tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post2287015169867694813..comments2024-03-28T19:56:32.848-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `The Poetry of Sheer Loveliness'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-44764183481712460072012-03-07T05:48:35.651-06:002012-03-07T05:48:35.651-06:00Calling a painter a poet is an interesting concept...Calling a painter a poet is an interesting concept, like calling sight hearing. “Ut picture poesis,” [As is painting is poetry] says Horace, following Plato and Aristotle. Wallace Stevens agreed, noting how often painterly details are of interest to poets and vice-versa, concluding “it would be possible to study poetry by studying painting, or that one could become a painter after one had become a poet.” This would make no sense in China, of course, where deciding what part of the work is painting and what part poem requires discernment worthy of the most brilliant scholars. In the West, though, it’s more obscure, as are most discussions of aesthetics. I remember Paul Klee, in particular, being labeled a poet, I suppose because there’s so much literal/symbolic meaning in his paintings not just formal properties. What other names would follow this standard: Goya, Caravaggio, Breughel, Delacroix? Does that mean El Greco, da Vinci, Rembrandt and Courbet are not poets? Of American painters, I think Edward Hopper is the closest to having the sensibility of a poet, in that he calls upon us to see what is not there, the poignant aura coming off of things, the inward human dimension that would get painted over by representations. I see that quality in these lovely Milton Avery paintings as well, the “furious beating” [to quote from a particularly painterly Stevens poem, “Grey Room”] behind the postures. I do also see Matisse, in the colors and distended shapes, but it’s a flintier, more American version of it, keeping its relentless elegance and the styles of a veritable gallery of modernists, from Cezanne to Jacob Lawrence, at a respectful distance. As he got older, though, I do see more of an outright embrace of Rothko’s aesthetic, which is also to my view sublimely poetic, seeking out the purest essence of feeling, unencumbered by all the shapes and distractions we settle for labeling as ourselves.<br /><br />All of this is a roundabout way to say how jealous I am that you live in Houston, where Rothko’s Chapel, his Sistine Chapel, can be seen in all its purple transcendence.WAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10403669322174979974noreply@blogger.com