Dark Dreams: Painful Memories: March To The Scaffold

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As the famous Henry Ward Beecher said, “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures” (Henry Ward Beecher Quotes). Throughout history, noteworthy works of art have often been shaped by the emotions of their artists rather than the physical characteristics of the subjects depicted – as if they illustrated not the reality, but the dreams of their creators. For many prominent artists, these dreams are dark nightmares of painful memories. “The Abbey In Oakwood” by Caspar David Friedrich, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, “March to the Scaffold” by Hector Berlioz, “Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas” by Otto Dix, and “A Thousand Li Of Rivers and Mountains” by Wang Xi Meng are all famous pieces that connect to the theme of “Dark Dreams: Painful Memories”. As you explore this gallery, notice how all the artworks exhibited connect to the same theme in significantly disparate ways.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

March To The Scaffold

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March To The Scaffold is the fourth movement of the Symphonie Fantastique composed by the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. The symphony describes the love of a young musician for a charming woman who he relates to a musical idea known as the idée fixe – a musical melody that constantly repeats throughout the symphony. His memory of his love for the woman is so strong that he continuously thinks about her, just like the repeating melody in the song. In the fourth movement the young musician, when convinced that his love was spurned, poisons himself with opium and succumbs into a horrifying nightmare. He dreams that he is marched to the scaffold for the murder of his lover and witnesses his own execution.

(For the program notes of the Symponie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, go to http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/music/berlioz/berlioz.pdf)

In this piece, Berlioz expertly merged the somberness, fierceness, and magnificence of the musician’s relentless march to the scaffold with the vile nature of his narcotics-induced nightmare. The movement starts with a slow and menacing progression of the lower winds and strings, symbolizing the malevolent drug taking control over the musician’s mind. A triumphant melody is often present during the march, depicting the gloriousness of the march, while heavy drums beat a steady, footstep-like rhyme in the background, representing the solemn and unstoppable progression of the march. The mood of the music regularly alters, shifting from triumphant to majestic to threatening. This regular shift of mood portrays the instable mental state of the drugged musician. Towards the climax, the music build up to thundering chaos as the musician arrives at the scaffold. A few bars of the idée fixe – representing the musician’s memory of his beloved – quietly reappears and is then abruptly interrupted by the blasting decapitation of the musician, followed by two dull thumps of his head falling to the ground. The dynamic music vividly portrays the story described on Berlioz’s program.

The music narrates the nightmare of a musician; hence it connects to the theme “Dark Dreams”. This nightmare is caused by the musician’s memories of a beautiful lady with whom he fell in love. However, since the musician’s love was in vain, the memories of his beloved troubled and pained him; hence it relates to the theme “Painful Memories”.

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If you liked my blog...

If you enjoyed my blog, you may also find Catherine’s blog – Shattered Dreams and Hopeless Desires – intriguing.

Catherine’s gallery’s theme relates in many ways to that of mine. While my gallery Dark Dreams: Painful Memories displays artists’ upsetting dreams/hallucinations caused by sorrowful or disturbing memories, the gallery Shattered Dreams and Hopeless Desires demonstrates the devastation and helplessness people experience when stark reality threatens their hopes and dreams. Both galleries relate to the notion of “ dreams” and convey upsetting senses of loss, regret, helplessness, loneliness, and depression.

Many artwork displayed in the two galleries interrelate. For example, thematically, the symphony March To The Scaffold and the painting The Praying Hands are very similar. Both works displays a hope – a dream – impossible to fulfill; in March To The Scaffold Berlioz grieves for unappreciated love and in The Praying Hands Dürer laments his brother’s disfigured hands that forever denied him the dream of painting. Although the two artists express their sorrow for unreachable hopes in different ways – Berlioz desperately and Dürer delicately, both convey similar emotions of grief, helplessness, and regret. Indeed, the themes of the two galleries relate so closely that both featured the painting The Scream by Edvard Munch. Both galleries relate this painting to their themes due to Munch’s expression of his inner fear, anguish, and hopelessness as a result of his mental illness and devastating childhood, which both connects to “hopeless desires” and “painful memories”.

Also Interesting...

Another interesting outside link to my blog is Aman’s blog The Unknown.

Although the names of the two blogs suggest disparate themes – one about dreams and the other about exploring the unknown – the two art galleries, in fact, closely relate to each other. Indeed, the gallery Dark Dreams: Painful Memories explores the unknown in many ways and the gallery The Unknown displays dreamlike renditions of the obscurities of both past and future. For example, the unique style and background The Scream in my gallery cast a mysterious air on the painting and The Amazement of the Gods in Aman’s gallery portrays a dreamlike scene of a mythical past.

There is a particularly strong concurrence of the presentation of the past – both memories and imaginary scenes of a time long gone. For example, the Gas Pillars In The Eagle Nebula in the gallery The Unknown portrays a magnificent natural phenomenon that a supernova sadly destroyed nearly sixty thousand years ago. While this picture expresses the intriguing nature of an unknown past, it is also a lamentation for the glory and beauty of natural wonder that no longer exist. This is similar to the painting A Thousand Li Of Rivers And Mountains on my gallery in the way that they both lament past magnificence. Caspar David Friedrich’s painting The Abbey In Oakwood also connects to this mourning of the past; further, it connects to both galleries by its link to a dreamlike depiction of a funeral procession and its ominous hint of the unknown. Indeed, this painting is present in both galleries, further relating the two galleries with each other.