Here's my latest Literary Portrait...the 19th Century French Poet, Arthur Rimbaud!
Rimbaud has always been one of my favorite poets, he was a true, Enfant Terrible. The I was so excited to create a portrait of him with all his teenage angst. He was truly a wild one!
Sadly, he did all of his incredible writing between between the age of 17 and 20, after that he seemed to fall of the face of the earth. He traveled extensively throughout the world, working at very non-writing jobs such as an accountant, mason and coffee exporter. Rimbaud abandoned his life of the libertine, never recording any of his any dark dreams or surreal verses again.
He remains one of my literary heroes...
I hope you all enjoy my portrait of him.
Arthur Rimaud in Sketch form.
“I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”
―
A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat
Debra Styer, Arthur Rimbaud, Soleil et chair ("Sun and Flesh"), 2015
“A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed--and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and if, demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!”
―
Rimbaud Framed
Arthur Rimbaud, age 17.
“By being too sensitive I have wasted my life.”
―
If you would like to learn more about Rimbaud, I highly recommend the book, "Time of the Assassins, A Study of Rimbaud" by Henry Miller. It is one of my all time favorite books.
So here's to the young rebel in all of us....and here's to Arthur Rimbaud.
A limited edition print of my original watercolor painting of Rimbaud is now available in
here my etsy shop!
p.s. Who should I paint next? Who is your favorite writer?