Critical Analysis of the “The Painter” by John Ashbery
Ashbery makes a
genuine effort to portray the poetic vision of an artist’s mind by concentrating
on the dictum "ut pictura poesis"--"as is painting, so is poetry". Through
poetry he glorifies a mere painter’s struggle to find his true artistic form and
inclination towards a specific way of being creative in The Painter.
“For some people
the fear of inner torment is such that the desire to create has to be repressed:
‘He does not embark on any serious pursuits commensurate with his gifts lest he
fails to be a brilliant success. He would like to write or paint but does not
dare to start’ (Horney 107). Or if the desire to create is not repressed, the
creative process will be wracked with anxiety or hampered by self torment.” This
quote from the book Therapeutic dimensions of autobiography in creative
writing by Celia Hunt aptly captures to some extent the condition the
painter in the poem who seems confused on whether to draw sea or not and how to
capture the sea just the way it was.
A similar theme
is also tackled by the great American poet, Emily Dickinson. In her short poem
she writes: “Artists wrestle here! /Lo, a tint Cashmere! /Lo, a Rose! /Student
of the Year! /For the easel here/Say Repose!” This poem lays bare the face that
the artist always juggles with his tools and crafts in order to create what he
wants. For him to relax is unthinkable likewise the painter in the poem faces a
lot of troubles in making this special piece of art (the sea). The painter seems
to self actualize himself by materializing the urge to paint a portrait of the
sea which will give the chaos of his creative world a poetic and appeasing
feeling.
Ashbery is known
for his surrealist poetry and in The Painter he uses his skill to
masterfully create connections between varied images. Using the modified form of
sestina (last words of the verses are mostly changed) he is able to make these
images jump into a creative hotchpotch. But the irony of the poem is that the
artist portrayed in the poem seems to go through a rough patch in his life yet
the creativity by which the poet himself writes speaks volume of it; the poet is
able to create with the painter in the poem a smooth imagery of an artist’s
struggle towards his creative independence -- a mere human’s effort to fight for
what he deems right. For his creative vision to evolve he goes against all the
odds set by the society. Ashbery was himself a painter and his surrealist
automatic writing in the poem seems to give power to the automatic drawing the
painter is trying to achieve in the poem, as the artist wishes: “he expected
his subject/ To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush,/ Plaster its own
portrait on the canvas.
Interpretation
of this poem is complicated. On the surface level one can judge what is
happening but on a deeper level the reader may not be able to interpret the
unfathomable depth. One reason quite evident is the surrealism employed. Just
like the artist’s mind the poem is also free of conscious control. It takes on
its own route and it paints with its own brush strokes with the artist’s
creative vision.
Ashbery takes
into account many aspects of syntax and rhyme in his poetry and one of it is the
repetition of words. The reader may not notice immediately about it but after a
careful examination it comes to light that, Ashbery repeats the word "canvas",
"buildings", "brush", "subject", "prayer" seven times and "portrait" eight times
in the poem. This repetition creates a surrealistic effect in the
poem.
The painter in
the poem is on the beach and contemplates his tempestuous subject. Sea here
symbolizes the freedom, the chaos, the harmony of the waves and the creative
space for the painter. The sea symbolizes freedom as it liberates the painter
from the hustle bustle of the city life behind him (“the building”). The painter
is like a child imagining a prayer. His innocent imagination muses over what to
draw on his canvas. Though the painter loves to paint the sea but he is confused
by the daunting question of how to draw and live in one’s own creative vision,
how to capture the universe around us. Even though he has brush in his hand but
his canvas seems empty, this paint-less canvas brings out the fact that the
painter himself has lost his creative vision, or he is going through the phase
of imagination blockage and he is unable to take a plunge into mind's eye where
haphazard brushes could be waved like a magic wand and a beauty of its own kind
would emerge into a classic piece of art. His lack of strength to take on a
decision leads the people around him to take control of his mind. They ask him
to make a portrait of “Something less angry and large”, that is to say; do not
draw the sea due to its turbulent nature and gargantuan effect which is
unfathomable by human mind to capture. The painter seemed unable to convey “his
prayer” to the people that he wants “nature, not art, [to] usurp the canvas”.
The skillful
painter then tries to paint his wife. He does that without really making a
creative endeavour because she seemed a ruined building in the first place that
is not something he would want to paint. He does make an attempt, though
unwillingly. It is throttling to the painter as an artist is a free will
creature and no matter what happens he has to go to his roots of desire that is
he has to be a creative by not conforming to traditionalists. He has to fulfill
his urge to create his own tradition. His desire to go back to the sea appears
to be the only right thing to do.
"Imagine the
painter crucified by his subject." signifies a powerful figure that could draw
faultlessly the things he see, and be astonished and spiritualized by the
creative vision he has with the drawing. The painter in the poem proves his
creative vision and creative authority when “He provoked some artists leaning
from the buildings”; suggesting their eagerness to stick to the roots; the
traditional way of painting. The poet clearly implies that the traditional
painters are bent towards following an authority by which they could judge the
painter and his work.
The people, the
critics and the painters of traditional sort did not appreciate the effort of
the painter and thus life’s way of taking the unconventional approach
irrationally by not getting accepted by his own people fell upon the painter as
they threw the portrait of the sea from the tallest building. This "portrait"
symbolizes something that the people, the critics and the painters of his age
were not able to handle the pressure posit on them by the painter or his
creative vision of the sea. Such non-conformist and cavalier attitude is also
visible in Ashbery’s life, as he nonchalantly says that his goal is "to
produce a poem that the critic cannot even talk about.”
In the end of
the poem “the sea devoured the canvas and the brush”. It signifies that the
portrait drawn by a mere artist cannot be fathomed by man himself because chaos
of the sea is unfathomable and it was as if “his subject had decided to remain a
prayer”. Thus the freedom and turbulence the sea entails with it consumes man’s
creation as well. The chaos of the world cannot be painted in a canvas, at least
people around them would not let the painter do that, yet his creative drive
would urge him to create what he instinctively desires. Neither the painter
would stop nor the chaos around him would end. The cycle of life would go on
like this.
source---englishliteraturelinks.blogspot.com
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