The Obstructed View - David Milne

Bright Curtains - David Milne

I went to see the show of David Milne's work at the Vancouver Art Gallery today.  I am a member of the gallery, and that's a good thing (thanks, Sis -- she gets me a membership for Xmas and what a great gift!) because I thought I didn't like David Milne, but it turns out that that thought was wrong!  I wouldn't have gone except I had to go downtown to get our passports renewed and thought, "oh well, I'm a member -- I'll just pop in and see what's going on".

It turns out I was all wrong about David Milne.  I thought it was all just splotches and dots and monotones, but look up above at this picture called "Bright Curtains".  Isn't it lovely?  He said this picture is "pretty much regular working out of the values problem, which, of course, goes way back".  By "values", he's referring to lightness and darkness, which fascinated him at this time.  It is a picture of his wife, Patsy, at a window and I love how she's looking down and the light is streaming behind her and then there are the block pictures on the wall next to the window and on the other side a roundish shape like a sconce or something.  I always associated David Milne with whites and greens and greys -- sort of washed out painting, but look at the rich blues and greens in this lovely piece.  Of course, he went through different ways of painting -- this is quite an early one -- and I think you can see the influence of Matisse with the window and the light.

There was another one of Patsy reading and she's bathed in light from a lantern but behind her is an ominous huge shadow -  it isn't pretty like this one, but it's quite impressive and powerful and apparently he painted it when he was living with Edvard Munch, so you can see what was going on there, too.

Patsy's figure in "Bright Curtains" foreshadows another interest he had in the obstructed view and the "dazzle spot".  In this case, Patsy is obstructing the view of the bright light, and the bright light is the dazzle spot.  In other pictures, he would put bright white trees (dazzling) in front of a scene of colour and depth, almost like you had to look past the dazzle to get at the meat of the matter.  I thought that might be interesting to try in the theatre.  You have a scene of something rather prosaic downstage, but upstage, you have something compelling -- see how long it takes for the audience to notice it!

He signed up to fight in World War 1 but by the time he got to Europe the fighting was over.  He said, "I was the first tourist, not the last soldier" and his pictures of ruined buildings in places like Ypres and the devastated countryside in France were really haunting.

This is a picture called "Neuville-Saint-Vaast from the Poppy Fields" and I think it should go along with  "Flanders Fields" when we think about the war and the devastated countryside and the hope that the poppies provide.  One of the things that is remarkable about his paintings of cities and towns devastated by war is that he shows people going about their business in the ruins of their town's most beautiful and remarkable buildings.

Of course, he lived in abject poverty for much of his life as many artists do, but I guess that doesn't mean that he didn't have a full life.  All of our lives are struggles and when you have this desire to explore the value of light and darkness, perhaps the struggle is worthwhile in a way that the rest of us "getting and spending" can learn from.  I believe that.

He spent a great deal of time alone and in nature.  He said he was compelled by the "mystery thing" beyond what is visible in nature.  If you've ever been deep in the forest or out on the open prairie or anywhere far away from the city, you've probably felt something like that.  When you put your hand wholly on a tree, you get this sense of a living thing that is connected to you, but very different from you at the same time.

I really enjoyed my time at the Art Gallery today.