Last Candle original collage on canvas

Part of The Last Quartets art series, Last Candle depicts my vision of the last movement of Beethoven's string quartet: opus 130 in B flat major. This is the replacement finale for the Grosse Fuge which Beethoven's publishers compelled him to write because the Grosse Fuge was too hard to play and too hard to understand.

While this collage is a depiction of what I saw listening to this music, the visuals really have very little to do with the music, except for the train. I swear I hear a motif that resembles a train sound, even though trains hadn't been invented yet. Last Candle depicts the idea of life on earth as a simulation. What if we were all acting in a play or playing video games, puppets of either the gods or our own souls? All the fish gods above have their counterpart below: catfish, bass, salmon, trout. In between we have a vast sea of ghostly fish. In a meditation I had on this quartet movement I envisioned Beethoven's quartets as fish: vulnerable creations springing from the ocean of our emotions, music that devours time when our hours have become too painful. This is why one of the fish appears to have swallowed a clock. I also refer to the Grosse Fuge as "the bear in the quartet," so it shows up as a teddy bear swallowed by the other fish. 

All but one candle on the cake has been blown out. This quartet finale was the very last piece of music that Beethoven ever finished. Listening to it, for me, has given me a sublime feeling of surfing between the worlds of life and death, and the candles represent that.

This canvas measures 20x40 inches with a 1.5 inch profile with hardboard attachments on the corners. With the attachments the final measurements are 28.5x46.75 inches. These are glued together with my original colored pencil drawings. All patterns in this collage were designed by me. Comes ready to hang.

This piece is too delicate to ship in any way that I'm aware of, so for now it's restricted to local pick up in Seattle. When purchasing through my website you will be charged shipping, but I will reimburse that when you pick it up. If you live farther away and have ideas for how I could ship it to you let me know! We can work it out.