lament

Thomas Hardy, ca.1915

A friend told me recently about the Japanese custom of writing 'jisei' - or 'death poems' - a practice that stretches back to ancient times, when, at the moment of death, one's life is summed up in a few, usually simple lines. Here is a fairly recent example:

Like dew drops
on a lotus leaf
I vanish.
---------Senryu, died June 2, 1827

I was stunned today to learn that while on his death-bed, Thomas Hardy dictated a "death poem" to his wife. Hardy, perhaps best known as the author of a string of famous novels, such as Jude the Obscure, Tess of the d'Ubervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd and The Return of the Native, was an impressive poet as well...(and was often encouraged by his mentor and friend, George Meredith).

Falling suddenly ill with a terminal resperatory disease in December of 1927, Hardy was dead within a month. Yet in that month, faced with his demise, he took the time to compose a final verse. In what would be his final lines on this earth, the fading poet seems to realize that the secrets of death are better left unsaid.


HE RESOLVES TO SAY NO MORE (1928)

O my soul, keep the rest unknown!
It is too like a sound of moan
When the charnel-eyed* Pale Horse has nighed:
Yea, none shall gather what I hide!

Why load men's minds with more to bear
That bear already ails to spare?
From now always till my last day
What I discern I will not say.

Let Time roll backward if it will;
(Magicians who drive the midnight quill
With brains aglow can see it so,)
What I have learnt no man shall know.

And if my vision range beyond
The blinkered sight of souls in bond,
-- By truth made free
-- I'll let all be,
And show to no man what I see.




*charnel = a building or chamber in which bodies or bones are deposited

crush

I've been meaning to 'pen' a George Meredith appreciation post. He has been mentioned in passing in earlier posts, but I've never fully explained his 'story', or touched on why he is my favourite writer. [Disclaimer: What follows is entirely unacademic, filled with gossip, and is based on a romantic attachment to a dead person.]

George Meredith is all but forgotten today. A quick google search brings up a few flimsy biographies, and poor Meredith lacks the true gauge of popularity in our modern, digital world: a fake myspace page created in his honor. Not much of a buzz for the man Oscar Wilde once cited as his favourite novelist, saying: "Ah, Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos illuminated by flashes of lightning."

Perhaps you have never heard of Meredith the writer, or read one of his novels, but you may have actually gazed at his face without knowing it. Meredith, as a favour, modeled for the painter Henry Wallis, in his most famous painting, The Death of Chatterton, an event that changed the course of his life.

Henry Wallis, The Death of Chatterton, 1856
oil on canvas, Tate Gallery

Meredith sat several times for the artist, who, for accuracy's sake, wanted to use an actual poet for his depiction of Chatterton. Best known as the Romantic Movement's poster boy, Chatterton committed suicide by swallowing arsenic after repeated failures at getting his poetry published, rather than face starvation at the tender age of 17.



Henry Wallis, Study for The Death of Chatterton, 1856
pencil on paper, Tate Gallery

Despite the long hours, George Meredith was more than happy to sit for his friend; and even brought his wife, Mary Ellen Meredith, along. She was older, from an affluent, artistic family, and had plenty of time to chat with Wallis as her husband lay stretched out pretending to be dead. In an irony of epic Romantic proportions, Mary Ellen left Meredith for the dashing painter.

Her agonizing departure from his life was far from swift. It was in fact slow, complicated, tortuous even, as most break-ups are wont to be. In an age when divorce was nearly unheard of, the transference of her affections to the artist took time. This horrifying period of Meredith's life inspired what is perhaps his greatest work, a series of sonnets called Modern Love, written in 1862. If you're feeling especially energetic, you can read the poem in its entirety (all 50 sonnets!) here; but I think the first sonnet is enough to recognize Meredith's amazing ability at capturing the death of a love, using some of the most beautiful phrases I've ever read...


I.

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured effigies they might be seen
Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;
Each wishing for the sword that severs all.

likeness

Cecelia Phillips, Brittany, 2006, oil on canvas

This entry is long overdue. But I think I've detected a pattern of late in my life - a trend if you will.

It is only natural as a human being to elicit some sort of interest in portraiture. But for the past year or so I've put what some may describe as an alarming amount of time and energy into 1) convincing others to create my portrait, and 2) to the study of the portraiture of others.

1) In an ongoing artistic project/performance, I am trying to have every artist that I know make some form of portrait/likeness of me - creating a catalogue of "selves" - or interpretations of myself mediated through others, so to speak. I've only just started, but already have acquired some top-notch portraits. The problem with such a project is that you're basically asking an artist to make and give you an original work - an obligation that is not always welcome.

2) In the past two weeks I have seen two amazing exhibitions of portraits by two of my favourite aritsts: Hans Holbein and David Hockney - two artists separated by the gulf of centuries, but interestingly both painting portraits mainly of english people:



Hans Holbein the Younger
A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling,
about 1526-8, oil on oak



David Hockney
Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy,
1970-71, acrylic on canvas

And while these are two very beautiful examples of their finished work, I find that the drawings included in both of these exhibitions are truly the show-stoppers. Hasty sketches on paper, capturing moments, glances: Hockney's drawings of Celia Birtwell and a young Gregory Evans are particularly riveting ---Likewise, Holbein's sweeping gestures in chalk capturing the faces of the English nobility in a single sitting are - quite literally - mesmerizing, judging by the amount of time I stood examining the delicate whiskers and finely wrought wrinkles around the eyes of Sir Thomas More.....


Hans Holbein the Younger
Sir Thomas More
1526-27, black and coloured chalks on paper



I suppose I should draw some sort of earth-shattering conclusion -- connecting all my thoughts on portraits together - but I'm afraid that I cannot. It all comes back to the face. This strange fixation I have with faces and identity. (Please go back to my earlier post on physiognomy for clarification). I guess I'm interested in how people can perform as active agents in their own visual construction - through the hands of others.

"Put your best face forward."