Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Last Artist notes

Okay, this is the first poem I'm posting here; I wrote it while I was in Austria, mostly while waiting for class to start. It's intended as a tribute to my favorite artist, William Adolphe Bouguereau. It seemed to me that here was a classical artist of the renaissance or baroque school (although I don't know enough about differing art styles to specifically label him) who lived after his time had passed; the impressionists, post-impressionists, cubists, and 'they-just-don't-seem-to-care' artists were taking over and he was the last great one of his breed. It's written in the Ballad format (which I find to be the easiest and most fun to write in).

Just a side note: I don't want people to think that I hate impressionists and the like; I don't. I generally enjoy Van Gogh, Monet, and their ilk, and I find Dali's stuff to be fascinating in a nightmarish kind of way. The thing is, for me, they're generally curiosities and 'one-shot' fads; their fine on their own, but I'm disturbed by their techniques taking over the art world completely. I much prefer the more 'traditional' artists like, well, Bouguereau.

2 comments:

Masha said...

Hey,
He's actually an "Academic" painter. Kind of a realist which idealistic tendancies. But he is very good, very clean - if you know what I mean. I'm glad you wrote about this, and I'm glad you posted your poem. The idea behind the poem is good, and some of your stanzas, I like the "Madonna all in tears" line a LOT.
I hope you keep up the posting, it was really interesting!

Masha said...

With...a realist With idealistic...

I should edit.