Why poets smell like yaks
 

Now that the title got you in here.....

Recently there has been some discussion about the dismal ratio of views to comments in the art forum.

7 - 939
6 - 1,546 really?
4 - 943......

Let's have a little fun with this. I invite all the poet types around here to comment on some of these artworks as though they were poems.

Don't worry about the age of a thread, this forum is very slow, it won't be a bit of trouble for old threads to pop up again.

How about it?

What aspects of visual art can be likened to poetry?

Does a painting have meter? rhyme and off rhyme?

What about imagery in poetry? Visual art is all imagery so how can that be compared?

Can an image be compared to a type of poem, as though it were like a sonnet or a double dactyl or free verse?

Does the phrase "show don't tell" apply? I think it does but is it more difficult in visual media?

Okay, I'll play.

I think The Conversation by Matisse does. The artist in his studio pajamas rhymes with the unyielding tree trunk. His wife-to-be rhymes with more yielding things--the tree's leafy canopy and the ponds.

Well, in the painting above, there's a bit more than just imagery going on--the big ol' NON (French "no") spelled out in the ironwork is definitely a verbal aspect. But that's atypical.

I think compositional allusions might be one equivalent to poetry's use of imagery, in that they compare and contrast things in the work itself with things from other experience. Would Goya's The Third of May 1808 be as effective if it weren't evoking a crucifixion scene?

I'll join in. Off to think about it.

In the past we've had one or two really good cross-over themes - remember the responses to each others' processes?

Let's hope this takes off.

What Matisse says about painting applies to poetry or at least to mine. What does he say? I'll go and find it.

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter—a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.

Devoid, really, of any subject matter at all. That's the stuff!

A aintr fills his canvas with paint. A poet fills his page with words. It doesn't matter what they say so long as they are beautiful words. Or the right words if you like..

Matisse ended up cutting out paper birds.

And wonderful birds they were.Have you seen them? By then he was unable to paint.

Sánchez Cotán's Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber makes a sort of visual sonnet.

The suspended quince and suspended cabbage form the octave, and the melon, slice, and cucumber form the sestet...

or maybe the three roundish items form quatrains, and the elongated slice and cucumber create a couplet...

or maybe I'm just making this up as I go along.

Welcome poets! Thanks for participating.

Matisse is dead though. He is beyond the reach of comment deprivation. Here are your targets.

And please be as tough as in the poetry forums, that is why Eratosphere is great. Remember EfH?

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=22978

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=22571

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23395

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23397

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23411

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23372

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23437

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=20939

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23523

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23321

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23885

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=24005

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=24061

That is a sampling from the past year.

He's also not going to complain that my comments about his work completely miss the point. :) But I'll give commenting on some of these a shot, in their own threads.

John, Renoir had people strap brushes to his hand when his arthritis made him unable to move his fingers. Hananiah Harari painted when he was virtually blind at the end of his life, and he painted until he died. If Matisse could cut out paper shapes, he could paint.

Appreciating art, in my opinion, begins with not knowing the story. The story is often indistinguishable from the Painted Word (Wolfe).

My impression is that Matisse, in life long combat with the chameleon Picasso, had to come up with something new. His cutouts succeeded to the extent that they can be found on greeting cards at chain drug stores. So can a lot of Picasso's work. And Renoir's, OK. But... don't believe the hype!

I'e seen the cut-outs, Rick. And pretty well all great Art is seen on tea towels That's a part of what makes it great.

In the same way that the best poetry is available to all, not just the bleeding professoriat.

I do not deny their existence, John. I just utterly reject the story about why they exist. Henri was ham-handed at the trickster game. Which doesn't preclude success and acclaim. He gave Picasso a run for the money at the easel, though! And, yes, the crowd applauds the cutouts and even The Ramones can be had on T-shirts.

Matisse should have died in the saddle, is all I'm saying.

Rick

Wot! No retirement for artists.

Actually I back that. Writers dying at the typewriter, like P G Wodehouse, or with pen in hand, like Patrick O'Brian. I hope I shall die searching for a rhyme. But not yet.

Titian lived to 99 did he not?

I've been looking through your list and can't find anything to say because I don't know how to judge them. l can't make them be poems in my head yet. In fact only one sparked ideas and comments and it was one I'd contributed to at the time. I will carry on trying, though...

Goodness, has nobody been here since I last visited?

I'm sorry to have been away so long, but I'm still having trouble finding a way of commenting on things other than Rick's painting(s), which I understand as artefacts and have already had my penn'orth on.

I think what I really need to do is establish where the other art resides. Is it "there" anywhere? Is its final manifestation printed and framed? If not, will it ever be?

I have little problem with the concept of the written word being "real" in a virtual context, or even of visual art being stored as a copy in a "cloud" situation or a personal computer file, but I have real difficulty in believing in a "picture" that I could not buy. borrow or visit.

But I haven't given up on this and I'm still thinking.

Hi Ann,
Thanks for coming back. Thanks for thinking about this too. Yes, quite a lot of the posts lately have been digital art, but not all. Yet, you nailed the problem here when you said "Goodness, has nobody been here since I last visited?". That is the whole point of this thread.

We do get some physical art too but some of them are a bit old. My "Synapse" is a mixed media collage on canvas panel. Steve Mar posts watercolors and drawings, but, sadly, he takes the art down when they are a few months old. Cyn Neely has posted her paintings and this older thread "Flight Path" has some discussion about the relationship between her poems and poetry. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=22602 Prem Singh Charan has posted paintings. It's been a while though http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=20754

I feel like some of the digital work, including photographs, might get printed at some time. I can understand putting it through the workshop process before going to that expense though. There is a discussion of getting digital art printed on Patricia Marsh's thread "Hanging Basket" http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=23372

You have inspired me to post and acrylic painting that I intend to photograph and print digitally onto canvas so that I can work on it more without touching the original - stay tuned to this channel.

When I read through this thread, I thought immediately of the Asian form of 'haiga.' It is generally a short poem in haiku form paired with a picture. My understanding is that the poem should not describe the picture; they are independent, capable of existing each on their own. But the haiku is better because of what the picture adds to the insight found in that haiku, and likewise vice versa.

The trouble, if you want to call it that, is that in much so-called modern haiga, the picture is a direct visual representation of the haiku. In other words, the haiku speaks of a man walking in winter, the picture shows a person walking in winter. The picture is to show the essence of the haiku, not a concrete representation of it.

Just my two cents.

Lorraine, I find that very interesting and it gives me an idea for a challenge. Do you mind if I use your post as a quote in the challenge destructions?

Sharon,
Fine by me. I'll look forward to seeing what your challenge is.

Thank you, Lorraine!

Last time Sharon set a challenge it was a brilliant one and I've kept the work I made in response to it. I'm looking forward to another.

I have looked through the subjects of this challenge many times now, but find nothing there I can say anything about worth reading. However the discussion about Matisse's cut-outs is interesting.
Why should Matisse keep painting even if he could? Why should an old artist not be respected any longer if he gives up oil and canvas, etc.? Until you are old you can not know how your art will change with age. It takes energy to make art.
I adamantly do not think that there is art in everything or that everyone can make art if only they work hard enough at it. Matisse's birds are enjoyed partly because they really are very nice, and because Matisse made them, and Matisse was a fine artist. Picasso made not so admirable pottery and untold numbers of quick sketches, a lot of them only significant because Picasso made them. Like Matisse's birds, Picasso's insignificant work is significant because Picasso was a fine artist. Their 'easy art' is still their art.

Ann all digital art can be made into an object,
Digital art is an extension of normal painting and drawing. It is fragile, as all art is, because it can 'crash' so one has back-ups, but to judge it one uses the normal criteria.
From a practical point of view it is expensive to have digital art transferred to canvas, a good sized canvas cost $300, the downside is there is no texture and the pixillation shows if you increase the size too much.

Re Matisse,anyone who wants to diss the great Henri should see the wonderful cut-outs, as I did in Whitstable Art Gallery. All his art was pointing that way. They were necessary, as all great art is.

I f Iwere rich I would buy some and hang them in my house.I'd have to be rich enough to stop them getting pinched. Of course I could always cut out identical pieces of paper and hang them instead. They would be Henri's art too. Perhaps I should hang them side by side.