I am beginning to wonder whether I will ever be able to go to an art exhibition again, so on this first anniversary of the UK lockdown, here is an appropriate poem.
Every word counts in this short, haiku-like poem. In the title, for instance, we have “L’Art” rather than “Art” and that specific date. This was the year of the post-impressionist exhibition in London that introduced Van Gogh, Cezanne and other French modern artists to a puzzled public.
The poem is a very good example of imagism, the poetic style that sought to make a break with the more wordy Victorian style of poetry, just as artists were trying to find new means of visual representation.
There are strange clashes here, red and green, food and poison, but the overall impression is a sense of excitement, helped by that exclamation mark and the use of the word “feast”. To me, it conveys the sheer pleasure of oil paint thickly applied to the canvas.
L’Art, 1910 by Ezra Pound
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
The Good Reader 