I’m working on a new project — a series of ten paintings based on the poem Kubla Khan (A Vision In A Dream) by Coleridge — a short book. I am a little dissatisfied with how ‘graphic art’ some of my latest pieces have been so I think I’m going to rewind a little style-wise to something that’s a little more focused on the nature of the medium. Anyway;
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
The breakdown of paintings is — Miles of Walls and Towers, The Cavern of the Sacred River, The Chasm and the Wailing Woman, The Fountain, The River Maze, Prophecies of War, Sun and Ice, The Abyssinian Maid, The Warning, and The Taste of Paradise… It’s one of my favorite poems and I feel I can relate well enough to the poem, to Coleridge, and to how the poem was written — and interrupted — to do it justice.
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Kubla Kahn was a difficult poem to understand so I’m very excited to see your visual interpretation.
Have a look for the old Frankie Goes to Hollywood song Welcome to the Pleasuredome, I believe it must have been influenced to some extent by the same poem.
I love that poem, have never understood it,but it’s not a bad thing to sometimes know you like something without actually knowing why.
I am a student composer in Ohio and recently one of my fellow composers composed a series of voice/piano songs based on Coleridge. Very cool drawings!
oooohhh….seeing this, I REALLY have to say your next kids project should be a coloring book! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, your distinct linework would really lend itself well to a coloring book.
I know I’d buy one.
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