A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin
Tessa Hadley is an author and a speaker at this year’s Hay Festival (May 26–June 5)
What is it I love so much about this smallish, enigmatic Poussin painting? When I find it again at the end of a pilgrimage through the lovely spaces of The Wallace Collection, it feels as if I’ve arrived at the centre of something: an initiation into mysteries. The four seasons dance in a circle; the painting’s so still, yet full of movement, and Poussin’s glowing, sandy colours are so sensuous. I love the flow of the dance around the circling figures, the melancholy cherubs and musician, the louring sky, Apollo’s chariot cutting a gash of light across the clouds