I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul;
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy, walks to his own funeral, drest in his shroud,
And I or you, pocketless of a dime, may purchase the pick of the earth,
And to glance with an eye, or show a bean in its pod, confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God;
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God, and about death.)
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then;
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;
I find letters from God dropt in the street—and every one is sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come forever and ever.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Philadelphia: David McKay, [c1900]; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/142/. [May 23, 2007].
As the term goes on I'm getting more and more rebellious, and I am completely dumb to say anything nice about the Abstract Impressionists... So I'll go off topic. Walt Whitman! (I was reminded of him out of the blue, because Ezra Pound feels the same way about WW as I do Pollock and Rothko) I think he's a far more transparent example of "secular religion" than any of them, and he uses the metaphors of religion while rejecting everything it entails to boot. If I ran the zoo, WW would be on the reading list for sure.
Mostly I just wanted to inflict my favorite poet on whoever happens to read these.
3 comments:
I am a Whitman fan.. but if you are a Whitman fan then ow can you not love Pollock?? Consider some parallels:
1) The barbaric yawp that Whitman talks about.. the painterly parallel would have to be the drip painting. It is a pure yawp if I have ever seen one.
2) In the article we read, it was reported that someone asked Pollock why he doesn't paint more from nature.. and Pollock responded: "I am nature." That is pure Whitman.
3) We also read that Pollock was interested in investigating his self.. and of course Whitman wrote the great verbal Song of Myself.
4) Think of Song of Myself and all the disconnected experiences recounted.. with no trace of narrative connection. You could approach Song of Myself as a great drip painting of American experience (baseball even comes up).
I just think that if you buy into the vision being expounded by Whitman, then Pollock is an extremely natural follow-up.
Just a thought..
Just quick...I hate to be picky. But please watch your terms when saying you dislike something. It's Abstract Expressionists, not Impressionists--they are two different movements in art, and have different aims. People would consider your arguments against a topic much more if you are educated about that topic.
Again, sorry to be picky.
Oops typo. Since the readings were about the Abstract Expressionists, it would seem apparent... (also there are no Abstract impressionists, and the Impressionists didn't exactly fall all over the name anyway)
:) Not a big fan of them either.
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