Happy or Haunted?

May 25, 2014

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived from 535-475 BC got it right: the only thing constant is change. Whether bustling with people or sparsely populated (or even abandoned), places change: Paris  looks much different than it did 100 years ago; Colorado isn’t the same place it was in 1870. Although they are recreating an existing piece, when miniature artists begin a new project they get to determine the atmosphere: is it 1472 with the original occupants in residence or is it the present day? Is the sun shining at high noon or preparing to set for the evening?

Harry Smith, and Kevin Mulvany and Susie Rogers have two very different interpretations of the Palace of Versailles. Smith’s Louis XV study appears as though King Louis XV just stepped out for an afternoon stroll in the delightful gardens. Mulvany and Rogers’s deserted garden pavilion in a long-ago abandoned Versailles is filled with clouded glass, tattered remnants of history, and a foreboding sense of better days gone by. The artists used artistic details to convey two very different, but very wonderful, atmospheres! The artists used artistic details to convey two very different, but very wonderful, atmospheres!

Photo courtesy of Mulvany and Rogers.