"What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head ;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine ;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach ;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade. "
- excerpted from The Garden by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) , in The Metaphysical Poets, edited by Helen Gardner, Oxford University Press: 1967.
The phrase delighted me, from the first time I read Marvel's poem in school, even as it mystified me: a green thought in a green shade. It couldn't be just any green, but the newly-minted greens of spring, fresh with rain. Pierre-Louis Jacob's The Play of Rain seemed to fit perfectly and then came the others, with their deliciously pointed titles: green thoughts from another century. Cragg's Green Bottle, arranged to look like sea glass washed up on the shore, is photographed spout down, the better to pour with. A metaphysical message in a bottle.
1. Wassily Kandinsky - Parc de Saint-Cloud, 1906, Strasbourg Museum of Modern Art.
4 comments:
This allows me to replay the memories of the greens on the island of Kyushu. We would need to come up with new words to describe them. Yet a line such as "a green thought in a green shade" captures it quite nicely, I think. Thank you, Jane!
I understand that the Imari pottery show is going on now on Kyushu, at Atria, I believe it's called. I found a lovely image of a ceramic doe that I should do something with - it's very springy looking.
Yes! Yes! (do you feel the excitement in my writing) the great pottery festival in the otherwise sleepy little town of Arita. Ach, could I tell you stories. For a pottery nut like me, it was a piece of heaven on earth. And the haggling was fun (even though I would have paid any price for some of those incredible pieces). Please do work up something around the doe and I'll do something with some of my pottery cups.
From what little I've read, the name "Imari" seems to be used to mean different things - confusing. I look forward to reading your article.
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