APRIL 18: Adele Ernstrom
IN GRETA WOODS
In Greta Woods Cotman painted antinomies of flux and stasis
“Colouring” from nature, he caught accident in the tremor of leaves
the antic posturings of birch stems
a current rushing around streambed stones
Against such vagrancy rises the geometry of Greta Bridge
and in Chirk Aqueduct a frame and monitor of nature’s fickleness
Joining history and nature Cotman conjured a solitude after Poussin
A hanging wood descends from solemn cliffs
and, entering a pool of light,
resumes direction in the river’s path. A stillness
Most apodictic, his Waterfall in oil
is cut by frame at midpoint of the water’s drop
Issuing from a masonry surround, the cataract stands arrested
threads of pigment tracking lines of force: the enchantment of paint.
Adele Ernstrom is an art historian retired from Bishop’s University. Her publications treat landscape painting of the era of Turner and John Sell Cotman, and women in the writing of art history, especially Anna Jameson. A sometime collagist, she is also interested in poetry and is currently working on a chapbook of her haiku, tanka and other poems. She lives in Lafayette, California.