Emulation
Dependence leads to emulation,
but sadly creativity
demands thereafter separation,
with hypersensitivity
the reason often for defection
of emulator, who betrays
his master by his rude rejection.
Disengaged like divorcés,
regretting the dependence that
had once inspired them both, they lose
their symbiosis and combat
each other with conflicting views,
and claim they always had suspected
the other was far less inspired
than they, and ought to be rejected,
the sell-by date now long expired.
Inspired by an article Holland Cotter on an exhibition of the art of Titian, Tintoreeto and Verones at the Boston Museum of Fine Art (Passion of the Moment: A Triptych of Masters, NYT, March 12,2009) :
The show is about three such personalities: Tiziano Vecellio, or Titian; Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto; and Paolo Caliari, called Veronese. All three shot off sparks as they reforged painting as a medium. And all three had feverishly competitive overlapping careers. These masters of 16th-century Venetian painting were no Holy Trinity. They were a discordant ménage-a-trois bound together by envy, talent, circumstances and some strange version of love. This is the story the exhibition tells through 56 grand to celestial paintings — no filler here, not an ounce of fat — sorted into broad categories (religious images, portraits, belle donne) and arranged in compare-and-contrast couplings and triplings to indicate who was looking at whom, and why, and when. And that story is set against a larger historical narrative that goes something like this. Before the 16th century Italian art was dominated by two cities, Florence and Rome, and by two kinds of painting: fresco and egg tempera — water-based, fast-drying, smooth-surfaced — on wood. Venice lay outside this mainstream. Fresco wasn’t viable in the city’s humid atmosphere; tempera had problems too. Then, at the end of the 15th century, oil painting, still little known in the rest of Italy, was introduced, and Venetian art caught fire….Finally into the arena strode a third giant, and a somewhat gentler one, Veronese (1528-88) . Named for his native city and still in his teens when he hit Venice, he was quickly acknowledged to be a prodigy, fully formed. Titian became the artist he was through long growth, Tintoretto by sifting and synthesizing influences. Veronese was Veronese from Day 1. Ingratiating in manner, he was a painter of fine texture, sweet color and courtly reserve. Patrons who found Tintoretto too outlandish gave Veronese their business; the elderly Titian took him under his wing. And from the 1540s to the 1580s Venetian painting became a three-way dance among these three men, a tricky choreography of emulation and rejection, dependence and separation. You can follow the moves in a cluster of steamy paintings of nudes at the center of the show, installed in a gallery with crimson walls and tasseled curtains. The Titians — the “Danae” from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, “Venus with an Organist and Dog” from the Prado, “Venus With a Mirror” from the National Gallery of Art in Washington — are stop-and-stare fantastic.
3/13/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
From Cubism To Realism!
The Art Gallery was full of prominent guests from all over the World.
The Cubist introduced himself in a polite manner 'I am Bogus.Richmond from Iceland'
Everybody appreciated his magical style especially the painting
'Mermaid and the Shark in the mysterious deep sea.'
The Ambassador from the Hell bought his realistic painting 'The nude Woman' for Million Hell dollars with the check of Banco Underground.
And he whispered to the Artist;
'You know why I spent so much because it's like my wife's stolen photograph.'
The real painter Sam de Poor still begs on the road with Richmond's given lump sum for all the paintings?
*For DavidPaulley in gratitude!
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
It's one of his radical paintings
They refused to take his painting for the Exhibition.
The reason they explained; ' It's a blank canvas.'
Then the painter argued; ' It's titled as Blank life.'
'At least there should be a brush mark then we can accept.' the director of the Art Gallery said.
With his ball point pen he kept a dot in the middle of the canvas
And added to the title as 'Full stop to the blank life.'
The director was really appreciated and taken the painting back.
* To my friend Denis.Joe who threw a torch into my little dark World and I saw this strange sign shines in the darkness.
'If the door is locked, someone is inside? '
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Venice, November, 1966
With his head full of Shakespearean tempests
and old notions of poetic justice,
he was ready with his elegies
the day the ocean sailed into the square.
'The sea,' he wrote, 'is a forgiving element,
and history only the old odor of blood.
She will come to rest on the soft floor
of the world, barnacled like a great pirate ship,
and blind fish-mouthing like girls before a glass-
will bump, perhaps, San Marco's brittle bones.'
Pleased with these images, he paused
and conjured visions of a wet apocalypse:
the blown church bobbing like a monstrous water toy,
Doge Dandolo's bronze horses from Byzantium
pawing the black waves, incredulous pigeons
hovering like gulls over the drowning square,
mosaic saints floating gently to pieces.
Then he waited as the wind rose, as gondoliers
were rocking in the long furrows of their boats
and small waves licked the marble lions' eyes.
But still this most improbable of cities
hung on, lewdly enjoying her own smell.
Learning later how Florence, with her brown bells,
her dried-up joke of a river, had played
the ark to all his fantasies of flood,
he felt a little foolish. He was walking
in the gallery then, thinking of the doges:
how they tread on clouds which puff and pucker
like the flesh of their fat Venetian whores;
how thanks to Tintoretto's shrewd, old eyes,
they saw themselves amid the holy saints;
how shrewd, old Tintoretto, for a price,
painted his patrons into paradise.
poem by Erica Jong
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Painting The Walls
painting the walls,
rolling over handprints,
cobwebs, and smoke stains....
over splashes of color,
over peels of time.
painting over the sounds
of voices whispering, laughing....
painting over tears hidden
from the world, from each other.
painting over running, and working,
working all day and half the night.
painting over children, and dreams,
folded like old clothes, and put away.
painting over notes from God,
that were often barely noticed...
painting over the nail that held
up the clock, hands moving slowly,
turning the seasons of living....
painting over the final words,
the last breath held in the hands,
of lives written in the grain....
the testimony of each feeling....
painting the walls,
and brushing the corners,
as if we never lived!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Art'life
At the Oslo art museum we went to see Edvard Munck’s
“The Scream.” Yeah I know that feeling.
I bought a print it cost about twenty Euros, it now hangs
on the wall in front of me and it screams for me.
But his painting “The Kiss” absorbed me the most, it
is one of the greatest sensual, painting I have ever seen.
There were many other paintings of great masters, but
I didn’t see them as “the kiss” blurred my sight.
There was a reverent whispering in the room, I didn’t
cared for, like being in a church where even a cough is
frown upon. When my wife went to the loo I told a female
security guard she looked like the woman in the “kiss.”
Her stern, blue eyes softened, she giggled and said:
“But you can’t see the woman’s face in the painting.” No dear,
but if I could it would be a face as beautiful as yours.”
More guards came and I was escorted out of the building.
poem by Oskar Hansen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Canvas (Part 2)
We last left off with such the fright,
She paints—but gasp! —that's not quite right,
For every story has a twist,
And every painting is done on her wrist.
She paints with—sorry? —with little regard,
To what may bleed and what may scar,
But oh, she paints a lovely spar,
Despite the way that most things are.
Some find it funny and watch as she flees,
Others feel sick the moment they see,
Because a painter, she can't have much of a life,
If all of her painting is done with a knife.
This painter—in fact—she thinks she's alone,
Because of the burden of problems at home,
And then there's her mind, a nasty old place,
It's mostly the cause of the paintings she makes.
But one can be trapped, or one can be freed,
Though most painters like her find this hard to believe,
Yet this very painter broke free of her sadness,
And if she ever wonders 'why? ' she can look at her canvas.
poem by Dayna Mortimore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
When is a Painting Finished?
I paint.
On my easel
pictures in oil and acrylic grow
like stalagmites in limestone caves.
I think that painting is a magical act
that transforms invisible thoughts
and feelings into visible colors
and forms.
But I never can tell
when is the work finished.
After all it is always possible
to change a line, a hue, or a color
or even the whole composition.
Painters have different opinions
about this.
Some say that when the artist
successfully planted
all the details onto the canvas
the image expresses itself
as a severed autonomous entity,
which frees the painter from
the task of continuing to paint.
From then on the painting gains
an independent inner life of its own.
However, abandoning a work of art
involves a moral decision
ripened by the stiffening tension
between skill, creativity and integrity.
At what point does the polished image
meet the artist’s expectations?
And then, even if it does,
no single image can express
all that an artist wants to show,
and consequently his muses
compel him to carry on with his work
and create more paintings.
Hence the oeuvre of the artist
evolves as a set of different images
of the same single thrust and grind.
Many years ago I was wandering
through the countryside
of southern France in Provence.
Once I stopped to look at the road
where the village met the meadow.
A sturdy artist stood there
in front of his easel
painting the landscape
with skilful brushstrokes
on a well-stretched canvas.
I stared for a while
at the burgeoning picture
and then asked him:
“How do you know
when is the composition complete? ”
He gave me a piercing glance.
“Well”, he said,
“if you take a hammer
and hit me on the head
I know that the painting is finished.”
poem by Paul Hartal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Painting Primary Method Bypass
wet-on-wet
practice
has become
well-known
primary method
of painting used
by rapid
fire artists
lighter colours
will usually
mix
with darker
colours
if laid
over top
while wet
applied
simple
technique
relies
on painting
from light
colours up
achieving
bestowing
painting
a soft
look
order
allows
colours
to be
blended
to artistic
vision
painter's
desire
no drying
period
required
full
paintings
requiring
maximum
only
a few
minutes
of detail
touch ups
post main
work dry
produced
in short
flame
time
periods
an entire
landscape
in under
half
an hour
burning
hail
massive
next
innovation
digital artwork
caricatures
portraits rocks
holy grail
speed
painting
computer
instant generating
music booming
by Nico
Di Mattia
is heart
kettle drum
storm playing
soul inflaming
imagination
run riot pot roast
heaven dancing
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Beauty And Doubt
Beauty should be cause of doubt,
remaining as a paradox
within a fog that, with lights-out,
become its combination locks
which only should be opened for
the people that it may deceive
and all its images adore,
since they’re unable to believe
that lying very far beyond
the beauty that they worship lie
not icons of which they are fond
but feelings hidden from the eye,
felt only by the loving heart
that longs for union of the mind
with images that works of art
cannot portray till eyes are blind.
The image is to history
what certainty must be to doubt,
solution of a mystery
that true love can do well without.
Michael Kimmelman (“Unravelling a 15th-Century Whodunit, ” NYT, December 11,2008) writes about three images attributed to the Master of Flémaille, St. Veronica, Madonna and Child and Gnadenstuhl:
Here at the Städel Museum “The Master of Flémalle and Rogier van der Weyden” is an old-fashioned whodunit. Almost exhaustingly erudite, it mixes up very great Netherlandish paintings of the 15th century with a few not so great ones to unravel perennial questions from galaxy academe about which artist painted what. Why should we care? For the same reason film buffs debate if Howard Hawks was the real director behind “The Thing From Another World, ” the sci-fi classic from 1951 he produced, rather than Christian Nyby, the credited director, or whether the 1943 thriller “Journey Into Fear, ” for which Norman Foster is listed as director, was taken over by Orson Welles, who played a Turkish police detective in it and whose other movies it partly resembles.We should care because, commerce and the usual scholarly nitpicking aside, the debate is itself an excuse for looking closer, and because piecing together any great artist’s legacy is a bit like composing a novel, every chapter part of the artist’s grand narrative, without all of which the story is incomplete. And, well, also because good mysteries beg to be solved…. And yet. Some things are clear. The weary, aged face of Veronica looks deeply, memorably human. The young woman from Berlin is heartbreakingly beautiful. Elsewhere, a painting of a stout man who at first looks identical to a second portrait is built up from layers of paint that subtly absorb light and give weight and density to the face. Max J. Friedländer, the eminent historian, many years ago attributed the portrait to the Master of Flémalle, then later wondered if it wasn’t by Rogier. The curators here think maybe it was. But maybe not. Dendrochronological tests, to measure the dates of trees, have estimated the age of the wood panels on which it and other pictures were painted; spectrographs and X-rays have provided proof of under-drawings, pentimenti and erasures. The famous Mérode Altarpiece from the Cloisters in New York, long attributed to the Master of Flémalle, turns out to be partly copied, it seems, from a picture in Brussels, long thought to have been a copy of the altarpiece. That’s nice to know. But in the end the story of this exhibition is that beauty resides not just in the pictures (of course) but in doubt itself. That art of such profound and unprecedented verisimilitude, which took such pains to record the minutest details of the world, should remain shrouded in such a fog is both a paradox and healthy reminder of a basic truth. Great art is always a mystery.
12/11/08
poem by Gershon Hepner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Maryanne Webber
Maryanne runs the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival,
She does a great job, she is really on the ball.
I have visited her gallery,
She has not only paintings but jewelry.
She also has objects made of clay,
She crafts of all kinds to brighten your day.
Now she has a website on the net,
She has one of a kind art that you can get.
Thank you Maryanne for promoting artists so,
and for having me in the Lake Street Painting Festival,
I will give you one of my children’s books that
really does glow.
(By Suzae Chevalier on August 25,2011)
poem by Christina Sunrise
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Gallery
I fell in love in the gallery
where every painting
had a story still to tell
the portraits of nature
every hue of wild beauty
caught my soul breathless
I wandered through worlds
those places of such scenery
which caught, held my eye
I imagined the feel of the air
the scent which filled each picture
touching my skin, filling my nose
my eyes wide open feasted upon
such beauty the likes of which
I had hardly every seen
nether less thought to imagine
I walked almost listless
in no hurry to leave this place
I fell in love in the gallery
where portraits of nature
told me their story
poem by Matthew Holloway
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
untitled abstract painting of Custer's Last Stand
Untitled abstract painting of Custer’s last stand
an abstract painting of custer’s last stand
Hangs in the Montana Museum of Modern Art
A fish with a halo and many Indians mating
And no name tag makes this painting, stand apart
Montanans know the title of this portrait
Although no name tag is shown
Yet, as the gaze falls upon it
the title is intuitively known,
the last words that were spoken
from this famous man’s mouth
As the battle of the Big horn
Began to go south
Oddly enough, as in the painting
his last words were not prayer
Though the words; “copulation and Indians, “
“Fish And Holy, “ were there.
The title of the painting and Custer’s last words
Weren’t from Romans or Corinthians.
They were simply “Holy Mackerel
Look at all the F#@*in’ Indians
poem by David Whalen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Art Will Show To Eternity Your Soul
I am a woman, using a mirror everyday,
Like all of you, i'm seeing my reflection into it,
Even i am sad, happy, tired or bored,
What i'm seeing in my mirror it's my physical reality, my own truth.
I combed my hair and looked into my mirror,
I felt so delicate, unique and simple,
Having a smile on my face today,
My mirror will smile me back as feedback in same way.
I am a painter, i adore art,
In everything i'm painting it's life,
In each painting and spot of paint my brush does,
It's a history of great ideas my minds holds.
A painting is a gate to our inner side,
Through it vibrates the universe to our hearts,
A mirror will always show your face reflection to the world,
But art will show to eternity your soul.
poem by Cristina Teodor
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I'm not so facile that I can accomplish or find out what I want to know or explore enough of the possibilities and a way of making a painting, say, in just one painting or two paintings.
quote by Robert Rauschenberg
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Why I Am Not A Painter
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.
poem by Frank O'Hara
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Does any art have a practical value? People love to talk about how expensive a painting is. That's the only way we can talk about paintings in this century.
quote by John Guare
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Gallery Owner
The Gallery Owner
He had been to the doctors
nothing could be done, they are
not magicians and he had
a painting exhibition at his
gallery tonight.
Sat in his chair leaning left,
less pain that way, some thought
he had had too much to drink.
In the night he was saved
from further agony,
a sudden heart attack.
Many people came to his
funereal, a lyrical lady singer
sang about love and loss;
there were tears;
...and then the silence began.
poem by Oskar Hansen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Unpainted Painting
Unpainted Painting.
I found a painting on the dump by the road, heads of many colours
seeking shelter, under a colourful umbrella, against coming storm.
It is an original painting signed and dated 2052, who threw it away?
A black fly walks across the computer screen, when I shush it away
it only indolently moves and settles on the edge of the virtual page.
I look for a newspaper to swat it the devious fly reads my thought,
take lift and disappear Into the painting. Now I can read the name:
FEMA. I got, it the date, the work is not yet made by an artist not yet
born; I’m seeing into a future and if the sad faces are anything to go
by, it doesn’t look too promising. Before the darkness swirled into
the village I put the picture back on the dump, as it wasn’t painted
yet and not for me to see. The black fly was buzzing around my head
whispering words in a in a future language I shall never comprehend
In the morning dustmen came and took away the trash.
poem by Oskar Hansen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Only the Slaves
How to regard a manner as decent
Is only a requirement of manliness.
It despises the master to see the slave perish,
And the men have reawakened.
Manners of a slave are laudable when man
Is sufficient as a master, and love is a learning all common.
To live a wreck and survive a storm is a slavery
Of every man. Regard a manner in this city as sacred.
The key to the city lies in the minds of men who are leaders.
The painting of a king is adequate for the retelling.
It is a city in the air, and I call it Red and Yellow.
Kings and queens are averse to these intricacies.
We are masters, and they are slaves of the House.
A Palace is built in heaven if you are good.
Only the slaves are the masters in Heaven.
poem by Naveed Akram
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
You Paint Me Blue
The portraits lying here, they don't even do you justice
You're more beautiful than any canvas could prove
These pale colors will never show your skin so smooth
I touch up your smile with this red and white mix
Once I fought a kiss from these covetous lips
With every swift stroke I grow more and more listless
When I stop to think with tear-filled eyes
I knew I'd make this painting run
So it ran but not as fast as you
and not out of the light of my sun
I don't even care why you led me on but I must admit
If there's one thing I would like
to ask whatever made you quit
Though this painting I'll not complete
you will receive your justice
poem by Nathaniel Aaron Bryant
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!