Thursday, June 23, 2005

Too sunny on sherbrooke, I dart into beaux art

Three people sitting in the grass, in a bowl of
shade under a tree. The shade has moved on them
and sun is glancing off their bent elbows -- reminding
me of the man in the post office I stood behind. He
was short and balding, and in the boundary of scalp
and hair were the numbers 666 in blue ink.
So quiet and so recently exposed. There's a wooden
crucifix in the art gallery, from 1100. Is Christ
triumphant, eternally alive, or is he suffering
for mankind's sins. His eyes are open though his
eyelids are turned down. Sneaky! He is not sagging
on the cross, though he's nailed. There are two
portraits by Henry Raeburn, from the late 1700s.
A great double-breasted coat and yellow vest
on a man. Henry likes a daub of white paint on
the point of the nose. So in the end all you
notice is the daub. My god is daub a word.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The noun daub means crudely or unskilfully applied paint, plaster, etc. If it was applied intentionally roughly on an otherwise polished painting, perhaps it doesn't deserve the term daub, but rather "dab". If it was right in the middle of his nose it would be "smack dab".

Welcome back! I enjoyed your Australia reports.

1:53 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And if you spell Dab and Daub backwards the Results Are Shocking!

We could do with another dab of your writing.

10:24 a.m.  

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