Vessels and Bells

This afternoon in the rain, I went to the Bowdoin Museum of Art, for the Hopper paintings and was pleasantly suprised by the upstairs exhibit of art from the 14th Century BCE Yangtzi river region of China.

It was their Bronze Age and on display were inverted bells and vessels for washing prior to a sacred ritual. It's a small gallery and in the next room were slabs of carved stone from 900 BCE Nimrud, Renaissance and Mannerist paintings from Europe, and a few Greek amphoras for good measure.

I saw small, dark, elemental landscapes Hopper painted in Maine during summers spent on our coast. There was more impasta and impressi0nist influence, but always the sunlight, shadow and shade and perfect geometric lines of composition.

These images contribute to my sense that I know this place and was destined to arrive here. Lovely/lucky.