Sitting between the sea and the buildings
He enjoyed painting the sea’s portrait.
But just as children imagine a prayer
Is merely silence, he expected his subject
To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush,
Plaster its own portrait on the canvas.
So there was never any paint on his canvas
Until the people who lived in the buildings
Put him to work: “Try using the brush
As a means to an end. Select, for a portrait,
Something less angry and large, and more subject
To a painter’s moods, or, perhaps, to a prayer.”
How could he explain to them his prayer
That nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?
He chose his wife for a new subject,
Making her vast, like ruined buildings,
As if, forgetting itself, the portrait
Had expressed itself without a brush.
Slightly encouraged, he dipped his brush
In the sea, murmuring a heartfelt prayer:
“My soul, when I paint this next portrait
Let it be you who wrecks the canvas.”
The news spread like wildfire through the buildings:
He had gone back to the sea for his subject.
Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!
Too exhausted even to lift his brush,
He provoked some artists leaning from the buildings
To malicious mirth: “We haven’t a prayer
Now, of putting ourselves on canvas,
Or getting the sea to sit for a portrait!”
Others declared it a self-portrait.
Finally all indications of a subject
Began to fade, leaving the canvas
Perfectly white. He put down the brush.
At once a howl, that was also a prayer,
Arose from the overcrowded buildings.
They tossed him, the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings;
And the sea devoured the canvas and the brush
As though his subject had decided to remain a prayer.
Critical Appreciation of “The Painter”
Ashbery’s interest in painting led him to write “The Painter”. The poem is fully representative of Ashbery’s poetry. Ashbery uses a persona (character, qualities, role, personality) to reveal his poetic urge. The Painter is the mouthpiece (representative) of Ashbery. The poet uses appropriate images in the poem to make it as dynamic and visual as possible.
The poem tells us that the painter is sitting between the sea and the tall buildings. He is attempting to create something impossible but remains unsuccessful. The people in the building encourage him to write common subject. He uses his wife as subject of his painting. He does it so skillfully but again turns to his previous subject of sea. His efforts to paint the sea automatically are not realized and he is mocked by the people in the tall buildings. The painter is crucified (criticized, punished) by his subject. His desire of innovative and revolutionary art remains only a prayer and longing. He is not able to achieve the extraordinary because of the ordinary demands of the audience.
The main theme of the poem is that innovator, modern and creative artists are crucified by the traditional and conventional people. This is not the only theme because the poem is to be understood at many different levels.
John Ashbery uses painter as persona to present before us his conception of poetry. The painter like Ashbery is innovator and wants to capture the vitality of life rather than the mere surface beauty of the same. The painter is the most representative of Ashbery’s poems and it is a key to understand Ashbery both as a poet and artist. The painter breaks down the traditional and orthodox restrictions on the art laid by the classicists and wants to steal the essence (spirit, core, soul, heart) of art. Ashbery is not moralist and conceives the art for its own sake. As the bird sings for its own sake, Ashbery writes in the same fashion.
The poem is highly symbolic and packed with symbols that it seems like an allegory. The poem is not imaginative rather it is concrete pregnant with symbolic allusions:
Sitting between the sea and the buildings
He enjoyed painting the seas portrait.
But just as children imagine a prayer
Is merely silence, he expected his subject
The sea is a symbol of creativity and the unexplored depths of human consciousness. The painter symbolizes the creative and modern urge and the people in the buildings are traditional critics who fail to understand the philosophy of art. The modern artist is not restricted by the limited view of life. He is the controller of his art and defines its limitations. He believes that art is allpowerful and vast and it cannot be conceived in a traditional narrow thinking. His analogy of child’s prayer is not analogy only rather through it, he presents a philosophy of art.
Objective art is difficult to attain but it lends realism and universality to the artist’s masterpiece. The objective art is not bound by the artist, his consciousness or his artistic ability, so the painter meditated for long but nothing appeared on the canvas. The painter wanted either to paint objectively or nothing at all. He was a revolutionary, his representation of art must be perfect otherwise; he will be just another artist in the echoes of the millions of artists in the world.
Ashbery is very akin (similar, like, parallel) to T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost. Most of his poems are like theirs speaking of sense of uncertainty, the looming fear, gloom and loneliness. The atmosphere of fear, gloom and loneliness is visible in his poetry. The painter is alone with sense of gloomy uncertainty in his art for perfection. The sea symbolizes loneliness too. The people in the buildings have isolated the painter for his self-chosen seemingly impossible task rather than supporting him in his painting. The painter is the protagonist feeling conflict sandwiched between traditions and modernity. All modern tragedies show conflict of the protagonist with society and its established norms. The painter is the protagonist working as opposed to the demands and conventions of society.
The poem has been composed in an arresting and forceful style. His technique to the poem is one such as employed by the abstract painters. So, Ashbery rightly gives the concept of his poetry in the following words,
“My poems are paintings in words.’’
His approach in the poem is objective rather than subjective. The diction is simple and relevant to the subject. John Ashbery is a perfect craftsman like Alexander Pope, Spenser and Robert Frost. He is renowned for artistic style in his poetry. His diction is simple and colloquial (conversational, everyday) that is according to the themes and ideas presented in the poem. All these stylistic features are perfectly applicable to the poem. The imagery used in the poem is fresh and startling. The images of sea, canvas, portrait and prayer all contribute to the thematic development of the poem.
As a bird sings for its own pleasure so does Ashbery writes to satisfy his own urge for putting his observation and experience on the paper. After critically analyzing Ashbery’s poetic genius, it is acknowledged that Ashbery is a modern American poet who possesses all the modern traits of 20th century poetry. Among his contemporaries, he is the most consistent, the most vigorous and unique in his handling of his subject and style.
Putting all the above details in a nut-shell, we can say that The Painter is perfectly a representative of John Ashbery’s poems and a key to understand his concepts regarding poetry. In Painter, Ashbery achieves artistic perfection with simplicity of diction. The painter can be interpreted at many different levels of understanding that is the beauty and charm of the poem. The language, themes, imagery and style make the poem an exquisite piece of literature. The title of the poem is also radical, very few poems would have been written with such titles. In “The Painter”, Ashbery combines of painting with poetic grandeur.
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