Sommer Nectarhoff's Blog, page 6

Picasso and Magritte's Bathing Nudes

René Magritte, La Race Blanche, 1937. Oil on canvas 
Pablo Picasso, Seated Bather, 1930. Oil on canvas, 163.2 x 129.5 cm.
I wonder if this is what Picasso saw in that praying mantis...

- 7/29/14

(nectarhoff)

The Relativity of Age

The Day
by Donald Hall
Last night at suppertime I outlived my father, enduringthe year, month, day, hour, and momentwhen he lay back on a hospital bed in the guest roomamong cylinders of oxygen — mouth open, nostrils and paleblue lips fixed unquivering. Father of my name,father of long fingers, I remember your dark hair and your face almost unwrinkled. Now I have wakedmore mornings to frost whitening the grass,read the newspaper more times, and stood more times,my hand on a doorknob withou...

Ceci n’est pas une Pipe

(Self-Portrait by Frederic Bazille)


ceci n’est pas une pipe,but this Ispaintand this isPaint.
the paint is a Self-Portrait of itselfand yet it is also
Itself:
a material,an image,texture,
but least of alla name
and most of all
two Reflectionsof one Idea,
rigid
implastic
and superimposeduponeach other.
This is not a Pipe.
This is a Painting of paint
and
a painting of 
Paint. 
- 7/22/14
(nectarhoff)

Painting Paint

Frédéric Bazille, Self-Portrait, 1866. Oil on canvas, 108.9 x 71.1cm.
This painting hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. Each time I see it I have the same thought--It must have felt peculiar for Bazille to paint paint on canvas. It reminds me of the famous painting by René Magritte: 

René Magritte, La Trahison des Images, 1929. Oil on canvas, 63.5 x 94cm.
- 7/18/14

(nectarhoff)

A Slow Reading of Ulysses

Ulysses
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.I cannot rest from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees: All times I have enjoy'dGreatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with thoseThat loved me, and alone, on shore, and whenThro' scudding drifts the rainy HyadesVext the dim sea: I am become a name;For always ro...

Rhyme Done Right

The Pennycandystore Beyond the Elby Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The pennycandystore beyond the Elis where I first                fell in love                            with unrealityJellybeans glowed in the semi-gloomof that september afternoonA cat upon the counter moved among                          the licorice sticks ...

Crocodile

Floatinglike a loglong dead,cloaked in apale green graymess of cold-blooded scales,it lies there,black-beaded eyes opened andalways watching,always waiting,always waiting.But never sleeping, no —those sharp, closedjaws rest on aseeminglycalm river of liquid quietus that has just one name: hunger.Senseless little lukewarm livesloll across the steadily driftingsurfaceor flit down from the facelessblue aboveto touchthe silver water, to be crushed,to be consumed...

The Changing River

He Wanted to Live His Life Over
by Robert Bly
What? You want to live your life over again?“Well, I suppose, yes…That time in Grand Rapids…My life—as I lived it—was a series of shynesses.”
Being bolder—what good would that do?“I’d open my door again. I’ve felt abashed,You see. Now I’d go out and say, ‘All right,
I’ll go with you to Alaska.’ Just opening the door From inside would have altered me—a little. I’m too shy…” And so, a bolder life
Is what you want? “We could begin now. ...

Justice

From "22"

“I'm innocent!” He shrieked.
They threw him to the cold floor. 
“The rats will be the judge of that.”
The gate creaked shut.

And out went the lights.

- 7/1/14
(nectarhoff)

Picasso's Mystic Vision

I once wrote about how society reveres artists for having a sort of mystic vision. We see them as tapping into a secret world closed to the rest of us. That’s how this photograph of Picasso makes me feel. He sees something in the praying mantis beyond what I perceive, something beyond the ordinary.

- 6/27/14

(nectarhoff)