The Man with the Blue Guitar
I’ve had this painting on the wall (an unframed poster, that is) a long time for inspiration. Read Wallace Stevens’ beautiful poem much later.
And the color, the overcast blue
Of the air, in which the blue guitar
Is a form, described but difficult,
And I am merely a shadow hunched
Above the arrowy, still strings,
The maker of a thing yet to be made;
The color like a thought that grows
Out of a mood, the tragic robe
Of the actor, half his gesture, half
His speech, the dress of his meaning, silk
Sodden with his melancholy words,
The weather of his stage, himself
Wallace Stevens: The Man with the Blue Guitar, IX (1937)
Pablo Picasso: The Old Guitarist (1903)
And the color, the overcast blue
Of the air, in which the blue guitar
Is a form, described but difficult,
And I am merely a shadow hunched
Above the arrowy, still strings,
The maker of a thing yet to be made;
The color like a thought that grows
Out of a mood, the tragic robe
Of the actor, half his gesture, half
His speech, the dress of his meaning, silk
Sodden with his melancholy words,
The weather of his stage, himself
Wallace Stevens: The Man with the Blue Guitar, IX (1937)
Pablo Picasso: The Old Guitarist (1903)