Some rain must fall – this line from a poem I read at school occurred to me as I was finishing an abstract painting. And led me to come up with the name for my new piece. This blog looks at the painting and the poem inspiring the name.
Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
The Painting
I had been working on a new acrylic painting. Using a square canvas, and thoroughly enjoying myself as usual listening to music while I worked, I was using a trowel and scraper to create a textured surface. I have talked before about how much I enjoy working with unusual tools to create my paintings.
But the colours I had chosen were quite bright and breezy. Blue, pink, purple with suggestions of white and green were interlaced with a deep gold scraped onto the surface. It was very pretty. As I was near completing this painting, I stood back and looked at it. And felt that something was missing. To start with, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
As an abstract painting it worked really well but it was really quite, well, twee? I wanted to do more to it, and in a moment of daring, I took the builders trowel and loaded the edge with black paint and created what looks like streaks of black rain running diagonally down the painting. And it seemed just the right thing to have done. It added a depth and interest to the painting.
Laughing at how adding these black streaks had made me feel that the painting was now finished, I thought of the poem. And in particular the line “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall”. So I named the painting after that line in the poem.
The Poem – The Rainy Day
This is the poem that I thought of, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1842. I remember the discussion in class at school about how this was a metaphor for life. At that age I didn’t really understand what it meant, but as I have got older it makes sense!
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the moldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Does the painting represent the poem? No, that was never the intention. But that element of the painting that was beautiful without fault now has a balance to it. And I think that is what the poem was all about, don’t you?
Where You Can Buy Prints
You can buy prints of my painting ‘Some Rain Must Fall’ at the following outlets:
If you live in Europe you can purchase prints in various sizes and formats from ArtHeroes.
If you live in the United States or Canada, you can buy prints in various sizes and formats and also artistic wall clocks from my Pictorem store – with the added extra of free shipping.
For prints and other times (home decor, gifts and more) with international delivery, go to my RedBubble Store.
Before you go
My name is Dorothy Berry-Lound an artist and writer. You can find out more about my art, and where you can buy prints, at https://dorothyberryloundart.com.
You can follow me on Facebook.
Thank you for reading!
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