Category: Art Muses

A work in progress: my muse

Published on by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

If I could personify my muse, I think it would be someone who finds joy in colour and whimsical fairytale lands, where there is the whisper of possibility.After so so many (wonderful as they are) commissions and requests, my muse has gone underground a bit. It’s funny how art is something that people often assume us an effortless gifting. Nothing can be further from the truth in my case, I work really hard. I need the guidance of my inner muse to give me a sense of purpose and peace as I create. The last few days have been frustrating. But I am determined to find some kind of authenticity in my work, so I am posting a work in process, heavily inspired by the symbolist painter, Maurice Dennis; but also true to the style of so many of my “dreamscape” paintings.

I don’t tend to see or hear much from the spiritual, dreamscapy world, so painting is like a portal to the unknown. It is here where my own subconscious finds its voice. It is here that my inner muse gets really excited, and I lose track of time, yet find myself and just maybe, in my more noble moments, a sense of calling. Because I really believe art is for everyone, and has the power to heal the soul.
20141220_090630
image

The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood

Published on by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

I have been looking at paintings by pre-raphaelite artists. These include artists such as Millais, Burne-Jones and of course Dante Rosetti. They were driven to represent spiritual forms in much the same manner as artists from the Renaissance prior to Raphael, and in the Middle Ages. It was very needed in this time in history, since industrialisation and modernism created a kind of vacuum to artistic expression that was spiritual in subject matter. I love the way their paintings tell a story; and to try to depict celestial beings such as Angels is a noble but at the same time curiously earthly thing to do. I say this because our angels or visions of heaven, no matter how sublime and beautiful are probably to heavens eyes like a child drawing with crayons on a paper napkin. But it’s a joyful thing, and a way that art brings humanity into something bigger than ourselves. It’s also interesting to me how the spiritual realm is so often the subject matter if artists throughout the ages.

The pre-raphaelites, however, perhaps hit on something within our culture at this point in time, maybe as a neo-modernist society (for lack of a better term; I am not sure that our culture can be termed as post modernist anymore, and I have not found a term that fits), we live in somewhat of a cultural desert. Everything is mass produced, and like industrialisation, the demands of productivity are at a premium (collateral from a disposable society). We are in need of the integrity, joy, depth and mystery found in the spiritual, which brings reassurance that not everything is banal and throw-away. That something exists outside of that, beyond clear perception that is more real and meaningful. For me, these pre-raphaelite paintings help me see these things. They touch something deep within my soul, giving almost a feeling of wistful nostalgia.

“…the more materialistic science becomes, the more I shall paint Angels: their wings are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul” (Edward Burne-Jones)image