Inspiration by Whitman & Vaughan-Williams

In 1903, composer Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958) started working on A Sea Symphony, his first – a composition for orchestra and chorus, inspired by, and incorporating, poetry from Walt Whitman’s masterful anthology, Leaves of Grass. Vaughan-Williams chose select verses from one of Whitman’s longer poems, Passage to India, to use as
his text for the symphony’s last movement – The Explorers – which to my ears and sensibilities is one of the greater masterpieces of choral/orchestral writing. This musical text has been one of the great sources of inspiration to my art over the years. Those who know my work will understand the connection.
The various arts featured in this posting were all created in 1975-6, using a variety of techniques: watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil on black or toned paper. The day-to-day circumstances that surround their creation during my early 30s are lost to memory, too vague to assemble an interesting storyline or even an accurate chronology. Trying to account for the provenance of most of them is virtually impossible, as I rather indiscriminately gave many
pieces away without keeping records as to whom and when. I’m lucky to have as many photographs of them as I do, the only record of their existence. CosmoFlower,the artwork at the top was a commissioned piece, created as a wedding present for friends of a client met during my fashion illustration days. For herself my patron bought the second piece shown, Fire Father, Water Mother, one of
the few artworks that I chose to title at this time.

For the complete text to The Explorers, as well as the other movements of A Sea Symphony see: http://snarkdreams.com/brett/poems/seasym.html