Cat

 

[Cat]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘White Interior (Le Cannet)’ (1932)

 

The carpet must needs be tigerish fire,

symmetry a surprise that never tires –

light, juxtapose with dark to describe desires.

 

The table is a boundary across her view

height of leap, then an object avenue –

colour how litheness darts, slides, waits anew.

 

The teapot has never been more resolute

counterpoint to the cat arch, lively, cute –

make a galleon past which a yacht might scoot.

 

The eyes, closest to the mind in her head

pupils full moons, then thin as thread –

show her very thought in a thousand unsaids.

 

The spine curves through space on all fours

from under chest-of-drawers through French doors –

illustrate how her moving body is first cause.

 

The tail makes a trail in the air, a sign

of the general mood of the solid feline -

attempt to suggest a shrewd curl, a benign whine.

 

The canvas stretched uncracked from side to side

is the room where cat frolics, flirts and hides –

allow considerable contortions, and pride.

 

The brush with life is like the brush of the cat

touch and go the whole time, day in day out -

copy the cat out of wonder at where it’s at.

 

The paint turns nine lives into an organised herd,

there’s what will occur, what occurs and occurred –

ask it to say a few previously unheard words. 

Bottle

 

[Bottle]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘Dining room at Le Cannet’ (1932)

 

Remind them of the shape of bottle

lip and neck and base and not too subtle

how it fills the space not too little.

 

Erect the form using line. incorrect colour

the time it takes to fill with water

or something sweeter or tipsier, richer.

 

Suggest body with blue patch of window,

crimson curl reflection, distant dayglow

inside glass silver liquid, go with the flow.

 

Demonstrate, using cubist traction

impressionist smudge, baroque affection,

its air of indefinite abstraction.

 

Imagine the genie who got us all here

all the questions so far yet so near.

all’s as it appears, yet changed it’s clear.

 

Write the message bottled for their word game

who still have to find out how futile is fame;

only love, work, rest, signed with your name.

 

Imply that all objects have such mystery,

the contents take effect in all their variety;

the poet said it, the world’s incorrigible plurality.

 

Describe its glassiness as simply the start

of iconic afternoon its edges prefiguring dark.

there are years wherein to appreciate the art.

 

Leave it to breathe where you saw it last

to the gaze of aging friends sharing the past

and the young who find the whole thing a blast.

Table

 

[Table]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘The Table’ (1925)

 

The head turns this way then that

so show that, with her face hidden at

an angle in thought whereat she sat.

 

The arm embraces as well as fends,

so show as veins and nerves extend

its curve, how the muscles flex and bend.

 

The hand puts all things in their place

so show how the fine parts hold in space,

move slight, or swift, with speechless grace.

 

The plate holds the earth’s goodness

so likewise show its hue and centralness

hard and round and chipped no less.

 

The knife there has ten thousand uses

so solitary, like a paintbrush that sluices

seizes on sizes, renders and reduces.

 

The bowl upholds all things their forms:

attend to the round, sharp, frilly, forlorn

each resting in transit to their next morn.

 

The table, the tablecloth picture the day,

so centre them so with the daily display

of our needs, our work, our play.

 

Then, the door exhibits our small universe

so render both dark and light as at first;

stay this side or exit, for better or worse.

 

The shadow shall speak of passing time

so define each body and object’s special line

outlined by light, and made a certain sign.

Bonnard

 

The exhibition should take about an hour, the woman at the counter said handing me my ticket. I had to suppress my laughter, replying oh I think it will be two hours, at least. After all, I think to myself, Pierre Bonnard spent weeks, or years on a single canvas, never restricting himself to a time limit. Why should we? It is like those online newspapers that come with advice about an article: a five-minute read. As if reading, like looking at paintings, is a matter of the time spent reading. Like Bonnard, a five-minute article could take an hour, or a lifetime, to absorb and understand. What’s the hurry? Promenade dans le jardin. La siesta. Femme caressant un chat. La soirée sous la lampe. His paintings are extensions of time with no apparent beginning or end. They have stepped away from hurry. They could spend the next two hours boating along a sun-laden stream. His sitters talk together still two hours after the meal, even though half the plates have been cleared and fresh coffee is an idea about to materialise. His wife organises to go into the bath, is in the bath forever, eventually out again and drying for what feels like hours. One does not expect people in Bonnard to be in a hurry to exit and talk about it all over gallery luncheon. “He was influenced by the Japanese, you can see.” “That woman had gone blue in the face.” “I like his dogs.” “Paris was the place to be, alright.” Not that his landscapes are in a hurry, either. Nor his tables, which are themselves landscapes, his interiors that seem extensions of the absence of rush, an absence apparent too in the hills and clouds outside his windows. And it is quite obvious why treating the exhibition like a manga book where one painting per minute will bring us to the well-deserved gallery coffee in about one hour, is not the speed of Bonnard. This is someone who could spend an hour painting an oriental bowl on a table, the facet reflecting a garden in a French door, and still take time to work on it again tomorrow. One studies every detail of a face in shadow, wondering how he does that with colour, and what could they possibly be thinking? Every square inch is attended to, to make us attend. One could spend one hour studying one painting and if one owned the painting, a lifetime studying what Bonnard does with colour and pattern, light and dark, line and form and never feel rushed at all. As I wander through the spaces with their kooky quote wallpaper and aerated music, I notice how his life slows down. Pierre Bonnard, who finds himself in the midst of a French art phenomenon, is a man in a hurry who, after leaving Paris for the Côte d’Azur, stops hurrying, takes more and more time on fine and yet finer detail. His pets take on a life of their own. After three hours I will need a rest until next time. I will ask the attendant at the exit for the gentlemen’s. Through the gift shop, she will say, turn left through the café, it’s at the end of the corridor. Thank you, I will reply, in no particular hurry.

Bonnard

Bonnard Windows

The opened window lets on about clouds

Swelling up like the tree clouds below them

These evanescent leaves existing on light

These miniscule colours upon colour undiminished

These sunlight shifts where grey become blue hills,

Neighbours’ houses never more opaque than today

Their windows looking in on a story all their own.

Then, when cold, closed again against snow-like air

Window where birds wing past as dabs of Prussian

And the cat that seemed but a breeze of brushstrokes

Later walks through the door and sits on my lap.

I could write to you for days in isolation

About these Bonnard effects on the cerebellum

The optic nerve hardwired for every glow and shade

Email my findings on atmospheric water

Text over my word limit a plurality of palette

Message you the face that carries a weight on its shoulders

Effects that motion through shut window to garden

Table inside laid out with the usual favourites

A book turned face down where it inspired some thoughts

Which is pleasant enough except you’re not here

Where the shape and colour and light are real.

Bonnard

This winter Bonnards were to come to us

His windows onto golden firmament

Adding colour to colour incidents

Leafing unleafing speckled and lustrous.

In town, passers-by swanning and milling

Fill Paris with shapes alive and so close.

To forget a short while corona’s dose

Has shut down the galleries, unwilling,

Lately, I’ve been going to the Bonnards

Large in picture books, their pages flapping:

He, mirrored in a palette of shades won hard,

And his wife who lives inside, in bath wash

His blues tide over sluicing and slapping

Her languid contours, her hair, her soft flesh.

Bonnard (July)

Pierre Bonnard attends to each tree with individual rigour. He has all day to make life of this bayside garden. Supplemental gold is logical with July wattle starting and his soft blacks suffice to map out she-oaks and ironbarks. Perhaps it’s one of the Cheltenham golf courses he frequented for a time, not for sport but the flora. With faultless outline he gets at the essential singularity of over-the-top banksias as skilfully as sandy scrub-bushes with delicate grey veins and purple diamond flowers. But pattern is only one element. Air, light, colour, substance are the subjects of his steady gaze.

Ailing (June)

One moment I’m sorting work, reading June Ulysses papers. Next moment, temperature, inattention, painful pissing, squitters. My doctor is such a jovial soul, we talk work, Ulysses, family. A urine sample must prove something. A letter to my employers, then home to bed. Pain is warning but at the time it’s pain. The test returns e-coli count up. I cannot concentrate, but the truth’s a relief. Attention turns to long white tablets taken twice daily. (Blessed Howard Florey!) Carol and I plan the measures: small bowl of minestrone, sips of Hydralyte, lots of water, sleep. Browse soothing Bonnard picture books.