This is my meditation on Paul Cézanne's 1881 painting "Turn in the Road" at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. It exemplifies Cézanne's passion for complex juxtapositions of diverse spaces and shapes that challenge our view of the world. For instance, the bend in the road leads us into a deep space while maintaining its simple flatness.
Enjoy.
The turn in the road signified community. Encompassing a pleasant peninsula of mature trees and mossy rocks in a gesture of sempiternal circular movement, it piqued my anticipation that a cul-de-sac lay ahead of it, one that forged a close-knit, friendly community among disparate dwellings with an embracing cloak of greenery. The Creedence Clearwater Revival classic blasting on my Bluetooth encapsulated my reverie immaculately:
You can ponder perpetual motion,
Fix your mind on a crystal day,
Always time for a good conversation,
There's an ear for what you say.
We're going up around the bend...
However, once I was up around the bend, the settlement ahead spoke a colder language. The bite in the air of the late April wind-chill factor and the diffusion of gray-white light from broken clouds seemed to intensify the cold shoulder that the high fence, the helter-skelter houses, and their tree-screened windows were turning toward me. All was quiet in the little village, but a silence of the unfriendly nature, as if the houses were disappearing into the rock of their surroundings and fossilizing the humanity they once contained within their stucco walls and clay-tiled roofs. Yet their three-dimensionality, popping out in all directions like crystalline rock shimmering in the sun, suggested that a livelihood lurked therein after all.
Questions crossed my mind: Is this a gated community? Or can I enter freely? Does anyone there have any time for a good conversation? Could I offer one? Is there an ear for what I have to offer? Who lives there, anyway?
Undaunted by the fence's lining of the road with the perpetual message of rester en dehors, I winded along, an end in sight for to see. It turned out that my perspective was distorted; the fence seemed to give way to an old dirt road that opened right up to the village, as if spreading a welcome mat yet warding off my entry with the intimation of poverty or decadence.
Since only one house was turning its door and windows my way, the brown terrain was leading right up to its entry, and it was open, that seemed like a logical place for me to begin to unravel the mystery of this village. I ventured inside. It was barren, with that just-moved-out look. The paucity of windows lent a cavernousness to the interior. Suddenly a figure stepped into the light the open door was granting to the foyer.
Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!
