Inspired by Words: Autumn Poetry

Many of us will know the poem “To Autumn” by John Keats that begins “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. Written in 1819 and first published in 1820 I took my cue from

“To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;”

The little painting above was a demonstration piece from a short course I am presently tutoring at Norden Farm Centre for the Arts, Maidenhead, where participants are invited to make artworks inspired by poetry. The work could be representational and narrative or much more abstract and we talked about how decisions on the approach could be made according to the nature of the words referenced. We started with poetry about Autumn and found works ranging from the highly descriptive, to poetry that is more concerned with emotions concerning decay and death as in Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 73.

The imagined landscape above has fruit laden trees and mists with a clearer view to sunlight on red roofed cottages in the middle-ground. Beyond them golden fields and more mists merge into a clouded sky that looks blustery enough to blow the mists away. Mist is so frequently referenced in connection with autumn that it is useful to find ways of portraying it. In the painting above this was simply achieved by applying white and pale blue-grey pastel over the acrylic paint and ink line work. The middle-ground cottages were left in their original colourful state so the difference is clear. To achieve misty effects, pastel dust can be ground from a regular pastel stick and applied with a finger or cloth dabber, or Pan pastel can be applied with a soft rubber sponge.

A similar effect can be produced by scumbling thin veils of pale blue-gey or white acrylic using a stiff brush. Do ensure the painting is completely dry before scumbling.

Another poem I was attracted to was “The Burning of Leaves” by Laurence Binyon. It begins

“Now is the time for the burning of the leaves,

They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke

Wandering slowly into a weeping mist.”

Then the later line appears:

“Fingers of fire are making corruption clean.”

Stages showing how this painting was built up in layers of mixed media
1. acrylic
2. ink and some oil pastel scratched into for texture (sgraffito) soft pastel rubbed over to soften blue areas
3. Pale Posca pen, more black ink, further layer of pale pastel over blue and gray areas for smoke

Another two lines from the same poem inspired the painting below:

“All the spices of June are a bitter reek
All the extravagant riches spent and mean,”

Here I imagine the rich blocks of colour representing the rich flowers and smells of June heavy with roses, are being consumed by the fire. The comparison with our personal earthly riches and their destiny is clear.

The poem’s end bleakly reminds us of our own mortality, but also hope for those who follow us who will see the Spring, and there is an inference that the decay and purification process is necessary for this renewal.

My personal view on mortality is that for those with faith the outlook is not bleak, but as a former scientist I know decay is certainly vital for the renewal of life in Spring! So glad tutoring this course has rekindled my interest in poetry.