Collection: Unidentified

Arab Town (1905)

did a fun look for an art history party!

I have also been thinking of "Religious Composition: Archangel Michael" by Natalia Sergeyevna Goncharova, which is one of my favorite paintings. First two photos are mine and the high-res one is LACMA's.

As with all of Scriabin’s late work, the music here is ethereal, other worldly, nocturnal, almost erotic but very strange, creepy, mysterious, etc. The music sounds like it exists in its own little world, and you’re glimpsing at just a fraction of its time wavering around without clear direction. These two late poems are among my favorites of his miniatures, because they have this hard to explain emotion that’s so unique. I can’t actually describe the emotion in any better way than the little story I’m about to tell you. I first listened to these from an album of all his “poemes”, and I was taking the trash outside. That’s it. Early evening, summer. The sun was about to set, and the moon was clear and bright in the sky. I looked up at the moon, and this chill went down my spine and my whole body while listening to this music. I thought about the oncoming night. The moon as a rock, orbiting earth, the earth under its light. Animals and insects in their nocturnal lives. All of the secrets going on in the world that we don’t know about. Woods in the middle of nowhere. Trees towering in the dark. I don’t know how to describe this “fear” that the images give me, but the music speaks for me better than I could. Especially the second poem, with its fleeting scales, its diabolical dance, being interrupted by a bell like theme.

(source: Lenbachhaus)

Private Collection