The man from Transylvania Left his native land for good To study a new city. There he sought the beauty Of every day and every night, Statues, neon signs in fog, Couples in tight embrace, In café, metro, passageway; The gangs in flat caps, smoking, High and low-lit, together looking At what prey should pass them by Under bridges and arcades, In Paris streets and alleys. He shot The naked whores at Susy’s, Shapely, half-seen rumps and hips Of couched and crouching studio nudes

Brecht, back in industrial Germany, after a trip to the countryside, gazed through the sooty air at the grubby rows of houses and said,...

Two lost ones walk proudly into the picture, What do we make of this brown figure striding or the orange one smaller, momently pausing? A...

a tribute to Paul Klee Painting like poetry begins with the Line. It labours uphill and bounces fast down, heads in a curve when gravity...

Some quality in Klee’s paintings asserts assuredly they are his, and childish is a general word quite often used for this, but does it...

At a time when Columbus first stumbled on America, Lorenzo’s son, Piero, ordained that Michelangelo shape a body out of snow. That...

Watching over quiet water he set a church with ten black houses, then a black and vacant sailboat inviting passage moored below; two dark...

His eyes look over our left shoulder searching in an unseen mirror, pondering his own reflective self. White stands for thought he’d...

His wintry trees branch bare across the evening sky And grow in orange light behind two windows. The chimneys of three jet black houses...

Sustained by strong black coffee, He sits there immobile On a rickety chair on a rickety platform, Under the warning, watchful eye Of...

Suspend your disbelief. This Is not a rock, a boulder or a stone About to drop. Magritte Is there to fool you into truth, A kind of...

Where is that masterpiece at which he laboured Wherein the lines of landscape and of figures Concealed an emptiness he tried to fill? The...

When he was small Leonardo Formed a scene upon a shield, From crickets, fireflies,bats, Lizards, glow worms, serpents, And delicate wings...

When he set up his easel, As often before on the hill Above the Chemin des Lauves, Clouds gathered over Aix And storm cones flew. Cézanne...

Quam tenui a filo pendet Trippers have detached themselves This Sunday from the suburbs. They accumulate where Willy Lott Lived eighty years and spent no more Than four short days away. Like Constable he was content With where he dwelt, roamed not And sought no images but these. Our floating crowd disturbs the picture. A tree stands where no tree was Behind the mill. A line of elms Has died and others sprung Since he stood by this spot. No two days, nor two hours, Nor two lea

On JBC Corot The girl’s flesh sang of beauty As he stroked in once again Hand and eye in harmony, A landscape wet with rain. Kindness filtered through His brush: the gleam of a river Lent quietude and flow, The nature of the giver Warmed the whole, and though In later life a shade of grey Pervaded his warm air, His eye could still discover Beauty everywhere. He worked from grace to form, From form to grace, In atmosphere made firm Where air met space – A tree, a rock, a count

Twixt what is there and what we see resides, he felt, reality. Corneal scars upon his sight scatter bright dendritic light, a retinue of...

Bedside Companion A painting by Klee hangs over my bed, Man, rake and sphere frame a sinister head. A cornered pilgrim digs into the...

Windows Three faces face outwards, surprised by their master who renders them timeless as they pursue business (no business of ours)....

What are these that eye me? Say eyes that canvass ùs; A glare, a puckered gleam, Burn us twofold; cupids leer And squinny; a musketeer...