Saturday, August 20, 2011

The geology of Auvers

Layers of stone
textures of time
rest heavily upon the artist,
the brother, the painter
the agent, supporting
                the brother, the painter
the wheat field behind
                (in three dimensions)
perhaps above
                (in two dimensions)
thickly laid strokes
                of photographic paint
but without crows
                this time, all time


This poem is submitted for the Poetics prompt of "texture" by dVerse Poets. To see more poems, please visit dVerse Poets.

Photograph: Gravesite of Vincent and Thos Van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, France.

Painting: Wheat field with Crows (1890), Vincent Van Gogh, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. The painting was finished a few weeks before Vincent Van Gogh’s death. His brother, Theo, died six months later. There is a wheat field behind the wall shown in the photograph.

13 comments:

  1. the textures of time resting heavily upon the artist...are a fab image and you made me feel the weight glynn. i hope to visit amsterdam in the near future and can't wait to see some of van gogh's originals..great play on the crows as well

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  2. I'm so glad you chose the Van Gogh's. Two lives filled with texture. A wonderful response to the prompt. I didn't realize that they were buried next to one another.

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  3. this is simply beautiful Glynn, in any dimension!

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  4. dimensions of feelings
    so deeply layered
    the hard
    the harsh
    and the beautiful

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  5. this left me with a little unease...the graves and the crows in the field...but no longer..the repitition on the brother...creates and intriguing feel glynn...

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  6. Hey Glynn,

    Very well done glynn - I have studied Vincent (acedemically) so deeply i feel i know so much about him and his life - you have managed to bring some freshness in here with this piece and using his relationship with theo as an anchor (such an impotant relationship - very inspirational). The brevity and shape is packed with crisp lines.
    My favourite painting too - in the real it is suprisingly small but the power...

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  7. The opening lines captured one's attention, until the end. These lines are great:

    Layers of stone
    textures of time
    rest heavily upon the artist,
    the brother, the painter

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  8. Looks like texture follows us to the end.

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  9. Poignant yet peaceful. I found this interpretation of the prompt interesting and unexpected.

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  10. In high school I saw a movie about Van Gogh, which simply highlighted paintings and letters to Theo, you've captured the intertwining nature and textures of the relationship well here.

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  11. You've captured the many textures of Van Gogh's work and his relationship with his brother and their relationship with and through time.

    Beautiful.

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  12. One of the view artists who compelled me to search deeper into background and history, so it's nice to come here and know a bit of the relationship and back story to the write. Thought it wonderful, as I often do upon my visits here :)

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  13. I really enjoyed this one. Along with the texture of your words, I like the layout of the piece, which adds its own dimension as well.

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