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    Landscape Painter, Jamaica - Analysis

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    Kareema Mohammed
    The poem describes a painter setting up his easel on a mountain track to paint the landscape. It depicts the mountains posing like a family for a portrait, with the large Blue Mountain in the background appearing dignified and patriarchal, and smaller foothills in the foreground resembling fidgeting grandchildren. The painter's brush darts between colors on the palette like a hummingbird, but capturing the constantly changing natural scene presents an artistic challenge.

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    Landscape Painter, Jamaica - Analysis

    Uploaded by

    Kareema Mohammed
    3K views3 pages
    The poem describes a painter setting up his easel on a mountain track to paint the landscape. It depicts the mountains posing like a family for a portrait, with the large Blue Mountain in the background appearing dignified and patriarchal, and smaller foothills in the foreground resembling fidgeting grandchildren. The painter's brush darts between colors on the palette like a hummingbird, but capturing the constantly changing natural scene presents an artistic challenge.

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    Landscape Painter, Jamaica- Analysis

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    The poem describes a painter setting up his easel on a mountain track to paint the landscape. It depicts the mountains posing like a family for a portrait, with the large Blue Mountain in the background appearing dignified and patriarchal, and smaller foothills in the foreground resembling fidgeting grandchildren. The painter's brush darts between colors on the palette like a hummingbird, but capturing the constantly changing natural scene presents an artistic challenge.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    3K views3 pages

    Landscape Painter, Jamaica - Analysis

    Uploaded by

    Kareema Mohammed
    The poem describes a painter setting up his easel on a mountain track to paint the landscape. It depicts the mountains posing like a family for a portrait, with the large Blue Mountain in the background appearing dignified and patriarchal, and smaller foothills in the foreground resembling fidgeting grandchildren. The painter's brush darts between colors on the palette like a hummingbird, but capturing the constantly changing natural scene presents an artistic challenge.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    I watch him set up easel,

    Both straddling precariously


    A corner of the twisted, climbing
    Mountin track.

    A tire-less Humming-bird, his brush, - METAPHOR


    Dips, darts, hovers now here, now there,
    Where puddles of pigment
    Bloom in the palette’s wild small garden.

    The mountains pose for him -PERSONIFICATION


    In a family group —
    Dignified, self-conscious, against the wide blue screen
    Of morning, low green foot-hills
    Sprawl like grandchildren - SIMILE
    Of seated elders. And behind them, aloof,
    Shouldering the sky, patriarchal in serenity
    Blue Mountain Peak Bulks.

    And the professional gaze


    Studies positions, impatiently waiting
    For the perfect moment to fix
    Their preparedness, to confine them
    For the pleasant formality
    Of the family album.

    His brush a Humming-bird


    Meticulously poised…
    The little hills fidgeting, - PERSONIFICATION
    Changelessly changing,
    Artlessly frustrating,
    The painter’s art.
    Summary:
    The speaker observes a painter as he sets up his easel (the wooden frame for holding a
    canvas) to paint the view from the mountain track. He describes the way the painter
    repeatedly dips hs brush into the colours on his palette, and how the mountain seem almost to
    be people posing for a family portrait.
    Blue Mountain in the background, and little foothills in the foreground.
    Instead of being still, though, the landscape is perceived to be alive and moving
    “changelessly changing”, thus challenging the skill of the artist.

    This poem is about the famous Jamaican painter, Albert Huie.


    Read about the landscape painter here → https://nlj.gov.jm/project/albert-huie-1920-2010/

    Analysis:

    Metaphor: the paintbrush is compared, in a metaphor, to a humming-bird. The comparison is


    effective because we see how the brush dips repeatedly into the various pigments just like the
    humming-bird tirelessly dips into the flowers in a garden. We also notice how the brush, like
    a humming-bird, can also hover— quit still as the painter observes the scene. The device
    causes the reader to consider the rapid movement of the brush, its occasional stillness and the
    loveliness of the assorted colours. We are struck by the beauty of nature.

    Contrast: A contrast is set up between movement and stillness, and between art and nature.
    The mountains are still, with Blue Mountain in the background “shouldering the sky”. In
    contrast, the little hills seem to be “fidgeting”, “changelessly changing”. Similarly, the paint
    brush “dips”, “darts”, “hovers” in it's busy motion, but it can still be “Meticulously poised”.
    The use of contrast is effective because it lends movement to landscape that would otherwise
    be quite still. The sense of movement and change also connects us to the message of the
    poem: the challenge of truthfully capturing the ever-changing mood of nature in a work of
    art.

    Personification: This device is crucial to the poem. The mountains and hills are personified
    and compared to family members posing for a portrait for the family album. The effect is to
    give the reader the sense of how grand, still and dignified the elder are, and how the little hills
    in the foreground seem to be fidgeting like grandchildren might do around the knees of seated
    adults. The reader imagines the play of sunlight and shadow on the little hills, giving a sense
    of constant movement.

    Tone & Mood-

    The eye of the speaker moves from painter to mountains and back to the painter again. The
    place is leisurely, and the free verse is appropriate for the conversational style. As the gaze
    is directed to the mountains (“dignified elders”), the paintbrush (“tireless humming-bird”),
    and the children in the portrait (“low green foothills”), the mood is of respectful admiration
    and mild amusement.

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