“Miragem” – 89 x 116cm óleo sb tela / 2006
Where am I right now, I wonder?
“…I do landscapes with what I feel” said Fernando Pessoa.
I often question myself, and am often questioned, too!
Are the paintings cheerful or sad, bright or dark, poetry or music? Do they come from the inside or the outside? Are they paintings conducive to meditation or dreaming?
I think a landscape can be viewed in two ways:
The first is to regard nature itself as the source of inspiration, as the thing we see, measurable and independent of us (real and objective). The second is the poetic landscape, subjective and spiritual, which springs from lived and felt sensations.
In opposition to renaissance art, in which there is a systematic and conscious search for equilibrium between reason and feeling, is romantic painting, where the emotional prevailed over the rational.
Writers, philosophers, painters, musicians, and others, revolutionized the ideas and ideals of the time. In the case of painting, landscapes have gone through great changes since then until the present day. The subjectivity and emotions of each artist are conveyed onto the canvas and each artist paints what their soul tells them and interprets nature in different forms.
I really feel nature quite deeply. It dwells in me as do music and writing.
All that is subjective, spiritual, abstract and mysterious fascinates me. The idea that there must be an explanation for everything, the obsession with concepts, frightens me. Why? What for?
As Oscar Wilde once said, “If you cannot understand my silence about anything will advance the words, it is in the silence of my words that are all my greatest feelings.
I feel that I inhabit this kind of circuit; I take refuge in this silence, in the world of shapes and colours, suggestions and abstractions, of penumbras, shades and lights.
Through painting I can cross the desert, listen to the silence, and find myself again
Catarina Pinto Leite
September 2009.