Time to think about a new painting for my class – even though I won’t have time to complete it before the end of the course next week.
This idea came to me when a friend was describing a painting she had seen. The strong image in my head turned out to be very different from the actual painting and I decided that it would be an interesting project to try to make my image into reality.
This one is called “the poet” but is meant to be an imaginary portrait of Li Bai, one of the most – if not the most – famous Chinese poet. Perhaps he is looking too studious… Anyway, it is not an exercise in historical accuracy!
UPDATE: New poem from Tom perfectly captures the mood of the scene and even a bit of the flavour of Li Bai’s poetry!!
Walnut writing desk
rice-wine close at hand
I look down… wondering.
What name evokes “immortal”
yet completes the poet’s rhyme:
“moon’s reflection cold and white”?
(cc) 2013 Hilary Farmer
Walnut writing desk
rice-wine close at hand
I look down… wondering.
What name evokes “immortal”
yet completes the poet’s rhyme:
“moon’s reflection cold and white”?
I don’t have a chance of getting close to real Li Bai, so this can’t even count as a pastiche, but I’ve tried to catch a bit of what I see in translations, and played on themes from the poet’s life and poetry as well as including at least a little of the “old” (gushi) Tang style he was most famous for. The result is at least fairly dense in allusions!
It’s an interesting image, and I found it very evocative!
Awesome Tom! Thanks!! Hopefully the painting will in turn capture the feeling of the poem 🙂
So much potential in that project, so many different textures to explore. I can’t wait to see it evolve!
Thanks Max. It should be interesting… looking forward to the exploration!