Sunlight on the River: Poems About Paintings, Paintings About Poems

While they clearly move in different circles of the art world, poets and painters have much in common when it comes to their quest to capture what is essential about an event, an encounter, or a momentary feeling. It should not be surprising then that these artists might occasionally draw inspiration from each other’s work. In fact, sometimes that inspiration rises to the point where a poet composes a verse based on a particular canvas or an influential poem becomes the motivation for a new painting. To chronicle this connection, Scott Gutterman’s Sunlight on the River collects 56 examples of, as the author puts it, “poems about paintings, paintings about poems” in a well-edited and beautifully illustrated volume.

Following a show more brief introductory essay, the format of the book is straightforward and effective. On facing pages, Gutterman reproduces some or all of a poem alongside a print of the painting that inspired it (or, in far fewer cases, vice versa). This makes for a fascinating and enlightening contrast, especially since I found that I was a lot more familiar with the work of the visual artists—such as Picasso, Van Gogh, Chagall, Vermeer, Titian, Brueghel, Seurat, and Matisse—than I was with the poets who were represented (including Dante, Rilke, Ginsberg, Keats, and Stevens, among several others). If I had one complaint, it would be that some of the poems were excerpted a little too extensively, as for example in the case of Inferno, which was reduced to just three stanzas of the first canto. Still, in light of the bigger goal that the author was trying to achieve, that is a minor complaint. This is one gift book that is actually likely to be read rather than just gathering dust on a coffee table. show less

This a beautiful "coffee table" book. The artwork is carefully selected, and the poems that accompany the art are fantastic. It is easy to read and so engaging. It is a book that I will return to many times.