Few people ever think about the sounds that existed in the background when a painting is made or what the artist heard when the inspiration occurred. The sound in the background can shape and inspire the painting. This painting “Fallen Columns, Temple of Zeus” is about the sound the artist hears while painting the scene and the contrasting silence that the viewer experiences. I guess the question I have is do paintings have sound? I wrote a poem to explain the phenonomen I experienced when I began the plein air sketches and a watercolor for this oil painting in Greece. I completed the painting in the studio. Cicadas can be very loud! If you havent heard them find a recording of their sounds on a summer night- Olympia had thousands or even tens of thousands of them.
Below the guise of Mount Chronos, Olympians sparred and leapt,
Feats lost for the ages in fallen pillars across temple steps,
The incessant sound of cicadas reverberates through the summer heat,
Frozen in stone, statues of heros and gods align the stadium where competitors sweat,
Athletes spring to life; ready to meet,
Their shadows cast along field and street,
Until stillness is broken with the sound of feet,
And a voice projects over the drone,
“Let the games begin…”
Poem by Michael Wilson (2023)
The poem came to me later as I thought about paintings and sound.
Oil Paintings, Plein Air, Prints, Hand Drawn Tessellations 