The glass screen in the waiting room for Soins Intensifs stands there, translucently opaque with colored patches visible from all sides. There are tables and chairs, a receptionist in a booth, piles of plastic cups and liter bottles of mineral water to prevent dehydration and a disinfecting kit with instructions--Cantonal Hospital paraphernalia.
The screen is a childlike production, no doubt commissioned to present those who wait with a Positive Pastorale: happy green horseman (no apocalypse), spiral suns, a couple of shepherds with sheep or a goat, stars, moons. A faux primitive frieze, colors glazed in. An undulating sea. Or is it sky? Both? A cow, perhaps a bull, peaceful as Ferdinand. Dove-like birds in French blue, oddly chicken-clawed. Stick-like pine trees. People in affirmative reds. The cows could be blue and the horses green.
The colors have been chosen with post-Expressionist élan:
life can be summed up in poster paint primaries and simplified figures.
Matisse did it, Picasso did it, why not (and I check the bottom right signature) Gilbert Mazliah?
For days a very dear friend was struggling in the ICU.
For days we occupied the antechamber between visits. I couldn't help looking at the screen every day, sometimes skeptically, sometimes with irritation. There it was, with its splash of symbols in happy colors:
too damn cheerful, too....naive!
But it seemed to be saying: look at this world and take heart!
And I heard that.
The screen is a childlike production, no doubt commissioned to present those who wait with a Positive Pastorale: happy green horseman (no apocalypse), spiral suns, a couple of shepherds with sheep or a goat, stars, moons. A faux primitive frieze, colors glazed in. An undulating sea. Or is it sky? Both? A cow, perhaps a bull, peaceful as Ferdinand. Dove-like birds in French blue, oddly chicken-clawed. Stick-like pine trees. People in affirmative reds. The cows could be blue and the horses green.
The colors have been chosen with post-Expressionist élan:
life can be summed up in poster paint primaries and simplified figures.
Matisse did it, Picasso did it, why not (and I check the bottom right signature) Gilbert Mazliah?
For days a very dear friend was struggling in the ICU.
For days we occupied the antechamber between visits. I couldn't help looking at the screen every day, sometimes skeptically, sometimes with irritation. There it was, with its splash of symbols in happy colors:
too damn cheerful, too....naive!
But it seemed to be saying: look at this world and take heart!
And I heard that.
