Art

. In Urbe Hortus ---June afternoon in the South Garden of the Art Institute of Chicago Hard stone and brick, cold glass and steel Shrink behind the canopy Of intertwining leafy boughs Sprawling from each...

. The Poppy I walk a poppy universe, I rattle the hourglass’s isles, Where time slows down and turns to hope And I’m a brush that paints for miles. I balance on a single finger; At first all’s white and...

. Healing by Heart Dear André, let me see your face And cry out with you to lament The rot of flesh and foul disgrace You suffer, ulcered hands unbent. Your body needs rebirth that’s meant To cure your soul...

. In line with its mission to preserve humankind’s artistic traditions, the Society of Classical Poets is featuring the best of artwork submitted recently by high school students. This artwork uses a...

  Old Man at the River Old man's at the river painting the scene.He's working on boats and feeling serene.Unnoticed, a person's drowning out therewhile scents from the food shacks float through the air.A...

. In line with its mission to preserve humankind's artistic traditions, the Society of Classical Poets is featuring the best of artwork submitted recently by high school students. This artwork uses a...

. Elusive Illusive Art Where are the pure, illusive works of artthat bubble upward from the deep unknown?Where in this world are worlds Art sets apart? Duct tape? A banana fresh from the cart?Renoir would...

. Horse Figurine —one inch by one point nine inch, 32,000 to 35,000 years before Giacometti's famous horse   A hallowed tiny horse, but missing legs, Comes down to us impossibly, or near In its...

. Bright Light, Some City "It's probably a reflection of my own, if I may say, loneliness. I don't know. It could be the whole human condition." — Edward Hopper on "Morning Sun" Why does it matter that the...

. The 2024 Olympics . I. Excusez-moi, s’il vous plait, But having seen your lewd display, I’ve chosen not to watch your Games; Despite too late, half-hearted claims Attempting to equivocate, As if to...

. Mates of the Greats Gauguin the banker thought Painting while married was Quite a nice hobby And so did his wife. But then in Tahiti Paul met with a sweetie And lived on papaya The rest of his life. Pity...

. . Peaches, Plums, and the Sistine Chapel . . I. Pondering Prufrock   a pantoum  . The women come and then they go As foggy muzzles nuzzle air. There’s talk of Mike and Angelo. Time strides...

. Once the Future You were the future once, not long ago. Your sterile walls of concrete, brick, and glass Outlined in steel, and jutting angles show Scorn for the forms you thought you could surpass. That...

. Carving Fingers "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." ---St. Paul Percy exhales with a scowl and he spits. In his hickory fingers, an obstinate block; in his critical snicker, a grin; on his...

. Two Ekphrastic Poems . The Light of the World, Holman Hunt As predawn darkness shrouds the land, With warm-lit lantern in his hand The risen Jesus stands before A rusted, weed-choked, shuttered door And...

. Reviewed Book: Making Music by Sally Cook, White Violet Press, 2012 by Monika Cooper Making Music by Sally Cook is a book that comes with a painting on its cover, a still life no less. Wine-colored drapery...

. The Pietà or Mickey Mouse? A book I’ve read depicts a boy Who’s searching for creative joy. His mind can’t focus on a vision, So he’s weighed down by indecision: To carve the rock behind his...

. Paradise Lost Satan Found in the Modern by Michael Curtis The guardian prince Saint Michael, spiritual warrior, leader of the Army of God, cast into Hell Satan.  And there it is.  Yet, Satan is not content...

. Key West Rum, reeling, raunchiness, and revelry, Palms, poincianas, palaces of old--- All lie behind; the Morro Castle’s hold Guards old Havana past the sparkling sea A half-day’s sail south from this...

. Quattrocento On the Fresco “Madonna del Parto” by Piero della Francesca, Monterchi, Italy, circa 1460 We file into a silent darkened room. Now, a stagelight floods the wall to show bright colors of a...

. A Picture of Repose A young boy’s seated on a wall that overlooks Capri, an oil painting by Dane Peter Vilhelm Carl Kyhn, where a rock ridge arises over architextured walls, with arches, domes and towers...

. Art Freezes Time Great art freezes time when a painting is hung. An image of beauty eternally young. Who painted the pictures that hang on this wall? I talked to the soul that had painted them all: “So...

. Deconstructing Grűnewald’s Crucifixion It isn’t de rigueur these days to show A bloodied, tortured Jesus on the cross. Post-moderns would prefer we came to know Him as innocuous instead of gross. No...

. Modernism and the Murder of the People’s Poetry and Art In Response to “Poetry Died 100 Years Ago this Month” by Matthew Walther in the New York Times . by Phillip Whidden First, let’s have a sonnet...

. . On Alma Tadema’s Coign of Vantage Flora peeks over the marble parapet, a dizzying perch above the azure Aegean. The Roman fleet is returning. 'Tis the season to flirt, to catch a lover in her...

. See the painting more closely here. Eden The newborn world is all aswirl with beasts Obedient who, as God specified, Have duly fruitful been, have multiplied And claim laid to the garden west to east. Their...

. The Portrait   I dreamed I was an artist, and had made A likeness of the one I loved for all To wonder at, and, that the homage paid Might grow, I hung it on a trendy wall. It was a likeness, but had...

. Last Letter from Florence A recent incident recalls the fears Your letters have expressed: that seven years In this art-laden place might rob me of Whatever you once thought that you could love: The flat I...

. After Observing the Working Methods of a Very Important Artist The aging fool stands deep in dirty water, Cradling the carcass of a native fowl To his bare chest like a tired, suckling daughter. He wears...

. The Angelus, Jean-François Millet (Musée d’Orsay) How soft across the field the muted peal Has caromed off the setting sun, the air September-ripe, the earth upturned, a pair Preoccupied with what it...

. Reviewed Book: Modern Art: An Exhibition in Criticism, by Michael Curtis, National Civic Art Society, 2022 by Evan Mantyk On May 12, 2021, a terrible painting somehow sold for $103 million. It depicts a...

. Yet Another Exhibition Opening "Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul." ---Auguste Rodin Although this bourgeois slum is flush with cash, No decent man could...

. . The Hireling Shepherd painting by William Holman Hunt This comely wench was Emma Watkins, she Who sat for Hunt in eighteen fifty-two. Too unaffected she, she never knew What lay beyond the brink, beyond...

. A fabled place adrift in history Which makes the spirit ache for what was lost; A masterpiece destroyed in mystery Then resurrected at a crippling cost; A priceless room of amber! A caprice Of luxe and...

. The cats are creatures of a liberal kind, For on the laps of commie artists, you’ll find Them. Coffee too you’ll find in their domain, Not to drink so much as to maintain Their fashion, always looking...

. I This crucifixion hides the anguish. Racked With pain, belied by bloodless hands and feet; Intolerable torments, they compete As muscles in that arching back contract. His hanging head forestalls all eye...

. Hunter Biden, New Millennial American Painter “It’s Generic Post Zombie Formalism Illustration”  ---Jerry Saltz “a…vaguely psychedelic vibe…Tomaselli…for dermatologist waiting rooms”...

. The Carnelian Ring: A Still-Life Footfalls echo in the memoryDown the passage which we did not takeTowards the door we never openedInto the rose-garden. —T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton I think of a walled...

. Contemplating Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer He stands enwrapped in luminous shadowed light, A woven cord of gold across his chest, Voluminous silk sleeves of purest white Contrast the deep-black...

. The State of Art The art world has completely turned around. Now critics blind themselves, or close their eyes, Shout how their contacts and their creds abound, And laud sick rancid leavings to the...