The heart asks pleasure first
and then excuse from pain
And then those little anodynes
that deaden suffering.
And then to go to sleep
and then if it should be
The Will of its Inquisitor
the liberty to die.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
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| Christina's World - Andrew Wyeth (1948) |
death isn't a 12-Step Plan? ;)
ReplyDeleteI cant say I see any relevance to this particular Dickinson poem or to Wyeth's famous painting, but all right.
DeleteThe poem and the painting I felt were closely related in spirit if not in actual fact.
The poisgnancy of themes dealing with human isolation, desolation, and increasing disability in atmospheres of profound austerity easily transcend the limitations of time and space.
But, I see no call for flippancy in either of these works of art.
Dickinson lists 5 steps (and then, and then...)
DeleteAs for Mr. Wyeth, as one who has visited the Brandywine River Museum I have little sympathy for the old perv's "loneliness".
Andrew Wyeth was one our finest artists. He was the the equal of Stuart, Copley, Sully and the other great portraitists of the eightheenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Wyeth belonged in a class with the greatest of them and in the same exalted league with American impressionist Childe Hassam and Mary Cassatt, then James Whistler, John Sunger Sargent, Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper.
DeleteAn artist should never be judged by his personal conduct, but only by the quality of the art he produced.
ART is not –– and should never BE –– subject to the strictures of Middle-Class Morality. Only a Philistine would think that it should.
:P
ReplyDeleteHelga was not by classical "Bourgeois" standards a "pretty" woman. She did not look like a particularly happy woman either, but if so it was hardly Wyeth's fault. His paintings of her are intense, brilliantly executed, and immensely powerful.
Delete:)
ReplyDelete"Critics are those who have failed in Music and Art."
Delete~ Albert Schweitzer
;)
ReplyDeleteTime? Newsweek? Sensation-mongering, money-hungry leftist JACKALS completely insensitive to artistic values, with no hint of awareness of what true greatness means or what it comprises.
DeleteAs Miss Dickinson notes, "the heart asks pleasure first..."
ReplyDeleteThe poem is simply a précis of what nearly everyone experiences during a lifetime from childhood through middle age and into maturity.
Delete1. Pleasure first
2. Excuse from Pain
3. Chemical relief from Pain
4. Longing for Death after uncontrollabl pain becomes unbearable.