For the roses had the look of flowers that are looked at
mixed media on canvas 122 x 122 cm Sold
‘And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery
And the unseen eye beam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at’.
From Burnt Norton, Four Quartets by TS Eliot mcmlix
My responses to TS Eliot’s Four Quartet’s were in the exhibition ‘This twittering world: Contemporary painters celebrate TS Eliot's Four Quartets’ at Francis Kyle Gallery. The supporting drawings were made on-site. I drew the river in response to Eliot’s text from part 3 The Dry Salvages:
I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.
It is a completely engaging piece of writing with so many powerful passages ripe for visual interpretation. I felt I had only scratched the surface and hope to work from it again one day.
View from Chiswick Bridge pen in A4 diary
Kew Bridge pen in A4 diary
Canoe on the Thames mixed media in A4 diary