Saturday, January 2, 2010

Art Trigger

A reaction to Linda's (and she is indeed, linda) comment about A Modern Olympia, featured in this week's Friday Evening Nudes. I don't especially love the painting but I found it interesting that a painting with such a title would be painted. Sort of like a popular song remake, rarely as good as the original. Who knows? Well, someone must know, but I don't.    ;-)  I don't think Olympia looks herself at all in Cezanne's version.





 A Modern Olympia


Paul Cezanne



Anyway, that triggered the image of the Olympia by Manet. My favorite nude of all time.



 

And because it's been too long since I posted any poetry, a repeat of the poem by Margaret Atwood, my favorite writer and thinker

Manet’s Olympia
By Margaret Atwood
She reclines, more or less,
Try that posture, it’s hardly languor.
Her right arm sharp angles.
With her left she conceals her ambush.
Shoes but not stockings,
how sinister.  the flower
behind her ear is naturally
not real, of a piece
with the sofa’s drapery.
The windows (if any) are shut.
This is indoor sin.
Above the head of the (clothed) maid
is an invisible voice balloon:   Slut.


But.  Consider the body,
unfragile, defiant, the pale nipples
staring you right in the bull’s eye.
Consider also the black ribbon
around the neck.  What’s under it?
A fine red threadline, where the head
was taken off and glued back on.
The body’s on offer,
but the neck’s as afar as it goes.


 This is no morsel.
Put clothes on her and you’d have a schoolteacher,
the kind with the brittle whiphand.


 There’s someone else in this room.
You, Monsieur Voyeur.
As for that object of yours
she’s seen those before, and better.


 I, the head, am the only subject
of this picture.
You, Sir, are furniture.
Get stuffed







 

6 comments:

  1. There’s someone else in this room.
    You, Monsieur Voyeur.
    As for that object of yours
    she’s seen those before, and better.
    [grins]

    I, the head, am the only subject
    of this picture.
    You, Sir, are furniture.
    Get stuffed


    thank you, my dear, for this bit of poetry...it is wonderful! it also says exactly what I was feeling about the cezanne painting...pure strangeness...i didn't know[big surprise]that this was the "other" one by manet...interesting ... this is much more beautiful and there is a look to her that matches the poetry so perfectly, like she has chosen to be there for the painter while the other looks as if she is cringing in the corner....perhaps it is true what i have read of cezanne, that he was a brute with a brush after all!

    ah well, such is art, always in the mind of the beholder, whatever that mind might be...for me, i like this one much better and the idea that black ribbon is hiding the thread that holds her head on, well, you guessed it would be perfect and it is so thanks for the explanation and this extra little treat!! art AND poetry together--your NEXT blog! just kidding*grins* ;)
    xoxxox

    ReplyDelete
  2. "As for that object of yours
    she’s seen those before, and better."


    LOLOLOLOLOL.....ain't it the truth!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had not read this poem beofre. Thanks for posting it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a really great poem! I had never read it before.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Atwood speaks only of the subject of the painting. what of the woman in attendance? What of the bouquet?
    Yet, that was worth reading. It made me go back and look and "see" again.
    Very Cool!

    Peace to you.

    ReplyDelete

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