“To a man who knows, Mountains are Mountains, Waters are Waters, and Trees are Trees. But when he has studied and knows a little, Mountains are no longer Mountains, Waters no longer Waters, and Trees no longer Trees. But when he has thoroughly understood, Mountains are again Mountains, Waters are Waters, and Trees are Trees.”1
These were certain types of hermit monks: poets, calligraphers and painters living in isolated mountains and at peace. Their Zen philosophy is evidenced in all of their works, both paintings and poems. However it was surprising for me to discover this very Zen statement not in historic writing, but from the American artist Charles Sheeler as he wrote in his journal known as the Black Book.
Originally formulated by the master Ch’ing-yuan Hsing-ssu it states: “Thirty years ago, before I began practicing Zen, I saw mountains as simply mountains. Then, while I was practicing Zen, I realized mountains were not mountains. But now that I understand Zen, I see mountains are simply mountains.”2
Anonymous “Streams and Mountains Without End” Early 12th century, China, Northern Sung Dynasty, Handscroll, ink and slight color on silk 13 13/16” x 83 7/8” The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio.DETAIL of the above image B&W Photograph.
“I built a thatch hut beneath tall pines windows open on every side all day I sit facing mountains nothing else comes to mind.”3
Echoes and descriptions of this philosophy come down to us through a variety of writers, including Ernest Fenellosa, Ezra Pound, and several Beat Generation writers. Below is a section from Canto XLIX by Ezra Pound:
“For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses: Rain; empty river; a voyage, Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight Under the cabin roof was one lantern. The reeds are heavy; bent; and the bamboos speak as if weeping.”4
Extending this poetic tradition, Gary Snyder’s translations and variations on the Cold Mountain poems by the hermit poet Hanshan elaborate on the poet’s relationship and feeling for nature. One major source of inspiration for Snyder was the great “Mountains and Rivers Without End” scroll which he saw in person at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Continuing into the plastic realm, the painter Brice Marden, chose to use Matisse’s late drawing method of a brush filled with paint attached to an extension stick. Gestural paintings paralleling the images of a path coming down along a stream or a trail climbing up stairsteps and forks in the road were the central forms for his “Cold Mountain Series.”
Brice Marden working on his “Cold Mountain Series” Photograph by David Seidner.
“The path comes down along a lowland stream slips behind boulders and leafy hardwoods, reappears in a pine grove,
no farms around, just tidy cottages and shelters, gateways, rest stops, roofed but unwalled work space, —a warm damp climate;
a trail of climbing stairsteps forks upstream. Big ranges lurk behind these rugged little outcrops— these spits of low ground rocky uplifts layered pinnacles aslant, flurries of brushy cliffs receding, far back and high above, vague peaks. A man hunched over, sitting on a log another stands above him, lifts a staff, a third, with a roll of mats or a lute, looks on; a bit offshore two people in a boat.”5
Tang Yin “The Thatched Hut of Dreaming of an Immortal” (DETAIL) Early 16th Century, China Ink and color on paper 29.6 cm x 682.1 cm Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC.
“I built my hut on top of Hsia Summit plowing and hoeing make up my day half a dozen terraced fields two or three hermit neighbors I made a pond for the moon and sell wood to buy grain an old man with few schemes I’ve told you all that I own.”6
These themes, inspired by the imagery from “Cold Mountain,” continued in the hands of more modern painters and poets. A letter from Henri Matisse, late in his life, to Mr. Henry Clifford, Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, expresses Matisse’s concern regarding younger artists who might mistake his work without going through the discipline necessary for the development of an artist.
Of the work of a mature artist, Matisse explained: “He will place it in accordance with a natural, unformulated and completely concealed drawing that will spring directly from his feeling; that which allowed Toulouse-Lautrec, at the end of his life, to exclaim, ‘At last, I no longer know how to draw.’”
“The painter who is just beginning thinks that he is painting from the heart. The artist who has completed his development also thinks that he is painting from the heart. Only the latter is right, because his training and his discipline allow him to accept impulses from within, which he can in part control.”7
Henri Matisse working on the design for “The Stations of the Cross” for the Vence Chapel, c. 1948-1950, Hotel Regina, Cimiez, France.
The later American artist, Brice Marden, took up Matisse’s challenge as well as the theme of “Cold Mountain” in an elegant and disciplined series from the 1980’s. Fluid pathways of ink come down along an abstract landscape, and leave a trail climbing upwards. With an entire foggy set of paths underneath.
Brice Marden “Cold Mountain 6 (Bridge)” 1989-1991 Oil on linen 108” x 144” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
And finally, we come back to the original Zen saying but with an English folk rock twist: the song written and performed by Donovan Leitch, “There is a Mountain.”
“First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.”
“Caterpillar sheds his skin to find a butterfly within. Caterpillar sheds his skin to find a butterfly within.”8
1 Friedman, Martin; Bartlett Hayes and Charles Millard; Charles Sheeler; The National Collection of Fine Arts and the Smithsonian Institution Press; Washington, DC; 1968; p. 97.
2 Stonehouse; Translated by Red Pine; The Mountain poems of Stonehouse; Copper Canyon Press; Port Townsend, Washington; 2014; p. 57.
3 Stonehouse; Translated by Red Pine; The Mountain poems of Stonehouse; Copper Canyon Press; Port Townsend, Washington; 2014; p. 153.
4 Pound Ezra; The Cantos; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 1979; p.244.
5 Snyder, Gary; Mountains and Rivers Without End; Counterpoint; Washington, DC; 1996; p. 5.
6 Stonehouse; Translated by Red Pine; The Mountain poems of Stonehouse; Copper Canyon Press; Port Townsend, Washington; 2014; p. 199.
7 Flam, Jack, ed.; Matisse on Art; University of California Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles; 1995; p. 183.
8 Leitch, Donovan; “There is a Mountain” Audio Recording; Peermusic Publishing, Licensed by LyricFind; London, United Kingdom; 1967.
“The sanctuary was lost for centuries because this ridge is in the most inaccessible corner of the most inaccessible section of the central Andes. No part of the highlands of Peru is better defended by natural bulwarks—a stupendous canyon whose rock is granite, and whose precipices are frequently 1,000 feet sheer, presenting difficulties which daunt the most ambitious modern mountain climbers. Yet, here, in a remote part of the canyon on this narrow ridge flanked by tremendous precipices, a highly civilized people, artistic, inventive, well organized, and capable of sustained endeavor, at some time in the distant past built themselves a sanctuary for the worship of the sun.”1
Hiram Bingham “The story of Machu Picchu: the Peruvian expeditions of the National Geographic Society and Yale University” B&W photograph National Geographic Magazine, v. 27, Feb. 1915: p. 172.
Here are the observations and notations of Hiram Bingham upon his re-discovery of Machu Picchu through a series of expeditions, the first one sponsored by Yale University and the following ones by the National Geographic Society. Although the native Peruvian people had known of this place for years, many had already migrated into the area in and around Cusco. Bingham was able to hire a few guides and assistants for his explorations on each trip, and he kept very thorough journals and records, including photographs.
On our recent tour in late October 2025 we flew from Lima over the Andes and then down into the Sacred Valley and the city of Cusco. From there, a series of train rides and buses delivered us to the great city of Machu Picchu.
It truly felt like ancient footprints were everywhere, especially since many of the stairs were carved out of the living rock. Unfortunately hardly any two steps were of the same proportion or height. Using our hiking sticks and keeping our eyes on the path, we warned each other of rocks in the pathway and uneven steps, which often occurred when least expected.
It was only after climbing several sets of steep steps, keeping our eyes on both the walls and steps, that the views opened up on a larger plain and the surrounding structures.
There are many examples of literature inspired directly from this work of art, the great architectural site of Machu Picchu. The first of course is from Hiram Bingham’s direct observations following his re-discovery of this site in 1911-1912. Many others are more modern. Because of the three different languages spoken locally, Quechua, Aymara and Spanish, I have left the various spellings intact, so the mistaken names of some locations and the name Machu or Macchu are quoted as in the originals. These are not misspellings.
“Suddenly I found myself confronted with the walls of ruined houses built of the finest quality of Inca stone work. It was hard to see them for they were covered with trees and moss, the growth of centuries, but in the dense shadow, hiding in bamboo thickets and tangled vines, appeared here and there walls of white granite ashlars carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together. We scrambled along through the dense undergrowth, climbing over terrace walls and in bamboo thickets, where our guide found it easier than I did. Suddenly, without any warning, under a huge overhanging ledge the boy showed me a cave beautifully lined with the finest cut stone. It had evidently been a royal mausoleum. On top of this particular ledge was a semicircular building whose outer wall, gently sloping and slightly curved, bore a striking resemblance to the famous Temple of the Sun in Cuzco. This might also be a temple of the sun. It followed the natural curvature of the rock and was keyed to it by one of the finest examples of masonry I had ever seen. Further it was tied into another beautiful wall, made of very carefully matched ashlars of pure white granite, especially selected for its fine grain. Clearly, it was the work of a master artist. . . .”2
Tom Lundberg “The Inca Wall at Ollantaytambo, near Machu Picchu, Peru” 2025 Digital photograph
“. . . . The interior surface of the wall was broken by niches and square stone-pegs. The exterior surface was perfectly simple and unadorned. The lower courses, of particularly large ashlars, gave it a look of solidity. The upper courses, diminishing in size towards the top, lent grace and delicacy to the structure. The flowing lines, the symmetrical arrangement of the ashlars, and the gradual graduation of the courses, combined to produce a wonderful effect, softer and more pleasing than that of the marble temples of the Old World. Owing to the absence of mortar, there were no ugly spaces between the rocks. They might have grown together. On account of the beauty of the white granite this structure surpassed in attractiveness the best Inca walls in Cuzco, which had caused visitors to marvel for four centuries. It seemed like an unbelievable dream. Dimly, I began to realize that this wall and its adjoining semicircular temple over the cave were as fine as the finest stonework in the world.”3
Surprisingly, the second example is from a novel which is set in Machu Picchu by Mark Adams. In this novel, we have an editor/explorer and his colleagues in search of an adventure and comically retracing the journey of Hiram Bingham. As a footnote to all of this, there is the ironic possibility that a modern day cinema legend may have actually been based on Hiram Bingham.
“There’s an old kitchen maxim that squid should either be cooked for two minutes or two hours. A similar rule could be applied to Machu Picchu. With a good guide—there are dozens of them lingering by the front entrance—a visitor who’s short on time can see the highlights of Machu Picchu in two hours. A visit of two days, though, allows enough time to take in the site’s full majesty. Our plan was to devote one day to retracing Bingham’s 1911 footsteps, and a second to seeing some parts of the site that most people never get to.”4
“As a magazine editor, I knew the revised version of Bingham’s tale had the makings of a great story: hero adventurer exposed as villainous fraud. To get a clearer idea of what had really happened on that mountaintop in 1911, I took a day off and rode the train up to Yale. I spent hours in the library, leafing through Bingham’s leather-coated notebook in which Bingham had penciled his first impressions of Machu Picchu, any thoughts of the controversies fell away. Far more interesting was the story of how he had gotten to Machu Picchu in the first place. I’d heard that Bingham had inspired the character Indiana Jones, a connection that was mentioned—without much evidence—in almost every news story about the explorer in the last twenty years. Sitting in the neo-Gothic splendor of Yale’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Room, the Indy-Bingham connection made sense for the first time. Bingham’s search had been a geographic detective story, one that began as a hunt for the Lost City of the Incas but grew into an all-consuming attempt to solve the mystery of why such a spectacular granite city had been built in such a spellbinding location: high on a secluded mountain ridge, in the misty subtropical zone where the Andes meet the Amazon. Fifty years after Bingham’s death, the case had been reopened. And the clues were still out there to be examined by anyone with strong legs and a large block of vacation time.”5
Richard Emery Nickolson “Trees and Terraces Surrounding the Area on the way up to Machu Picchu” 2025 Digital photograph
The final literary example is from Pablo Neruda, an epic lyrical poem imagined and inspired by Macchu Picchu, the wonder of its construction, and the labor and the hardships that it must have cost.
VI
“And then the stairs of the earth I ascended through the savage tangle of the lost jungles to you, Macchu Picchu. High city of stepped stones, sanctuary at long last of what the earth never hid away in its nightclothes. In you, like two parallel lines, the cradle of lightning and the cradle of man were rocked by a wind of thorns.
Mother of stone, sperm of condors.
High stone road of the human dawn.
Lost shovel in the primordial sand.
This was the home, this was the place: here the plump grains of maize climbed and like red hail came back down again.
Here the vicuña gave the gold thread to clothe love, tombs, mothers, the king, prayers, warriors.
Here the feet of men rested at night next to the feet of the eagle, in the high bloody lairs, and at first light they stepped with thunderous feet on the tense mist, and then tucked the earth and the stones until they would have known them even at night or in death.
I stare at the clothes and hands, the carvings of water in a sonorous hollow, the wall rubbed smooth by the touch of a face that with my eyes gazed at the earthly lights, that with my hands oiled the vanished planks: because everything, clothes, skin, dishes, words, wine, breads, went away, fell to the earth.
And the air came with its fingers of orange blossom over all of the sleepers: a thousand years of air, months, weeks of air, of a blue wind, of an iron mountain ridge, that was like a soft hurricane of footfalls polishing the solitary site of stone.”6
Richard Emery Nickolson “The Secret Chamber Beneath the Temple of the Sun at Machu Picchu” 2025 Digital photograph
Anne McKenzie Nickolson and Tom Lundberg had been classmates in the Graduate Textiles Program at Indiana University for a time in the mid-1970’s. After Tom moved to Ft. Collins, Colorado to teach at Colorado State University he met Marilyn Murphy who was a textile writer/editor and President of the Andean Textile Arts organization. Of course all three of them were interested in the 25th Annual Andean Textile Arts tour to Peru in October 2025, especially focussing on the communities in and around Cuzco and the Sacred Valley. Our tour guides were the brothers Raul and Wilson Jaimes who were so very knowledgeable on all of Peruvian history and culture.
I was equally excited about this tour, especially as it related to the communities in the Sacred Valley and the chance to follow in some of Hiram Bingham’s footsteps and visit Machu Picchu for two days. I immediately bought new ink pens and sketchbooks for the trip.
The drawing portfolio included below is in the exact order in which they were done, on site, “en plein air” in each case. They begin with the first and second days at Machu Picchu, and include my last drawing there on the high path leading to the Inca Bridge. The following ones are all at the Temple of the Sun in Cusco containing the original Incan walls with a museum built over top. The last two are on the lower plain with the Wall of the Giants, constructed with many 200 to 300 ton stones, followed by one last Grain Storage Shed, one of my fondest memories.
Richard Emery Nickolson “Terraces and Stairways” 27 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “The First Grain Storage Shed” 27 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “The Tower of the Sun at Machu Picchu w/Small Tower Above” 27 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “The Stair-stepped Window” 28 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “A Window Detail” 28 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “The Second Grain Storage Shed” 28 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Kristen Thurber “The Artist Drawing Along the High Path Towards the Inca Bridge” 28 October 2025 Digital PhotographRichard Emery Nickolson “The High Path Towards the Inca Bridge” 28 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “Two Windows and a Niche” 30 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “Two Niches” 30 October 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Tom Lundberg “The Artist Drawing at the original Qorikancha site in Cusco” 30 October 2025 Digital PhotographRichard Emery Nickolson “The Giants of the Inca Wall at Sacsayhuaman outside of Cusco” 1 November 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”Richard Emery Nickolson “The Third Grain Storage Shed at Sacsayhuaman outside of Cusco” 1 November 2025 Pen & Ink on Paper 8 1/2” x 6”
Finally, with special thanks, particularly to Tom Lundberg and Kristen Thurber for their sensitive documentary photographs during this whole expedition, and to Wilson Jaimes for his understanding, strength and assistance in walking me back down from the very high path near the Inca Bridge.
1 Bingham, Hiram; Lost City of the Incas; Weidenfeld & Nicolson Publishers; London; 1952 & 2003; p. 197.
2 Bingham, Hiram; Lost City of the Incas; Weidenfeld & Nicolson Publishers; London; 1952 & 2003; pp. 184-185.
3 Bingham, Hiram; Lost City of the Incas; Weidenfeld & Nicolson Publishers; London; 1952 & 2003; pp. 184-185.
4 Adams, Mark; Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time; Dutton, Random House; New York, New York; 2011; p. 183.
5 Adams, Mark; Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time; Dutton, Random House; New York, New York; 2011; p. 4.
6 Neruda, Pablo; Thomas Q. Morin, translation; The Heights of Machu Picchu; Copper Canyon Press; Port Townsend, Washington; 2015; Section VI, pp. 17 & 19.
So many wars, the Eighty Years War and the Franco-Dutch War among them. During a peaceful interlude a pet goldfinch was waiting patiently to be painted. Later, the explosion of the powder magazine in Delft and the death of Carel Fabritius. And that beautiful spot of yellow on the rooftops of the city of Delft, as well as the nearby shadows on the Oude Kerk and the light on the Nieuwe Kerk in the “View of Delft.” The Nieuwe Kerk where Johannes Vermeer was baptized and the resting place for William of Orange.
Johannes Vermeer “The Music Lesson” 1662-1664 Oil on canvas 73.3cm x 64.5cm The Royal Collection London, United Kingdom
Such an important poet in his own right, Robert Bly was also a significant translator of the work of other poets. He published for the first time, many European and South American poets, and his translations range from Goethe, Hölderlin, Kabir, Rilke, Rumi, Ghalib and now to Tomas Tranströmer.
In his introduction to this translation of Tranströmer’s work, Bly mentions, a couple of times “. . . something approaching over a border. . . .”1 or “. . . the noise begins over there, on the other side of the wall. . . .”2 A kind of literary searching, I think, as both a poet and translator. Something beyond, but something that we cannot exactly put our finger on, in order to break through, either a border or a wall.
Vermeer
“It’s not a sheltered world. The noise begins over there, on the other side of the wall where the alehouse is with its laughter and quarrels, its rows of teeth, its tears, its chiming of clocks, and the psychotic brother-in-law, the murderer, in whose presence everyone feels fear.
The huge explosion and the emergency crew arriving late, boats showing off on the canals, money slipping down into pockets—the wrong man’s— ultimatum piled on ultimatum, wide-mouthed red flowers whose sweat reminds us of approaching war.
And then straight through the wall—from there—straight into the airy studio and the seconds that have got permission to live for centuries. Paintings that chose the name: The Music Lesson or A Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. She is eight months pregnant, two hearts beating inside her. The wall behind her holds a crinkly map of Terra Incognito.
Just create. An unidentifiable blue fabric has been tacked to the chairs. Gold-headed tacks flew in with astronomical speed and stopped smack there as if they had always been stillness and nothing else.
The ears experience a buzz, perhaps it’s depth or perhaps height. It’s the pressure from the other side of the wall, the pressure that makes each fact float and makes the brushstroke firm.
Passing through walls hurts human beings, they get sick from it, but we have no choice. It’s all one world. Now to the walls. The walls are a part of you. One either knows that, or one doesn’t; but it’s the same for everyone except for small children. There aren’t any walls for them.
The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall. It is like a prayer to what is empty. And what is empty turns its face to us and whispers: ‘I am not empty, I am open.’”3
Johannes Vermeer “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” 1662-1664 Oil on canvas 46.5cm x 39cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Later in life Tomas Tranströmer suffered a stroke that left his right side paralyzed, leading to difficulties in both writing and his piano playing. Several of his friends and colleagues, musicians and composers, set about composing piano pieces to be played only by the left hand, and sent them directly to him.4
Tranströmer’s imagery is so clear that we believe in its reality and in his imagination. As when he drew out a piano key-board on the kitchen tabletop in order to silently practice his music: “I played on them, without a sound. Neighbors came by to listen!”5
1 Tranströmer, Tomas; Translated by Robert Bly; The Half-Finished Heaven; Graywolf Press; Saint Paul, Minnesota; 2001; p. xviii.
2 Tranströmer, Tomas; Translated by Robert Bly; The Half-Finished Heaven; Graywolf Press; Saint Paul, Minnesota; 2001; p. xviii.
3 Tranströmer, Tomas; Translated by Robert Bly; The Half-Finished Heaven; Graywolf Press; Saint Paul, Minnesota; 2001; pp. 87-88.
4 Tranströmer, Tomas; Translated by Robert Bly; The Half-Finished Heaven; Graywolf Press; Saint Paul, Minnesota; 2001; p. xxi.
5 Tranströmer, Tomas; Translated by Robert Bly; The Half-Finished Heaven; Graywolf Press; Saint Paul, Minnesota; 2001; p. xx.
“The colour blue offers a multiplicity of remarkable characteristics to the observing eye and to the reflective mind alike. It is the only colour which can be seen as a close neighbor to and essentially akin to both dark and light, almost black in the night and almost white at the horizon by day; and it is also the colour of shadows on snow. It can darken, it can obscure, it may float to and fro like a mist, dimming reality with sadness and concealing truth…. By contrast light blue is the colour of loyalty and ecstasy—‘true blue’ for example….”1
This description is from a remarkable study on Paul Cézanne by the German art historian Kurt Badt. Cézanne of course pushed the use of color and structure to new limits in all of his work and so many of the younger artists migrating to Paris at the beginning of the 20th Century soon became aware of this, including Pablo Picasso.
Pablo Picasso “Self Portrait” 1901 Oil on canvas 81 cm x 60 cm Picasso Museum, Paris
For Picasso, this became one of the most important attributes to his early paintings. Alone and isolated as many artists found themselves in Paris at that time, it was inevitable that a certain melancholy would set in. This was intensified by the sudden death of one of his dear friends, Casagemas. The psychological range of the color blue became an important element in his search for a way out of his situation. Using local residents, not traditional artist’s models, he began to paint this series from 1901 through 1904. His portrait of Casagemas was painted as a tribute in 1901, and was included again as the male figure in “La Vie” from the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1903.
Along with his description of the color blue, Kurt Badt also has mentioned the psychology of this color, even referring to it emotionally as ‘the blues’ as we might assume. For Picasso, this was a turning point.
Pablo Picasso “La Celestina” 1904 Oil on canvas 70 cm x 56 cm Musee Picasso, Paris
Whether it was a half blind woman in the street, a procuress named Celestina from a Spanish tragicomedy of 1499, or a totally blind man having his evening dinner, the people, their poses, and their color are simultaneously expressing a set of emotions and questions for the viewer. Add to these images, the portrait of “The Old Guitarist” from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, and we have more questions regarding life during this time period.
Pablo Picasso “The Blind Man’s Meal” 1903 Oil on canvas 37 1/2” x 37 1/2” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The musician, with his head bent over his instrument, with the weight of blue pressing down on his shoulder, we follow the line of his arm downward to the elbow and across to his hand strumming the guitar. And then up the neck of this guitar, to his fingers holding steady on the chords, and then across to his other shoulder, through his own neck and back to his dazed expression: a full compositional circle. This resulted of course, in one of the most important modern examples of the ekphrastic tradition, Wallace Stevens’ “The Man with the Blue Guitar.”
“The man bent over his guitar, A shearsman of sorts. The day was green. They said, ‘You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are.’ The man replied, ‘Things as they are Are changed upon the blue guitar.’ And they said to him, ‘But play, you must, A tune beyond us, yet ourselves, A tune upon the blue guitar, Of things exactly as they are.’”2
“I cannot bring a world quite round, Although I patch it as I can. I sing a hero’s head, large eye And bearded bronze, but not a man, Although I patch him as I can And reach through him almost to man. If a serenade almost to man Is to miss, by that, things as they are, Say that it is the serenade Of a man that plays a blue guitar.”
Pablo Picasso “The Old Guitarist” 1903–1904 Oil on panel 48 3/8” x 32 1/2” The Art Institute of Chicago
So, we have a set up between the artist and the audience: the artist saying that things are changed upon the blue guitar, while the audience insists upon a tune of things exactly as they are!
Stevens starts with this guitarist from the Blue Period but soon goes on to other thoughts, not descriptive but reflective: “A tune beyond us as we are….”3 and ventures into the modern world of painting and poetry. He has to touch upon descriptions of general life and the accompanying dilemmas of 20th century artists. This then continues through several of the later sections of this poem. As Glen MacLeod mentioned in Wallace Stevens and Modern Art, he fuses references to Picasso with more general observations to modern life and a sense of contemporary surrealism, a kind of “…permissible imagination.”4
“A tune beyond us as we are, Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar; Ourselves in tune as if in space, Yet nothing changed, except the place Of things as they are and only the place As you play them on the blue guitar, Placed, so, beyond the compass of change, Perceived in a final atmosphere; For a moment final, in the way The thinking of art seems final when The thinking of god is smoky dew. The tune is space. The blue guitar Becomes the place of things as they are, A composing of senses of the guitar.”5
Pablo Picasso “La Vie” 1903 Oil on canvas 197 cm x 129 cm The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
“The world washed in his imagination, The world was a shore, whether sound or form
Or light, the relic of farewells, Rock, of valedictory echoing,
To which his imagination returned, From which it sped, a bar in space,
Sand heaped in the clouds, giant that fought Against the murderous alphabet:
The swarm of thoughts, the swarm of dreams Of inaccessible Utopia.
A mountainous music always seemed To be falling and to be passing away.”6
“Is this picture of Picasso’s, this ‘hoard Of destructions’, a picture of ourselves,
Now, an image of our society?”7
1 Badt, Kurt; The Art of Cezanne; University of California Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles; 1965; pp. 58-59.
2 Stevens, Wallace; “The Man With The Blue Guitar” Collected Poetry and Prose; The Library of America; New York, New York; 1997; Section I, p. 135.
3 Stevens, Wallace; “The Man With The Blue Guitar” Collected Poetry and Prose; The Library of America; New York, New York; 1997; Section VI, p. 137.
4 MacLeod, Glen; Wallace Stevens and Modern Art: From the Armory show to Abstract Expressionism; Yale University Press; New Haven and London; 1993; p. 197.
5 Stevens, Wallace; “The Man With The Blue Guitar” Collected Poetry and Prose; The Library of America; New York, New York; 1997; Section VI, p. 137.
6 Stevens, Wallace; “The Man With The Blue Guitar” Collected Poetry and Prose; The Library of America; New York, New York; 1997; Section XXVI, pp. 146-147.
7 Stevens, Wallace; “The Man With The Blue Guitar” Collected Poetry and Prose; The Library of America; New York, New York; 1997; Section XV, p. 141.
My friend and colleague, Brett Waller, Director Emeritus of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, used to always mention to students and visitors that art museums were the birth-right of artists: explaining that historically, when many royal and private collections were first opened to the public as museums, they were linked to the local art academies and schools.
Artists such as Paul Cézanne and Alberto Giacometti both were sensitive to the importance of museums and their collections. It was Cézanne who stated many times that “. . . it was his ambition ‘to do Poussin again after nature’ and that he wanted to make of Impressionism ‘. . . something solid and enduring like the art of the museums.’”1
In his Sketchbook of Interpretive Drawings Alberto Giacometti shows us both the range and depth of how he looked at the great art of museums: “I began to copy long before even asking myself why I did it, probably in order to give reality to my predilections, much rather this painting here than that one there, but for many years I have known that copying is the best means for making me aware of what I see, the way it happens with my own work; I can know a little about the world there, a head, a cup, or a landscape, only by copying it.”2
Alberto Giacometti “Study after Pieter Breughel’s Hunters in the Snow” c. 1952 Ballpoint pen on paper 8 1/4” x 11 1/2” Annette and Alberto Giacometti Foundation, Paris and Zurich
Through the writings of Rudolph Arnheim we have known of the ascending and descending angles and movements through out a painting.3 Also, we understand kinetic and haptic space as it runs through a work of art, leading our eye and mind through this very space.
Rudolph Arnheim “Structural Map” (Figure 3, p. 4) Art and Visual Perception 1971
Whether it is a snow covered hill leading us downward from the center left to the bottom right of the painting, or the path that the hunters are taking from the lower left upward into the center, or even the complimentary angles of the magpie gliding above the distant landscape and holding the upper part of the composition, we can feel the structural movement throughout.
It is this seeing, and experiencing of the thing that is most important, and this of course is exactly what William Carlos Williams achieved with this great painting “The Hunters in the Snow.”
Pieter Breughel the Elder “The Hunters in the Snow” 1565 Oil on wood panel 46” x 63 3/4” Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The Hunters in the Snow
“The over-all picture is winter icy mountains in the background the return
from the hunt it is toward evening from the left sturdy hunters lead in
their pack the inn-sign hanging from a broken hinge is a stag a crucifix
between his antlers the cold inn yard is deserted but for a huge bonfire
that flares wind-driven tended by women who cluster about it to the right beyond
the hill is a pattern of skaters Breughel the painter concerned with it all has chosen
a winter-struck bush for his foreground to complete the picture . . ”4
1 Chilvers, Ian, & John Glaves-Smith; A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art; Oxford University Press; Oxford, United Kingdom; 2009; p. 132.
2 Carluccio, Luigi; Giacometti: A Sketchbook of Interpretive Drawings; Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; New York, New York; 1967; p. xi.
3 Arnheim, Rudolf; Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye; University of California Press; Berkeley and Los Angeles; 1971; p. 4.
4 Williams, William Carlos; Pictures from Brueghel and other poems; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 1967; p. 5.
Surrealism and absurdity, fantasy and fiction, images come together in a variety of combinations. The range can be unbelievable: from Giotto’s painting of St. Francis Preaching to the Birds to a contemporary sculptural assemblage of a spoon and teacup lined with fur!1
“I like to do just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet But guarding fumes and making haste It ain’t my cup of meat. . . .”
Meret Oppenheim “Object” 1936 Mixed media 32.7 cm x 7.3 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York
“. . . Ev’rybody’s ’neath the trees Feeding pigeons on a limb But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here All the pigeons gonna run to him.”2
Giotto di Bondone “St. Francis Preaching to the Birds” 1296-1300 Fresco Upper Church of St. Francis Assisi, Italy
In one of his most important collections of poetry, the author and editor Robert Bly takes a look at this literature from so many angles. The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart3 takes its title from the absurd poem “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” by William Butler Yeats:
“Now that my ladder’s gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start, in that foul rag and bone shop of the heart.”4
Included in the “Zaniness” section of this collection, Bly describes a song by Bob Dylan titled “The Mighty Quinn!” Packed full of silliness and surrealism, this mighty Eskimo is here to save us all.
“Nanook of the North” 1922 Lithographic Poster Royal Pictures, Inc.
There is a subtle source for this story: an early short documentary film of 1922 from the Museum of Modern Art Film Library titled “Nanook of the North.” This film circulated around New York and beyond in the 1960’s, even making it to the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore for a film series.
Several sources also point to the movie “The Savage Innocents” starring Anthony Quinn, playing the part of an Eskimo, as the inspiration for this song.
“The Savage Innocents” Movie Poster 1960 40” x 27”
“Ev’rybody’s building the big ships and the boats Some are building monuments Others, jotting down notes Ev’rybody’s in despair Ev’ry girl and boy But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here Ev’rybody’s gonna jump for joy Come all without, come all within You’ll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn”5
“I like to do just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet But guarding fumes and making haste It ain’t my cup of meat Ev’rybody’s ’neath the trees Feeding pigeons on a limb But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here All the pigeons gonna run to him Come all without, come all within You’ll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn”6
“Quinn the Eskimo” Sheet Music Cover Words and Music, Bob Dylan, Performed by Manfred Mann 1968 (Photographer Unknown) 11” x 8 1/2” National Portrait Gallery London, United Kingdom
Bob Dylan wrote this song in 1967 during the Basement Tapes Sessions however it was one of two outtakes at that time. Shortly afterwards, in 1968, it was picked up and famously recorded by the English group Manfred Mann. They used it often in live concerts and recorded several later versions, including an extended play one that lasted over ten minutes. Dylan’s original recording of the “Mighty Quinn” was finally included in the Biograph CD released in 1985.
“A cat’s meow and a cow’s moo, I can recite ’em all Just tell me where it hurts yuh, honey And I’ll tell you who to call Nobody can get no sleep There’s someone on ev’ryone’s toes But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here Ev’rybody’s gonna wanna doze Come all without, come all within You’ll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn”7
Although it may seem like double talk, writing in the absurd mode often gets more directly to the truth. As it happens in Bob Dylan, it also occurs in William Butler Yeats, who provides one last word:
“Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.”8
Anthony Quinn as the Eskimo Inuk “The Savage Innocents” Paramount Pictures, Technicolor Film Still, Nicholas Ray, Director 1960.
3 Bly, Robert; James Hillman and Michael Meade; The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for Men; Harper Perennial, Harper Collins Publishers; New Yrok, New York; 1992.
4 Rosenthal, M. L., ed.; Selected Poems and Two Plays of William Butler Yeats; The MacMillan Company; New York, New York; 1962; pp. 184-185.
Beginning with the Renaissance and running through our contemporary era it has been a recurring metaphor that painting has provided a window onto, or a mirror of, the world. So much so, that we may often forget the power of reflection and the conventions of reflecting the things surrounding us. Two examples include the foreground still life in the Northern Renaissance painting of “The Money Changer and his Wife” from 1514 by Quinten Massys and an M. C. Escher lithograph of the “Hand with a Reflecting Sphere” from 1935. Sandwiched in between is that great “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, otherwise known as Parmigianano.
Quinten Massys “The Money Changer and his Wife” 1514 Oil on canvas 70.5cm x 67cm Musée Louvre, Paris
There are two important literary examples associated with this single painting by Parmigianino: the first one historic, written by Vasari regarding the creation of this painting, and the second one modern, John Ashberry’s extensive and thoughtful meditation on this subject.
The artist is seen in a circular form: a sphere that has been cut in half, one part to be polished and glazed into a mirror and the second part to be prepared and used as the support for this very painting.
Although it is small in diameter, it is forceful in its imagery, and a perfect presentation piece intended to be seen by future patrons in Rome. We are confronted by his intense stare, slightly above center of the composition, and then the sweep of his shoulder and arm around into the extreme foreground, concluding with that hand. A circular movement shown by the model himself that echoes the circular form of the entire painting.
Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino c. 1524 Oil on a convex panel 9.6” in diameter Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
“Then came upon him the desire to see Rome, hearing men greatly praise the works of the masters there, especially of Raffaello and Michael Angelo, and he told his desire to his old uncles. They, seeing nothing in the desire that was not praiseworthy, agreed, but said that it would be well to take something with him which would gain him an introduction to artists. And the counsel seeming good to Francesco, he painted three pictures, two small and one very large. Besides these, inquiring one day into the subtleties of art, he began to draw himself as he appeared in a barber’s convex glass. He had a ball of wood made at a turner’s and divided in half, and on this he set himself to paint all that he saw in the glass, and because the mirror enlarged everything that was near and diminished what was distant, he painted the hand a little large. Francesco himself, being of very beautiful countenance and more like an angel than a man, his portrait on the ball seemed a thing divine, and the work altogether was a happy success, having all the lustre of the glass, with every reflection and the light and shade so true, that nothing more could be hoped for from the human intellect.”1
“The picture being finished and packed, together with the portrait, he set out, accompanied by one of his uncles, for Rome; and as soon as the Chancellor of the Pope had seen the pictures, he introduced the youth and his uncle to Pope Clement, who seeing the works produced and Francesco so young, was astonished, and all his court with him. And his Holiness gave him the charge of painting the Pope’s hall.”2
Sebastiano del Piombo “Portrait of Pope Clement VII” c. 1531 41 1/2” x 34 1/2” Oil on slate J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California.
“The glass chose to reflect only what he saw Which was enough for his purpose: his image Glazed, embalmed, projected at a 180-degree angle. The time of day or the density of the light Adhering to the face keeps it Lively and intact in a recurring wave Of arrival. The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest? The surface Of the mirror being convex, the distance increases Significantly; that is, enough to make the point That the soul is a captive, treated humanely, kept In suspension, unable to advance much farther Than your look as it intercepts the picture. Pope Clement and his court were ‘stupefied’ By it, according to Vasari, and promised a commission That never materialized. . . .”3
Atributed to: Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino “Self Portrait in Old Age, or Portrait of a Man in a Red Beret” 1540 Oil on paper 21cm x 15.5cm National Gallery of Parma, Italy
Years later Parmigianino again took the self-portrait as his subject matter. This time without the youthful visage and silvery reflections, but with a melancholy softness. Vasari’s discussion of tis artist would become an important part of his larger written masterpiece The Lives of the Artists, published in 1550 & 1568, and remains one of the most important documents in the history of art.
John Ashberry’s “Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror” was first published by Viking Press in 1975. The following year John Ashberry won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Twenty years later I attended his reading at the Visiting Writers Lecture Series at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, 9 April 1996. Ashberry was such an important figure in the New York School as it related to both poets and painters. His friends and colleagues over the years have included Fairfield Porter, Jane Freilicher and Frank O’Hara and he always acknowledges these inter-relationships. Below are three excerpts from his extended poem, along with a visual footnote: M. C. Escher’s well known “Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror.”
Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino c. 1524 Oil on a convex panel 9.6” in diameter Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
“As Parmigianino did it, the right hand Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer And swerving easily away, as though to protect What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams, Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together In a movement supporting the face, which swims Toward and away like the hand Except that it is in repose. It is what is Sequestered. Vasari says, “Francesco one day set himself To take his own portrait, looking at himself from that purpose In a convex mirror, such as is used by barbers . . . He accordingly caused a ball of wood to be made By a turner, and having divided it in half and Brought it to the size of the mirror, he set himself With great art to copy all that he saw in the glass. . . .”4
“This past Is now here: the painter’s Reflected face, in which we linger, receiving Dreams and inspirations on an unassigned Frequency, but the hues have turned metallic, The curves and edges are not so rich. Each person Has one big theory to explain the universe But it doesn’t tell the whole story And in the end it is what is outside him That matters, to him and especially to us Who have been given no help whatever In decoding our own man-size quotient and must rely On second-hand knowledge.”5
“Aping naturalness may be the first step Toward achieving an inner calm But it is the first step only, and often Remains a frozen gesture of welcome etched On the air materializing behind it, A convention.”6
Maurits Cornelis Escher “Hand with Reflecting Sphere (Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror)” 1935 Lithograph 31.8cm x 21.3cm Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Netherlands.
1 Vasari, Giorgio, translated by Gaston du C. de Vere; Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects; Everyman’s Library, Alfred A. Knopf; New York and Toronto; 1996; Volume 1, pp. 934-935.
2 Vasari, Giorgio, translated by Gaston du C. de Vere; Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects; Everyman’s Library, Alfred A. Knopf; New York and Toronto; 1996; Volume 1, pp. 934-935.
3 Ashberry, John; Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror; Penguin Books; New York, New York; 1990; pp. 68-69.
4 Ashberry, John; Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror; Penguin Books; New York, New York; 1990; p. 68.
5 Ashberry, John; Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror; Penguin Books; New York, New York; 1990; pp. 81-82 . 6 Ashberry, John; Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror; Penguin Books; New York, New York; 1990; p. 82 .
In a short prose poem, six pages at best, Jack Kerouac sets the stage for a much longer visual poem by the photographer Robert Frank:
“Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world. . . . And I say: ‘That little ole lonely elevator girl looking up sighing in an elevator full of blurred demons, what’s her name & address?’”1
Robert Frank “Elevator, Miami Beach” 1955 Gelatin silver print 9 1/8” x 13 1/4” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
For many years my Dad worked as a photographer, first for the commercial company Cooper-Trent in Washington, DC, and later for the federal government. He was the one who first taught me how to shoot and process film, although I struggled with this. Later in college, 1967 summer school in Norfolk, Connecticut, it was Walter Rosenblum and his assistant, Sedat Pakay, who took us under their wings. Two other personal influences also should be mentioned here: the sensitive portraits of one of my classmates at Norfolk, Carol Ginandes; and a second classmate in Baltimore, Dudley Gray, whose visions of New York City are continually inspiring. All of these examples are ways to help us to see and to work directly.
In writing, it is no surprise that many contemporary poets used the dictum: first thought, best thought. Not unlike the photographer who composes, shoots, and fills the full frame, instantaneously. By writing directly, it eliminated the process of editing and re-writing, which can often make a work stiff, too structured, and not as spontaneous. So it is no surprise that the photographer Robert Frank hooked up with the writer Jack Kerouac for the publication of his photographic series “The Americans.”
Kerouac’s lines resonate with the imagery in equally spontaneous ways.
“——-The gasoline monsters stand in the New Mexico flats under big sign says Save——-the sweet little white baby in the black nurse’s arms both of them bemused in heaven, a picture that should have been blown up and hung in the street of Little Rock showing love under the sky and in the womb of our universe. . . .”2
Robert Frank “Charlestown, South Carolina” 1955 Gelatin silver print 8 1/4” x 12 1/4” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
“THAT CRAZY FEELING IN AMERICA when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral, that’s what Robert Frank has captured. . . with the agility, mystery, genius, sadness and strange secrecy of a shadow photographed scenes that have never been seen before on film. . . . After seeing these pictures you end up finally not knowing any more whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin. That’s because he’s always taking pictures of jukeboxes and coffins. . . !”3
Robert Frank “Bar, Las Vegas, Nevada” 1955/56 Gelatin silver print 8 15/16” x 13 7/16” The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
“What a poem this is, what poems can be written about this book of pictures some day by some young new writer high by candlelight bending over them describing every gray mysterious detail, the gray film that caught the actual pink juice of human kind. Whether ’t is the milk of humankind-ness, of human-kindness, Shakespeare meant, makes no difference when you look at these pictures. Better than a Show.”4
Louis Faurer “Robert Frank” 1947 Gelatin silver print 8 1/16″ x 5 3/8″ National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
And Kerouac’s last word to all of this:
“Anybody doesnt like these these pitchers dont like potry, see? Anybody dont like potry go home see Television shots of big hatted cowboys being tolerated by kind horses.”
“To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes.”5
1 Frank, Robert; The Americans; (With and Introduction by Jack Kerouac); An Aperture Book, Grossman Publishers; New York, New York; 1969; p. vi.
2 Frank, Robert; The Americans; (With and Introduction by Jack Kerouac); An Aperture Book, Grossman Publishers; New York, New York; 1969; p. vi.
3 Frank, Robert; The Americans; (With and Introduction by Jack Kerouac); An Aperture Book, Grossman Publishers; New York, New York; 1969; p. i.
4 Frank, Robert; The Americans; (With and Introduction by Jack Kerouac); An Aperture Book, Grossman Publishers; New York, New York; 1969; p. iii.
5 Frank, Robert; The Americans; (With and Introduction by Jack Kerouac); An Aperture Book, Grossman Publishers; New York, New York; 1969; p. vi.
There are certain images, or should I say icons, that exert a visual power over all others. Two in particular come to mind: Turner’s great paintings of various “Storms at Sea” and Hokusai’s series of “Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji” which includes important images of nearby waves and distant views of Mt. Fuji. Whereas Hokusai often happily described himself as an old crazy man to paint, Turner was often derogatorily described by many of his contemporaries, often depicted as a crazy man wielding mops in order to complete his paintings!
“Turner painting one of his pictures” Satirical cartoon, Almanack of the Month 1846 J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, California
We have often seen entire sets of Hokusai’s woodcuts exhibited at both the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As for Turner, nothing surpasses the work from the Turner Bequest at the Tate Museum in London, or the Clowes Collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Contemporary writers have also been drawn to these two artists, including Yusef Komunyakaa and Patricia Clark. We have previously written regarding Komunyakaa’s “Turner’s Tussle with Water” and take a look now at Hokusai’s waves as written by Patricia Clark. Clark and her husband, the contemporary painter Stanley Krohmer, are often traveling and visiting museums. They collect exhibition catalogues, calendars and post cards from these locations. These are all important visual mnemonic devices, reminders of people and places seen, as well as sources for future investigations into both painting and poetry.1
Stanley Krohmer, “Nocturne, Lake Michigan” 2021 Oil on wood panel 30” x 24” Collection of the artist.
As a result of one of these trips, an image from Hokusai re-appeared in Clark’s memory. When I asked her about it, this was her response: “I never PLAN to write about some image ahead of time; I like to wait & see if it speaks to me somehow, over time. And somehow this one did. I think I was attracted to the tension in the fishing lines, the odd outfit the fellow is wearing, and the two figures. Plus the evident danger they might be in. I was surprised when it called up an old memory of mine — fishing during a camping trip, and also wandering along the shore, looking into tidepools and under rocks.”2
As is her practice, Patricia Clark uses her direct written responses to this visual work of art in order to combine them with certain memories of family members and their interactions with a landscape remembered from a distance.
Katsushika Hokusai “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji: Fishermen standing on a rocky promontory at Kajikazawa” 1830-1832 Woodblock print on paper 10” x 15 1/8” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Barnacle
“The fisherman’s bent in half on the tip of a promontory,
a jacket, short pants, a grass skirt over the pants, no hat, tall socks
with shoes—though I’m fearful he’ll slip where below waves growl and snap.
He’s pulling in at least four lines, heavy with fish, one has to hope—
and he’s not alone. Nearby crouches a person down on his haunches also holding lines.
If the land’s rocky, okay, but it looks fragile enough to break off,
soft ground with wet sod crumbling to pitch him in, if not both of them. Once,
we wandered far down Agate & Crescent Beach, stooping at tidepools, turning over rocks
to find small gray crabs and touch anemones, fascinated by their pulse, heedless of tides.
By the time we looked up, our path back was erased, water crashing in, spraying foam,
and only through luck did we find a cut in the bluff where a path
snaked down—we clambered up with sea- salt biting at our heels. That was the day
later on, we hauled in a creature of the deep we didn’t know, a purple spiny thing large
as a cabbage we brought to the park ranger in a bucket— sea urchin, he said mildly.
It was a fearsome beautiful thing— those spines dripping with the sea, waving–I hope we let it go.
My father and his father, me and who else? –my brother Dan?— last seen on that shore
now washed away by waves of time though memory has planted a barnacle there.”3
Stanley Krohmer “Steller’s Jay” 2015 Oil on canvas 36” x 36” Collection of the Artist.
1 And as a footnote to this essay, I have included at the end an image of one of Stanley Krohmer’s paintings, “Steller’s Jay” which was actually used as the cover art for one of Patricia Clark’s books, “The Canopy” published by Terrapin Books in 2017.
2 Clark, Patricia; “Barnacle;” Manuscript page and notes in an E-Mail correspondence to this author, 2 December 2021, 4:58 PM.
3 Clark, Patricia; “Barnacle;” Included in the journal SALT; Santa Barbara, California; Issue 4, #1; 2023.
“The humanity, the simple direct humanity of his figures—you feel like they’re real people that you can empathize with. He treats them with a certain dignity, it’s not like he’s trying to belittle them by making them seem so down-to-earth. He has respect for the ordinary person.”1
This is one of the many observations that my friend and colleague Stephanie Dickey has made regarding the work of Rembrandt van Rijn. She is one of the leading authorities on this artist, and was interviewed by Smithsonian Magazine on the anniversary of his 400th birth. She is unique amongst art historians, in my opinion, as she is so aware of, and sensitive to, the thought and painting processes of artists, not unlike the writing of the poet Robert Bly, who has himself had a life long interest and sensitivity to the work of painters and sculptors.
The Old St. Peter by Rembrandt
“Noah’s ship does not sail with its elephants forever. The crying of the monkeys breaks off and starts again. Even shame does not last a whole lifetime.”
Rembrandt van Rijn “Noah’s Ark” 1660 Pen & ink with brown washes 203mm x 248mm The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
“‘It was dark,’ Peter said. ‘We were alone. We had A single candle which shone on the steel breastplate Of the Roman soldier. The whole town was asleep.’
We are bubbles on the lips of our friends. Each time they turn their heads, we drift toward the Pole; We pass into the Many and return.
Who can say, ‘With God, the rest is nothing?’ Who can say, ‘I am a grandchild of the unfaithful?’ Who is able to wait one month to drink water?
We fell into weeping yesterday at five o’clock. We wept because slavery has returned; we wept Because the whole century has been a defeat.
Oh Peter! Peter! The night behind you is black. A beam of light falls on your outworn face. What can you do but lift up your hand for forgiveness?”2
Rembrandt van Rijn “The Apostle Peter” 1632 Oil on canvas 32.2” x 24.4” Nationalmuseum, Sweden
Rembrandt’s Brown Ink
“The sorrow of an old horse standing in the rain Goes on and on. The plane that crashes in the desert Holds shadows under its wings for thirty years.
Each time Rembrandt touches his pen to the page, So many barns and fences fly up. Perhaps that happens Because earth has pulled so many nights down.
When we hear a Drupad singer with his low voice Patiently waiting for the next breath, we know The universe can easily get along without us.
So much suffering has been stored in the amygdala That we know it won’t be long before we put Our heads down on the chopping block again.
Our thighs still remember all those smoky nights When we crouched for hours on the dusty plains Holding small-boned mammals into the fire.
How is it possible that so many nights of suffering Could be summed up by a sketch in brown ink Of Christ sitting at the table with Judas near?”3
Rembrandt van Reign “The Last Supper, after Leonardo da Vinci” 1634-1635 Red chalk 14 1/4” x 18 11/16” Robert Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York.
Rembrandt’s Portrait of Titus with a Red Hat
“It’s enough for light to fall on one half of a face. Let the other half belong to the restful shadow, The shadow the bowl of bread throws on the altar.
Some are like a horse’s eating place At the back of the barn where a single beam Of light comes down from a crack in the ceiling.
Painting bright colors may lie about the world. Too many windows cause the artist to hide. Too many well-lit necks call for the axe.
Beneath his red hat, Titus’s eyes hint to us How puzzled he is by the sweetness of the world— The way the dragonfly hurries to its death.
So many forces want to kill the young Male who has been blessed. The Holy Family Has to hide many times on the way to Egypt.
Titus receives a scattering of darkness. He’s baptized by water soaked in onions; The father protects his son by washing him in the night.”4
Rembrandt van Rijn “Portrait of Titus with Red Hat” 1657 Oil on canvas 68.5cm x57.3cm The Wallace Collection, London, The United Kingdom.
Everything he paints, he paints with a sense of light (a touch of light) and a tacit understanding of the sitter just across from him. The form is felt with each brushstroke, and handled with sensitivity as the light falls across the space/face. One may identify one of these paintings from across the gallery, even without seeing the didactic information posted on the nearby wall. Always recognizable. And this work has grown so much, almost mythologically, that it exists on a whole ‘nother level of culture. So the last word on this surely belongs to my colleague and friend Stephanie Dickey from her observations on 400 Years of Rembrandt. Rembrandt’s reputation has taken on a life of its own:
“One thing that really surprises me is the extent to which Rembrandt exists as a phenomenon in pop culture. You have this musical group called The Rembrandts, who wrote the theme song to Friends—‘I’ll Be There For You.’ There are Rembrandt restaurants, Rembrandt hotels, art supplies and other things that are more obvious. But then there’s Rembrandt toothpaste. Why on Earth would somebody name a toothpaste after this artist who’s known for his really dark tonalities? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I think it’s because his name has become synonymous with quality. It’s even a verb—there’s a term in underworld slang, ‘to be Rembrandted,’ which means to be framed for a crime. And people in the cinema world use it to mean pictorial effects that are overdone. He’s just everywhere, and people who don’t know anything, who wouldn’t recognize a Rembrandt painting if they tripped over it, you say the name Rembrandt and they already know that this is a great artist. He’s become a synonym for greatness.”5
Dr. Stephanie Dickey, Bader Chair in Northern Baroque Art, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
1 Amy, Crawford; An Interview with Stephanie Dickey, author of ‘Rembrandt at 400’; “Arts & Culture,” Smithsonian Magazine; 1 December 2006; Washington, DC; Archived 21 September 2018.
2 Bly, Robert; The Night Abraham Called to the Stars; Perennial/Harper Collins; New York; 2001; p. 75.
3 Bly Robert; My Sentence was a Thousand Years of Joy; Harper Perennial; New York, London, Toronto and Sydney; 2005; p. 35.
4 Bly, Robert; The Night Abraham Called to the Stars; Perennial/Harper Collins; New York; 2001; p. 39.
5 Amy, Crawford; An Interview with Stephanie Dickey, author of ‘Rembrandt at 400’; “Arts & Culture,” Smithsonian Magazine; 1 December 2006; Washington, DC; Archived 21 September 2018.
BRIDGING THE GAP 