Top Ten--Inspiring Images
Below are ten pictures that always rev up my imagination. I could have chosen a billion others, of course, but these were the first ten I thought of:
This is the DVD cover of an old German film from the thirties called Vampyr. This scene isn't in the film, though, which is a tragedy. It's so haunting and difficult to know whether death is coming for her...or has already come.
Here's another sleeping girl (I'd rather think that the girl from Vampyr is sleeping and not dead cuz I'm optimistic like that) from a book called The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. I like the idea of a book as something alive. Maybe not the book itself, but the ideas within it. Teeny tiny thoughts like viruses that will infect you long after you close the book.
This painting is called The Subway by George Tooker. It's all about paranoia and alienation and lack of intimacy and fear of strangers, and that's great. But I always think how much better this painting would be if the setting had been a family dinner. You expect the world to not care about you, but when it happens in your own home? Now that's scary.
This is the Afghan Girl. I don't know who the photographer is, though. It's kind of a trippy photo because she looks startled, and I feel startled when I look at her. Who knew Afghanis had green eyes? I look at this picture and wonder about all the other things I don't know, not only about Afghanis, but everyone.
This one's called Lament for Icarus, but I don't remember who painted it. The story of Icarus always irks me out. Just because a guy dares to surpass his father, dares to reach for the sun, he has to die. Don't try to do anything grand or you'll die--what kind of message is that? So I always imagine that the sirens came out of the water to do some type of siren magic to bring him back to life. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and when life gives you a stupid story, rewrite the ending.
I've been obsessing over this painting for years: La Pia de Tolomei by Rossetti. I feel so claustrophobic when I look at it. She's got a ring on her finger (engagement ring? wedding ring?) and she's toying with it, but she's got such a dead look on her face. I always thought she wanted to rip that ring off her finger and run away, so I used to make up stories about all the ways she could escape. But nowadays, all I want to do is slap her and tell her to man up. Sometimes a girl's gotta make her own escape.
That's French for "This is not a pipe." Ha! We all know the painting Magritte did of the guy with an apple hiding his face, but this is the one that really gets me. How can something so simple be so complex, both true and untrue at the same time? And it's not just true for paintings but everything, especially people. "I am not Dia." Is that the truth? Yes. Is that a lie? Yes. God, I'm deep.
I don't remember who painted this, but it's called Nightmare. Spooky, no? It is, until you see the horse. I don't know, but it seems to me that there's always an element of the absurd in everything, even nightmares.
No Swimming by Norman Rockwell is so hilarious. I love how even the dog is making a run for it. I always wonder who's chasing them, though. A cop? A parent? But it seems like whoever is chasing those boys could have at least let them get fully dressed first. Some people are so mean.
The Kiss. I LOVE this photo. I don't remember who took it, but how romantic is it? I remember reading somewhere that the kiss only lasted a split second, and yet that's what he photographed. With everything going on in the background, he could have focused on anything else, but he did what we all do--he looked for love. And totally found it.