I think, given the opportunity, I could apply those comparisons to literally any painting :P That said, hats off for trying to puzzle these things out - I'm really rubbish with theories :)
(As for the umbrellas, I think it's likely that the artist intended this to be a realist tribute to surrealist concepts - surrealist works are positively strewn with umbrellas, which I believe [i.e. can't actually remember] are a reference to Isidore Ducasse...forgive me, it's late and my brain isn't working terribly well :) Also, the painting's a tondo, which is unusal, and the pose of the male figure is reminiscent of a Pieta, which is fitting with the title - Christ, like a phoenix, rose again. Dreams and sleep are also a common surrealist theme, and the fact that there are irreconcilable elements to the picture is suggestive of a dream - particularly the floating window with the idyllic countryside versus the barren landscape of the foreground. I also agree that it's a tulip, not a rose :P. As for the woman on the horse, well...pass. Perhaps she's Lady Godiva and is a symbol of defiant women who are unattainable? She is, after all, riding away from the main figure and is actually disappearing behind what could be interpreted as his 'dream' in the window. See? You can say ANYTHING about paintings. Never trust art :D)
Somewhere in the back of my mind I have this idea that a lady on a horse is some sort of death symbol/psychopomp, but the only thing I can connect it to right now is Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. So perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree there. Or just barking. Anyway, thanks for the tips about surrealism; I never studied art and would never have made those connections.
Re: dreams and sleep...as I said to 45eugenia above, Keats's poem Endymion (and the Greek myth it's based on) has a lot of resonances with this painting, as well as the show itself.
(As for the umbrellas, I think it's likely that the artist intended this to be a realist tribute to surrealist concepts - surrealist works are positively strewn with umbrellas, which I believe [i.e. can't actually remember] are a reference to Isidore Ducasse...forgive me, it's late and my brain isn't working terribly well :) Also, the painting's a tondo, which is unusal, and the pose of the male figure is reminiscent of a Pieta, which is fitting with the title - Christ, like a phoenix, rose again. Dreams and sleep are also a common surrealist theme, and the fact that there are irreconcilable elements to the picture is suggestive of a dream - particularly the floating window with the idyllic countryside versus the barren landscape of the foreground. I also agree that it's a tulip, not a rose :P. As for the woman on the horse, well...pass. Perhaps she's Lady Godiva and is a symbol of defiant women who are unattainable? She is, after all, riding away from the main figure and is actually disappearing behind what could be interpreted as his 'dream' in the window. See? You can say ANYTHING about paintings. Never trust art :D)
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Re: dreams and sleep...as I said to 45eugenia above, Keats's poem Endymion (and the Greek myth it's based on) has a lot of resonances with this painting, as well as the show itself.
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