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It is over twenty-five years since I first heard Richard Wagner’s operatic cycle, “The Ring of the Nibelung.” It is a vast work of over fifteen hours, made up of four separate operas. It takes a long time to become familiar with all of the music; perseverance, however, pays great dividends. “The Ring” is one of the most exciting theatrical experiences; the narrative contains a dragon, a rainbow bridge, nine horses, giants, dwarfs, a magical sword etc... Scenes are set on top of mountains and at the bottom of the Rhine. It is full of treachery and trickery, murders, storms and floods. “The Ring” is a study of power, love and ambition. On top of all this drama, there is Wagner’s sublime music, one of the greatest achievements, I believe, in Western culture. So it provided lots of ideas for paintings. I have immersed myself in “The Ring” over the years in order to find subjects for paintings and attended performances in London, Cardiff, Manchester, Glasgow, Berlin, Cologne, New York, Chicago and Venice. Every time I listen to it on CD or attend a performance, something new reveals itself. At the start of the project, two difficulties presented themselves to me. The first was how to represent “The Ring” without resorting to illustration. The second was how to distil Wagner’s heroic, large scale down to my modest painting scale. I tried therefore to produce abstract equivalents of the sound or personal interpretations of themes and characters and often in a condensed manner, miniature scale. Sometimes one of Wagner’s stage directions inspired the composition of a painting or a dramatic moment or phrase became the starting points in creating the mood of an image. Musical passages helped to suggest colours and orchestral sounds dictated shapes and forms. It was both a rewarding and frustrating experiment. But in the end the paintings stand on their own merit, irrespective of their relationship to Wagner’s music. You don’t need any knowledge of the music in order to look at the paintings - they either work or they don’t.
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© 2007, Gerard Hastings |