Critical Analysis of the “The Painter” by John Ashbery

Ashbery makes a genuine effort to portray the poetic vision of an artist’s mind by concentrating on the dictum "ut pictura poesis"--"as is painting, so is poetry". Through poetry he glorifies a mere painter’s struggle to find his true artistic form and inclination towards a specific way of being creative in "The Painter".

“For some people the fear of inner torment is such that the desire to create has to be repressed: ‘He does not embark on any serious pursuits commensurate with his gifts lest he fails to be a brilliant success. He would like to write or paint but does not dare to start’ (Horney 107). Or if the desire to create is not repressed, the creative process will be wracked with anxiety or hampered by self torment.” This quote from the book Therapeutic dimensions of autobiography in creative writing by Celia Hunt aptly captures to some extent the condition the painter in the poem goes through, who seems confused on whether to draw the painting of the sea or not. And how this feat of capturing the sea can be achieved.

A similar theme is also tackled by the great American poet, Emily Dickinson. In her short poem she writes: “Artists wrestle here! /Lo, a tint Cashmere! /Lo, a Rose! /Student of the Year! /For the easel here/Say Repose!” This poem lays bare the fact that the artist always juggles with his tools and crafts in order to create what he wants. For him to relax is unthinkable likewise the painter in the poem faces a lot of troubles in making this special piece of art (the sea). The painter seems to self actualize himself by materializing the urge to paint a portrait of the sea which will give the chaos of his creative world a poetic and appeasing feeling.

Ashbery is known for his surrealist poetry and in "The Painter he uses his skill to masterfully create connections between varied images. Using the modified form of sestina (last words of the verses are mostly changed) he is able to make these images jump into a creative hotchpotch. But the irony of the poem is that the artist portrayed in the poem seems to go through a rough patch in his life yet the creativity by which the poet himself writes, speaks volume of about the work of art he produces; the poet is able to create with the painter in the poem a smooth imagery of an artist’s struggle towards his creative independence--a mere human’s effort to fight for what he deems right. In order to fulfill his creative vision he goes against all the odds set by the society. Ashbery was himself a painter and his surrealist automatic writing in the poem seems to give power to the automatic drawing the painter is trying to achieve in the poem, as the artist wishes: “he expected his subject / To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush, / Plaster its own portrait on the canvas.

Interpretation of this poem is complicated. On the surface level one can judge what is happening but on a deeper level the reader may not be able to interpret the unfathomable depth. One reason quite evident is the surrealism employed. Just like the artist’s mind the poem is also free of conscious control. It takes on its own route and it paints with its own brush strokes with the artist’s creative vision.

Ashbery takes into account many aspects of syntax and rhyme in his poetry and one of it is the repetition of words. The reader may not notice immediately about it but after a careful examination it comes to light that, Ashbery repeats the word "canvas", "buildings", "brush", "subject", "prayer" seven times and "portrait" eight times in the poem. This repetition creates a surrealistic effect in the poem.

The painter in the poem is on the beach and contemplates his tempestuous subject. Sea here symbolizes the freedom, the chaos, the harmony of the waves and the creative space for the painter. The sea symbolizes freedom as it liberates the painter from the hustle bustle of the city life behind him (“the building”). The painter is like a child imagining a prayer. His innocent imagination muses over what to draw on his canvas. Though the painter loves to paint the sea but he is confused by the daunting question of how to draw and live in one’s own creative vision, how to capture the universe around us. Even though he has brush in his hand but his canvas seems empty, this paint-less canvas brings out the fact that the painter himself has lost his creative vision, or he is going through the phase of imagination blockage and he is unable to take a plunge into mind's eye where haphazard brushes could be waved like a magic wand and a beauty of its own kind would emerge into a classic piece of art. His lack of strength to take on a decision leads the people around him to take control of his mind. They ask him to make a portrait of “Something less angry and large”, that is to say; do not draw the sea due to its turbulent nature and gargantuan effect which is unfathomable by human mind to capture. The painter seemed unable to convey “his prayer” to the people that he wants “nature, not art, [to] usurp the canvas”.

The skillful painter then tries to paint his wife. He does that without really making a creative endeavour because she seemed a ruined building in the first place that is not something he would want to paint. He does make an attempt, though unwillingly. It is throttling to the painter as an artist is a free will creature and no matter what happens he has to go to his roots of desire that is he has to be a creative by not conforming to traditionalists. He has to fulfill his urge to create his own tradition. His desire to go back to the sea appears to be the only right thing to do.

"Imagine the painter crucified by his subject." signifies a powerful figure that could draw faultlessly the things he see, and be astonished and spiritualized by the creative vision he has with the drawing. The painter in the poem proves his creative vision and creative authority when “He provoked some artists leaning from the buildings”; suggesting their eagerness to stick to the roots; the traditional way of painting. The poet clearly implies that the traditional painters are bent towards following an authority by which they could judge the painter and his work.

The people, the critics and the painters of traditional sort did not appreciate the effort of the painter and thus life’s way of taking the unconventional approach irrationally by not getting accepted by his own people fell upon the painter as they threw the portrait of the sea from the tallest building. This "portrait" symbolizes something that the people, the critics and the painters of his age were not able to handle the pressure posit on them by the painter or his creative vision of the sea. Such non-conformist and cavalier attitude is also visible in Ashbery’s life, as he nonchalantly says that his goal is "to produce a poem that the critic cannot even talk about.”

In the end of the poem “the sea devoured the canvas and the brush”. It signifies that the portrait drawn by a mere artist cannot be fathomed by man himself because chaos of the sea is unfathomable and it was as if “his subject had decided to remain a prayer”. Thus the freedom and turbulence the sea entails with it consumes man’s creation as well. The chaos of the world cannot be painted in a canvas, at least people around them would not let the painter do that, yet his creative drive would urge him to create what he instinctively desires. Neither the painter would stop nor would the chaos around him end. The cycle of life would go on like this.