This is a perfect poem, Ken, I am sittingfor the portrait class tonight -so I'll take this poem to read to the artists before they begin painting. Lol... you know how artists love to be told what and how to paint...
Deborah
> I am stunned by a Christmas present I just received by mail via Spring > Church Books--The Mystery of Max Schmitt: Poems on the Life and Work of > Thomas Eakins. It appears to be an entire book on Eakins seen through a > persona. The author is Philip Dacey, who I knew briefly 10 years ago > and have since forgotten I knew. Now I am reminded. I have not had > this feeling in a long time: I want to write like this guy. I want to > imitate him and steal his style. I haven't Giftness Envy in years.> > Found Sonnet: Thomas Eakins on Painting> > Before you paint the sitter, paint the chair.> Get things as they are. Make a fat man fat.> Why should we copy Greeks? They copied nature.> The hand shaped right tells how to shape the foot.> > Make it better or worse--never compromise.> Take an egg, or paper, and paint that shade of white.> Good pictures tell you what o'clock it is.> Remember, you're a portraitist of light.> > An outline of a man is not a man.> Study math. Know bones. Don't paint when tired.> Devils sometimes live in colors. Facts and> vision. To paint the male or female nude,> first attempt a boat running with full sails.> Respectability in art appals.> > I have been assured by my friend, who is close with Dacey, that the > bones are there. Only by the time you see the finished work, by the > time he's finished the boat, all you see is the nude.> > Ken
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