E.E. Cummings is na alle waarskynlikheid een van die mees gewilde digters van die vorige eeu; internasionaal bekend vir die eksperimentele aard van sy verse, die ongewone tipografie en woordorde, nuutskeppinge en delikate sensitiwiteit. Wat egter minder bekend is, is dat e.e. cummings ook ‘n bedrewe skilder was. Hierdie aktiwiteit was vir hom hoegenaamd nie van minder belang as sy skryfwerk nie; inteendeel hy het glo heel dikwels verwys na sy “twin obsession”, synde skryf en skilder: “Not only did Cummings spend a greater portion of his time painting than writing, he also produced thousands of pages of carefully thought-out notes concerning his own aesthetics of painting: color-theory, analysis of the human form, the “intelligence” of painting, reflections on the Masters, etc.” (Hierdie aanhaling neem ek vanaf ‘n webtuiste waarop Cummings se skilderye te koop aangebied word.)
Oor sy loopbaan as skilder word soos volg berig: “Critics have tended to divide Cummings’ painterly career roughly into two stylistically differing chronological phases. The first phase, more or less from 1915-1928, covers his widely-acclaimed large-scale abstractions and his immensely popular drawings and caricatures published throughout the 1920s in the leading modernist journal, The Dial. The second phase, covering the period from 1928 until his death in 1962, consists primarily of representational works: still lifes, landscapes, nudes, and portraits. This dichotomy of avant-garde vs. representational in Cummings’ visual work has its parallel in a public vs. private dichotomy: above and beyond the popular Cummings-as-experimental-innovator of the first period, there is in the second phase the very much more private Cummings-as-aesthetic-sensualist, strikingly revealed in the wild explosions of color that are found in his landscapes and in the physical intensity of his erotic work. While the representational works are more traditional and accessible than his earlier abstracts, their use of color and form reveal a sophistication and development of technique fully as complex as the earlier work, if not more so.”
Hier kan jy nog van Cummings se skilderye te siene kry. Vir jou leesplesier plaas ek een van sy gedigte onder aan vanoggend se Nuuswekker.
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Sedert gister het daar net een plasing bygekom: Desmond Painter wat in navolgings van sy blog-inskrywing eergister nog ‘n vers van David Briggs geplaas het. En hemel, wat ‘n digter!
En dan hoop ek dat jou planne al agtermekaar is vir hierdie naweek se fees. Dit gaan ‘n grote wees …
Mooi bly.
LE
i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
© e.e. cummings
Hoe sterk eggo Breyten Breytenbach se “Allerliefste, ek stuur vir jou ‘n rooiborsduif” met hierdie gedig van cummings!
Die spel met die sonnetvorm, metafoor van die son,die inleidende strofe wat in albei gedigte ‘n soort opdrag/liefdesverklaring is.
Interessant om die twee naas mekaar te lees. Dankie.
een (ek bedoel ‘Een’) opinie hieroor is Norman Friedman (1992) in Spring 1: 114–121:
http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm
In ‘dream in the mirror’, richard kennedy se biografie van eec, word sy skilder-persona as volg beskryf:
“One key to his unique creations is the fact that he was a painter as well as a poet: “…in the beginning was the Eye (not the mind),” he declared. He had drawn and painted ever since childhood and become a self-taught artist in both oils and watercolors by the time he left college. He carried a pocket sketchbook with him, especially on his travels,and his fingers were always busy with a pencil. Not only did this habit train his acute observation of life, but his visual orientation combined with his word play to produce unusual spatial arrangements of words in his poems and to allow the development of a personal style that was one of the most important contributions to the literary revolution of the twentieth century.”
Joan, dalk kan jy leiding hieromtrent gee, want ek is werklik in die war. Hoe onderskei ‘n mens tussen ‘n skrywersnaam (soos e.e. cummings) en die persoon E.E. Cummings? Aangesien die berig oor hom as skilder gehandel het, en nié sy skryfwerk nie, het hulle sy naam met hoofletters geskryf. (Soos dit blyk uit die aanhaling.) So ook die boek (“The writer’s brush”) waarin van sy kunswerke opgeneem is … Het ‘n skrywersnaam dan nie net op die skrywer se skryfwerk betrekking nie?
Louis, dit is e.e. cummings. Dit is iets wat Opperman altyd beklemtoon het dat ‘n mens sy naam moet behou in kleinletters soos hy dit verkies het.