Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Nineteenth-Century Visuals

Paul Cézanne
Bathers
1896-97
lithograph
National Galleries of Scotland

Mirrorland

I wanted to know more of the soldiers
On the other side of the looking glass
I wanted to know how they got there
What they are doing there
I wanted to know more of myself around them
How I got there
Why I got there
What I am doing there again
I wanted to know more of memories
I wanted to know more of remembrances
I wanted to know more of myself
On the other side of the looking glass

Ernest Stamp after Frederick Walker
A Rainy Day at Cookham
1894
etching
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Henry Charles Fehr
The Rescue of Andromeda
1893
bronze
Tate Gallery

Glad Tidings

I think there is a mermaid in the water
I think it tugs on the pulse
I think it tugs on the pulsations
I think it sings in the azure
I think it sings in the breezes
I think it sings in the branches
I think it sings in the trees
I think it sings in the leaves
I think it sings in the seaweed
I think it sings in the sky above
I think it sings rockaby baby in the treetop
I think it sings for a fair day
I think it sings for a boy who is going to go to the fairy world
I think it sings of the poet laureate
I think it sings for a boy who is going to wear long hair
I think it sings glad tidings
I think it sings of the soul

Franck (photographer, Paris)
Ivory statuettes of Spring and Summer
1868
photograph
Victoria & Albert Museum

Franck (photographer, Paris)
Ivory statuettes of Autumn and Winter
1868
photograph
Victoria & Albert Museum

Anonymous printmaker
Foreign Picture Gallery of the Dublin International Exhibition
1865
wood-engraving from the Illustrated London News
British Museum

Anonymous photographer
Arch of Constantine, Rome
ca. 1860
albumen print
National Galleries of Scotland

June Silver

I wanted you to know of
The black June bug
That buzzed silver

But I wanted you to know of
June silver, of blue silver
During the month of June

I wanted you to know
I rocked in a rocking chair
And all along the silvery vines

I wanted you to know I knew
Of a boy who rocked on top of a rocking horse
And up and down the wiry plains

I wanted you to know of
Blue silver, of black silver
During the month of June silver

Richard Cockle Lucas
Miniature profile-portrait of a Roman Emperor
ca. 1840-65
ivory relief
Victoria & Albert Museum

Richard Cockle Lucas
Miniature portrait of Henry John Temple,
3rd Viscount Palmerston

ca. 1850
ivory relief
Victoria & Albert Museum

Johann Gottfried Schadow
Portrait of the Rabe children - Hermann, age 14 and Edmond, age 7
1822
lithograph
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

John Hayter
Heads of five Armenian monks
1818
drawing
British Museum

Sunburst

I was urged
I couldn't say no
I didn't say no
It was stronger than myself
I was going to do what girls do
I was going to be a beautiful nurse
I flowed with the sunburst on the classroom window
I tied a ribbon in my long brown hair
I began my life's ambition
I began my soul

John Hayter
Man seated at desk, reading a document through a magnifying glass
1817
drawing
British Museum

Pierre Escuyer
La Grotte des Fées (near St Maurice in Valais, Switzerland)
ca. 1800-1820
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Thomas Rowlandson
The Hall, Carlton House
1808
hand-colored etching and aquatint
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

– poems are from A Dark Dreambox of Another Kind: the Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton (Brooklyn : The Song Cave, 2013)