Art

  Watercolors Before her was a canvas, white as snow. Beside her, watercolors, bright and clean. For hours, she sat quiet, stared at both. And hours later, still there was no scene. No still life piece contrasting dark and light. No lovely garden Renoir, no Monet. No Autumn Blossoms, nor...

  Caravaggio Light floods the window, spearing glass and Matthew. Leaning forward now, in conversation, he is called. The bright and dark, a holy mass of shadow, plays across his brow. A brilliant moment, somehow stalled in time and needing nothing more to start again. The voice implores the Saint...

  Angel I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set free. —Michelangelo (attributed) One wonders what an angel does all day. Just sit there, wings slack, staring into space? But that assumes space-time is where she’ll stay. A comrade of the host that fell from grace?...

. Michael Michael, heaven’s handsomest, most decorated strategist and highest-ranking officer, having vanquished Lucifer was faced with long-term unemployment. Seeking worthwhile redeployment, this veteran of celestial strife settled for civilian life: as mainstay of the Heavenly City, he now directs the Doom Committee. Hence, before the judgement seat in his...

. In Urbe Hortus ---June afternoon in the South Garden of the Art Institute of Chicago Hard stone and brick, cold glass and steel Shrink behind the canopy Of intertwining leafy boughs Sprawling from each vine-wrapped tree; The roar of engines, rush of traffic, Clamor of the roiling crowd, Beyond...

. The Poppy I walk a poppy universe, I rattle the hourglass’s isles, Where time slows down and turns to hope And I’m a brush that paints for miles. I balance on a single finger; At first all’s white and undefiled. From star to star I jump alone Only to...

. Healing by Heart Dear André, let me see your face And cry out with you to lament The rot of flesh and foul disgrace You suffer, ulcered hands unbent. Your body needs rebirth that’s meant To cure your soul of leprosy: Accept from the Omnipotent Clear light in which...

. In line with its mission to preserve humankind’s artistic traditions, the Society of Classical Poets is featuring the best of artwork submitted recently by high school students. This artwork uses a relatively more traditional aesthetic in an effective way. Note that none of the below featured works utilized artificial...

  Old Man at the River Old man's at the river painting the scene.He's working on boats and feeling serene.Unnoticed, a person's drowning out therewhile scents from the food shacks float through the air.A boat's coming closer, rescue is near.The drowner will live to conquer his fear.The rowboats have oars...

. In line with its mission to preserve humankind's artistic traditions, the Society of Classical Poets is featuring the best of artwork submitted recently by high school students. This artwork uses a relatively more traditional aesthetic in an effective way. Note that none of the below featured works utilized artificial...

. Elusive Illusive Art Where are the pure, illusive works of artthat bubble upward from the deep unknown?Where in this world are worlds Art sets apart? Duct tape? A banana fresh from the cart?Renoir would recoil and Monet would moan.Where are the pure, illusive works of art? A gallery is...

. Horse Figurine —one inch by one point nine inch, 32,000 to 35,000 years before Giacometti's famous horse   A hallowed tiny horse, but missing legs, Comes down to us impossibly, or near In its impossibility.  No dregs Of artistry such items are.  They jeer At us for thinking we are...

. Bright Light, Some City "It's probably a reflection of my own, if I may say, loneliness. I don't know. It could be the whole human condition." — Edward Hopper on "Morning Sun" Why does it matter that the sun has seemedto seek her out as she awakes abovethe morning...

. The 2024 Olympics . I. Excusez-moi, s’il vous plait, But having seen your lewd display, I’ve chosen not to watch your Games; Despite too late, half-hearted claims Attempting to equivocate, As if to merely celebrate The gluttony of Dionysus; And thereby hide your true blasphemous Effrontery. I draw the...

. Mates of the Greats Gauguin the banker thought Painting while married was Quite a nice hobby And so did his wife. But then in Tahiti Paul met with a sweetie And lived on papaya The rest of his life. Pity poor Vincent, he Starved and he painted, and Cut...

. . Peaches, Plums, and the Sistine Chapel . . I. Pondering Prufrock   a pantoum  . The women come and then they go As foggy muzzles nuzzle air. There’s talk of Mike and Angelo. Time strides the beach with hoary hair. . As foggy muzzles nuzzle air On tea and...

. Once the Future You were the future once, not long ago. Your sterile walls of concrete, brick, and glass Outlined in steel, and jutting angles show Scorn for the forms you thought you could surpass. That future now has come---with water-stains, Sun-bleaching, rust, and there a pressure-crack; The vision...

. Carving Fingers "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." ---St. Paul Percy exhales with a scowl and he spits. In his hickory fingers, an obstinate block; in his critical snicker, a grin; on his table, a cup of the bitterest chicory left to go cold, but the...

. Two Ekphrastic Poems . The Light of the World, Holman Hunt As predawn darkness shrouds the land, With warm-lit lantern in his hand The risen Jesus stands before A rusted, weed-choked, shuttered door And knocks, and waits, in hope that he— Before the night has passed—might be Invited in...

. Reviewed Book: Making Music by Sally Cook, White Violet Press, 2012 by Monika Cooper Making Music by Sally Cook is a book that comes with a painting on its cover, a still life no less. Wine-colored drapery adorns a blue bowl with a pedestal stem, the bowl mounded with...

. The Pietà or Mickey Mouse? A book I’ve read depicts a boy Who’s searching for creative joy. His mind can’t focus on a vision, So he’s weighed down by indecision: To carve the rock behind his house— The Pietà or Mickey Mouse? To chip away each chunk of rock...

. Paradise Lost Satan Found in the Modern by Michael Curtis The guardian prince Saint Michael, spiritual warrior, leader of the Army of God, cast into Hell Satan.  And there it is.  Yet, Satan is not content to lay about in the pit of Hell, prideful busybody that he is. ...

. Key West Rum, reeling, raunchiness, and revelry, Palms, poincianas, palaces of old--- All lie behind; the Morro Castle’s hold Guards old Havana past the sparkling sea A half-day’s sail south from this furthest Key; A torrid gap that spans a war still cold, An ocean’s breadth between two worlds---I’m...

. Quattrocento On the Fresco “Madonna del Parto” by Piero della Francesca, Monterchi, Italy, circa 1460 We file into a silent darkened room. Now, a stagelight floods the wall to show bright colors of a rediscovered fresco. Our eyes adapt to preternatural gloom. Twin angels grasp a fur-lined tent, reveal...

. A Picture of Repose A young boy’s seated on a wall that overlooks Capri, an oil painting by Dane Peter Vilhelm Carl Kyhn, where a rock ridge arises over architextured walls, with arches, domes and towers over roof and mason sprawl. The landscape artist captured a sweet momentary peace,...

. Art Freezes Time Great art freezes time when a painting is hung. An image of beauty eternally young. Who painted the pictures that hang on this wall? I talked to the soul that had painted them all: “So few are you great ones who wielded the brush, Once painting...

. Deconstructing Grűnewald’s Crucifixion It isn’t de rigueur these days to show A bloodied, tortured Jesus on the cross. Post-moderns would prefer we came to know Him as innocuous instead of gross. No sympathy allowed, but go ahead And drown him in a jar of urine, mock Him as irrelevant—just...

. Modernism and the Murder of the People’s Poetry and Art In Response to “Poetry Died 100 Years Ago this Month” by Matthew Walther in the New York Times . by Phillip Whidden First, let’s have a sonnet about the difficulty imposed by Modernism as regards literature: . A Sonnet about...

. . On Alma Tadema’s Coign of Vantage Flora peeks over the marble parapet, a dizzying perch above the azure Aegean. The Roman fleet is returning. 'Tis the season to flirt, to catch a lover in her net. Julia and Livia stand close, her bosom friends. Tomorrow they’ll break their...

. See the painting more closely here. Eden The newborn world is all aswirl with beasts Obedient who, as God specified, Have duly fruitful been, have multiplied And claim laid to the garden west to east. Their prowl for food and flesh knows no surcease; With feral instinct so preoccupied...

. The Portrait   I dreamed I was an artist, and had made A likeness of the one I loved for all To wonder at, and, that the homage paid Might grow, I hung it on a trendy wall. It was a likeness, but had subtleties Which left the character...

. Last Letter from Florence A recent incident recalls the fears Your letters have expressed: that seven years In this art-laden place might rob me of Whatever you once thought that you could love: The flat I rent lies halfway up a via Around a bend from Piazza Signoria. A...

. After Observing the Working Methods of a Very Important Artist The aging fool stands deep in dirty water, Cradling the carcass of a native fowl To his bare chest like a tired, suckling daughter. He wears cheap sanctimony like a cowl. With eyes closed tight in solemn meditation, He...

. The Angelus, Jean-François Millet (Musée d’Orsay) How soft across the field the muted peal Has caromed off the setting sun, the air September-ripe, the earth upturned, a pair Preoccupied with what it might reveal, And calls them to a place of mute appeal. He stabs his pitchfork in the...

. Reviewed Book: Modern Art: An Exhibition in Criticism, by Michael Curtis, National Civic Art Society, 2022 by Evan Mantyk On May 12, 2021, a terrible painting somehow sold for $103 million. It depicts a heavily outlined blob reminiscent of a woman in a chair. The painter clearly had set...

. Yet Another Exhibition Opening "Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul." ---Auguste Rodin Although this bourgeois slum is flush with cash, No decent man could ever make the rent; So Thursday nights the galleries present The latest styles...

. . The Hireling Shepherd painting by William Holman Hunt This comely wench was Emma Watkins, she Who sat for Hunt in eighteen fifty-two. Too unaffected she, she never knew What lay beyond the brink, beyond the lee Of innocence. Nor could she ever see The fame at second hand...

. A fabled place adrift in history Which makes the spirit ache for what was lost; A masterpiece destroyed in mystery Then resurrected at a crippling cost; A priceless room of amber! A caprice Of luxe and lavish rococo design--- Of shining tiles rich in royal lore Which speak of...

. The cats are creatures of a liberal kind, For on the laps of commie artists, you’ll find Them. Coffee too you’ll find in their domain, Not to drink so much as to maintain Their fashion, always looking lovely, cool, And to that end they will use any tool. On...

. I This crucifixion hides the anguish. Racked With pain, belied by bloodless hands and feet; Intolerable torments, they compete As muscles in that arching back contract. His hanging head forestalls all eye contact; And here we see Him, harrowing complete, As Pilate meted out from judgment seat Beyond this...