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The invitations started arriving about a week ago. I’ve received lovely emails about Christmas parties and events from people I know in New York, London and Berlin, and I’m wondering if I can multiply myself for all the holiday fun. Then there are the WhatsApp messages and casual conversations with local friends that now include the line, “Well, if you don’t have plans . . . ”
The year is winding down and, for many of us, that means our productive energy is waning. But it’s also the season for festivities and whether we are in the mood or not, there will be carols wafting through the stores and parties either to attend or to wriggle our way out of.
My feelings are mixed. More than anything, I’d love a week just to sleep. And then another week to process my emotions from this year, in which so much misery continues to play out in the world. But there is a part of me that thinks a good party right now might not be the worst thing. In fact it may be just the reprieve that’s needed: a timely reminder that life can still offer moments or hours of pleasure in the midst of ongoing sorrows.
There’s something mesmerising about the party scene in German artist Adolph Menzel’s 1878 work “The Dinner at the Ball”. Here Menzel captures the brief, mid-19th century economic boom in Germany with a ballroom full of women in extravagant gowns and men in regalia and decorated jackets. The painting glows with a golden hue and crystal chandeliers sparkle under candlelight. Everyone seems absorbed in conversation or bent over dinner plates, wine glass in hand.
Gorgeous as this painting is, and probably quite historically accurate, it’s a party scene that feels almost too sumptuous to be taken seriously. But perhaps that’s what I’m drawn to. In some ways it appears to be the exact opposite of the world we occupy today, one in which the suffering and devastation that both people and the Earth are experiencing seem so great as to almost be unbelievable. It would be easy to make judgments about the society within this scene. But what if we chose instead simply to relish the painting? The canvas is so crowded with people that it feels appreciate one could almost walk right into it and for a brief moment encounter the ball.
Last month I was at a black-tie awards event in New York. The room was end-to-end with gorgeously decorated tables, and beautiful lights overhead. Guests were dressed to the nines. Oprah Winfrey was at one table, as well as poets and writers I’ve long admired. The event fell during an extremely busy and exhausting week for me, and I almost didn’t go. But I recall thinking that I needed to give my mind a break and perhaps refresh my spirit, that I should give myself permission simply to indulge in that invitation.
Maybe sometimes a party is a necessary escape, a distraction from difficult realities but one that allows us to encounter another side of life that is also real: laughter, merriment, conversations that might arouse new thoughts or ideas. If it’s possible, shouldn’t we adopt the delight as well as the despair?
In the 1886 painting “After the Ball” by Catalan artist Francesc Masriera, three women, still dressed in their party attire, fill the frame. Their postures and facial expressions propose that we have caught them in the midst of a small drama. The dark-haired woman in the foreground slouches in a chair, her face downcast, one hand on her hip. Beside her on the floor is a bouquet of flowers; by the look of the strewn petals, it has been violently discarded. The second woman, wearing a floral hat that matches the decoration around her cleavage, bends towards the seated woman as if trying to reason with or console her. And the third friend, who kneels on the tasselled velvet chair beside them, looks on with eyes slightly glazed.
Masriera’s painting reminds us that parties, however luxurious and fanciful, are not just escapes but rather events that occur in the midst of our already complicated lives. And it underlines the fact that no matter our exterior appearances, or the material conditions we exist within, we all have problems that threaten to disrupt any illusion of a carefree life. “After the Ball” acknowledges this constant flow between pleasure and distress in our lives, and that experiencing both states is all part of the human drama.
I love the 1908 painting “A Family Party, Triana, Sevilla”, by the early 20th-century Uruguayan-American painter Francis Luis Mora. Here, two women dance centre stage in an intimate room filled with a tight circle of family members. You can see the smiles on people’s faces as the dancers mirror one another with their bodies and the swinging fabric of their dresses. Streamers thread through light fixtures on the ceiling, and a woman in a red shawl plays the piano in the far right corner. There is a small opening in the tight circle at the very forefront of the canvas, as if Mora left a space for another viewer to combine the family.
It is such a warm image of genuine enjoyment, but what I appreciate the most about this work is the emphasis on family. It makes me think of all the times in my own life that my large Nigerian family has gathered for someone’s birthday or over a holiday or simply because we wanted to spend time together. After all, the best parties are not just about marking an occasion but about celebrating the presence of one another, nurturing relationships with those we love and delighting in the joy of being alive.
enuma.okoro@ft.com
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