As part of the Friday Lates Gallery Tours at The National Gallery I was invited by SJ Fowler to contribute/perform words to two selected paintings – these are the paintings and the words:

A MAN EMBRACING A WOMAN
By Dosso Dossi

Or is it?
It must be noted that:
All knowledge of the original meaning of the painting has been lost.

So, this by way of a repost.

Is this, his sly distant gaze a predominant bid for attention?
A meditation?
A contemplation?
Perhaps it is disarmingly simple?
He takes conventional wisdom about life and mixes it all up into an incredible befuddle.
Seduction no longer on the menu.
Come here my dear and I will make you mine.
He is convinced that she has been besotted by him.
The wind blows hard in his neck of the woods.
And he’s not about to let go.
Possession his ambition.
Surreptitious advances weigh heavy on her shoulder.
And as she struggles, he becomes bolder.
There he is pulling her towards him.
He supposes ecstatic glances.
Hers more a cry of agony.
This his meaning as a relentless succession of moments.
During which he might confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.
His life force channeled into those magnificent side burns.
Engelbert Humperdink would have been proud of them
But more on that later.

It is all about him.

Or is it?

There she is.
Dreaming of his embrace….
I think not.
The skies have become queen.
It is no mystery.
She knows her way from here.
And there in his hair is the small hemlock sprig of her ambition.
Realised the night before.
His expression now mummified.
Rigor mortis has set in.
Awash with Formaldehyde.
Her ecstasy….
Now revealing the fact of his supposed suicide.
And the revelation that she was not besotted by him.
The wind no longer blows hard in his neck of the woods.
His attempted possession fell on unwanted loins.

So there he is.
She is.
They are.
Above them the earth below.
In all of its glorious misunderstanding….

Buffalo Girls go around the outside
Around the outside…. around the outside
Buffalo Girls go around the outside
And Dosie Doe your partner

  

 
THE CONCERT
By Lorenzo Costa

The Release

Thus
Here we have it
A picture made to entertain the educated
The wealthy
The pope-rateri
Post Gentrification
Now the new Ladyfication
Thus there he is in the middle
He’s all a muddle
Is it her he still fancies
Or is it HIM he fancies
Or is it them just fancying the fact that they all fancy each other?

Or is it that the moment has got the better of him?
And that he’s all a dither with the strings of his guitar?
Whilst behind him the other him is all fiddlesmith with the buttons of his tunic.
Either way
No matter the matter
It is always what matters that matters.
It’s what counts.
Not the picture.
Not speaking the way one yawns.
Not thinking by rote.
Spawning nothing of note
Save
The long breath of wait….
Where nothing holds
And everything is about that frozen stanza of time.
Lost in the conjecture of what might happen next.
What has happened?
What might-of-been.
The not-knowing.
The cow-towing of fate.
That was then.
This is now.
And the gentrifiers have been ousted by the ladyfiers
Oh to be able to give off a whiff of their enigma.
Oh to have been implicated in something outstanding and spectacular….
The beckoning.
The power of the gaze.
The conjecture.
This is NOT Hark The Herald Angels Sing
This is an arm on a shoulder and a hand on a loin….
BUT
This might also be:

Please release me
And Let me go
For I do not love you anymore
To waste
Our lives
Would be a sin
So
Release me
And let me love again

I have found a new love, dear
And I will always want him near
His lips are warm while yours are cold
So Release me, and let me love again

Please release me, let me go
For I don't love you anymore
To waste our lives would be a sin
So Release me and let me love again

I have found a new love, dear
And I will always want him near
His lips are warm while yours are cold
So Release me, and let me love again

To waste my life would be a sin
So release me
And let me love again

Sing:

Please release me, can't you see
You'd be a fool to cling to me
To live our lives would bring us pain
So release me and let me love again