Background

Do you value Truth, Beauty, and Love?

I think everyone needs a favorite painting

If you choose well, one will last you for decades

Mine is Vermeer's painting of A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal

It is painted in the chiaro-scuro style

Chiaro: the brightly lit foreground / Scuro: the dim, dark background

A virginal: smaller version of a harpsichord, scaled down for intimate, private music

In the left corner a bass instrument, to play the continuo

I have admired this painting since 1977

I've gazed at these luminous brush strokes every day

The player played so beautifully on the strings

The music oft invited me to play continuo

But something happened, you see

Something happened on October first ten years ago

The foreground vanished and the music stopped

The player disappeared--the instrument fell silent

It just vanished, suddenly, that day

You can see the void where the player was

It's shaped like a cello, but that's not the point

The negative space, the art in the background, that's what's left for me to look at

I don't think I paid much attention to it all those years, because I was consumed by the foreground

I can't paint it back-- I'm no Vermeeer

There's no closure from a missing foreground--it won't re-appear, so

I must make meaning from the murky muddle of darkened background

I remember learning an art work makes more sense if the negative space outlines a recognizeable shape

Does it? Or can I shape it? I need to explore

4

The strings are gone from the bass viol--those musical strings were part of the foreground

Are there still strings intact inside the virginal?

I believe I can hear faint echoes, and

I hope so, because I think the universe needs all its vibrating strings

That's the latest theory, I think

Part of a blue cape is there-- my Player wore it well

There's a painting inside the painting, just on the lid of the instrument,

People there gathered under a blue sky, a man fishing, perhaps

They seem happy

There's yet another painting mounted on the wall, but the work is hard to make out

I think there is a woman, and maybe a huge flower

5

Vermeer painted a window in the back--what does it look out on?

There's a blue shade over part of it, close to the color of the cape

What else is back there?

Could there be a deck of cards?

Maybe cards were played, but not painted--Vermeer is not Picasso, besides

I would not build a house of cards--I need something more robust

A page of music stands open on the stand but I cannot read it, much less hear it

6

Why did the foreground disappear? A

Silly question that, because it cannot be answered. Why

Am I still here, looking at a painting with no background? A

Better question that, and there must be a reason, Yes some

Meaning to be made, something to be done, or seen, or known or

People yet to be encountered, folk on a river bank under a blue sky?

Someone on the other side of a window? Because

It's all about people--the Player has decamped, but not the rest, So

I shift as I can, and, when the Kalens of October comes, as come it must, I'll

7

Be supported by true friends who remember well, and

My devoted, amazing daughter will call, and I will ask her,

As I have before,

Can tears be happy and sad at the same time?