The Kelani River - Short Story

 

The idea came to me after seeing Vincent van Gogh's "Stars over the River Rhone". I once printed a "magazine" for fun with my home computer called "Astounding Magazine" and in it, this image appears. It shows stars shining over the River Rhone, with the lights of the city reflecting in the river and two figures in the foreground. As far as I was concerned this painting was the most spectacular painting ever painted, and yet there seemed to be for the most part variations of just two colours - Blue and Yellow. This for me was much better than van Gogh's more famous night paintings like "Cafe Terrace at Night" and "The Starry Night". For me this painting explored areas of the human soul that we only see (and forget) when we dream at night. So I wanted to draw a similar Dream without in any way copying van Gogh's painting.

And so, many years ago I decided to stay in the garden at night and paint the Kelani River till morning. The night was infinitely dark and strange, it seemed that everyone had gone to bed, and switched off all the lights. The road was deserted except for a lone cow and the yellowish light of the distant lamp post in the junction showed that the cow was half asleep, but even that was not clear for cows always look like that. A blue-green firefly, very rare for this part of the country flew and disappeared behind a leaf, which made me aware of the garden.

Overhead there were many strange stars. There was a particularly bright reddish star that didn’t twinkle. Could it be Mars, the one they called the red planet, unfortunately, I could not be certain. Then there was another bright star which for some reason I felt was Venus. Unfortunately my knowledge of astronomy, like so much else was incomplete. But it was ok, for didn't Newton himself say: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." All these thoughts made me tired that I sat down in the garden and couldn’t remember anything after that except the ground felt hard on my head, an annoying cricket made an annoying noise, the smell of grass and once I imagined that the cow was in the garden.

The hoot of an alarm made me jump, and for a moment I was horrified to find that I was not in bed but outside at night. I went to the gate to see what made that noise, and found that it was the siren for the midnight shift of a factory. Then I looked up, god how things had changed. Now it was around two in the morning and the stars were brighter than ever. I couldn't see the Great Bear the only constellation I knew apart from Orion, but I could see a group of prominent stars that curled down and formed what looked exactly like a tail. I wondered whether this was the Scorpio constellation and I still do. And then I felt so energetic that I took a canvas and started to paint and the result was the Acrylic painting I have posted below, along with the "Stars over the River Rhone" painting that inspired it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet. His essays had a strong influence on both sides of the Atlantic toward directing readers and writers to study man's relation to life and social aims. In "Self Reliance" he stresses the importance of sturdy independence in thought and action. "Trust Thyself" he counsels. "Envy is ignorance.....imitation is suicide." Emerson believed in an "Over-Soul" or divine force, that supplies man with revelations of truth and beauty.

The core of Emerson's philosophy was Transcendentalism. His essays are memorable for the many epigrams they contain. Emerson's best poetry is also epigrammatic. His simple, vigorous style inspired other rebels against stale conventions, notably Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. He was a popular lecturer. Though keenly interested in the cause of abolition of slavery and such social experiments as Brook Farm, he was more an observer than an active participant.

Emerson called for an American culture less dependent upon European patterns, and urged upon the scholar these mottoes: "Know Thyself" and "Study Nature." In an address to the senior class of the Harvard Divinity School in 1938 he advised young clergymen to rely more upon intuition than rigid dogma. Some faculty members attacked Emerson as an atheist, and it was 30 years before he was again asked to talk at Harvard.

Though he continued to lecture and write, his creative powers began to fade away after the Civil War. In 1871 friends took Emerson on a trip to California in a private Pullman car. After his return, his mind became increasingly erratic. At Longfellow's funeral in March 1882, he recognized his friend's face but could not recall his name. Emerson died of pneumonia a few weeks later. He was buried in Concord.

In "The Definition of Success", he states the following:

To laugh often and much

to win the respect of intelligent people

and affection of children; to earn the

appreciation of honest critics and

endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty, to find the best

in others; to leave the world a bit

better, whether by a healthy child

a garden patch or redeemed

social condition; to know even

one life has breathed easier because

you have lived. This is to have

succeeded.

Trees - Oil Pastel

 

Oil Pastel - Drawing

Walter Scott

 

Sir Walter Scott, (1771-1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, historian and critic. He was for many years one of the most widely read authors in Europe and America. His stirring tales of adventure brought to life for millions of readers the history of Scotland and England from the 12th through the 18th century. “The Lady of the Lake” (1810), a story of the Scottish Highlands in the 16th century, was the most popular of Scott’s narrative poems, and has been the most often reprinted. Critics consider “The Heart of Midlothian (1818), a novel set in 18th century Scotland and England, the best of all Scott’s works.

Scott’s popularity rested largely upon his descriptions of scenes and manners unfamiliar to his readers, and upon lively action and romantic episodes. He did not plot carefully, and wrote hastily and without revising. As a result, his novels and narrative poems lack unity and forcefulness. Most of his heroes and heroines are unrealistic, and their speech is stilted and trite. Except for some of the short lyrics incorporated in his narrative poems, his verse is second rate.

Scott’s importance is based on several valuable contributions to literary development. He created the historical novel and gave prestige to the novel in general. Among writers he influenced were Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Dumas the Elder, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, and James Fenimore Cooper. Scott was the first novelist to present people of the lower classes as real human beings rather than as comic or sentimentally idealized figures. He was also the first novelist to use regional dialects in a serious instead of a mocking manner.

Sea and Beach - Oil Pastel

 

Landscape bathed in Moonlight - Watercolor

 

Oil Pastel

 

Houses by the Canal - Rough drawing with oil pastel

 

"Sunset by the Beira Lake - Sri Lanka" - Watercolour

 

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish author. He was one of the most versatile of writers. His romantic novels of adventure captured the public fancy as had no British works since Sir Walter Scott’s. Treasure Island (1883), a story of a search for pirate treasure, is the most popular of these romances and one of the best children’s books in English. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), an allegorical novel about man’s dual nature, is a suspenseful horror story that shows psychological insight. A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) is a classic.

Stevenson proved himself a master of the short story in such tales as the eerie “Marheim” and “Thrawn Janet,” the tragic “The Beach at Falesa,” and the fanciful “The Sire de Maletroit’s Door.” His essays travel books, and letters are polished, witty, informative. Stevenson’s writings brought him great popularity during his lifetime, but after his death, his literary reputation declined for several years and he was thought of only as a competent writer of children’s tales. Toward the middle of the 20th century, however, a new critical evaluation of his work ranked him with the great writers of the 19th century.

Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, the son of a prosperous engineer who wanted him to follow the same profession. Instead, Stevenson studied law at the University of Edinburgh. He passed the bar examinations in 1875 but never practiced law. Since 1873 he had been publishing essays in various periodicals and he now turned all his attention to a literary career. Stevenson had never been robust and he began traveling early in life, partly for health and partly for pleasure. In 1888 he sailed to the islands of the Pacific Ocean, settling finally in the Samoan island of Upolu in 1890. There Stevenson bought a large estate he called “Vailima.” He took an active part in Samoan political affairs and wrote extensively.

Stevenson died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. He left an unfinished novel, Weir of Hermiston, that was published as a fragment in 1896. This novel, set in 18th century Scotland, contains some of Stevenson’s most powerful and realistic characterizations. Some critics believe it would have been his masterpiece. Samoan friends affectionately called Stevenson Tusitala (teller of tales). They carried his body to the top of Mount Vaea, where it was buried under this epitaph written by himself :

Under a wide and starry sky

Dig a grave and let me lie

Glad did I live and gladly die

And I laid me down with a will

This is the verse you grave for me

Here he lies where he longed to be

Home is the sailor, home from the sea

And the hunter home from the hill