Art is by Matthew Rackham Barnes (1880-1951), a self-taught American painter born in Scotland. He moved to the US at the age of 20 and settled in California. Noe Valley, above, is a San Francisco neighbourhood. As can be seen from a selection of his works below, desolate night scenes and ghostly figures were one of his preoccupations. I suppose I must be drawn to them as well.
Noe Valley Apparition
Had the haunting
been a little less literal,
humanity a little
more embodied,
not to say carnal,
Hopper might have approved.*
As it is, only the road sweats,
the windows shiver,
the sky hung in haze,
a perpetual fugue.
And that lone,
blanched figure,
forever half way home,
a cold glimmer
somewhere between
Twin Peaks and Siberia,
is really no one,
no one
you’ve ever met
or could face,
not on this sidewalk,
not in this district,
this world—
the realm
of all others.
*Edward Hopper, American realist painter and contempary of Barnes
Perpetual fugue…you synthesize beautifully
Excellent poem capturing that ghostly figure in the Barnes painting. His work does remind me of some of Hopper’s pieces. Was Barnes related to Arthur Rackham, the great English illustrator?