Oubliette
From Wikopedia:
An oubliette (from the French oubliettes (noun plural)) was a form of dungeonwhich was accessible only from a hatch in a high ceiling.
There’s an image of a painting in my head that matches that definition of “oubliette”, and I’ve been looking for it all morning. If anyone knows what it is, please email me, virginia @ charlottesville.net. It’s a dark room, with the walls and floor all at skewed angles, similar to Van Gogh’s chair.
Van Gogh’s “Chair”, 1888; oil on canvas, 91.8 x 73 cm, National Gallery, London
In fact, I kept searching Van Gogh, because I was sure that the painting was one of his. While searching through the multitude of images relating to Van Gogh on Google, his Gauguin chair was brought to my attention…
Vincent van Gogh, Gauguin's Chair, 1888; Oil on canvas, 35 � x 28 � in., van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Vincent van Gogh Foundation
If the description by the National Gallery of London is true, it is an interesting look into Van Gogh’s image of himself…
This work was painted while Van Gogh was working in the company of Gauguin at Arles. It was retouched early in 1889. Van Gogh painted a companion picture of Gauguin’s armchair, shown by night, now in the Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam. The two paintings may have been intended to represent the contrasting temperaments and interests of the two artists.
As I continued my search for this unknown painting of a room by Van Gogh, I found Cafe Terrace at Night, which I had not seen in a long time and am so glad to have found it again.
Vincent Van Gogh, Cafe Terrace at Night, 1888; oil on canvas, 32" × 26", Kroeller-Muller Museum, Otterlo
Wikopedia discusses the painting and quotes a letter that Van Gogh wrote to his sister after he had completed this painting…
On the terrace there are small figures of people drinking. An immense yellow lantern illuminates the terrace, the facade, the side walk and even casts light on the paving stones of the road which take a pinkish violet tone. The gables of the houses, like a fading road below a blue sky studded with stars, are dark blue or violet with a green tree. Here you have a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated area colours itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot. Normally, one draws and paints the painting during the daytime after the sketch. But I like to paint the thing immediately. It is true that in the darkness I can take a blue for a green, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since it is hard to distinguish the quality of the tone. But it is the only way to get away from our conventional night with poor pale whitish light, while even a simple candle already provides us with the richest of yellows and oranges.
At this point, I realized that the painting I am remembering is not by Van Gogh. The painting I keep seeing is very dark, and a simple dark room by Van Gogh would still be filled with color. I’ll find it one day. In the meantime, this photograph adequately describes oubliette for me, though I’m taking liberties with the window… all definitions from authoritative sources describe an oubliette as a dungeon with access only via a trap door.
My search for this visual description of an oubliette actually began with a search for images of Lukasas. Of course, the search for photos of Lukasas began as I continued research into objects with symbolic meaning, a search I began last week. My list of objects with symbolism started with “talisman”. Other words on the list include mandala, mantra, icon, mojo, rabbit’s foot, star tetrahedron, and weather charm. Then Robyn in South Africa (Art Propelled) wrote a post that referenced Lukasas. This is one that is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC…
Memory Board (Lukasa), 19th–20th century; Democratic Republic of Congo, Luba; Wood; L. 21 9/16 in. (54.77 cm); Collection of Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Part of the description of Lukasas at the MOMA site…
Lukasa, or memory boards, are hand-held wooden objects that present a conceptual map of fundamental aspects of Luba culture. They are at once illustrations of the Luba political system, historical chronicles of the Luba state, and territorial diagrams of local chiefdoms. Each board’s design is unique and represents the divine revelations of a spirit medium expressed in sculptural form. While many lukasa utilize a system of denotation based on masses of shells and beads affixed to their wooden surfaces, this example communicates its content through incised designs and images carved in relief.
While googling Lukasas, I found The Museum of Dust, which is described as “Providing sanctuary for the misplaced, the forgotten and the misbegotten since 2006.” The author had placed a Lukasa in her oubliette. She has not written since January, so her Museum of Dust is collecting lots, I guess. I liked her 2nd Lukasas photo better than the one on the MOMA site..
Lukasas, unattributed photo found on museumofdust.blogspot.com
My favorite that I’ve seen so far, though, is the one that Robyn has on her site…
Lukasas in collection of Robyn at artpropelled.blogspot.com
While I was happy to find several photos of Lukasas, I was intriqued by the idea of an oubliette. The way the word was being used at the Museum of Dust made it sound much less ominous than the dungeon with the trap door. So, I went searchingfor a friendlier oubliette. I found another, but I found some sadness when I found it. This other definition comes from a woman named Mira. Mira writes a blog called The Oubliette. Mira’s definition is…
..a little place of forgetting. A small, windowless room where someone is locked away, forgotten, left to go mad.
Mira further describes her blog in terms of this oubliette…
This is my personal place to rant and rave like the lunatic I am, my oubliette. It’s dark, quiet, and I come here to forget about things. Or maybe to remember them. After all, where does insanity end, and insight begin?
Mira has good reason to rant. Mira describes herself in brief as:
a thirty-something painter, photographer, andwriter living with Crohn’s Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Multiple Sclerosis, or what I call the Autoimmune Trifecta.
She describes herself in detail here (worth reading, in my opinion).
After reading the detailed description, I visualized a different oubliette than the dark-room-with-window above or the painting-I-can’t-find that’s in my head.
I’ve been complaining a lot lately. Complaining about health issues. I’m certainly 25 pounds or more heavier than I should be, I’ve quit smoking, I’m 51 years old, and I’m one of those women who is suffering the worst that menopause has to offer. And I’m pissed off about it. And now I’ve found Mira. I know in my heart that our own, personal circumstances belong to each of us individually. I know that even though Mira is suffering a great deal more than I, it doesn’t stop my suffering. I have begun to take my pain and discomfort into my own hands and do something about it… at least, I have begun making an effort through research and follow-through. It will be several months before I know whether my efforts are effective. But, I can stop complaining. Today.
I’ve been in what I call an “art void”. I’ve been working like a trojan on a bunch of small things for C’ville Arts, for the holidays. Things like this…
and this…
and this…
Actually, there are 5 small tables, and there’s a sixth I’d like to complete before I begin grouting all of these objects. I also have a small frame commission for the nice local couple who keeps givingthem to their friends’ children for wedding gifts. And all of this cranking-out-sort-of-mosaicing/decorating/whatever-one-may-wish-to-call-it… Making all of these beautiful objects. 
… has kept me thinking. So have talismen, manadalas, mojo, and Lukasas. All of my crystals and very-special-stones are tucked away in drawers in my upstairs studio. It’ll be time soon when I’ll be ready to open up those drawers and unleash a whole lot of good energy.
Like Mira, I have a place that I keep private thoughts and personal struggles. I share some of those here, which means, I guess, I open the trap door of my personal oubliette now and then, just a bit of air-ing out. I wonder what the inside of a liver looks like. All of that negative energy - all of the toxins that get filtered through the liver. Amethyst will be the first drawer opened. I think I need to make a little something for me.
I do find that opening the door of my oubliette periodically sends out energies that become absorbed into my work. It’s as if I am taking negative thoughts, emotions, and realities, exposing them to good energy, and then recreating them into positive elements which find their way into my work.
I’ve spent the day working on this entry, and I need to get some physical work done. I’ll end the post with two funnies that I found while looking for Lasakas and meanings of words by way of Van Gogh…
Giant Van Gogh in Goodland, Texas; A 24 by 32 foot reproduction of Van Gogh’s “3 Sunflowers In A Vase” on a 80 foot steel easel is created by Cameron Cross in 2001 as a part of The Big Easel Project.
There’s a blog titled Tracing Vincent (http://tracingvincent.com) that posted this photo in April ’08. This special balloon in the shape of Vincent van Gogh was designed to honor the 150th birthday of Vincent van Gogh.
Filed under: Hope series, change, creative process, gathering, growth, layers, mosaic, thoughts on October 27th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
