Category: Poems from Paintings

Children often seem to be a focal point of the paintings that I chose. I have already mentioned the joyful girl in Balla’s Young Girl Running on a Balcony and the frightened, mute boy in Chardin’s The Governess. Here are a few more examples. De Chirico’s ominous The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street portrays … Continue reading “6. Children in paintings and poems”

So many painters, I found, wonderfully capture in paint the grace, ferocity or fidelity of animals. I was greatly taken with the faithful lion in Antonello Da Messina’s Saint Jerome in his Study. It is pictured in dark silhouette, ignored by its former saviour who is engrossed in spiritual exploration as he pours over his … Continue reading “7. Animals in paintings and poems”

Rich, lovely or desolate, fields harvested by men, gardens that recall Eden, untouched wilderness – so many landscapes in paintings seem as vivid as any we encounter with our five senses! Monet in his delicate Water Lily Pond with Japanese bridge gives us “Air, light, water interwoven In this unearthly garden Under a hovering heaven.” … Continue reading “8. Landscapes in paintings and poems”

The tensions, doubts, hopes, despair or joy that we feel are powerfully explored in many paintings. Even as I seek to find the words to express these, I realise that I am intruding on wordless mysteries. Dali’s strange The Hand of Remorse shows how “Words strain, crack, break, under the burden” (T.S. Eliot). My lack … Continue reading “9. States of mind in paintings and poems”

Let me begin with an indefinable desire for love’s fulfilment in Bonnard’s The Open Window. The setting for the girl’s new “burning, yearning fire” seems to me subtly and delicately to embody her fragmentary dreaming: “Pillowed by one soft hand, she dreams Of flying over billowing trees to follow The dazzling golden gleams, Loosed arrows … Continue reading “10. Love in paintings and poems”