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| Henri Matisse, Open Window |
You and you, in the pink
Matisse: Open window, Collioure 1906
Allow that the sea is pink, rich lobster pink,
a distinctly crustaceous pink. Allow it.
Let boats have orange masts, or madder red. Sit
way out over their side, aware that they may sink.
Sense that the sky is patchy, then note deft shades
of pastel seascape, horizontal streaks, dabs
of almost white, wavy blues, livid pink slabs
and leaning up against them, plunge your oar blades
into what you must know is bay. You won't see
that underneath each boat is a pane of blue
and glaze of bottle-green unless you're at the
open window in Collioure. Now can you be
sailing off down there and watching yourself through
a pink-framed window? Allowing you are you.
Christopher Pilling
Allowing that I know only what I like and am neither art critic nor literary elite, I very much like this poem. Because the sea is not pink.
And yet, through this particular window the sea is pink.
Mr. Pilling makes us into Matisse. He shows us each colour choice, how he makes boat masts orange or madder red, makes a sky out of dabs and streaks, so that we notice the preposterous possibilities.
The sky is not truly made out of streaks of white, or pink slabs - but the artist has made such a sky real, nonetheless.
It's a kind of miracle.
What other miracles are possible when one is an artist?
