The Echo of the Real Thing

While not being truly abstract, Alexandra Exter’s Landscape with Houses and Trees, is a type of art I’m always drawn to: non-realistic verging on non-objective.

 

The curves of green trees lean out from behind mostly-straight line, hard-edged buildings that themselves skew to awkward angles.

The closer you look, the more the first impression is both emphasized and undercut. For example, the curves of the trees: hard edges in the oil paints suggest tracing or a template and yet the curve is not quite a perfect arc, suggesting the combination of static form and organic growth. It’s almost perfect, but just that smidge off, barely-but-most-noticeable in the lowest part of the green tree in the detail below. Your eyes probably register this even if you don’t realize it consciously.

Similarly, the corners of each building do not always meet in a single point. And the tree in the upper right of the above detail has a sliver that runs along the roof of the building below.

The underlying geometry of the scene is brought to the forefront, superimposed on the organic which is simplified to fit the geometry.

You may have seen Halloween costumes printed with bones:

In the same way as in Landscape with Houses and Trees, the skeletal structure is superimposed on the organic body, brought to the forefront and made prominent. It’s purposely not representative of the real thing, the real human. But the real human is still recognizable–and also represented as something additional. It’s an echo of the reality, yet accurate enough for us to recognize.

Are you sensing a theme yet? This is the third post connecting poetry and art. I find whenever I visit a museum I’m connecting one thing to another–and eventually that will end up connecting to the written word. Maybe not right away, but eventually.

Echo

I can’t sketch without labeling parts.
Painting also passes me by. I learned

to stipple ceramics with stencil and stiff brush.
To make the echo, the response, not the call.

A face: faint black spots, fainter gray. Stand
away to see it true. Brush just tips against clay,

glaze faint until heat makes it whole.
Eyebrow? Seam of pressed lips. Too much

for this art. It wants vision cranked askew
to replicate the slant of life.

If you enjoyed Echo

You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.  Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.

I’m publishing this on Sunday this week instead of Monday because I am traveling. I’ve been away for about a week, and today I am in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The internet access in the hotel is fast and working well, and I don’t 100% trust the scheduling ability of the blog’s behind-the-scenes features. So, better to send this out early and be sure, rather than hope for the best to happen automatically on Monday.

Have a great week!