Chapter 20 - Painting

Summary

Throughout his lifetime, Robert Lowell was intrigued by or even obsessed with the visual arts. It was a preoccupation that started during his school days at St. Mark’s and lasted to the final poem of the last volume he published, “Epilogue,” his ode to painter Johannes Vermeer. This chapter investigates what this passion about especially painting reveals about his writing. Lowell admired and was envious of Old Master painters and sought to emulate their gaze at the world through language. He was more suspicious of photography and contemporary art, although he wrote amply about those art forms as well. By zooming in on Lowell’s creative process and his idiosyncratic revision process of two case studies – “Cranach’s Man-Hunt” and “Misanthrope and Painter” – it becomes apparent that Lowell used the visual arts to consider how he thought about his chosen art form and profession, and how he thought about the world.