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.

The Last Artist

The Last Artist

A man is painting portraits
In garish gold and red
Another gives us paintings
Of nightmare dreams instead
Still others paint the city
As seen through powdered glass
But the last great artist in the world
Paints children in the grass

A kind old man from Paris
Paints flowers in the fall
And many dull and sad young men
Paint nothing now at all
A cruel man in the city streets
Paints ugly broken shapes
But the last true artist in the world
Now paints true love’s escape.

Now men paint only simple shapes
Or paint an empty wall
They try to draw like music sounds
Or do not try at all
To all who paint now listen well
Look back across the years
The last great artist living drew
Madonna all in tears.