From Inspiration to Revelation...Thanks Psyche

            I am a very visual person, so I am very appreciative for visual art. Growing up, my mother would talk about her life as a struggling artist; course this before she re-did four years of university and graduated Pharmacy School the top of her class. The Arts were important to me growing up. With being armed with a few techniques my mother armed me, I dabbled in many medians before Theatre. My first love was sketch artistry with the focus of the human form. The human form has always fascinated me. I would look up timeless pictures of statues of the Renaissance, Neoclassicism, or even pieces of the Romantic era. Unfortunately, time passes and you lose it you have to allocate time for more pressing matters. I’d say I have lost my touch. I try to keep journals and do what I can, but no inspiration. So over the years I learned how to apply the creative spark I developed as a sketch artist for theatre.

Here in London I have seen such Art. It has been a real learning experience and humbling one.  There have been so many shows and museums. I was wandering around the Victoria and Albert Museum. I had nothing in mind I particular to see. I was ready for what ever came up. I saw sacred icons from Tibet, exotic rugs of Persia, and ornate robes from China, but the one thing I saw that was inspiring was seeing other sketch artists at work. Their focus? The human form! I saw artists of all degrees studying statues with an absolute steady hand. I went to the gift shop and purchased a pencil and sketchbook. What a coincidence? I was drawn to this one specific statue. It was that of a young woman with ideal feminine features. She was caste out of bronze and she was beautiful. It was Psyche by Francis Derwent Wood. As I noticed her she had this essence of passion and ecstasy.  

I sat down and began. It was like trance and there was only my paper and subject. It took about an hour or two for something acceptable, one that will never be finished.

           

           

      

  (This sketch was done at very different perspective then the photograph taken by Anthony Felton, January 30,                    2014. http://anthonyfelton.com/photodiary2/displayn.php?n=3317&m=01&y=2014&c=&pn=0 )

           

            As I was leaving, I studied my product. I realized most of the shows I have seen shared similarities with Psyche. Most if not all of the heroines and heroes, exhibit great passion, ecstasy, but fell for forbidden love. In As You like it, Orlando and Rosalind’s relationship is a manifestation of passion. Rosalind, as Ganymede, teaches Orlando how to be passionate. Fernando and Bianca’s affair, from Love’s Sacrifice, is of ecstasy. From one taste of each other they couldn’t delay the inevitable. The love between Jessica and Lorenzo at the time was absolutely forbidden. One of them had to compromise their faith and heritage to even make their love a reality. With all that is done, the lovers had a price to pay. Jessica had to live the guilt of forsaking her culture and father. Phillippo Caraffa, Bianca’s husband, murdered both Bianca and Fernando out of rage. Tragedy, like with Psyche, is then blown away with merriment and an ideal happy ending as seen in As You Like It. It is strange how something so out of the way and random can spark an inspiration and then a revelation.