Rusalka

I mentioned that I was listening to" Song To the Moon" from Rusalka when I was painting my rabbits on the moon for our Lunar New Year and somehow I have not been able to clear that image from my thoughts. 

Rusalka as I understand is a character in Slavic folklore and though it has many variations it nonetheless seem to involve spirits of the female gender and it lives in a body of water luring or haunting men, depending on how you look at it.  I suppose it is haunting if the woman died in tragedy and her spirit has not seen salvation or her death has not been avenged.

The Rusalka I referred to in my blog is the protagonist in an opera written by Antonin Dvorak.  The work tells the story about a water nymph Rusalka who falls in love with a mortal prince and bargains with a witch to turn her into a human to accommodate the potential relationship.  The price she pays is that she would be turned into a mute and become a mortal and the prince will die if he does not love Rusalka, who will in turn be damned eternally.  As with all great love stories, tragedy is the only viable conclusion.  Nobody wins in the end, the prince dies and Rusalka is damned.  It makes the song even more haunting.  The libretto of this opera has Rusalka professing her love for the prince to the moon in the opening act and asking the moon to help convey her love.

As I am writing this down, I am reminded of other friendships between the mortals and the immortals that are prevalent in other cultures.  Obviously everyone is familiar with the "Mermaid".

In Chinese culture I can think of at least two very popular folklores that pertain to such a union.  The story of "Goddess Marriage" or "Fairy Couple" (天仙配) is about the marriage of the 7th daughter of the Heavenly Emperor to a mortal who exhibited qualities of scholarship and filial duty.  The interesting thing about this folklore is that it has several different versions, and not all endings are tragic.

In "Legends of the White Snake" (白蛇傳) a folklore that tells the story of how a white python was able to be transformed into a beautiful lady, thus deemed an "unclean spirit" by priests.  The white python marries a mortal and a priest is determined to "exorcise" this mortal's wife, breaking up the union.  This folklore has something similar to Rusalka, in that the relationship between the mortal and immortal is brokered or intervened by a witch, or a priest.  Whilst the story of Rusalka ends in sadness the story of "Legends of the White Snake" has a happy ending.  Perhaps it is a statement that true love gets rewarded and humanity embraces even "unclean spirits".

Enough of a segue, time to paint my thoughts on paper.

My Rusalka is a lady poking her head out of water in a moon lit night, having a pensive moment with the the moon in the backdrop.  Needless to say, this renowned soprano aria "Song to the moon" is playing in the background.  My painting of "Whiter Shade of Pale" introduced me to painting of human forms.  Through those months of paying closer attention to the human body, I have a deeper appreciation of why Da Vinci studied human anatomy.  For me, I find the human neck to be an object of fascination.  I particularly enjoy how the sternocleidomastoid muscle (the 2 big muscles at the sides of our neck) in the neck twists and turns with the head, sometimes highly visible, and other times disappears beneath the skin.  I also enjoy its relationship with the clavicle, and how the depression at the bottom of the neck ebbs and flows with our posture.  A big lovely dimple.

Thus I shall attempt to showcase the neck of my water nymph. Try anyways.

A study drawing

I am using a very fibrous heavy Xuan.  I like the fact that this paper allows the color to float and disperse on it momentarily before fully soaking it in.  Hopefully it will help embody the ambience of a night scene with less than well defined lines; with the visible fibers strands adding to the ambiguity.

I am making a very pronounced presence of the sternocleidomastoid muscle through shading.  I am not too worried about the correct color of the face at this point.  My plan is to correct everything towards the end of the painting and I trust the paper I am using will allow me to make these alterations without ill effects.  

Before I continue on with the rest of my nymph, I am blocking out the ripples in the water by using the alum solution.  I am doing this so that when I paint in the hair and her clothing, I can somehow convey that they are submerged.

I also assign a position for my moon.  After all, this is a painting about Rusalka's song to the moon.  

To set the framework that Rusalka is in the water, contemplating the possibility that she might be residing on land as a mortal,  I am assigning that reference to some classical Chinese architecture.  

Eventually all these incidentals will be swallowed up by the dark night, hopefully.  I am therefore not too concerned about accuracy. I am augmenting the night scene with a few moon lit tree trunks in white.  I am hoping the lights in the buildings will eventually contrast with the dark night sky and make the painting interesting.  I suppose I just want a presence more than anything else.  My goal now is to plot my settings, create a mood and see if things work out or not.

The far shore of the water is painted in

So now I have the nymph, the worldly reference, and the moon.  Next chore is make the night fall!

A Whiter Shade Of Pale

Having finished my painting of the Vestal virgins, it is time to dress it ( the painting ) up properly.  That being a painting done on Xuan paper, I am going to mount my painting the traditional way, with starch for wet mounting.

I also want to try something that I've been contemplating for a long, long time; and that is to mount border strips onto the painting, creating a built-in mat look, like the pros do.  Since I don't have any brocade material for my borders, I shall settle for the same gold flaked Xuan paper that I painted on, but a white one to contrast with the yellow that the painting sits on.  My theory is that I need to do the border mounting before the mounted painting is dried.  This is to avoid differential drying of the Xuan papers if the adhesion process is done after the initial mounting is dried.  

Before I permanently seal the fate of my Vestals by fixing them onto my backing Xuan paper, I obviously need to correct the apparent 3rd leg of No.2 vestal and the exceptionally long forearm of No.8 vestal. 

The painting is wet mounted with starch on a regular backing of white Xuan paper.  The placement of the painting and the size of the backing are critical to allow room for the borders that are yet to be attached.

The next step is to fix the border strips that I pre-cut to proper width and length.  The photo below shows the border strip on the top of the frame.

The bottom border strip is then attached.  I use the width of the painting as a guide for my top and bottom border strips, making it that much easier to line up and place the borders properly.  I really don't want to take any chances with these wet, floppy strips of  wet tissues, in essence.  

This is the view of all four borders attached to the mounting when all the pieces are still wet.

The mounting is left to dry and will be harvested after drying.

Now I have a painting that is inspired by the song "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", by the band Procol Harum.

And so it was that later

As the miller told his tale

That her face, at first just ghostly

Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, there is no reason'

And the truth is plain to see

But I wandered through my playing cards

And would not let her be

One of the sixteen vestal virgins

Who were leaving for the coast

And although my eyes were open

They might have just as well've been closed

And no, I still do not make sense of the above lyrics, and there are various versions of explanations, some of them more colorful than others.

I've not read the Canterbury Tales, of which The Miller's Tale is one. I never dabbled in English Literature in my studies.  Suffice to know that story the miller told was about marital betrayal and debauchery, albeit a little raunchy.  There's a theory that the reason "she turned a whiter shade of pale" was perhaps the "tale" mirrored her predicament.  "Skipping fandango" and "turning cartwheel" at the beginning of the song might be describing our female protagonist having fun dancing and being crazy while out partying, not necessarily with her spouse.  Thus she turned "a whiter shade of pale" upon seeing the similarities between her and the "tale".  Of course there is also a belief that turning a whiter shade of pale describes the effect of too much alcohol, or as in the 60's, alcohol and other illicit substances mixed together; "the room was humming harder, as the ceiling flew away", so goes the song.

A plausible explanation for the Vestal Virgins to leave for the coast is that they failed to uphold their duties as guardians of the sacred fire at the hearth of the goddess Vesta.  Somehow the fire went out and they are fleeing the punishment for their dereliction of duty.

Thus I am unabashedly assuming the role of the "miller" here, and weave my own story as an one-up to the original miller's tale.  My "tale" says one of the Vestal Virgins actually breaks the vow of chastity and her belly is betraying her and therefore the whole cabal is being condemned.  I am borrowing this storyline to portray the gamut of human emotions when dealing with the consequences of indiscretion.  From denial, to bargaining, acceptance and despair.  One of the Vestals is seen examining a giant sieve, to see if the Vestal's magical power of carrying water with a sieve is still intact.  A light just went off in my head, could our lady in the lyric also be having a pregnancy outside of wedlock?  Thus turning a whiter shade of pale?

Hence my painting. 

I imbued it with my own twist.  I sincerely hope Keith Reid does not mind. 

Secret Asian Man

 "There's a man who leads a life of danger, to everyone he meets he stays a stranger.  With every move he makes another chance he takes, odds are he won't live to see tomorrow.   Secret agent man, secret agent man"

Those are the lyrics of Johnny Rivers' song "Secret Agent Man".

For someone who speaks English, those lyrics make sense, especially on paper.  However, once the lyrics are mixed with music tracks and whatnot, some of those words get obscured, especially for a non-native English speaker.

As I was growing up in Hong Kong listening to "pop" songs, I was more enamored with the melody and rhythm of a song, and lyrics often didn't mean much, not unless it was a slow love ballad.  Mostly because I didn't understand or couldn't figure out the words.

Thus for the longest time Johnny Rivers song became the "Secret Asian Man" for me.  All I could hear was the refrain "secret Asian man, secret Asian man".  Those were the only phrases I could sing along with to the transistor radio broadcast.  Frankly I didn't care why he was singing about a secret Asian man.

Fast forward 50 years I come across an old song that I loved "Whiter Shade Of Pale" by Procol Harum.  Now that my English proficiency is better than 50 years ago, I am now listening with a lot of curiosity and wanting answers; aside from the usual attraction of melody and chord changes.  First off I still don't see any connection of this song with Air on a G string.  I just don't understand how this work can be eponymous with Bach.  Then words like "miller" told his story, and 16 Vestal Virgins intrigued me.  What was Keith Reid trying to obfuscate?

Fortunately I have these avuncular search engines that never scoff at my ignorance.  I am being taken down the rabbit's hole.  At the end of the day, I am no closer to comprehending the meaning of the song, but at least I can understand the references.  I find myself being teased with the idea of painting the 16 Vestal Virgins.

For some reason my mental image of virgins are more in line with nude figures than what the Holy Book portrayed, but that's another topic.  So if I am to proceed with this "tease", how am I going to approach it. 

I am immediately faced with two challenges: I've not studied painting of a human body and how do I walk the fine line of nudity and obscenity.  I recall watching a presentation of some movie director and he alluded to the same dilemma when filming scenes with nudity.  His answer was in the lighting.  He went into great depth as to how he orchestrated the shadows and highlights and staged them on the human body in such a way that one would not hesitate to watch that movie with their parents.

I am going to try my best to eschew vulgarity.  I wonder if the inclusion of a sieve as a prop could validate my noble intent, since it is often associated with the magical power of the Vestals.

I had received some antique colored Xuan paper with golden flakes as a present, so I am going to use that as my inaugural paper for my Vestals painting.

I am hoping that the random golden flakes could either diffuse the painted images of nude bodies or add some semblance of art (yes, sarcasm ).

I sketch out a body on my Xuan paper and write in the dark areas with ink brush.

A brush with just water running alongside the dark brushstrokes draws out some of the ink and fills in the rest of the body.  Pretending that I am the director, I am placing the model in a backlit environment and a much weaker diffused high front lighting on the ventral aspects of the body.  In my mind the body shall don highlighted contour lines.

I am using opaque white to write on the contours of the body and also to hash wavy lines on the illuminated parts of the body.

I try to fine tune the hash marks a little, especially relative to the dark background.  I am trying to strike a balance between a representational form and a somewhat abstract rendering of that form.  I don't know, to make it more wholesome???  If this works, I shall continue to build on this painting.  

I know this is somewhat a departure from what I usually do, but the kid in me urges me to be a bit sophomoric.  For now I'll give myself a chance to ruminate on that possibility.