Paintings: Alleys in the Cities of Antigua and Berne
My wife and I yesterday were at the vernissage of an exposition of Hugo Lizandro Godinez, a Guatemalan painter living in Switzerland, whose wife is a colleague of mine. The exposition exhibits watercolour pictures of old alleys in Antigua and Berne. The beautiful paintings show houses, flowers, water reflections, painted in subtle, but luminous colours full of different shades.
Though seemingly painted in a realistic manner, they have something dream-like, and though luminous, not only the titles indicate an ambiance of solitude and yearning. Some titles are “Melancholy”, “Reflections of Sadness” or “Lonely Wanderer”. The pictures are nearly all without any persons. The paintings reflect the undercurrent mood. The alleys are like symbols of search – old and lonely alleys. The painter is not old, but old might be the soul’s wandering.
My experience from my own youth time as well as from observing others is: This feeling of yearning and sadness results from an inner urge, which has not yet found the direction. This might cause restlessness, but also frustration and depression. You somehow sense that there must be a higher light, but you don’t know how to get there, how to find the way out of the cocoon of personality. You haven’t yet realised that there is the cocoon of the caterpillar blocking.
People might stay in this stage for very long, or they search in outer or erroneous directions, like drugs, workaholism, adventurism. When, often through crises, you have taken to the path of the soul, the higher self, you feel like getting replenished from within. The “reflections of sadness” of the lonely wandering dissolve into the fresh flow of energies: The wanderer has come home.
