Saturday, January 19, 2019

She was a phantom of delight

"A poetic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that turned toward nature and the interior world of feeling, in opposition to the mannered formalism and disciplined scientific inquiry of the Enlightenment era that preceded it. English poets such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron produced work that expressed spontaneous feelings, found parallels to their own emotional lives in the natural world, and celebrated creativity rather than logic."


Some things are there, even if you do not see them.
When I was still studying English Literature at the university I would see poetry as a painting and I believe these men and women in that era had the same visions. So here within the art of photography, think of the creativity rather than the reality or the logic that your brain tells you. Look beyond all of that and not at the characters in the pictures but the emotions that you experience. Are they pleasant, are they joy? You are the one who can decide if they please the eyes just like a poem that can please the ear and the imagination.


To Lady Beaumont by William Wordsworth...
LADY! the songs of Spring were in the grove
While I was shaping beds for winter flowers;
While I was planting green unfading bowers,
And shrubs--to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall; and still, as Fancy wove
The dream, to time and nature's blended powers
I gave this paradise for winter hours,
A labyrinth, Lady! which your feet shall rove.
Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines,
Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom 
Or of high gladness you shall hither bring;
And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines
Be gracious as the music and the bloom
And all the mighty ravishment of spring.


listen up...do as I say
Some things however are not what they seem, like in poetry words hint to certain ideas and actions and so do photographs of art. Unless you know the true meaning behind the artist's thoughts, you may not understand what the artwork meant to tell.

...and now I see with eye serene...yup you're an alien.

from William Wordworth "She was a phantom of delight" 
When first she gleamed upon my sight; 
A lovely Apparition, sent 
To be a moment's ornament; 
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; 
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; 
But all things else about her drawn 
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; 
A dancing Shape, an Image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
...And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine; 
A Being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A Traveler between life and death; 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; 
A perfect Woman, nobly planned, 
To warm, to comfort, and command; 
And yet a Spirit still, and bright, 
With something of angelic light.

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