This novel book would make a charming gift for a literary sort with an eye for art, or vice versa. Art ranges from Vermeer to Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko and Larry Rivers. The poets flow from Shakespeare to William Carlos Williams and Rainer Maria Rilke. Could it have been a Minnesota winter that prompted John Berryman to pen a few lines about Pieter Bruegel’s “Hunters in the Snow”? Perhaps.
The world’s great poets interpret the world’s great art in this exquisite book that investigates the connection between art and words, deepening our understanding of both. The poet and the artist share a special kind of vision—an ability to see and penetrate the very essence of their subjects. This volume features poems by writers who turned to paintings for their inspiration, as well as paintings by artists who based their works on poems. Stretching across centuries and styles,this collection includes Rossetti’s haunting sonnet based on Botticelli’s Primavera; Wallace Stevens’s "The Man with the Blue Guitar," a masterful meditation on an iconic painting by Picasso;William Carlos Williams’s joyous interpretations of scenes byBreughel; and Adrienne Rich lending a compassionate voice to the subject of Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s The Mourning Chair.
These and other pairings appear as elegant texts facing full page, glowing illustrations of the paintings. An introduction to some of the greatest poets and painters in history, this remarkable book makes a perfect gift, offering compelling insights into the worlds of art and literature, and the relationship between the two.
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