Friday 11 February 2011

Walter Sickert....stirred something in me




On my birthday last week Matt and I took a trip to Oxford. We went to visit the Ashmolean museum for the second time. It's been a couple of years since we last went and quite a lot has moved/changed.
The last time I went I didn't have the time or the head space to really enjoy the paintings and the tapestries and the India dept. as I would have liked so this time since it was just Matt and I, we strolled around looking at the items, which stirred something inside us both.
Matt of course was checking out all the pottery (he's a slipware potter if you didn't know) and I fell in love with the Indian God sculptures and the Linens, the Egyptian Gold and the areas dedicated to all the great painters.
Walter Sickert though was the one who's paintings made me stop dead in my tracks. Not because I have anything in common with the paintings, but because they are so thought provoking and rather ahead of their time.
This one above just blew me away. I stood in front of it for quite a while before Matt found me.
I took this close up pic along with the storyboard for you all to see.
I love the expressions and the bottle on the mantlepiece and how everything in the home is as it should be...apart from the occupants.
Saddening. I almost want to jump in the pic and say "You go one way...You go the other"!
But at the same time I can see why they stay as they are.
Thoughts?