Sunlight on the River: Poems About Paintings, Paintings About Poems

by Scott Gutterman (Editor)

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 by
Breughel; 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.

Genres: Poetry, Art

140 pages, Hardcover

First published November 10, 2015

Reviews

[Larry Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an elegant and luscious book for the mind and the heart. The large 10.9-inch x 8.4-inch format and the hard cover could make it a coffee table book, but one should really sit with it in a morning or afternoon contemplation of the joys of painting and poetry, brought together here, revealing the deep connection between both arts. Featured are 50 ekphrasis or “poems by writers who turned to paintings for their inspiration, as well as paintings by artists who based their works on poems.” Of particular note are the several poems of William Carlos Williams based on scenes from Peter Brueghel large canvases. And, of course, there are works from the New York Poets scene such as the work of Frank O’Hara, Mike Goldberg, and Larry Rivers.

Gutterman explains his criterion for the book as simply “great poems and superb works of art which combine to form something dazzling—something that endures, as Rilke imagined, ‘as an arrow endures the string/ to form, in the gathering outleap, something than itself.’”
He succeeds wonderfully in this rich collection that sings in three forms: painting, poem, and painting-poem combination.

See more at: http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-...

[Deborah Bancroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book to enjoy multiple times. Some paintings and some poems were familiar to me but many pairings were exciting and completely new. For a taste, the famous Seurat painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" is shown opposite Delmore Schwartz' poem Seurat's Sunday Afternoon Along the Seine:

What are they looking at? Is it the river?
The sunlight on the river, the summer, leisure?
Or the luxury and nothingness of consciousness?
...

They are looking at hope itself, under the sun, free from the teething
anxiety, the gnawing nervousness
Which wastes so many days and years of consciousness.

...

Everywhere radiance glows like a garden in stillness blossoming.

A perfect August read!

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

While they clearly move in different circles of the art world, poets and painters have much in common when it comes to their quest to capture what is essential about an event, an encounter, or a momentary feeling. It should not be surprising then that these artists might occasionally draw inspiration from each other’s work. In fact, sometimes that inspiration rises to the point where a poet composes a verse based on a particular canvas or an influential poem becomes the motivation for a new painting. To chronicle this connection, Scott Gutterman’s Sunlight on the River collects 56 examples of, as the author puts it, “poems about paintings, paintings about poems” in a well-edited and beautifully illustrated volume.

Following a brief introductory essay, the format of the book is straightforward and effective. On facing pages, Gutterman reproduces some or all of a poem alongside a print of the painting that inspired it (or, in far fewer cases, vice versa). This makes for a fascinating and enlightening contrast, especially since I found that I was a lot more familiar with the work of the visual artists—such as Picasso, Van Gogh, Chagall, Vermeer, Titian, Brueghel, Seurat, and Matisse—than I was with the poets who were represented (including Dante, Rilke, Ginsberg, Keats, and Stevens, among several others). If I had one complaint, it would be that some of the poems were excerpted a little too extensively, as for example in the case of Inferno, which was reduced to just three stanzas of the first canto. Still, in light of the bigger goal that the author was trying to achieve, that is a minor complaint. This is one gift book that is actually likely to be read rather than just gathering dust on a coffee table.

[Jean Carlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't recall where I saw this title - could have been the Mccullough book on American artists in Paris? but recently taking a poetry writing class on-line from the U of Iowa, it seemed like an interesting way to combine the two disciplines. I enjoyed both the artwork and the poetry; some more than others of course. Favorites were the Gauguin single bed in a room, two Vermeers with nice accompanying poetry and a Frank O'Hara "Why I am not a Painter" Very funny Google it! And check out the book if you want to see the painting that goes with it.

[Linda Loretz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a beautiful "coffee table" book. The artwork is carefully selected, and the poems that accompany the art are fantastic. It is easy to read and so engaging. It is a book that I will return to many times.

[isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

inspirational 🤍