What’s in a Title!

What’s in a title? Well everything really and that's the problem with titles, they have the power to attract, fascinate and repell. Sometimes finding a suitable title is easy, it just slips into your head and sometimes you struggle, ending up fighting with the thesaurus and pages of poetical quotations. My nocturne of Bremen's town hall caused a bit of a dilemma and a funny story! 

The Midnight Treasure Chest 

My love of old architecture follows me everywhere and I'm often to be seen stopped in the middle of the road with OMS (open mouth syndrome), for others pointless gawping for me the discovery of something fascinating that I've never seen before! As I mentioned in a previous post '' The Dark Evenings of Autumn'', this painting was done after a visit to Bremen and the glittering evening lights of Bremen’s town hall just gobsmacked me. 

This building has stood watching over nightly Bremen since the mid 15th C and so I decided to call it ''The Night Watchman'', I like the symbolism of the title, its historical roots, and the fact that as we were there there was a tour with the Night Watchman going on. A lovely artist friend of mine asked me if I'd finished my painting and if I had a title, ''Yes, I proudly explained, it’s called the Night Watchman!''. Thinking nothing more of it, I started tidying up my pastels ready to start another painting when I got a message from her, ''I've been searching for over 1/2 an hour and I can't find him! Me, Who? Who can't you find? Her reply ................. the Night Watchman! Where is he?'' 

Soooooo, obviously my proud title was way too far outside the box, so time for an alternative, the Midnight Treasure Chest! Hoping I don’t have to explain this one but if I do  it’s because it looks like a heap of glittering jewels, it houses precious artefacts and in the cellar is the biggest selection of superior German wines in the world, including the oldest cask wine in Germany from 1653! 

Choice of titles is tricky, you can strike a chord with a potential buyer but if someone interprets your painting completely differently then your title can just as easily be off putting, is ''untitled'' the best option? Hmmmm, smacks a little of a complete lack of imagination, doesn't it! 

Just popping up a bit of detail and as for the Midnight Treasure Chest, let's hope it may be off to a new home soon!