A Trip to the High Museum in Atlanta

The Monet water lillies exhibit was showing at the High Museum in Atlanta, so we made a visit.
















































Occasionally, when one dabbles in art and literature, these might converge unexpectedly - producing a psychic pause in the space time continuum. This happened to me with the painting shown above entitled Moonlit Market, 1874 by the American painter Johann Mengels Culverhouse.

I've been reading the short stories of Anton Chekov. In the midst of this collection is the story entitled Easter Eve where the narrator exclaims "'What a restless night!' I thought. 'How nice!'" This was precisely the identical reaction I had to the painting. There's something about the painting that appeals to me perfectly.

In addition to that coincidence, the Chekov story unfolds a very similar scene which takes place at midnight in a Russian village to that which is depicted in the painting. I'll quote here and allow you to judge.

I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a soft freshly trodden path. This path led to the dark monastery gates, that looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a disorderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises. All this crowd was rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson light and wavering shadows from the smoke flickered all over it.... A perfect chaos! And in this subbub the people yet found room to load a little cannon and to sell cakes. There was no less commotion on the other side of the wall in the monastery precincts, but there was more regard for decorum and order. Here there was a smell of juniper and incense.

Also note that above, I've photographed a painting of a cave island in the sea. This is entitled Fingal's Cave, Island of Staffa, Scottland by American painter Thomas Moran. Notice the similarity of this painting to the description above of "looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke."