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ABSTRACTION AND EMPATHY
I wonder sometimes if
some of that loveliness
that entrances me
uselessly
will, one of these days, see
a painting of mine
or maybe a poem, and be
entranced - maybe even
usefully. But what,
I wonder,
would the usefulness be?
I look at
Seurat's 'Bathers'.
The beauty of
the young boys' flesh,
though beautiful, is not
the beauty of the painting.
It is not
the tranquility that speaks
- not to a particular
function of our
being, but -
to the whole
structure of the soul.
The beauty that passes,
the beauty that is lost,
that turns to dust,
'when these are overpast'
(Arthur Symons dixit)
'the bones of beauty last.'