Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Frank Dent's avatar

Michael, great piece (read it on Bite Size Reviews). As soon as I saw the four paintings, I said, Pick the castle, because it looked so intriguing, and so you did.

But I never would have suspected that some of the more interesting aspects of Cole’s painting is the information on the placard, things that can’t be learned from the painting itself (power of words vs. power of image).

For example, the rebuilt castle and enlarged cliff. Sometimes people carp about special effects and CGI-added mountains and castles in movies, yet here’s an example of “fine art” a couple centuries ago doing just that.

But perhaps the biggest surprise is the little castle where Petrarch lived. That’s the guy who the Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet is named for. If some English dudes hadn’t translated his sonnets, we might not have gotten the Shakespearean (English) sonnet. No more “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

That’s the guy, and he lived right there. Most of us are already familiar with a Petrarchan sonnet in English, Emma Lazarus’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” poem at the Statue of Liberty.

And many a sonnet about works of art have also been written. Perhaps the most famous (at least in German) would be Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo” and its famous ending:

https://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/2016/04/rilke-archaic-torso-of-apollo-from.html

Of course an art history prof would recommend a painting or sculpture, but you could do this exercise with non-art too, I would think. For example, observe a sleeping cat for three hours, watch its breathing, the little twitches, any sounds it makes, etc.

Expand full comment
Cassie Gutman's avatar

I loved this so much, and also realized I saw your TikTok of this without realizing, which made reading your afterthoughts incredibly interesting, and even though you were bored, it makes me want to try this as well. I find myself routinely in the scolding-myself-for-not-focusing camp, and I've been trying to purposely do less things simultaneously, which has helped. Like just enjoying folding my laundry in silence rather than cramming in audiobooks or trying to clean the whole room at the same time. I like applying the idea to art. Great great essay, Michael!

Expand full comment
11 more comments...

No posts