During our travels to Europe, we have seen a few great works of art. We have seen works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael. We have seen works by Dutch Masters and Spanish Cubists. Sometimes, like when looking a the Sistine Chapel our breath is taking away. Other times, like when we saw some works of Jackson Pollack, we just scratched our heads. Yet, of all the works we have seen only one punched me in the gut. That was this painting Dutch Interiors Part II by Jean Miro
I have no idea what it is about.
Yet, I had the strong sense of a lost memory when I saw it. Yet, I have no idea what the memory is. Was it a cartoon that mesmerized me as a child? An exhaustive youtube.com search has come up negative. Lost in trying to remember a memory, I remember just looking at the picture for a long time. The photograph doesn’t quite catch-all the colors since flash was prohibited (You can see a better version here). Then I could remember the shapes dancing and playing instruments. I am more sure than ever that this painting was used in some form of animation. There is no way I saw this as a kid and made this up in my own head. I’m not that creative. Nor did I experiment with mind altering drugs when I was kid.
I wish this were a nice tidy essay about this painting. I wish I could say I finally found that animation. Why this painting and not any of the other, greater, works hit me this way. It’s not my favorite painting by a long shot. Yet, I remember that day vividly. Not only seeing the painting, but all the other things we did in Venice that day. Sometimes one small event in a day when traveling becomes an anchor for all the other memories of that day. It’s never the moments you plan when you are traveling that stick with you, it’s that moment you don’t expect that makes the day special.
PS. If anyone else can find this animation that may be a figment of my imagination, please post the link in a comment.
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