The Color of Light: Poems on Van Gogh's Late Paintings by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Hardcover: 57 pages, Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; illustrated edition edition (August 15, 2007), ISBN-10: 0802827284
Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: Bought at the Metropolitan Museum of Art January '08
I've had this book for sometime...since a girl-trip to New York with five friends in January of 2008. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I lingered over Van Gogh's paintings. (Weirdly, my sister was in New York that same weekend (she lives in Alabama) and we met up at the Metropolitan. Her friend took a photo of us standing in front of one of Van Gogh's paintings - I can't remember which. Note to self: ask B.A. to email it to me.) In the museum store just before leaving, I found this slim little volume of poems and bought it on a whim. We dashed off to drinks at The View. I spilled my martini on the cover so even now it still feels sticky and is a bit wrinkly. (Don't judge!) That was a wonderful trip with great friends, memories of which I will cherish forever. It was also the end of a peaceful season in our friendships. We've all been through the wringer a bit since then.
So, after all the personal turmoil that happened just after this trip, I tucked The Color of Light away and never read it. In the past month or so, with my increased interest in poetry, I pulled it out and read a poem here or there. I've just finished it this morning and there's only one word for it: fabulous! And I think this is just the time when I should be reading it...As McEntyre says: "We are called by the Light into the light we can't yet bear without the shades and protections of mud, mortar, wood, canvas, and color. Art is a form of mercy that meets us where we are with what is hospitable and familiar..." I think today I was ready to bear some of this "light" offered by her and Van Gogh that I probably wouldn't have been able to see 15 months ago.
I love Van Gogh. I love his paintings, I love his story. Yes, he's a tragic figure, but I think he was given much insight into the beauty and truth of God's Creation. As a bloggy-friend said recently, I would love to have him at my table of the top ten people I'd like to have dinner with.
This book is a collection of 21 poems inspired by different Van Gogh paintings from his "final difficult, spiritually strenuous years." The author, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, is simply an amazing artist in her own right. She is also a Christian, and you can see her worldview, her faith, in each poem. They are, as she says in the introduction, "...not scholarly comment, but simply thanks for a costly gift freely given that has afforded me, among so many others, challenges and opportunities to look again and see in a new light."
The introduction to the book is worth the purchase by itself. Point-in-case:
"All of his work is relational, even confrontational. Not only portraits but landscapes, skyscapes, the crowds in the marketplace come to him, and through him, as personal encounter. The question that seems to lie behind them is large and radically theological: Who is this that speaks and shines in all that may be seen? It may be a vision of the One Hopkins described, who "fathers forth, whose beauty is past change." It may be the One the sight of whose face cannot be borne."
McEntyre has two other volumes of poetry based on the works of Dutch master painters: In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer's Women and Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt's Religious Paintings. I see on Amazon she has a book of meditations out titled: Christ My Companion: Meditations on the Prayer of St. Patrick. I've put them all in my shopping cart! :-)
I, of course, highly recommend this volume of poetry. In addition to the poetry, you get 21 beautiful images of Van Gogh's art. Who could resist?
Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: Bought at the Metropolitan Museum of Art January '08
I've had this book for sometime...since a girl-trip to New York with five friends in January of 2008. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I lingered over Van Gogh's paintings. (Weirdly, my sister was in New York that same weekend (she lives in Alabama) and we met up at the Metropolitan. Her friend took a photo of us standing in front of one of Van Gogh's paintings - I can't remember which. Note to self: ask B.A. to email it to me.) In the museum store just before leaving, I found this slim little volume of poems and bought it on a whim. We dashed off to drinks at The View. I spilled my martini on the cover so even now it still feels sticky and is a bit wrinkly. (Don't judge!) That was a wonderful trip with great friends, memories of which I will cherish forever. It was also the end of a peaceful season in our friendships. We've all been through the wringer a bit since then.
So, after all the personal turmoil that happened just after this trip, I tucked The Color of Light away and never read it. In the past month or so, with my increased interest in poetry, I pulled it out and read a poem here or there. I've just finished it this morning and there's only one word for it: fabulous! And I think this is just the time when I should be reading it...As McEntyre says: "We are called by the Light into the light we can't yet bear without the shades and protections of mud, mortar, wood, canvas, and color. Art is a form of mercy that meets us where we are with what is hospitable and familiar..." I think today I was ready to bear some of this "light" offered by her and Van Gogh that I probably wouldn't have been able to see 15 months ago.
I love Van Gogh. I love his paintings, I love his story. Yes, he's a tragic figure, but I think he was given much insight into the beauty and truth of God's Creation. As a bloggy-friend said recently, I would love to have him at my table of the top ten people I'd like to have dinner with.
This book is a collection of 21 poems inspired by different Van Gogh paintings from his "final difficult, spiritually strenuous years." The author, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, is simply an amazing artist in her own right. She is also a Christian, and you can see her worldview, her faith, in each poem. They are, as she says in the introduction, "...not scholarly comment, but simply thanks for a costly gift freely given that has afforded me, among so many others, challenges and opportunities to look again and see in a new light."
The introduction to the book is worth the purchase by itself. Point-in-case:
"All of his work is relational, even confrontational. Not only portraits but landscapes, skyscapes, the crowds in the marketplace come to him, and through him, as personal encounter. The question that seems to lie behind them is large and radically theological: Who is this that speaks and shines in all that may be seen? It may be a vision of the One Hopkins described, who "fathers forth, whose beauty is past change." It may be the One the sight of whose face cannot be borne."
McEntyre has two other volumes of poetry based on the works of Dutch master painters: In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer's Women and Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt's Religious Paintings. I see on Amazon she has a book of meditations out titled: Christ My Companion: Meditations on the Prayer of St. Patrick. I've put them all in my shopping cart! :-)
I, of course, highly recommend this volume of poetry. In addition to the poetry, you get 21 beautiful images of Van Gogh's art. Who could resist?
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