Title poem and selection from Painted Ladies - A LOOK INTO A WORLD OF DAUGHTERS.
Though art came earlier – in lieu of reading skills –
names always fascinated. Writing’s mystery
danced letters inside out or back to front,
moulding their structures differently in the eye
from those held firmly on the printed page, while sounds
of words made vivid pictures on white drawing blocks.
Not surprisingly, the Gainsborough word – though difficult
for her to spell – was always unremarkable;
a common enough set of Anglo Saxon sounds
first met at Aldeburgh – whose pebbled beaches shelved
so musically and flinty stones grew holes where notes
of waves and surf and sea bird calls could thread themselves.
Attleborough, Kettleburgh just rattled out
their Sutton Hoo style origins. But Zoffany!
Zoffany exhaled... images of butterflies:
Skippers flitting up and down with Studded Blues
and Silver Washed Fritillaries shimmering the sun
on hazy days: all family Nymphalidae.
Such nymph-like Psyches lit a world of Peacocks – trimmed
with Tortoiseshells – Commas’ ragged wings, ship-shape
Red/White Admirals and more fritillaries: Pearl
Bordered for those Painted Ladies, Camberwell Beauties,
visiting from the Continent to make their promenade,
flaunting their fashions like beau monde debutantes.
Nymphalidae grace the tombs where Zoffany
and Gainsborough lie, beneath the Heathrow Flight Path
roar, in St Anne’s Churchyard on Kew Green, where she first
met the painters’ names and later watched their magic dance
and sing in a metaphor of what fine art
becomes: two daughters painted as one butterfly.
A poignant portrait of youth’s passing innocence,
of how delightful painting seemed, borrowing soft
downy scales from Emerald moths, Green Silver
Lines and Yellow Shells which fly at dusk, through oak tree
glades, to dramatise rich fantasies of art in life –
outlasting life – in galleries of painted sounds.
Convolvulus was one of those, with trumpet flowers
to feed White Plumes which flutter heaths where Nightjars swoop,
though seldom seen, to gather Ghosts which Singer
Sargent might have had in mind, when capturing two
enchanting girls at work, enticing moths with light diffusing
Chinese lanterns—Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.
i.m Barry Palmer