An Essay on Pied Beauty

An Essay on Pied Beauty

If memory serves, which is questionable, the first assignment I received in my Freshman Advanced English class in college was to write a paper on a poem. We were handed two poems and were to choose one of them. Everyone in the class seemed agitated by the assignment (including me) with little instruction on what we were to write about the poems to fill our allotted pages. All of the other students that I could hear were choosing the same poem, so I chose the other, even though I thought it was harder, and I didn't understand it.

11" x 14"

Painted with the finest quality heavy-body acrylic paint on acid-free, heavy weight Fabriano watercolor paper

Ready to frame

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The poem I chose to write about was Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins. 

Pied Beauty 

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS, 1844–1889

Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

          Praise him.

I chose to write about things I could pick out in the poem, such as alliteration, the speed at which words could be read in order, and the way words gave a picture in my mind. I felt I had failed because I didn't get to the meaning of the poem. 

When our papers had been graded, before they were returned to us, the professor told us she would read a couple of the papers to the class. She began with a paper about the other poem that delved into the deeper meaning of the poem and she praised the understanding of the student who wrote it. I thought to myself, "Well, I probably failed my first assignment." Then, the prof started reading the second paper - my paper! I was astonished! She liked my work and gave me praise and a good grade for it.

Looking back on that assignment, I see things a lot differently than I did as a freshman. I understand that the prof was assessing many things about our class with that assignment. And, even more, she was sharing her love of poetry and language with us. I didn't know then that she had given me a lifelong appreciation for a particular poem that would someday blossom into a love of great poetry. Whenever I come across that poem, it is like meeting an old friend. I am so grateful. (I should probably try to see whether I could communicate that to her in some way!)

So why have I told you this wordy story about my college assignment? Well, as I share my paintings with you, sometimes I hear, "I just don't get it," or "Does this mean ..." or maybe "Is that supposed to be a ..." My first response to this poem in that class was just like that. I could appreciate the technical aspects of it, but thought I wasn't getting it. (And I don't think I was.) But now, partly through recognizing the technique, I feel the poem. I see it in my mind's eye - not a photograph, but an abstract Pied Beauty of God's creation. 

I share my thoughts and techniques and tools here in my blog to give you an introduction to my work - to abstract painting - but I really hope you will feel my paintings. I hope you will be drawn by something and be unable to forget a lingering sweetness or beauty. And that when you see them, it will be a little like seeing an old friend.