Verweile doch, du bist so schön! - Aspects of Love

When I first encountered this painting "Anna's Light" by Barnett Newman, I was absolutely enraptured by it. Though there was a barrier in the museum preventing me to get too close, my feet had to rest there but my upper body was without me noticing bending forward to reach this light. Oh, blessed Barny to have known such love, no need to tell me who Anna was...

The painting "Prometheus Bound", whose scan is below, was the first of Barnett Newman's I've ever encountered. It was screaming on the wall, I was overwhelmed. Barnett named after Baruch Spinoza, who believed that there is no seperation between spirit and matter, had truly enclosed part of his spirit inside the matter of his painting. For why would people, me and a woman, who guarded the retrospective of Newman's works at Düsseldorf, lie in each others' arms, wheeping, sharing our deepest feelings?! This was also the painting I was standing in front, when another guard at the same exhibition, probably getting nervous at me standing for almost a quarter of an hour in front of it, got behind me and suddenly screamed out: "Come, come, there is something! I've seen it!" The exhibition had been on for several weeks ...