INTIMATE LANDSCAPES
The
pleasure of landscapes seems to sometimes come from their vastness, the infinite
swaths of color and tone spread across earth and sea below and sky above.
From a valley, mountain top or rocky shore, a kind of primitive assurance
is imparted to the viewer, a sense of a larger rhythm that helps us relax and
feel whole, something basic and elemental, a different feeling than looking at a
dense, busy and industrious city for instance.
But we are also drawn to another kind of landscape, more intimate, small and
close, when we kneel to look at an arctic flower amidst a desert of mountain
rock, or the pattern of a sea shell or stone, one of thousands spread across a
shore. Here again there is pleasure,
but more private and intimate, a secret view into the mystery of life perhaps,
even in its smallest form.
What is it about such intimate landscapes, especially flowers, that gives us so
much comfort and solace? Why do we
spend so many hours of our lives planting and tending these small largely
inedible plants, arranging them in our homes and public spaces and placing them
at the center of our primal ceremonies of birth, marriage and death.
Is it their colors,
familiar and unexpected, their infinite patterns and shapes, the enticement of
their scent, the mystery of their pollen and flagrant sexuality, the way we
watch them burst into life, sprout up, reach maturity and then die in a cycle we
can safely watch over and over again? Is
it one of the ways we strive to gain acceptance of our own inevitable mortality?
Perhaps there is no
answer, only the mysterious communication of color, pattern, form and shape and
our infinite curiosity, interest and desire.
There are approximately one
hundred paintings in the Intimate Landscapes series.
For Further Information, contact:
ChrisIPS@aol.com
Copyright © 2005, 2006 by Chris Coles
