Nocturne: Blue & Gold, Old Battersea Bridge, 1872

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (USA 1834-1903)

Oil on canvas, 68 cm x 51 cm

Tate Gallery, London-

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To James Mcneill Whistler
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Under a stagnant sky,
Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,
The River, jaded and forlorn,
Welters and wanders wearily -- wretchedly -- on;
Yet in and out among the ribs
Of the old skeleton bridge, as in piles
Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,
Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,
Lingers to bable to a broken tune
(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)
So melancholy a soliloquy
It sounds as it might tell
The secret of the unending grief-in-grain,
The terror of Time and Change and Death,
That wastes this floating, transitory world.
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What of the incantation
That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore
To take and wear the night
Like a material majesty?
That touched the shafts of wavering fire
About this miserable welter and wash --
(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!)--
Into long, shining signals from the panes
Of an enchanted pleasure-house,
Where life and life might live life lost in life
For ever and evermore?

O Death! O Change! O Time!
Without you, O, the insufferable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!
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William Ernest Henley (Great-Britain 1849 -1903)
The Works of William Ernest Henley
London, 1921
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The Living Room, 1941-43

Balthus (France, 1908-2001)

Oil on canvas, 114 cm x 146 cm

Museum of Modern Art, New York

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The Living Room (1941-43): Balthus

- - - Music meant everything to the father, but his two daughters are sleepy now: one has dozed off on the couch and left the living room a mess: the brown felt tablecloth covers half the cocktail table and the bowl of fruit could tumble at any moment. The younger daughter is doing her best to study composition, but her eyes too are wandering inward; her daydreams are still simple, she thinks of ordinary things: of skipping rope in a schoolyard, teasing a girl friend about the length of a dress, the discipline of keeling in a shelter while bombers fly overhead.

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- - - Mother is still working in the factory, well past dinnertime, and father will be home late, if at all. The piano, which was intended for their lessons and bought at a considerable expense, stands idle in the corner, hardly visible. After the first child was born mother promised father the melodies of Mozart would sweep through the house; now anything vaguely German must be whispered secretly, and the music played is mostly French, some faint impression.

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- - - Earlier today there was a hint this household was not so intact. The older sister held the younger in her arms when she was frightened by a noise, there was the slightest hint of a caress, the reflection of a hand against a thigh. So much tenderness comes forth these days, this should not cause surprise. And when the parents arrive to collapse on that same couch, no words of passion will be expressed. The adults save their purest feelings for the enemy, and all they share is sleeping now, where everything is permitted, and nothing is quite done.

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Ira Ladoff

Palm Reading in Winter

Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1978

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Las Meninas, 1656
Diego Velazquez (Spain, 1599-1660)

oil on canvas

Prado Museum, Madrid

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Las Meninas by Velazques (1656)
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The dwarfs dominate, at least theatrically.
The little princess near the center, illuminated
In her petulant reluctance to pose for yet
Another portrait illustrates an idea of order,
Not the governing parents, the mother and the father,
Philip IV and Mariana of Austria, mere reflections
In the distant mirror in the far places of the paint.
The commissioned artist accepts a royal order
Although he alone governs this pigment territory
Where dwarfs rule and ugliness flowers to virtue.
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We look into the picture to watch a situation,
Into a tall room in the Alcazar hung with copies of Rubens.
The Infanta Doña Margarita doesn't want to pose.
She is five years old and has had enough of paint.
But forces are at work here: the perspective
That holds the room together and holds the Rubens
On to the painted walls. There are triangles
Of people whose duties are enormous, eleven in all.
Velazquez must paint, the ladies-in-waiting,
Las meniñas, must cajole and pass some chocolate
To the princess. The king and queen must
Be that, but here without a single power.
The man going up the steps must go up them.
In the right hand corner, the dwarf Nicolasito
Is stepping on the dog. Another, Maribarbola,
Stares out of her massive face to tell a royal story.
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Her brief finery is the somber opposite of little
Margarita's bright and golden style. She rules
No empire nor ever will, but here she dominates the mind.
Beauty, a dog, and this wizened female
So ugly, so sad, so sufficient to this scene
As to make you wonder at the governments of men.
How detached the painter's glance now that he has
Put everyone in his place and upset the candor of Spain.
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Nancy Sullivan
The history of the World as Pictures
University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Mo., 1965
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Nativity, 1470-75

Piero della Francesca (Italy, 1415/20 - 1492)

oil on board 124 cm x 122 cm

The National Gallery in London

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NATIVITY
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Piero della Francesca
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O cruel cloudless space,
And pale bare ground where the poor infant lies!
Why do we feel restored
As in a sacramental place?
Here Mystery is artifice,
And here a vision of such peace is stored,
Healing flows from it through our eyes.
-
Comfort and joy are near,
Not as we know them in the usual ways,
Personal and expected,
But utterly distilled and spare
Like a cool breath upon the air.
Emotion, it would seem, has been rejected
For clear geometric praise.
-
Even the angel's stance
Is architectural in form:
They tell no story.
We see each grave countenance,
Withheld as in a formal dance,
The awful joy, the serene glory:
It is the inscape keeps us warm.
-
Poised as a monument,
Thought rests, and in these balanced spaces
Images meditate;
Whatever Piero meant,
The strange impersonal does not relent:
Here is love, naked, lying in great state
On the bare ground, as in all human faces.
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-
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May Sarton (American 1912-1995)
Selected Poems of May Sarton
W.W. Norton, New York, 1978
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The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717

Jean-Antoine Watteau (France, 1684-1721)

Oil on canvas 129 cm x 194 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

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The Embarkation for Cythera
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- - - - - - --after Watteau
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The picnic-goers beautified themselves,
And then set sail for Cythera, with jugs
To keep their coffee hot, martinis cold,
And hampers full of music. The water shone
For them that day, and like a street of jewels
Lay between their land and the island.
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-
Their cockle hull was pretty, white and gold
As the Mozarteum, and their laughter picked
Its way, nicely as tunes of proper jump,
From port to starboard, gentlemen to ladies,
And return. They played their cards right, whiling
The day away by smiling and by thinking
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-
Of the times to come, the banquets in the grove
On the antless island of that ancient idol
Love, the girl who rose to be the pearl
To deck them out. Thinking of her, each lady
Fingered her necklace, and sweet music tattled
From the spinet of her desire; each lord
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Touched at his sleeve for the ace he'd hidden there.
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David Ferry (American, 1924)
On the Way to the Island
Wesleyan Univeristy Press, Middletown, Conn., 1960
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The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897

Henri Rousseau, Le Douanier (France 1844-1910)

Oil on canvas

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

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MIRRORS
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- - - - (after a painting by Rousseau)
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Asleep on his side
the boy dreams a gypsy
asleep on his side
who dreams lions,
a guitar, a waterjar
in the desert, and
a stringed moon
awaiting a song
from the long dream of
the boy who sleeps
dreaming a gypsy
who dreams lions,
a jar, and a moon.

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-
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Lola Haskins
Planting the Children
University Presses of Florida, Orlando, Fl, 1980
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Expulsion from Paradise, 1426-27

Masaccio (Italy, 1401-1428)

Fresco - 208 cm x 88 cm
Brancacci Chapel

Santa Maria Novella, Florence

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TO MASACCIO
- - (Seeing his La Cacciata dal Paradiso)
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- - - - - - - -- - - . - -You painted
them as though you too were dispossessed.
You must have seen that place, ringing with birds,
stems growing and sunlight shaking the leaves.
You had to see it once the way it was.
Until, unsure of His own faithfulness,
He began to test the only faithful.
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-
And where it ended, you began. For them.
I watch that naked man become himself,
and Eve, all bone again, woman and pain,
move slowly, human, into their private fear.
Out of the landscape of her mouth I hear
the cry, more terrible than any, being first.
She can't forgive her breasts. He hides his eyes
as a child, blindfolded in a game, still
hides from invisible angels, flaming swords.
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-
Here on a wall in Florence, Maso, dead
at twenty-six, you knew what they knew:
the shape of every wilderness, so many
gardens gone, the animals all named,
the gates guarded. Each of us asking
where is there left to go?
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Shirley Kaufman (American)
The Floor Keeps Turning
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970, Pittsburgh, Pa
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Boy Leading a Horse, 1906

Pablo Picasso ( Spain, 1881-1973)

Oil on canvas

Museum of Modern Art, New York

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PICASSO'S "BOY LEADING A HORSE"
(after the Portuguese of Zilda Mamede)
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It is a naked horse and a naked boy
who have nothing at all in their nakedness
except loneliness shared, and dim destiny.
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No one knows whether the horse mourns the evening,
or if the boy's mourning somehow touches the horse.
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When they draw near they are always withdrawn,
aloof from that evening to which they belong,
(in the grey plane that encloses them).
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If from one or the other comes suddenly
clarion call or lamenttion, we should know
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it is because it is evening for both of them:
The boy's evening comes with the first shining star,
the horse's with the sight of hay --
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Just two in time, more lonely with the dusk.
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-
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Robert Phillips
The Pregnant Man
Doubleday, New York, 1978
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Bacchic Scene, 1627

Nicholas Poussin ( France, 1594 - 1665)

Oil on canvas

Staalich Museum, Kassel

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POUSSIN'S WORLD: TWO SCENES
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Here a young woman with no clothes on, mild,
marmoreal, hairless, handsome, dignified,
decants into an equally undressed child
(too young to walk, yet soon to be pie-eyed)
splashed wine. Elsewhere, one naked nymph, astride
a satyr piggy-back, points a stately hand
out of the picture toward some route implied.
Design, not myth, made it. So the brain-land
Arcadia dreamed in paint. Neither the rose
smelled nor the sweat of actions in this June
of life's sweet counterfeit which art bestows.
Goats, gods, girls, and babies, blissfully immune
to dirt, fatigue, and morals, still compose
their own debauched, cherubic afternoon.
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-
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Richmond Lattimore (American, 1906-1984)
Poems from Three Decades
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1972
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Les Courtisanes, 1948

Paul Delvaux (Belgium 1897-1994)

oil on canvas

Private Collection

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NOCTURNE

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- - - - (after Paul Delvaux)

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A classic landscape

Horizon

defined by walls

lights arcades

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On tiled walks

nudes

sleepwalking

They are cool

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Their mouths

are seafoam

their throats

a whispering in the leaves

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They pass by

staring straight ahead

as if in another

dimension

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one hand touching

the genital rose

the other

brushing aside

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waves of dark hair

Everything here

is asleep

houses in the moonlight

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trees birds fountains

sleep

waiting for a cry

that never comes

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William Pillin ( American, ? - 1985)

Everything Falling

Kayak Books (N.E.A.) Santa Cruz, Ca, 1971

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Autumn in the Village

Marc Chagall (Belarus, 1887-1985)

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-

NOTES FOR MARC CHAGALL

--

Under the kissing trees

boys and purple chickens

run through old dandelions

(a world of grandmothers).

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The town clock sports a red face

and a mouth full of grapes.

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Midnight: tents are being pitched

beyond cornfields and castles.

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Restless in warm vineyards,

between black bread houses,

peasant girls with circus thighs

cry in the wings of lilies.

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Dave Etter (American)

Go Read the River

Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1966

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Pietà, 1498-99
Michelangelo (Italy 1475 -1564)
Marble, 174 cm x 195 cm
Basilica di San Pietro
Vatican

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PIETA

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Michelangelo:

How could you have known that day

The boulder before you

Held such Glory?

How could you tell

That from that single block

What was there waiting?

Did your eyes see where others failed?

Did your hammer know where to strike?

Did your chisel tremble just a little

Before the fisrt blow?

How could you know

That, from hidden deep within,

They would appear to you;

That you alone could release Them

For the world to worship?

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-

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Nancy Bradberry (American)

Saint Andrews Review, n. 36, 1989

Laurinsburg, NC

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Portrait of a Man (believed to be a self-portrait)

Andrea del Sarto (Itália, 1486 - 1531)

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THE MASTER HAND

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Written before Andrea del Sarto's Portrait of Himself

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The master hand lifted the brush, and lo,

-- Colour and light took form at his command,

When Death struck down with an immortal blow

-- - -- -- -- -- - The master hand.

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A heap of clay becomes a heap of sand,

-- The mad, tumultuous centuries bestow

Laurel and dust to sweeten Death's demand.

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Dust chills desire, and laurel lieth low,

-- But art's eternal hills triumphant stand --

Whose summits feel in one long afterglow

-- - -- -- -- -- - The master hand.

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Ellen Glascow (American 1874-1945)

The freeman and other poems

New York, 1902, Doubleday

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Ma Yuan (China 1190-1129)

Metropolitan Museum, New York City

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-

- BEFORE A PAINTING BY MA YUAN

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Caught in an eternal moment, they move serenely through time

Two sages gazing at the wonder of morning.

Aware of themselves, of spray on their faces, cloud and sun intermingling.

Sound of water falling without ceasing,

As words of their verses fall into the cadence of their mood.

As the air holds fragrance of earth, fern, pine and flower.

They do not see me as I stand on their terraced mountain,

Feeling the cold, cloudy mist from the waterfall,

Knowing the hidden stream below, that receives

The rushing waters in the rockbound gorge,

Listening to birsong bright as the glittering drops that sprinkle

The stones of the terrace: yet I see the very texture of their garments,

Breathe the sweet odor of pungent pine.

The massive white stem sends out dark branches,

Throws at my feet its polished purple seeds, pagoda-shaped.

Vibrant and free, the fragile bamboo delicately waves...

Is it in the wind of my arrival?

When will the teacher turn his grave glance upon me?

In what age shall I share the thoughts of his pure heart?

I shall wait here forever

Until the sage bids me approach and listen.

In this scene I have a part.

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-

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Mary Kennedy (American)

Ride into Morning: poems

New York, 1969, Gotham Book Mart

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For more information on Ma Yuan:

http://www.metmuseum.org/

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Lascaux, cave painting

-

=

THE ROCK-WALL AND THE MEADOW
(complete text)
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Lascaux
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I. Dead Bird-man and Dying Bison
-
Thin body that had imperious enthusiasm,
Now perpendicular to the wounded Brute.
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O killed without any pity!
Killed by what was all and, reconciled, is dying;
He, the abyss sancer, spirit, yet to be born,
Bird and perverse fruit of magics, cruelly saved.
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II. The Black Stag
-
The waters spoke on into the sky's ear.
Stag, you and you and you have crossed millennia, the space
From rock darkness to the air's caresses.
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The hunter driving you, the genius seeking you --
How, from my broad shore, I love their passions!
And if their eyes were mine, at the instant when I hope?
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III. The Beast Not To Be Named
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The beast not to be named closes the march of the dainty
- - herd, like a comic Cyclops.
Eight jibes make up her finery, share out her folly.
The beast belches a prayer into the country air.
Her stuffed and sagging flanks are hurting, will
- - soon rid themselves of their bigness.
From her hooves to her vain tusks she is muffled in stench.
-
This is how, in the Lascaux frieze, to me appears,
- - mother in fantastical disguise,
Wisdom with her eyes full of tears.
-
-
-----
René Char (France, 1907-1988)
Poems of René Char
translated and annnoted,
Mary Ann Claws and Jonathan Griffin
Princeton, 1976, Princeton University Press
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For more information:

On René Char: http://www.poemhunter.com/ren-char/biography/
On the translator, Mary Ann Caws: http://www.maryanncaws.com/index.php
On Lascaux Cave paintings: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/


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Raphael Sanzio (Italian, 1483-1520)
The Sistine Madonna, 1513-1514
The Sistine Chapel
Vatican City
Rome

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-
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ON FIRST SEEING THE SISTINE MADONNA
-
-
As gentle rain that has been long delayed
Blesses with priestly hands the sickly earth,
Giving to tree and flower the new birth
For which a pious peasantry had prayed;
While in ourselves an evil dust is laid,
And on the heart that suffers drought and dearth
A shower falls, and life regains its worth,
As all vexations of the spirit fade:
So, Virgin with the vision in your eyes
And all of human kindness in your arms,
At sight of you my worldly worry dies
And vain imaginings are my alarms.
You come to me with healing in your wings,
And I too dream unutterable things.

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-

Donald Parson (American)
Glass Flowers
Boston, John W. Luce, 1936
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For more information on the Sistine Chapel:

http://mv.vatican.va/

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