No
commission daunted him:
No
book too long, no poem too epic,
No
fairy tale or nursery rhyme
Too
slight for his illustration,
No
metropolis too sprawling
For
him to work on to canvas
And
into wood, with no time to waste
Or
marry or move away from mother.
Yet
drawn to nomads like Quixote,
The
Ancient Mariner and The Wandering Jew.
Oblivious
to Impressionism,
His
formalism disguising
The
speed of that deft precision,
As
quick and free as any other.
And
no multitude too many:
Under
his hand, heavens and hells grew:
Metaphorical,
spiritual and geographical,
Out
of the Bible, out of Dante
Out
of Milton and out of London.
Yet
still he would draw for the journals
And
though he later worked with stone
As
well as paint, drawing was his love:
What
had made him le gamin de genie;
So
prodigious, prolific and prompt,
The
pictures teeming out of him,
Making
their own monochrome multitude.
(2015)
I taught Coleridge's The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (from which the above illustration comes) at A' Level and was also familiar with The London Of Gustave Dore` book - but these, of course, were merely the tip of the iceberg. This was another which came in a rush after waiting many years to be written.
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