Connections/Brooding

My name is Michael Sittenfeld, and I work in the Editorial department here at the Museum. My topic is "Brooding."

Brooding means thinking about something of importance. There's something at stake when you're

contemplating, or wondering, or

worrying. You're trying to figure out just what it is that's important to you.

I'm on the subway almost every day. I daresay that most people are not thinking in the way that these figures are thinking. They have nothing to distract them.

They don't have any devices they can listen to. This is a nineteenth-century scene which cannot be replicated in the twenty first century.

I knew that something very important was happening for at least the woman in the foreground, because of the way that her hand is gripping her child. So much of the meaning of her life and so much of what's important to her is there, in front of her, on her lap.

You know, there are some works where there's no serious thought going on.

This Fragonard, probably the dog is thinking more deeply than his owner.

In contrast to that, there's nothing that plunges us into our own psyche as much as a scene where we have to work to discern the figures in it. It is possible for a landscape to have a kind of brooding quality.

This dark, cold, drafty, damp atmosphere with this illusory vista out of reach

throws you back on yourself. It leads you naturally to reflect on things. It causes my mind to take flight.

Even though this van Gogh is a daytime scene, there's something turbulent going on in the work. The ground around the trunks of the trees seems to be gripping them, almost pulling or holding onto the trees. There's a drama going on in the painting.

Van Gogh was looking out his window from the sanitarium, he was seeing life growing, active, and perhaps even demonic or forbidding or terrifying.

Paintings don't have to have an obvious narrative to tell a story. None of us are living a story that's been written ahead of time.

We're all going through life trying to figure out what we're doing. It's okay to struggle. It's actually an essential, vital part of life to wonder about the meaning of things.

We all pick up on cues from other people. The way someone's eyebrow goes up, the way someone may frown, the tilt of someone's head.

All of those tell you something about someone's thoughts before they are even articulated.

This young Egyptian woman, you can see her mind working. Her eyes have a very direct cast. It's a remarkably respectful and perhaps even affectionate way of showing this woman, who died tragically at a young age.

I'm not naturally a brooding sort. I tend to be pretty irreverent. I tend to see the comedy in things and the incongruous. I'm especially moved by this

photograph of James Joyce. There was so much joy and merriment and comedy in Joyce's writing, and yet this practically defines the word brooding because of his expression, his downward look, he seems to be despairing. At this point, Joyce had many eye operations and was really suffering.

He's holding his glasses and also an eye patch.

In some ways brooding may even be the wellspring of comedy. If you don't think carefully and

deeply about things you might not be able to identify and enjoy those lighter moments and those things that can give you great joy in your life.

It's not good to worry about every single thing. If you don't overdo your brooding, I think it can be a very healthy thing, because

when you're done with your brooding, you've actually discovered things you wouldn't have discovered otherwise.

The key for me is to think in a sustained and deep way. Life is richer and more

rewarding if you do that.