A Dance to the Music of Time, 1982.
ageUK mural from Old Age Project
Print size: 200 mm x 800 mm
Mounted size: 390 mm x 970 mm
Includes mount & wrap.
Although created in October 1982, the mural (2.48 x 10.6 metres) relates to Robert Lenkiewicz's large-scale project on Old Age (1979), which benefited from the collaboration of Plymouth Age Concern in identifying suitable sitters for paintings. The mural depicts, on the left, 'elderly lovers' cavorting in dance, expressing the youthful spirits that dwell within ageing bodies. On the right, Lenkiewicz pays homage to Nicolas Poussin's 'A Dance to the Music of Time', painted between 1634-1636. The traditional figures relate to the stages of life, and the four seasons of Nature, with the Roman god of pleasure, Bacchus, in attendance. The figures of Socrates and Albert Einstein, representing the wisdom of age, are rendered in an academic style. The image of Greek philosopher Socrates is from a statue dating from 200 BC, found in Alexandria, Egypt. Einstein was painted from photographs of the scientist taken at his Princeton home in the USA between 1944-46.