The art of translation

Alibaud is another softly beautiful and clever composition by artist Lynne Ciacco, that keys into that same mood captured in her City Lupins featured a few posts ago. It dovetails a photo of allium flowers by Owen Phillips, a picture of Lynne’s daughter and the written text of a Rimbaud poem, Sensation, in the poet’s own hand.

Like the first picture, it’s dream-like - an exploration of the subconscious perhaps - and evokes a powerful sense of time passing. If you look carefully, there’s a similar tracery of branches and stems in delicate white that adds another layer of detachment from the face behind, as if the girl is already out of reach. The effect is reminiscent of sentimental Victorian cards, romantic and nostalgic.

Although it’s correct to transpose the word “sensation” from French into English, it would perhaps be more helpful here to think of it with the emphasis on “feeling”. There are many translations available. The American poet Joshua Mehigan really seems to capture the sensuous lyrical simplicity of the original.

Blue summer evenings, pricked by stalks of wheat,

I’ll walk the paths, crush short grass where I tread:

Dreaming, I’ll feel its coolness on my feet.

And I shall let the wind bathe my bare head.

Click here for the whole poem in French with Mehigan’s translation and a biographical note about Arthur Rimbaud in the online literary magazine failbetter.com.

And for those who enjoy the nuances of translation, here’s another version, this time by A.Z. Foreman, a formidable linguist whose Poems Found in Translation blog (click here) is a wonderful site to get lost in. You can even listen to him read the poem in French, and hear how he brings out Rimbaud’s languorous rhythm and interior rhymes.

Through evenings blue with summer, pricked by wheat,
I’ll roam the roads and crush the grass I tread,
Will dream and feel its coolness underfoot,
Will let the breezes bathe my naked head.

I’m aware we’ve travelled away from Lynne Ciacco’s art, but actually these ramblings do illustrate something I feel very strongly: that different forms of creativity are all interconnected. I could, of course, be wrong. Some people don’t feel that at all. Not all artists like other people coming along and offering their impressions. As the French painter and pioneer of pointillisme Georges Seurat said:

“They see poetry in what I have done. No. I apply my methods, and that is all there is to it.”

Lynne Ciacco lives and works in Atlantic Canada. She has a fine art degree (BFA) from the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver and works in diverse media, from acrylics to pastel and watercolours, as well as textiles. This is another example of her digital art using textured layers and blending modes. You can find her website here and her art blog here.