About this poem
Imagine a world without art. I could not, nor do I want to. But if I did, it would be something akin to Orwellian “Nineteen Eighty-Four” in tone and ambience.
This poem came to be when I thought of how important it is to expose our children, young as they may be, to the magic and transcending power of the beauty of art.
I know that not everyone grew up with art and that this may seem like a difficult and daunting subject about which one can learn. But I truly believe that if our children, and some of the art-shy parents, saw how much fun, shock, surprise art can be, they would experience it more often in a wide variety of ways, from creating art together to visiting art galleries and using Google’s Art and Culture tool to virtually visit museums around the world.
I thus tried to make my poem fascinating for the children by not only including rhyme and short sentences but also the characteristics of works specific to a particular artist, e.g. Rothko's love of bold colours or Cassatt’s preoccupation with depictions of children, something the youngest readers will be easily able to ‘verify’ once they start taking interest in a particular artist.
For now, there are no follow-up activities to accompany the poem but I am working on it!
“Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists...”
M. Proust
Time Regained