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Tag: John Keats

February 11, 2017

“Is Art Truth?”

paradise-jpglarge

  “Paradise” 

        Hieronymus Bosch

                   __________

“Is Art Truth?“, a friend asks after speaking of 
its benefits, “Art accepts and tells the truth-Is
that it ?“, she inquires, wonders

art, like truth itself and beauty, is in the eye 
of the beholder, I submit, and therefore my 
definition is, once again, entirely personal, 
though I’ve rigorously plumbed it

it requires background

art died for a thousand years, it was 
essentially unrecorded, dormant from 
the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, nor 
promoted but for Catholic purposes, 
hence the majestic cathedrals and the 
magisterial altarpieces, works produced 
by, however, communities until eventually 
certain artisans were recognized as more 
inspired than others, and given autonomy

enter Duccio, for instance

in time these new, necessarily idiosyncratic
perspectives – see Hieronymus Bosch, Dante
Alighieri – dominated, veering in their search 
for truth in their art and beauty – selling points,
incidentally – towards less strictly orthodox 
utterances

see above

art, and its contemporary science, were 
chipping away at ecclesiastical dogma

till God died, and artists continued their 
prescient march forward, shaping our 
zeitgeist, our spirit of the times, with 
their pronouncements for lack of any 
other guides

but the voices grew personal, see Mozart, 
often profound and prophetic, see 
Beethoven, till the confluence of disparate 
realities gave us secularism, each soul for 
itself as a tenet, a credo, a belief, a truth

what did they have in common

I believe it was their quest for beauty 
through truth, their quest for truth 
through beauty, with a nod here to 
the salient Keats 

art is prayer, a search for, as well as a 
manifestation of, one’s personal 
identification with the sacred

it is not truth, it is not beauty, it is the 
fervent intention itself, linked with a 
correspondent workmanship, craft, 
which inspires 

see for instance van Gogh for this, who, 
remember, nevertheless shot himself, 
artists are mortal, merely, messengers, 
ever, therefore, fallible, unsure, fearful 
even, often, of their, perhaps 
Promethean, fire

for consolation, or even maybe 
transcendence, see again,
pertinently here, Beethoven  

listen

Richard

psst: thanks, Joan

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October 4, 2013

blog alert: “Wild & Precious Life”

wherein “Wild & Precious Life” describes herself 

 
     “My love for poetry is simple but at the same time, hard to
      explain. I was drawn to it from an early age however, with
      questionable motives. In my young eyes, the appreciation
      of poetry personified sophistication, poise and intelligence.
      And so I became that nine year old reciting lines from Dylan
      Thomas poems even though I had yet to live enough life to
      truly understand the deeper themes. But I continued my
      poetry admiration, convinced that I looked wise beyond
      my years. Believe me,  the irony of it is not lost on me now……
 
      And then those life experiences that one needs to truly
      understand poetry came knocking, and at times pounding
      on my door. Some were welcomed but many were not, but
      with them came my true love of poetry.
 
      I now read poetry for a simple and unequivocal reason – it
      makes me feel connected to something tangible but at the
      same time larger than myself. When I am sad, overwhelmed,
      lost, lovelorn, confused, I turn to it. I’ll read a beautiful
      composition of words and suddenly realize that I am not
      the first or last person to feel such things and that calms me,
      gives me hope and makes me feel gratitude.
 
      That having been said, this website is a simple collection of
      beautiful words. They are poems, quotes, lyrics and excerpts
      that have resonated with me. They are words that have made
      me smile, laugh, cry and sometimes simply take pause. I hope
      you enjoy the website, lovingly titled [Wild & Precious Life] –
      the closing lines of [Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day]: 
 
 
                  Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
                            Tell me, what is it you plan to do
                  with your one wild and precious life? “
 
                                 ___________________
 
 
 
what I needed to reply
 
 
      coming from a small town in the middle of
      nowhere, I aspired even then to discover
      what the rest of the world was thinking,
      admired, why had literary giants become
      legends, even archetypes, what were the
      parameters 
 
      poetry ever however seemed especially
      sterile, odes, for goodness’ sake, on 
      Grecian urns, I ask you, I, a budding
      person before the unfolding world
 
      abstract art too was pretty questionable, 
      though I persisted, diligently probing 
      afield for convincing, manifest, arguments,
      the world couldn’t be so wrong
 
      until here and there a bud would blossom,
 
      I now read poetry just to find out what
      other hearts are thinking    
 
      some say quite wonderful things   
   
 
      ever the best 
 
      Richard 
 
      psst:  I’ve subscribed, by the way, to your 
              “Wild and Precious“ adventure
 
               many thanks
  
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
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February 9, 2012

“The Connoiseur” – Norman Rockwell‏

The Connoiseur - Norman Rockwell

“The Connoiseur” (1962)

Norman Rockwell

____

serendipitously trolling Rockwells after sensing his spirit in a
poem I’d just been reading I happened upon this marvelous
piece, an homage of course to Jackson Pollock, perhaps the
most successful of the Abstract Expressionists

but lurking behind the obvious surface of this painting it was
easy to recognize also another glaring, though not as explicit
maybe, tribute, misted perhaps by the transformational
permutations of context and time, wherein a seed becomes
a tree, a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, to no less an iconic
masterpiece than Caspar David Friedrich‘s “Wanderer Above
a Sea of Fog“, the work we just, a blog or so ago, explored

both look upon their own idea of a new horizon

and a Pop Art stab at an Abstract Expressionist through a
High Romantic is a cute trick, witty, wonderful, wise

it’s an easy step to a literary counterpart from there, Keats’
“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” nearly automatically
comes to mind, another iconic Romantic new dawn

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Beethoven, were I to go to music, is always, especially in his
later works, contemplating new dimensions, new worlds, he
more than any other composer is a metaphysical explorer

maybe also Pink Floyd

who’ve taken me to their own also exalted musical galaxies,
awesome commanding perspectives, transcendental heights,
to my own “wild” indeed “surmise / Silent, upon a peak in”
my version of “Darien”

Richard

psst: Chapman’s “Homer”

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