At the beginning of this month I wrote of the bumper crop of archive poems for November. Here are the last few from the files of 2012 and 2013: A Bequest of Wonder, a poem inspired by a painted banner of Chinese silk, a Chinese artist’s portrait and two detailed Shunga prints. I do. Do you?, in which all the anticsContinue reading “Gazing, as we do”
Tag Archives: artist
War through a painter’s eye
Sometimes I write material other than poetry. Here is an extract from a recent article I wrote about a young man who served during World War I. He had worked as a graphic designer and was fond of reciting poetry. “Even his father was surprised when Julian Gould enlisted in 1915. Gould had gone toContinue reading “War through a painter’s eye”
Pictures in the sky
“An Artist Works” was inspired by Constable’s cloud study dated ‘evening, 31 August 1822’. The English painter produced these close observations of the skies during 1821 and 1822 in Hampstead, North London where he spent his summers in the early 1820s.
Rooftop Thoughts
From this time last year: an essay about a painting of Covent Garden rooftops. The image triggered a series of personal memories about school art history lessons and my ‘London Granny’.
Puckish Paintings
Last year I had one of those “I’ve made it!” writer’s moments. I was offered a paid writing gig on one of my favourite topics: art. I had the privilege of exploring the work of contemporary Swedish artist, Per-Inge Isheden, whose “puckish paintings” loosened my essay muscles. Read the full written article here, or sit back and listenContinue reading “Puckish Paintings”
Degas’s Business Card
The truth-teller draws from a pocket the laminated slide of mm 85 x 55. You read – it turns pellucid. Through the foramen you see the blade that cuts a lover’s sup and dulled lime drunk alone in place of absinthe’s sleight of bliss. Here life ferments and the contact details for the artist sitContinue reading “Degas’s Business Card”
A Bequest of Wonder
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,Continue reading “A Bequest of Wonder”
An Artist Works
Evening, 31 August 1822 Above, the ungraspable in grey or white or sometimes black, I read now is wrought of Forms, this water overhead. What Science seeks to calibrate quickens my palette, hand and knife and revives my boyish eyes to see pictures in the sky. — The series of cloud studies painted by JohnContinue reading “An Artist Works”
Beaded Quill 