Greetings Readers!
Here is the next volume of our series — The Wisdom of Art. This series invites us to pause from our busy lives to explore the wisdom of art and poetry.
Today’s meditation includes a clip from my recent conversation with Alva Noë, the author of The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are. The entire conversation with Alva will be released on In Search of Wisdom in the coming weeks.
Here is a painting, a poem, and a bit of prose…
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1. Death in the Sickroom (Painting)
Death in the Sickroom, 1895, condenses the despair and anguish that Munch and his family experienced due to the ravages of tuberculosis. Munch’s painting is a scene from his own life, the death of his older sister, Sophie. It is a painting about grief and loneliness. None of the family are able to ask other family members for comfort; they are all alone with their feelings, confronted with the presence of death. "We all die alone," Munch might be saying. Meanwhile, Sophie, dying or perhaps already dead, has receded from the world of the painting; it's the survivors who have to deal with their feelings.
“No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.”
— Edvard Munch
Contemplation Exercise:
Consider taking some uninterrupted time to observe the painting.
Simply notice what arises…
What makes this painting a timeless piece…
2. O Captain! My Captain! (Poem)
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.by Walt Whitman (1819—1892)
3. The Art of Grieving (Prose)
Our painting and poem this week are both the result of loss. Death in the Sickroom was from the loss of Munch’s sister, Sophie. And O Captain! My Captain! was inspired by the loss of Abraham Lincoln. During the American Civil War, Whitman worked for the government and volunteered at hospitals. Although he never met Lincoln, Whitman felt a deep connection and was incredibly moved by Lincoln's assassination.
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