When a painting changes your life

Ziad Alkirwy
Nov 5 · 2 min read

When you grow up in a provincial city of a decent size — Malmö, Sweden in my case — you don’t typically look around for other places to live. You know your hometown is no metropolis but it’s certainly large enough to dampen any small town urge to move to Babylon. That is unless you happen to find one of the Boulevard de la Madeleine paintings by Édouard Cortés.

The first thing I noticed was the trees, even before the colour theme and the brilliant way he paints light. Throughout my life, an almost naked tree in late autumn was a miserable sight — a reminder of cold and darkness to come. But here, the leaves glow like golden confetti. This is what good artists do. They force to you to notice beauty where you never thought to look.

The second thing was the buildings and the people, as one. The combination of monumental architecture and the bustle of well-dressed people at ground level felt more inviting than any home or street where I had lived. This scene alone conveyed an entire way of life, far removed from my provincial city.

The questions that followed were inevitable. Are you a provincial person? Could you live your entire life on the side, between the fringe and the epicentre, and be happy? I had to admit that the answer was no. Something had shifted in my mind. Soon enough, I would have to upend my life and move away.

It took seconds.

What is the studied life if not an endless undoing of the knots we gained from childhood and upbringing? These are my attempts at doing just that.

Ziad Alkirwy
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