Already, a conscious courage is coming to life.
Here are some of the painters: Picasso, Braque,
Delaunay, Le Fauconnier; they are highly enlightened,
& do not believe in the stability of any system,
even if it were to call itself classical art.
Their reason is poised between the pursuit
of the fleeting and a mania for the eternal.
Quote of Jean Metzinger Note sur la Peinture (1910)
[the Cubist painters who]              continued to paint objects motionless, frozen, &                                                   all the static aspects of Nature;
they worship the traditionalism of                  w:Poussin, of w:Ingres, of Corot,     ageing & petrifying their art
      with an obstinate attachment to the past,
      which to our eyes remains totally incomprehensible;
                            Is it indisputable that several aesthetic
declarations of our French comrades
[the Cubists in Paris] display
a sort of masked academicism.
It is not, indeed, a return to
the Academy to declare that
the subject, in painting, has
a perfectly insignificant value?
To paint from the posing model
as an absurdity, and an act of
mental cowardice, even if the model
be translated upon the picture in linear,
spherical and cubic forms;
Quotes by Boccioni in his text
of 'Les exposants au public' - exh.
Cat. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune,                      February 1912, pp. 2, 3
Get all the information you can about the Cubists,
                 & about Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Go to Kahnweilers' art gallery. And if he's got photos of recent works –
                              produced after I left -,
buy one or two. Bring us the Futurists in Italy,
like Boccioni himself;                          back all the information you can get.
Quote of Boccioni,                                in a letter to Gino Severini,
staying in Paris in the Summer of 1911;                     as quoted in Futurism,
ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou /
5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 27.
We [the Futurists] must smash,
demolish and destroy our traditional harmony,
which makes us fall into a 'gracefullness'
created by timid and sentimental cubs
[this denigrating word refers to the French Cubists].
Quote by Boccioni in his 'Sculptural Manifesto' of 1912;
as quoted in Futurism, ed. By Didier Ottinger;
Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008                    Is it indisputable that several aesthetic declarations
of our French comrades the Cubists display a sort of masked
academicism;   It is not, indeed, a return to the Academy
   to declare that the subject, in painting,
        has a perfectly insignificant value?
To paint from the posing model as an absurdity,
& an act of mental cowardice, even if the model
be translated upon the picture in linear,
                    spherical and cubic forms;
Quote of Boccioni, in 'Les exposants au public' - exh. Cat. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, February 1912 pp. 2, 3.
The square is not a subconscious form.
It is the creation of intuitive reason. The face of the new art.
The square is a living, regal infant. The first step of pure creation in art.
Quote of Kazimir Malevich,
in 'From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism: The New Realism in Painting' (November 1916)
Unless we are to condemn all modern painting,
we must regard cubism as legitimate, for it continues modern methods,
& we should see in it the only conception
of pictorial art now possible.
In other words, at this moment cubism is painting.

Quote of Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger,
in Du "Cubisme", Edition Figuière, Paris, 1912
(First English edition: Cubism, T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1913)
To understand Cézanne is to foresee Cubism.
Henceforth we are justified in saying that
between this school and previous manifestations
there is only a difference of intensity,
& that in order to assure ourselves
of this we have only to study the methods
of this realism, which, departing from the superficial
reality of Courbet, plunges with Cézanne
into profound reality, growing luminous
as it forces the unknowable to retreat.
Quote of Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger,
Du "Cubisme", Edition Figuière, Paris, 1912 (First English edition: Cubism, T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1913)

a quiet story
before the locked doors or
three way mirrors
a spider whispers

a lesson from a devil on hot
pale scales pipe high virginal
ballads in black smoke broken
by smiling Poussin

bells plunge down towers
sweetening prisons with
spiders clenched recitals
and 24 carat bourbon

She grew up fast chewing gum
stepping out into the sun;
burning in her limelight like Bryant Park at midnight
the child who would not believe,
not just anything the eyes showed her but anything;
her sisterhood hidden under
the cloud of a red tent clothed
with the ******'s sash & tunic;
she comes dorically; her ships like the Greeks in harbor;
drunk in a field of daffodils I remember
the song was sung in the wild childless wilderness
where somewhere like Poussin's prostitutes
head to the stage in jest;
the women of the ancient regime strut naked & bewildered
learning the way from those women wearing ribbons,
those who believe in Pan who are wild as hogs,
leaping like a plague of frogs
marching to to the beat of the red drum brigade;
conceived in the likeness
of a soon forgotten god

My genteel shepherd,
                                                      F­ondly I recall
The beauty of your Lignon, where we'd share
Neath monuments around your stately hall,
A fleeting moment free from any care.

Embracing midst that noble rustic arch
With marble stone emblazed with bas relief,
Where Poussin's likeness captivates the heart
To tell the tale of Arcadia's grief,

Those shepherds and their shepherdesses gaze
Upon the tomb, Utopia's demise;
Their faces full of woe for darker days,
As humbly now, your servant bids goodbye.

        Yours always, in memoriam and so,

        Adieu,

                Et in Arcadia ego.

It's always just when you think...

you find

we're all on the edge

the country's gone stupid

banks all on the brink




madness,

a bit like the monster

but not mad

nor in Scotland.




Bury your head in the Rand

in the Yen or the Dollar

swallow their lies and

when you've heard it all




build that brick wall

and smash your heads

against it.




Poachers everywhere and it's true

that one man's meat is another

man's

poussin




I can relate to it

but don't take to it.




We're all being spatchcocked

opened up and

slow cooked




****** in other words.

IV.

Le firmament est plein de la vaste clarté ;
Tout est joie, innocence, espoir, bonheur, bonté.
Le beau lac brille au fond du vallon qui le mure ;
Le champ sera fécond, la vigne sera mûre ;
Tout regorge de sève et de vie et de bruit,
De rameaux verts, d'azur frissonnant, d'eau qui luit,
Et de petits oiseaux qui se cherchent querelle.
Qu'a donc le papillon ? qu'a donc la sauterelle ?
La sauterelle à l'herbe, et le papillon l'air ;
Et tous deux ont avril, qui rit dans le ciel clair.
Un refrain joyeux sort de la nature entière ;
Chanson qui doucement monte et devient prière.
Le poussin court, l'enfant joue et danse, l'agneau
Saute, et, laissant tomber goutte à goutte son eau,
Le vieux antre, attendri, pleure comme un visage ;
Le vent lit à quelqu'un d'invisible un passage
Du poème inouï de la création ;
L'oiseau parle au parfum; la fleur parle au rayon ;
Les pins sur les étangs dressent leur verte ombelle ;
Les nids ont chaud ; l'azur trouve la terre belle,
Onde et sphère, à la fois tous les climats flottants ;
Ici l'automne, ici l'été ; là le printemps.
Ô coteaux ! ô sillons ! souffles, soupirs, haleines !
L'hosanna des forêts, des fleuves et des plaines,
S'élève gravement vers Dieu, père du jour ;
Et toutes les blancheurs sont des strophes d'amour ;
Le cygne dit : Lumière ! et le lys dit : Clémence
Le ciel s'ouvre à ce chant comme une oreille immense.
Le soir vient ; et le globe à son tour s'éblouit,
Devient un œil énorme et regarde la nuit ;
Il savoure, éperdu, l'immensité sacrée,
La contemplation du splendide empyrée,
Les nuages de crêpe et d'argent, le zénith,
Qui, formidable, brille et flamboie et bénit,
Les constellations, ces hydres étoilées,
Les effluves du sombre et du profond, mêlées
À vos effusions, astres de diamant,
Et toute l'ombre avec tout le rayonnement !
L'infini tout entier d'extase se soulève.
Et, pendant ce temps-là, Satan, l'envieux, rêve.

La Terrasse, avril 1840.