Within the confines of a silken sheet,
the observers attend upon the temple.
Before it returns to ash and dust,
they light a votive offering.
It is
in a portrait
the thumbnail of the painter’s right hand
the sparse arm-hairs of a samurai
beset by ghosts
the frog at the woman’s feet,
gazing, as we do, as she steps out of her bath
21/11/13
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Yesterday and today I have had the great pleasure of visiting three temporary exhibitions of glorious visual/material culture. I find visual stimuli a great well for my writing and am delighted that today’s poem gives credit to this recent input.
Freshest in my mind are the Shunga scenes, which I saw at the British Museum this evening. Shunga (‘spring pictures’) are erotic paintings, prints and illustrations paintings and prints from Japan.
The last two descriptions in the poem above are drawn from two works on show. I searched for links to the images, but unfortunately could not find these particular ones in the British Museum’s online collection. Possibly they are loan items, or I am in error as to my search criteria. I’ll add a note later should I come across them.
The image with the artist’s thumbnail is “Portrait of Shen Zhou at Age Eighty” (Unidentified Artist, 1506, The Palace Museum Collection, Beijing). Shen Zhou (1427–1509) was a notable painter during the Ming dynasty in China. (You can view an image of the work here.) It was at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum’s Masterpieces of Chinese Painting, 700 to 1900, that I saw the original of Shen Zhou’s portrait. I was supremely fortunate to also see the original of “Auspicious Cranes” (possibly Emperor Huizong, about 1112, The Liaoning Provincial Museum Collection). A reproduction of this image had inspired my poem Twenty Auspicious Cranes in July.
As for today’s poem, I ask for some artistic leeway from the post-colonial theorists and rigorous Asian Cultural Studies scholars. They will have noted two misdemeanours. The first, that I group the creative production of two distinct traditions in one list. Secondly, I overlay the poem with a veil of ‘spiritual East’.
Now I spy two further inadvertent creative devices that may tempt critique. I have compounded the ‘spiritual East’ with the ‘historical Orient’. This imagined benevolent kingdom of the past bequeaths, through its exotic treasures, wisdoms about greater universal truths to the present (read: curious Western scholars or readers). Note the tactility elicited in the poem. We read about silk, ash, dust and light. We imagine the referenced water. Thumbnails, arms and feet are mentioned. Alluded to are the hands as they attend, light offerings and paint. We imagine the form of the woman stepping out of her bath. The poem catalogues wonder through an exploration of sensual (sense) experience and the ‘body Orient’. Here, it is worth cautioning that I am conflating East and Orient at will. Ai me. Edward Said and his followers shudder.
Finally, I suspect not all the images are painted on silk either. Yet, this quintessential fabric of the East sets the canvas.
When I look at the handiwork of other artists, artisans and craftsman across time and cultures, I am frequently drawn in by their attentiveness to those small details like the thumbnail, the arm-hairs and the gazing frog. It mattered enough at some point in time for them to add that observational asterisk to the image. This is what, as an artist, I perceive as a votive offering. I indulgently imagine their bequest of wonder is of a similar sentiment to my poetic attentiveness that declares, Now Here is Something to Marvel At…
P.S. The third exhibition was a marvellous homage to pearls at the V&A. It had my imagination at sea with mermaids, but all that for another post.
P.P.S. I didn’t even mention the samurai.
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Masterpieces of Chinese Painting, 700 to 1900 is on at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 19 January 2014. Tickets: £13,50 with concessions available. Advance booking is strongly recommended. For more information see the exhibition website.
Victoria and Albert Museum details:
Tel.: 020 7942 2000
Address: Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL
Opening times:
10:00 – 17:45 daily
10:00 – 22:00 Fridays
Website: http://www.vam.ac.uk/
Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art is on at the British Museum until 5 January 2014. Kindly be advised, the exhibition will be closed all day on Saturday 14 December and until 12.00 on Sunday 15 December. Tickets: £7, Members free. Parental guidance advised. For more information see the exhibition website.
British Museum details:
Tel. for ticket booking: 020 7323 8181
Address: Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG
Opening times:
10:00 – 17:30 daily
10:00 – 20.30 Fridays
Website: http://www.britishmuseum.org/
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You’re invited to take a peek at my book of selected poems, Shining in Brightness.
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Beaded Quill 
6 thoughts on “A Bequest of Wonder”