THE GLASS AGE by Cole Swensen, Farmington.ME, Alicejamesbooks: 2007 811.54
Did you know that in Middle English, windows were called 'wind eyes'? Cole Swensen's poems in The Glass Age (Alicejamesbooks: 2007) are so full ideas that their forms disappear, much as glass disappears as you look through it. In short:
book as perfect metaphor for i ts subject.Technically, glass is an amorphous solid, usually made from humble substances like ash or sand. It took centuries for humans to perfect the marvel of a glass that you can see through. Partisans of the early Alexandrians and the 16th century Venetians claim credit for the invention of clear glass; more certain is that the Persian polymath known as Alhazen (965-c.1039) disproved the ancients' belief that light is a ray that flies out from the eye to an object. Was it, Swensen wonders, the infidelity of early windows that made the distortions of art "worthy of framing." Among Swensen's pantheon of painters, windows are everything from metaphor to obsession. As you can see in Robert Campin's Portrait of the Madonna, once the view is framed by a window, the temptation to paint landscapes will become irresistible ("windows bring us back/ but not to us"). Swensen, herself, possesses the zeal of the believer when she writes, "The space in paintings is not paint: it is space." For Swensen, glass, like canvas, is no mean flat surface - it is means to prestidigitation. And so it appeared to the throngs of visitors to the Crystal Palace, erected for London's International Exposition in 1851. Designed by landscape gardener Joseph Paxton, its acres of trees and fountains, tempt Swensen to posit "The origin of all architect
ure in the greenhouse..." Cole Swensen, a frequent translator of French poetry, makes the Impressionist Pierre Bonnard the center around which the other artists orbit. She knows that the artist liked to paint by the light of a north window, finds cinematic qualities in his work in the wake of his friendship with the Lumiere Brothers at the time of their historic film of the train arriving at La Ciotat, and analyzes his paintings of windows as " stand(ing) in the way, not framing the view, but cutting it in two, thus framing not our view, but our awareness of viewing." She even mines playwright Alfred Jarry's obscure Exploits & Opinions of Doctor Faustroll for praise of Bonnard's ability to fix pure light on canvas.No one who loves windows, much less the very idea of them, can fail to find fascination in the Danish painter Wilhlem Hammereshoi's windows opening on windows,doors opening to other doors. and shadows of window panes superimposed on floorboards. To Swensen, Hammershoi is a conundrum, "alone in a house with light/ built his house rely of doors."
Guillaume Apollinaire sounds a kindred note in Les Fenetres, his introduction to the catalogue for the 1913 exhibition of Robert Delaunay's Windows On The City.
Reading The Glass Age you enter a world of dreams or, as Swensen calls them, "walking rooms."
ure in the greenhouse..." Cole Swensen, a frequent translator of French poetry, makes the Impressionist Pierre Bonnard the center around which the other artists orbit. She knows that the artist liked to paint by the light of a north window, finds cinematic qualities in his work in the wake of his friendship with the Lumiere Brothers at the time of their historic film of the train arriving at La Ciotat, and analyzes his paintings of windows as " stand(ing) in the way, not framing the view, but cutting it in two, thus framing not our view, but our awareness of viewing." She even mines playwright Alfred Jarry's obscure Exploits & Opinions of Doctor Faustroll for praise of Bonnard's ability to fix pure light on canvas.No one who loves windows, much less the very idea of them, can fail to find fascination in the Danish painter Wilhlem Hammereshoi's windows opening on windows,doors opening to other doors. and shadows of window panes superimposed on floorboards. To Swensen, Hammershoi is a conundrum, "alone in a house with light/ built his house rely of doors."Guillaume Apollinaire sounds a kindred note in Les Fenetres, his introduction to the catalogue for the 1913 exhibition of Robert Delaunay's Windows On The City.
Reading The Glass Age you enter a world of dreams or, as Swensen calls them, "walking rooms."
1. Adrien Chancel - Drawing for an Atrium for a Capital City, 1877, Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
2. Robert Campin - Portrait of the Madonna, 1435, Prado, Madrid.
3. Pierre Bonnard - Open Window at Vernon, Museum of Fine Arts, Nice.
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