W. C. Williams: View by Color Photography on a Commercial Calendar
Keywords:
William Carlos Williams, A View by Color Photography on a Commercial Calendar, nature, religionAbstract
The essay presents a close analysis of a poem that is explicitly based on the color photograph of the panorama of a small Swiss town, as seen by the American poet William Carlos Williams in a commercial calendar, that is, not in an artistic photograph, taken by a famous photographer, but in a completely ordinary photograph, without particular merit, by an anonymous photographer, and that, nevertheless, had the advantage of being faithful to reality. It should be remembered that, throughout his life, Williams was interested in photography and was friends with famous photographers: from Alfred Stieglitz to Charles Sheeler, among others. Williams appreciated about photography that, for the most part, it does not lie, in that, for the most part, it reproduces reality with great accuracy. This fidelity closely resembles the motto that sums up Williams' credo: "No ideas but in things," that is, there is no art without close connection to the "things" of the world. In this poem, the elements that Williams emphasizes of the landscape that photography returns to him are those that, at that time in his life, were very important to him: the church and the flowers, that is, the spiritual and the earthly dimensions, respectively. Substantially agnostic, especially in his later years (hence, the inescapable significance of the calendar), Williams appreciated the mercy of the church, while, as he had always done throughout his career, he celebrated, once again, the generosity and authenticity of nature. In both of these realities he saw the beauty that could save himself and all human beings.Downloads
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