On Seeing Larry Rivers' "Washington Crossing the Delaware" at the Museum of Modern Art by Frank O'Hara
Now that our hero has come back to us
in his white pants and we know his nose trembling like a flag under fire, we see the calm cold river is supporting our forces, the beautiful history. To be more revolutionary than a nun is our desire, to be secular and intimate as, when sighting a redcoat, you smile and pull the trigger. Anxieties and animosities, flaming and feeding on theoretical considerations and the jealous spiritualities of the abstract the robot? they're smoke, billows above the physical event. They have burned up. See how free we are! as a nation of persons. Dear father of our country, so alive you must have lied incessantly to be immediate, here are your bones crossed on my breast like a rusty flintlock, a pirate's flag, bravely specific and ever so light in the misty glare of a crossing by water in winter to a shore other than that the bridge reaches for. Don't shoot until, the white of freedom glinting on your gun barrel, you see the general fear. About the Poet, Frank O'HaraFrancis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.
The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara edited by Donald Allen (Knopf, 1971), the first of several posthumous collections, shared the 1972 Natioanl Book Award for Poetry. Analysis of the Poem and the Painting In the beginning of the poem, Frank O’Hara, the poet, tells us what he sees in the painting by saying “Now that our hero has come back to us / in his white pants and we know his nose” These lines mean that his white pants and his nose shape is special for him, the pants and the nose and the man, Washington become integrated, we can’t separate them. Then, he uses imagery for description, since we can see it in the line “trembling like a flag under fire,” He agrees with me and admits that he writes what he sees in these lines “we see the calm cold river is supporting our forces,” Therefore, we can say that the poet O’Hara didn’t used his imagination and just wrote the facts that are important in understanding the poem. The poet describes the painting by using lots of alliteration such as “anxieties and animosities” and “flaming and feeding”
In the second stanza, the poet still describes the painting, but this time he uses the painting as a tool to give some ideas for certain type of people. “To be more revolutionary than a nun / is our desire, to be secular and intimate / as, when sighting a redcoat, you smile /and pull the trigger.” The actions such as having a redcoat or smiling or pulling the trigger can be seen and guessed according to the painting. Also, the poet snipes at people by telling that “See how free we are! as a nation of persons.” In my opinion, he doesn’t target a certain group of people this time. But instead, he targets the whole nation by telling that their connections are gone now and everyone has to find a way to live on. In the third stanza, the author uses imagery from the text to describe the result of an event. “They’re smoke, billows above / the physical event. They have burned up.” The poet just needed to say that “They’ve burned up.” But instead, he used metaphors to tell them that they’ve burned up. That way, the poem becomes more powerful and gives the message clearly. This is how art and poem can be integrated. The poem describes the painting and the painting describes the poem. |
Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware (1953) Oil on canvas, approximately 7 feet x 9 feet. The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
About the Artist, Larry RiversLarry Rivers (August 17, 1923 - August 14, 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York, Southampton, and Mexico.
The Crossing (2000)Check this movie out! The movie tells about Washington Crossing Delaware
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210628/ Video ClipIf you don't have the time to watch the whole movie, there is a shorter version of the same event which I really liked.
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