Birth of Sonnet (SOLD 2005) Painting

[In private collection, Tokyo, Japan] Create by looking beyond the boundaries into the human future Nobody can claim sufficient and adequate knowledge of the past or the future. Foreseeing, at least trying to foresee is yearning passed down from our mothers with their anxiety about our lifes. To know the past is yearning of historical consciousness inherent to some extent in any human being. The future inspires with hope or arouses fear. The past with its mysteries excites curiosity. Both the future and the past - as philosophers assert - do not possess the ontological status. That is why science`s exact evaluations and other appraisal of human reason can`t reach these areas. But it is possible to penetrate there by a particular kind of insight, catching the promise or threat in the future, and in the past - sources of ourselves, probably the very secret of our existence. Intuition always pertaines to the artist Olga Akasi. And Provence poets` refrain still remains the best guide for many works of her: “Love leads, art follows it”. But don`t be deceived with the images of the past on her canvases: history appears only to clear and strengthen the feelings of present and future. Poets of Provence are recalled here not for a beautiful appearance. In conversation with the author of the picture the theme of poetry was mentioned first of all. We will not err against author`s intensions by meaning the book in a hand of young woman on a canvas as a small volume of verses. Painted in goldish colours, the woman`s figure is some kind of a symbol of arcadian silence and concentration illumined by the Poetry of sensuality and contemplation. The wistful gaze of the maiden is directed to a spectator and attracts him irresistibly whatever side he looks at the canvas from. Even while moving in front of this oil painting, a viewer has a strange sensation, as if the bewitching woman's gaze is continuously following him. It imparts to the painting a unique aura and exhibits, beyond any doubt, artistic excellence. Woman`s smile and light sadness in her eyes are emphasized by pictorial illumination. Yet this illumined face is symbolically expressed internal poetic inspiration of the heroine. The book of verses and light are two symbols merging into one, undivided token of poetic enlightenment within the pictural space. This inward light is streaming from the smiling lips and eyes. The basic colour spectrum of the picture is black and goldish. Author makes accent on the face and illumination, thereby using the most delightful implements of painting which distinguish it from photoart when depicting inner life of human being. Rolan Bart writes in his book «Camera Lucida» that a portrait can rise a spectator to profound meditation. We completely share this point of view. Really, a portrait can bring a viewer to think about himself and about a human being in general, the latter so badly missing in modern painting. For more than hundred years photoart has been nearing to portraiture. Certainly having its own advantages, photography still will never excel that subtle aesthetic psychologism of oil-painting. It enables us to comprehend positivistically the human being in contexts of the modern culture and either gives visual pleasure of looking at works of art that capture it. Arthur Grell