Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Transported by a picture
Eugène-Louis Boudin, The Beach at Trouville - The Empress Eugenie, 1863. Oil on wood, 34.3 x 57.8 cm.
We enjoyed our Sunday beside the sea. Well, it's not entirely accurate because we also enjoyed our Sunday in central London walking through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. The visit to the seaside was made possible by visiting the exhibition 'Impressionists by the Sea' at the Royal Academy of Arts where we also had lunch. (and then wickedly had tea later at Fortnum & Masons!).
I read some research a few years ago that said if you are stressed, it's helpful to look at a picture of trees for around 5 minutes. The experience even through a picture of trees connects you with nature; its wonderful calm environment is a million miles away from our own busy lives (unless you are an over worked tree specialist or wood cutter!). The connection with nature is calming to our soul. (100 pictures of my own tree photography are on my photography website)
So we perused these wonderful paintings from the mid 1800's and absorbed the atmosphere of the sea, with all the various interpretations that the French Impressionists were drawn to; stormy waves crashing on shore, hauling of boats up the beach, the placid mill-pond calm of a summer day, the new 'modern' seaside resort of late 19th century which attracted Parisians all dressed in their finery to walk the promenade or sit on chairs beside bathing huts.
What captured my interest apart from the wonderful painting was the depiction of expansive skies, the wide horizon of open sea, the distant views of sailing ships as mere specks passing slowly on their way to unknown places. And although we didn't get to breathe the ozone and smell the seaweed, or get sand between our toes or feel the bracing wind pull at our cheeks, we got the 'impression' of being there. And guess what, I found the research about looking at a picture of nature to be equally true to looking at these wonderful sea paintings. In a very gentle, passive way, the 'sense' of being beside the sea had had an effect; we had been taken out of ourselves for a short while.
Naturally just looking at a number of pictures is not the same as getting the real experience. But as a little refresher, an uplifting few minutes or hour, it can be wonderfully reviving. The exhibition featured many of the most famous painters of the period from Monet, Manet, Corot and Boudin who captured so well all those crinoline dressed ladies with parasols on the beaches of Trouville.
