Poems and Paintings

Poems and Paintings










Objectives of session:

to explore the use of paintings and artworks
in developing critical skills
and in promoting creativity

to demonstrate the value of ‘out-of-school’ education







Paintings as a way into poetry.

The work of the Bentons:
Double Vision.

Four dimensions:

(i) ‘annotating’ and ‘reading’ paintings
(ii) links between paintings and poems
(iii) original poems based on paintings
(iv) annotating and reading poems


Annotating and reading paintings:

The Starry Night, St Rémy by Vincent van Gogh
from ‘Double Vision’





The Dead Sea by Paul Nash
from ‘Painting with Words’






Use your own cards
at first on your own and then with a partner
to annotate a painting.
(Put the card in the middle of your page.)







Contrasts:

‘without contraries
there is no progression’
(Blake)

Use your cards to work with your partner on identifying contrasts.
Try to develop each contrast into an interpretative comment.








Poems from Paintings

a look at Double Vision


Running away with the Hairdresser by Kevin Sinnott

Running away with the Hairdresser
from the painting by Kevin Sinnott
in the National Gallery, Cardiff

As my hair grew thinner I found myself
visiting the hairdresser’s more and more.

By the time a distinct tonsure had begun
to show, people were starting to talk,

and I’d taken to wearing berets into town.
Things came to a head one day after she’d

clipped away four long hairs which had sprouted
from the tops of my ears like the wrong sort

of grass, and she leaned into me to trim
my mad professor eyebrows. I noticed

how the word ‘Coiffeur’ became the right way
round when reflected in her eyes. I can






remember her running like an African
gazelle, balancing distractedly

on three-inch heels - but more acutely
I can still see, in what grandma used to call

my mind’s eye, how she tugged her chrome yellow
vest over her head before we’d even

got indoors, how I had to get my breath
holding on to the foot of the long bed.

And for seventeen days we were the talk
of the valley, till an unconnected

incident took place at the Station Hotel.
Fashions change. We have regrets. We look back.
Anthony Lawrence

Critical Appreciation:

description
appreciation
interpretation


Bloom’s taxonomy


Critical Appreciation:

description: what?
appreciation: how?
interpretation: why?

NB Pupils seem instinctively to prefer working at the ‘appreciation’ level; they need to be taught how to appreciate and interpret.
Practise using your own card, first individually
and then with a partner.

Paul Durcan poems






Paintings to inspire poems:

dramatic monologues for characters depicted
praised this year by GCSE examiners (‘Les Parapluies’ by Renoir)

deliberately off-beat readings
eg Paul Durcan

capturing atmosphere and mood
‘freeze frame’ techniques

showing not telling

Any more?

Which method might be best for the picture on your card?


objective and subjective




try ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the painting!

describing without adjectives:
it is possible!

in a dim light
at Stroud House Gallery

describe
appreciate
interpret

contrasts

objective/ subjective
avoiding adjectives

original writing stemming from an artwork