Soul Desire

I will rise now and go about the city, 
   in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves. (Song of Solomon 3:2)

The world askew, unknown, unfathomable, was often the vision of the painter Giorgio de Chirico. His painting Melancholy of a Street (1914) is a prime example, and arguably his most ominous work. Created as part of his Metaphysical Town Squares series, beginning in 1910, it demonstrates his fascination with architecture, dramatic light, shadow, and mysterious subjects. The painting draws the viewer into the scene: what does it mean to wander the streets, to seek, and not to know what we might encounter?

Two great influences on the artist were his visit to Turin, Italy, in 1910, where he described the architecture as ‘metaphysical’, and also the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose world-view questioned the very reliability of how we represent reality. From these De Chirico was inspired to probe the depths of existence, being, and reality. His criticism of the Impressionists, for example, was that they were occupied only with the visible world, while dismissing the interior world of the imagination.

Melancholy of a Street presents us with a striking image in ochres, browns, a gradient sky in blues and greens, juxtaposed (in stark contrast) with the white building at left, and a curious wagon at right. Within the stillness of the scene, we see the silhouette of a girl chasing her hoop as she runs across the plaza, her legs in mid-stride, her hair flowing. She is running somewhere, wherever the rolling hoop leads, like the maiden in the Song of Solomon, who searches the streets.

The hoop, like the woman in the Song’s desire for her lover, is taking the girl on a wild chase.

The painting is one of the few works of the artist in this period to include motion, accented by the flag in the distance, flapping in the wind. And also in the distance is the ominous shadow of a person, long and stretched, by the raking light of the setting sun. Multiple and conflicting perspectives add to the sense that one is hovering above the picture ground, offering a view from a place that cannot possibly exist.

As with the shifting perspectives and locations of the Song of Solomon, we are left wondering where exactly we are; what is real and what isn’t.

Casper David Friedrich’s Woman at the Window (1822), is an image whose obscurity provokes puzzlement and wonder. Friedrich’s repeated decision to depict figures from behind leaves us speculating about their identity, their appearance, their feelings, and their intentions, just as the Song of Solomon leaves us with many questions about the identities of its two lovers.

When Friedrich’s lone figures are male, the landscapes they contemplate are often ominous or inhospitable (The Wanderer above the Mists, 1817–18). When the figures are female, the settings are frequently calm and hopeful (Woman before the Rising Sun, 1818–20). But almost always, as in this case, we are given only a little to go on. Friedrich’s artworks, like the mysterious Song, require us to use our imaginations, as we entertain various possibilities about their subjects.

Friedrich treated the window as a subject in itself, whether in representations of ruins, or when depicting his own studio window in Dresden. The open window, with its view to a world beyond, came to be a common theme in the German Romantic movement, a metaphor for ideas of escape, adventure, longing, and even loneliness, where the vision of a brighter life lay beyond one’s reach.

The woman of the Song expresses desire and hope: ‘I will seek him whom my soul loves’ (3:2). She also sounds a Friedrich-like note of loneliness and longing: ‘I sought him, but found him not’.

Friedrich’s model was the artist’s wife, Caroline. She has shifted her weight to one leg, resting her elbow on the sill, suggesting that she has stood for a long time. Patiently, quietly she waits, with a patience that can recall that of the Song’s Rose of Sharon (2:1). And what does she wait for, or more to the point, whom does she wait for?

We can only speculate. But perhaps she waits for her lover, longing for his return, so she might take him into the ‘chamber of her who conceived me’ (3:4).

Do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases.
(Song of Solomon 3:5)

Johannes Vermeer presents a scene filled with mystery in his Mistress and Maid, painted around 1667. A master at painting light, he has shifted from his more typical scenes representing softly diffused daylight streaming through leaded glass windows, and given us instead a dramatically-shadowed space illuminated to reveal little more than the immediate exchange taking place.

Vermeer depicts the bare essentials of an implied story: a finely-dressed woman is seated at her desk, having just now been interrupted from her letter-writing by the arrival of her maid who emerges from the shadows. Although we cannot see more than her profile, the bemusement of the Mistress is apparent: while laying down her pen she raises her left hand to her chin, a sign of apprehension.

The maid’s face is clearly visible, her eyes lowered, lips parted, she appears to whisper something; a slight grin on her face suggesting she might know something about the author of the letter but dare not tell, echoing the suspense in Song of Solomon 3:1.

The unopened letter is offered in a gentle gesture, as if to negotiate the space between them: the letter, bright white, hovers at an equal distance between the faces of the women, creating a sense of mystery. To whom is the Mistress writing so late at night? And who has written to her? Why is she so finely dressed, adorned with pearls, her hair delicately fixed? Is she awaiting the arrival of someone? Or perhaps her guests have recently left? We do not know.

The tension of waiting, and of longing late into the night, are conveyed in both the Song of Solomon and Mistress and Maid. As such, the text can imbue our experience of viewing this painting, and vice versa.