Edward Ruscha

The Music from the Balconies, 1984

I was drawn towards this oil painting because of the big beautiful scene it depicted- it felt like Ruscha had created a portal from the gallery space to a whole other world, through this painting. The soft pinks, blues and oranges of the sky hinted that a sunset or sunrise was taking place, which made the scene so serene and wholesome. It felt as if I had entered the painting; I could almost see the grass blow in the wind, and I felt that the scene had surrounded me. After reading the white bold writing on the painting, the scene became tainted. There was such a strong contrast between the peacefulness of the scene and the “noise of sporadic acts of violence.” I believed that the artist was trying to convey how something so natural could be destroyed by violence and that we shouldn’t take it for granted. Ruscha was inspired by J.G. Ballard’s novel ‘High Rise’- a dystopian novel about how the human society in a high rise building becomes driven by primal urges and re-creates a world ruled by the laws of the jungle- and used a quote from his book on this painting. He is portraying the conflict between man and nature by contrasting this quote with this rural scene, a theme that is often found in Ballard’s novels. The strong contrasts in this painting left me feeling lost. It felt as if Ruscha had made up a beautiful world which I became absorbed in and by writing those words, he ultimately ruined it, therefore successfully communicating the damage that man could do to nature and raising caution on this matter.