Product Description
Albert Marquet travelling widely in search of the ultimate harbour; Pierre Bonnard âtranscribing the adventures of the optic nerveâ; Max Beckmann plunging into myth: these are the subjects of Watsonâs three manoeuvres. Picasso famously said that Bonnardâs palette was a âpot-pourri of indecisionâ and that he ânever used one colour when he could use manyâ. Watsonâs celebration of Bonnard takes this multiplicity as its starting point. In Bonnard âthe complexity of the visual fieldâ becomes the complexity of narrative. This variegated sequence is flanked by a suite of poems accompanying Marquetâs repeated travels through France, Europe and Egypt; and by a tour-de-force in which Watson skis down the snow peaks of Beckmannâs world, negotiating a panoply of mermen, mermaids and demi-gods.
âHis poems range considerably, from beautifully poised meditations in the manner of Wallace Stevens through to light-hearted satire.â
âGeoff Page
âWow!⊠his work is extraordinary.â
âPeter Minter
âAn eclectic excursion through the lives of three painters who embody aspects of Watsonâs own preoccupations, namely wit, complexity and effortless lyricism.â
âThomas Crosse
REVIEWS
âResonating in each partâs distinctiveness are concepts: to visit and revisit, arrival and departure, glimpses and residues, completeness and incompleteness, âdiverse harboursâ, âdiverging impulsesââcomplexity. âFragments, interludes, tropes, anecdotes, sketchesâ become more than the sum of their parts in this poetry collectionâŠWatsonâs poetry and prose poetry is at its best and most inventive when he fully embraces narrative and his painter-subjects as charactersâwhen his philosophy courses between his words with ease.â ASHLEY HAYWOOD, Rochford Street Review