Caramel
It takes the louche cool
of late summer on the heel
of a long-drawn-out
drought to bring out the best
in a leaf
before it sets free its ghost.
When desire isn’t all
that matters, then fall
is the deciduous rise
to the surface
of carotene, anthocyanin
or xanthophyll,
silenced till now by the clamour
of chlorophyll. And even this
sweetness must be lost –
a red lament of abandon,
defiance,
indeed, utterly natural.
From Reading the Flowers (Arc, 2016)
Colour is seen in growing things, living the life of the rainbow curve, the sevenfold spectrum. Flowers create colours out of the light of the sun, refracted by the rainbow prism. So I paint flowers, but they are not botanical or photographic flowers. My paintings talk in colour and any of the shapes are there to express colour but not outline. The flowers are sparks of light, built of and thrown out into the air as rainbows are thrown in an arc.
Three Kinds of Artist, 1974
I like painting flowers – I have tried to paint many things in many different ways, but my paint brush always gives a tremor of pleasure when I let it paint a flower – and I think I know why this is so. Flowers mean different things to different people – to some they are trophies to decorate their dwellings (for this plastic flowers will do as well as real ones) – to some they are buttonholes for their conceit – to botanists they are species and tabulated categories – to bees of course they are honey – to me they are the secret of the cosmos.
The Flower’s Response, 1969
After a visit to Dulwich Picture Gallery to see Art and Life 1920 – 1931 – Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis and William Staite Murray.
Words and images by the wonderful Winifred Nicholson.
Botanical 