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| Samuel Peploe Tulips in a Pottery Vase ca. 1912 oil on canvas Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow |
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| Edgar Herbert Thomas Rhododendrons ca. 1913 oil on panel National Museum Cardiff, Wales |
from Solitude
A few days ago I stopped looking
at the photographs
clustered on the walls, nudes,
which had become dull to me,
like a tourist's collection of smooth rocks.
I turned away from the view
and conjured a plague of starlings.
Oh how they darkened the landscape.
Surely such beauty had been waiting for its elegy.
I felt like crushing a rhododendron.
Now and again I feel the astonishment
of being alive like this, in this body,
of the ventricles and the small bones
in the hand, the intricacies of digestion . . . .
* * *
I will long to be alone
when my friends arrive.
– Stephen Dunn (1992)
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| Harold Gilman Interior with Flowers ca. 1918 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| William Bruce Ellis Ranken Still Life - Black and White 1925 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
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| Matthew Smith Still Life of Flowers ca. 1925 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| William Nicholson Flower Piece with Books 1927 oil on canvas The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent |
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| Lawrence Biddle Wallflowers and Bluebells in a Bowl 1928 oil on panel Touchstones Rochdale, Lancashire |
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| Vanessa Bell Still Life - Polyanthus in Vase ca. 1930 oil on canvas Charleston House, Lewes, Sussex |
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| Herbert Davis Richter Diana ca. 1932 oil on canvas The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent |
From Mars cruel god of war
The desire to tie the corpse to the chariot
And drag it around each morning,
From Mercury the idea to put a stop to that
And buy the body back.
Because everything sooner or later becomes a musical
Or a collectible card or figurine
Hitler or the Fierce Saladin
Dracula the Impaler
All stripped of any awareness of suffering:
There is no voice in stones
No word that turns to flesh or blood.
– Franco Buffoni, translated by Geoffrey Brock (2007)
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| Teresa Copnall A Mixed Bunch 1932 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
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| Philip Naviasky Flower Piece ca. 1935 oil on canvas The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent |
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| Thomas Balston Geraniums 1937 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
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| Duncan Grant Flowers Against Chintz 1956 oil on board Southbank Centre, London |
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| Lindy Guinness Still Life of Flowers in a Vase ca. 1969 oil on canvas Charleston House, Lewes, Sussex |
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| David Ross Warrillow Tulip 1991 oil on board Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow |