Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky
Series
10. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
48" X 60"
Acrylic & Oil on Canvas
Listen
Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle Explained
With Permission: 2024 Canadian National Brass Project, Recorded at St. Anne's Church, Toronto, ON Aug 29 - Sept 2, 2016 canadiannationalbrassproject.com
Narration by: Sam Rosenthal & Michelle Piller
Narration by: Sam Rosenthal & Michelle Piller
Viktor Hartmann’s lost sketch of two Jews, one rich and one poor was given as a personal gift to Modest Mussorgsky, who later transformed it into a musical quarrel. Goldenberg’s weighty voice stands against Schmuyle’s quick, needling reply, a tense counterpoint of contrast and interruption.
Paula Arciniega hears in this opposition something larger than two figures. It becomes an inner dialogue, assurance set against doubt, light against shadow, a rhythm that moves through every human experience rather than belonging to social class alone.
Arciniega gives this counterpoint symbolic form. The triangle marks the fragile balance between self, others, and the body. The sphere gestures toward a larger cycle of belonging and return. The Fibonacci spiral binds them, suggesting that even conflict unfolds according to patterns of hidden order. Within these forms, time feels eternal. The dialogue does not resolve, but repeats, voices trading dominance, returning again and again as variation rather than verdict.
What began as contrast becomes meditation. The painting holds conflict not as division, but as a necessary movement within a shared and ongoing human song.
Paula Arciniega hears in this opposition something larger than two figures. It becomes an inner dialogue, assurance set against doubt, light against shadow, a rhythm that moves through every human experience rather than belonging to social class alone.
Arciniega gives this counterpoint symbolic form. The triangle marks the fragile balance between self, others, and the body. The sphere gestures toward a larger cycle of belonging and return. The Fibonacci spiral binds them, suggesting that even conflict unfolds according to patterns of hidden order. Within these forms, time feels eternal. The dialogue does not resolve, but repeats, voices trading dominance, returning again and again as variation rather than verdict.
What began as contrast becomes meditation. The painting holds conflict not as division, but as a necessary movement within a shared and ongoing human song.
I experience this piece as an inner dialogue. One voice speaks with certainty and strength, the other whispers doubt, restless and insistent. They trade places without warning, light and shadow moving through me in turn. The triangle marks my place among others, the sphere the larger cycle that holds us, and the spiral the way struggle can still unfold with grace. What remains is the knowledge that this dialogue is not fleeting, but a lifelong rhythm, one that asks not for silence, but for the capacity to hear both voices and hold them in love.– Paula Arciniega
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