It had been 30
years since we had been in London. One site on my “must-see” list was the Tate Modern, that
monumental museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art and occupying a
former power plant on the south bank of the Thames, directly across the Millennium
Bridge from St. Paul’s Cathedral. Even if you don’t like contemporary art, the
museum is stunning. The major exhibition at the time was the works of the
Norwegian artist Edvard
Munch, which I would see two days later. On this day, I simply wanted to
experience the museum itself.
I wandered. And
in the corner of a large room I came upon a painting by the British painter Meredith Frampton
(1894-1984) entitled “Marguerite
Kelsey.” Kelsey (1908-1994) was a professional model, and this painting of
her from 1928 simply stunned me. I stood in front of it for a good 15 minutes,
and then resumed my wandering. I went back to it before I left, and I would
return twice more during that trip to see it. Two years later, I had a similar
experience with “Interior
1981” by the German painter Anselm Kiefer, during an
exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy of Art. As it turned out, that
painting was part of Kiefer’s leading Germany to confront its Nazi past.
Art can move us
to a stunned silence. It can also move us to write poetry, as the paintings of
the Fauvism movement,
roughly 1904 to 1908, moved poet Barbara Crooker to write Les
Fauves, her newest collection. (The term for poetry inspired by other
forms of art is ekphrastic poetry, and Crooker won a ekphrastic poetry award in
2006.)
To continue
reading, please see my post todat at Tweetspeak
Poetry.
Painting: Odalisque avec Anemones, oil on
canvas (1937) by Henri Matisse; Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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