Landscapes in paintings and poems

Rich, lovely or desolate, fields harvested by men, gardens that recall Eden, untouched wilderness - so many landscapes in the paintings seem as vivid as any we encounter with our five senses!

Monet in his delicate Water Lily Pond with Japanese bridge gives us

“Air, light, water interwoven
In this unearthly garden
Under a hovering heaven.”

Cezanne's Mont St Victoire takes delight in

“Man's harmony with nature in the foreground -
Sun-drenched fields of vivid green and gold;
Planted hedgerows, all in well-planned order
Delineate and contain the land around…”

Yet the towering mountain itself threatens the contentment of the farmers with

“the lure of the unknown...
And always, in the distance, the great mountain reared
Its stubborn, rocky head - and an imagined world,
Masked by its peak, of other countries far beyond,
Mocked their ignorance…”

For Puvis de Chavannes's The Poor Fisherman, the empty brown mudflats mock his efforts:

“The grey seascape reflects the poor man's sorrow;
An ebbing tide carries his lone oar's shadow
And nothing stirs the sameness of the scene…”

even while the love of his wife is symbolised in the

“white, gold flowers sprung from imagination”
which she gathers
“to make a garland for her man”
for
“She will do everything she can
To keep the spirit in him afloat
Even while his humble, wooden boat
Is grounded in the shallows.”

Coming next: States of Mind in paintings and poems

 

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