The Beguiled ©2018 - The inspiration for this piece came from a favorite illustration by Gustave Dore for Fables of La Fontaine in 1868 titled “The Rabbits” as well as the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The background is a montage of two images taken two years apart in very different locations but blended together perfectly for the effect I wanted. Oddly enough, the rabbits (actually consisting of three rabbits in multiple poses) were captured in Pottersville, NJ, two of them on 7-28-18 and one on 7-28-17, same day, same town one year apart! In Dore’s illustration, the rabbits are startled by a gun shot from a man hidden in the bushes with a rifle and scurry into the forest for protection. In my piece, the rabbits (and perhaps several crows) are being drawn slowly into the forest by the beguiling melody coming from the violin of the lady in white. As the legend goes, in the year 1284, the people of Hamelin (a town in Lower Saxony, Germany) hired a piper (or flutist) dressed in multicolored (pied) clothing to lure away an infestation of rats with his magical pipe. When they refused to pay for his service, he used his powers on their children, leading them away as he had the rats. While I’m not convinced my violinist has anything quite so sinister in mind, I’ll leave it up to the viewer as to the fate of “The Beguiled”.
No comments:
Post a Comment