GLIMPSE: crosscurrents in writing & visual art

Willem de Kooning "The Young Poet," lithograph, 1988 [series from limited edition of Frank O'Hara's poetry] photo from collection of Tim Keane, 2017

​Welcome. This blog is devoted to sharing random sightings, findings, notes and photos about crosscurrents in poetry and visual art, as well as posts about intersections among the arts as spied in modern & contemporary urban culture.

GLIMPSE takes its title in part from comments made in a 1960 interview with the Dutch-American painter Willem de Kooning. Asked about his approach to making art, he compared his work to that of a poet, then to a novelist, adding that he "like[s] the word in painting" and that in his art "content [..] is a glimpse of something, an encounter, a flash."

The 20th century painter echoes similar ideas expressed in the 19th century by French poet Charles Baudelaire who believed that the modern artist and modern writer are most interested in exploring the "ephemeral, fugitive, the contingent."  Baudelaire, like De Kooning, wanted to find "eternity in the ephemeral."

Hope this space leads to enthusiastic and thought-provoking engagement on the eternal and the ephemeral and much that falls in between.​

photo of Charles Baudelaire c early 1860s, photographer unknown