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October 01, 2005
More than a Painting
The last time I was able to come on here to blog I couldn't find this painting, and now that I have chance to again on my computer, I think I am probably one of the last ones to see and try to analyze it. I will attempt to not repeat any one else's ideas, but I'm afraid some of the "general ideas" behind it might overlap.
I would definately agree with someone who said that this painting is a metaphor. I see it as a metaphor, not in the figure of speech sense, but in the sense that this painting can be regarded as representatitive or symbolic of something else abstract. I see it as a metaphor for the struggle, and somewhat cycle of life. For the struggle, I see a man having to work hard in a job every day, probably one he does not particularly enjoy, to earn money for his wife and kids at home. I see the wife at home, working cleaning the house, keeping her children under control. Despite the continous hard work from both the man and woman, their lifestyle is not luxurious. I've always thought about how you can look at life in two ways: "working to live", or "living to work". Yet, I always come to the conclusion that they are really the same thing in the end. When it comes down to it, working every day to make end's meat, to raise a family, to keep a humble home, to live life each day, is both working to live and living to work. In this respect, I see this painting representing the (somewhat depressing) cycle of life... the cycle of growing up in a humble home, going off to work every day, having children, working hard taking care of them, working hard to have a home, working more... then getting old, and that was your life. Then your kids go off to work, hopefully have a humble home, and then start the cycle again...
So how did these objects bring me to this? Well, I see the television as meaning the humble family entertainment source, as an object that is valued and as an object that took effort to make enough money to buy. I see the plate on top of the television to mean that life is not always smooth, that there is always more work to be done, and that it is not easy keeping a home -there is always more to do, and that adds to what your life seems to be about. I see the red sneakers and the blue jelly shoes to mean that there are kids in the home, kids that need to be told to do certain things, perhaps a boy and a girl, that need to be reminded not to fight, to chew with their mouth closed, to do their homework, to go to bed. I see the broom as a reminder that there is always more to do in a home, fancy or not. Yet cleaning in itself could also be seen as an inevitable cycle: things get dirty, you work to clean them, they get dirty again... The folding chair, as it sits in what must be the living room, means that this is not a fancy home, but one that has enough to get by, not going first-class or living in luxury. To top it off, the image on the television screen, which to me at first looked just like a reflection on the glass, is a picture of what seems to be water glowing under a night sky. To me, I see the sky as a reminder of life being here long before we were, and continuing long after we are gone, and this reinforces the idea that this painting, the images it represents, together represent the cycle of working hard and living the humble life cycle.
Posted by lcisthur at October 1, 2005 11:24 PM