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The Letter 1865-70

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (French, 1796-1875)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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The Letter
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She sits, the letter hovers on her hand.
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Her dress, like her arm, is young and feminine.
She gentles the garden air that she breathes in.
Silence so dominates that it subdues
Even the glowing pigments of the paint.
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The ribbon in her hair is a red flutter.
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Her head is bent, her eyes bend toward the letter,
But do not read it, merely see the whole
Page in its presence, gleaming from his hand.
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Is there a dark anguish in that page's whiteness?
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The letter perches. Will it fly away?
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(Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, 1796-1875)
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Paul Engle (American 1908-1991)
A Woman Unashamed and Other Poems
New York, 1965, Random House
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For more information on this painting:
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http://www.metmuseum.org
http://www.impressioniste.net/corot.htm
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For more information on this poet:
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http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsc550/MsC514/msc514.html
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You can also find me at:
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http://livinginthepostcard.blog.terra.com.br
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http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br
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http://fotolog.com/binkawest
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Benin Bell, n/d

Yoruba, Nigeria

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The Small Bells of Benin

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Here in a Chicago museum, these small bells of Benin,

without ringing, are bringing their charm to a foreign scene.

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The concave cilindrical draping of some

is as prim as the poise of a Quaker maid.

While the rare quadrangular forms of the rest

with their molded latticed designs, suggest

the iron fences displayed.

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In New Orleans, and who can escape

the quaint, spellbound, gargoyle-like

bronze faces that stare from their settings

of thin metal lace?

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I wish I could obtain one of these bells

or even a facsimile, but the formula

to their deft mouldings was lost

and hasn't been quite reproduced or found.

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Margaret Danner (American - 1915-1984)

Impressions of African Art Forms

[no city], Broadside Press, 1968

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For more information on the poet:

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2452/Danner-Margaret-Esse.html

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You can also find me at:

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http://livinginthepostcard.blog.terra.com.br

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http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br

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http://fotolog.com/binkawest

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The Rape of the Sabine Women, 1581-82

Giovanni da Bologna [Jean de Boulogne] Flemish (1529-1608)

Marble Height: 13' 6"

Loggia della Signoria, Florence

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Giovanni's RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN AT WILDENSTEIN'S

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Showing the girl

On the shoulder of the warrior, calling

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Behind her in the young body's triumph

With its despairing arms aloft

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And the men violent,

being violent

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In a strange village. The dust

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Settles into village clarity

Among the villagers, a difficult

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Song

Full of treason.

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Sing?

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To one's fellows?

To old men? in the villages,

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The dwindling heritage

The heart will shrivel in

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Sometime -- But the statue!

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Spiriling its drama

In the stair well

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Of the gallery ... Useless!

Useless! Thick witted,

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Thick carpeted, exhilarated by the stylish

Or the opulent, the blind and deaf. There was a child

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The girl was:

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Seeking like a child the eyes

Of the animals

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To promise

Everything that matters, shelter

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From the winds

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The winds that lie

In the mind,

The ruinous winds

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'Powerless to affect

The intensity of what is' --

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'It has been good to us,'

However. The nights

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At sea, and what

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We sailed in, the large

Loose sphere of it

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Visible the force in it

Moving the little boat.

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Only that it changes! Perhaps one is himself

Beyond the heart, the center of the thing

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And cannot praise it

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As he would want us to, with the light in it, feeling the long helplessness

Of those who will remain in it

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And the losses. If this is treason

To the artists, make the most of it; one needs such faith,

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Such faith in it

In the whole thing, more than I,

Or they, have had in songs.

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George Oppen, American (1908-1984)

Collected Poems

New York, 1975, New Directions

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For more information on:

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Wildenstein Gallery:

http://www.wildenstein.com

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On the poet:

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/oppen/oppen.htm

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You can also find me at:

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http://livinginthepostcard.blog.terra.com.br
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http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br
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http://fotolog.com/binkawest

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The Great Venus Victrix, 1914

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (France 1841-1919)

Bronze Height: 1.80 m

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The Sixth Color of the Afternoon

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--Not long from the sea, Venus

Steps forward to her rock,

In a garden of rainbow flowers.

These elements: a broad-based

Body -- statue aslant

But balanced -- in one hand holding

A half-furled wave, her robe, its rough

Profusion widening,

The golden apple she had won

From Paris fecund in her palm.

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--At that moment of change

To the fourth color of the afternoon

The apple sun had blazed, the garden

Flowers brimmed with light. The old man,

Hand tied to its wand, pointed to faults

Which faded with each gesture, as at creation

Adam was thought and formed.

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--All art

Lies in that hair-headdress, crowning the naked

Woman, rippling, classic, curling

Back to the knot, one scroll escaping;

The bird-wing mouth, inward eye secure.

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--At the sixth color of the afternoon,

We range about her as a mirror --

Her symbol -- and she exists inside our eyes,

Morning star at evening. To the old man

She meant: "This is as it should be. I am here."

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----Written for the presentation of the first casting of Renoir's "Venus" to the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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Barbara Howes, American (1915-1996)
A Private Signal: poems new and selected
Middletown, Conn., 1977, Washington University Press.

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For more information this work:

http://www.renoir.org.yu
http://www.clarkart.edu

For information on the poet:

http://query.nytimes.com/fullpage.html?res=9F03E1D6039F936A15751C0A960958260

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You can also find me at:

http://livinginthepostcard.blog.terra.com.br

http://ameiavoz.blog.terra.com.br

http://fotolog.com/binkawest