THE PAINTER BY JOHN ASHBERY

THE PAINTER BY JOHN ASHBERY

INTRODUCTION AND THEME OF THE POEM

Ashbery’s interest in painting led him to jot down this poem. The painter is fully representative of Ashbery’s poetry. Ashbery uses a persona to reveal his poetic urge. The Painter is that the mouthpiece of Ashbery. The poet uses cinematic images within the poem to form it as dynamic and visual as possible. The poem tells us that the painter is sitting between the ocean and therefore the tall buildings. he's attempting to form something impossible but remains unsuccessful. The people within the building encourage him to write down the common subjects. He uses his wife as the subject of his painting. He does it so exquisitely but again turns to his previous subject of sea. His efforts to color the ocean automatically aren't realized and he's mocked by the people within the tall buildings. The painter is crucified by his subject. His desire for innovative and futuristic art remains only prayer and longing. he's powerless to realize the extraordinary due to the standard demands of the audience.

The main theme of the poem is that innovator, modern and inventive artists are crucified by the normal and traditional people. this is often not the sole theme because the poem is to be understood at many various levels.

 

CRITICAL POINTS TO RECOLLECT

       i.            Ashbery believes within the objective representative of art and not a subjective representation of the identical.

     ii.            The paint’s canvas and therefore the sea is both vast and difficult to capture. But the innovator and modern painter are bent upon this mission.

  iii.            The view that art should be overpowered and inspired by the force of reality is opposed by the people within the buildings. therefore the painter is post-modernist and also the people are traditional artists and a conflict between the 2 is obvious.

  iv.            The painter believes that the artist should be up to speed with his art and dictate all its terms and conditions of the creation of the act.

    v.            The people within the building are the critics who believe that action should be a right away reflection of the artist’s limited personal view.

  vi.            Painting the ocean becomes and metaphor for creating life. The act of any type. He paints his wife for a component of a painting she's going to not be a challenge for him.

vii.     He was surprised to find the mystery of womanhood and also the unfathomable depth of humanity – painting her was an unexpected and shocking experience explaining ruined buildings. The image of the ruined buildings suggests both familiarity and mystery.

 

A CRITIQUE OF THE PAINTER

Ashbury’s poems are abstract paintings in words.

INTRODUCTION

John Ashbery uses painter as a persona to present before us his conception of poetry. A painter like Ashbery is an innovator and needs to capture the vitality of life instead of the mere surface transmit great thing about the identical. The painter is that the most representative of Ashbery’s poems and it's a key to understanding Ashbery both as and poet and artist. The painter breaks down the standard and orthodox restrictions on the art laid by the classicists and desires to steal the essence of art. Ashbery isn't any moralist and conceives the art for its own sake. because the bird sings for its own sake, Ashbery writes within the same fashion. The poem has been composed in Sestina. A Sestina may be a variety of rhymed or unrhymed poem of six stanzas of six lines and a concluding triplet during which the identical six words at the line-ends occur in each stanza in six different sequences, other than the ultimate triplet, during which each line contains two of those words, one at the center and one at the tip.

There are many salient features of the poem that we are able to analyze as under.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT

SYMBOLIC ELEMENTS

The poem is very symbolic and packed with symbols that looks as if an allegory. The poem isn't imaginative rather it's concrete pregnant with symbolic allusions:

Sitting between the ocean and also the buildings

He enjoyed painting the seas portrait.

But even as children imagine a prayer

Is merely silence, he expected his subject

The sea may be a symbol of creativity ad the unexplored depths of human consciousness. It also resents the vitality and essence of life, which has been long ignored. The buildings and their architecture are the explored and achieved conditions of art. The painter symbolizes the creative and modern urge and therefore the people within the buildings are traditional critics who fail to know the philosophy of art.

Symbolically, the poem shows the condition of the artist sandwiched between two contrasting forces behind art; conventional, traditional, and superficial approach on the one hand and modern, creative, experimental, and innovative on the opposite. the fashionable artist isn't restricted by the limited and restrictive view of life. he's the controller of his art and defines its parameters. He believes that art is all-powerful and vast and it can't be conceived during a traditional narrow thinking. His analogy is child’s prayer isn't analogy only rather through it, he presents a philosophy of art. The artist should be a meditator and begin art sort of a prayer. Ashbery knows;

To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush,

Plaster its own portrait on the canvas.

is insane and even a typical mind cannot entertain such a thought. So such conception of art truly is achieved only through prayer in silence. The difference between artificial art and vital art is presented by the artist together with his back to the buildings and also the face to the ocean.

SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY

There was no paint on the canvas

Objective art is difficult to achieve but it lends realism and universality to the artist’s masterpiece and therefore the objective art isn't bound by the artist, his consciousness, or his artistic ability, therefore the painter meditated for long but nothing appeared on the canvas. The painter wanted either to color objectively or nothing the least bit. He was an iconoclast, his representation of art must be perfect otherwise; he is just another artist within the echoes of the innumerable artists within the world. But the people within the were urging the artist to

Try using the comb

As a method to an end. Select, for a portrait,

Something less angry and enormous, and more subject

To a painter’s moods, or, perhaps, to a prayer

Because they were the upholders of the standard art of subjectivity which was delimited by the artist’s mind and couldn’t survive within the limitless regions of the vast universe. this is often the reaction of the normal artists to the experimental nature of the trendy artists.

DEFINITION OF ART

The painter responds to the rationalists with a real conviction of an ideal artist within the following lines;

How could he indicate to them his prayer?

That nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?

The painter’s conception of art is like that of a child’s prayer which could be a direct relationship between the artist and also the art like that of a prayee to God. this idea can not be materialized and explained to the traditionalists, for they can't understand the artist’s avant-garde approach. The painter’s definition of the artist's objective representation of reality must be the idea of art, the art confined by the artist’s feelings and emotions isn't true and genuine. Soul, spirit, vitality of life, the essence of reality are the features which the painter is aspiring in his portrait. The painter further asserts:

My soul, once I paint this next portrait

Let it's you who wrecks the canvas.

POLITICAL AND SPIRITUAL ALLEGORY

Allegory is the fictional literary narrative or artistic expression that conveys a symbolic meaning parallel to but distinct from, and more important than, the literal meaning. The Painter is both a political and spiritual allegory. The pathetic state of the painter lends political and social interpretations of the poem. The pronunciamento, the Puritan Theocracy, The Martial Laws, and Hitlerian and Fascistic authorities all crucify the innovators and curb the freedom of expression of those who champion a brand new cause for the welfare of humanity or art. The line:

Try using the comb for a way to an end

This shows the selfishness of the political gains. the author should be a representative of a party likewise as was the case in Russia which demanded the Socialist Realism. The painter was a real artist who opposed these political and Hitlarian manifestos and their restrictions on art. He was a free agent and wanted freedom in his art, so he could easily attempt his poetic vision, but this freedom isn't allowed as Ashbery depicts:

The news spread sort of a wildfire through the buildings

He had gone back to the ocean for his subject

Imagine a painter crucified by his subject.

The visionary painter was crucified by the so-called custodians of political views who never allowed a novelty or change which is able to pose a danger to their established government and systems. The poem was written in 1956—a period of a tussle within which the liberty of action and thought was restrained by the Russian Communists. The poem tells a story of a painter who was a visionary and pioneer of a replacement approach in the art which practically meant opposition to the present system or order so he was crucified or burnt at the stakes by the politicians.

The word ‘crucify’ has a religious connotation that the poem becomes a spiritual allegory too. And reminds us of the story of Christ who brought a system of theocracy as welfare to humanity but was rejected by the selfish so-called chiefs of Judaism and was commanded by Pontius Pilate to be crucified for the political gains of the Roman Empire. during this way, the innovates are punished in a very society of selfishness, greed and power which denies welfare to humanity.

TRAGIC ELEMENTS WITHIN THE PAINTER

Ashbery has incredibly adored T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost. Most of his poems are like theirs speaking of a sense of uncertainty, the looming fear, gloom, and loneliness.

The atmosphere of fear, gloom, and loneliness is additionally visible. The painter is alone with a sense of gloomy uncertainty in his art for perfection. the ocean symbolizes loneliness too. The people within the buildings have alienated the painter for his self-chosen seemingly impossible task instead of supporting him in his go after the target representation of reality. The painter is that the protagonist feeling conflict sandwiched between traditions and modernity. All modern tragedies show a conflict of the protagonist with society and its established norms and tragically doomed for this Hamartia that the protagonist bears. The painter is that the protagonist working as critical of the stress and conventions of society. Society may accept him if he becomes rational enough to know the mere creative vision doesn’t suffice the creation. His Hamartia causes his crucifixion and ends the poem with tragic touches and a small amount of Catharsis.

STYLE, TECHNIQUE, AND IMAGERY

The poem has been composed in an arresting and forceful. His technique to the poem is one like employed by the abstract painters. So Ashbery rightly gives the concept of his poetry within the following words, ‘My poems are paintings in words.’’

His approach within the poem is objective instead of subjective. The diction is straightforward and relevant to the topic. John Ashbery could be a perfect craftsman like poet, Spenser, Tennyson and Surrey-Wyatt, the American examples being Richard Wilbur and Robert Frost. he's renowned for artistic galore in his poetry. His diction is easy and colloquial and must conform to the themes and concepts presented within the poem. The painter isn't any exception. of these stylistic features are perfectly applicable to the poem. All the key words which point to the most theme of the poem are wrapped at the top to present them extra significance.

The imagery is fresh and startling. the pictures of the sea, canvas, portrait, and prayer all contribute to the thematic development of the poem.

CONCLUSION

The Painter is perfectly a representative of John Ashbery’s poems and a key to understanding his concepts regarding poetry. In Painter, Ashbery achieves artistic perfection with the simplicity of diction. The painter will be interpreted at many various levels of understanding that's the wonder and charm of the poem. The language, themes, imagery, and elegance make the poem an exquisite piece of literature. The title of the poem is additionally radically, only a few poems would are written with such titles. Ashbery combines surrealistic techniques of painting with poetic grandeur