novel or a movie. It places the picture in time and establishes sequence and expectation. Intense Tranquility, the shapes of the pale beige sky with the baby-blue, lavender mountain, are cut and juxtaposed in a yin and yang confluence - a dynamic synchronicity. The foreground vantage point of this print could represent the inner eye of the viewer. In effect, the abstract language used to articulate the forms represents a separation of space, illusions, and a kind of wanderlust of abandoned thought. The title, Intense Tranquility can be understood to combine the intensity of the foreground with the tranquility of the background. Therein, I hope, lies the power and magic in the picture.
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