A Blend Of The Three - Art, Literature And Cinema Poem by Gayathri Seetharam

A Blend of the three - Art, Literature and Cinema
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
Its been a week since I saw the ‘Impressionism: Age of the Industry' exhibit at the AGO
And wrote a poem on the maple leaf in relation to my observations
I had picked up some post cards at the gift store and addressed them all to myself for luck
And I looked through three of them
And these will, with the help of the internet in a few cases, bring about the connectivity
Between art, literature and cinema
In a merely superficial way
Not in a thematic way;

If art is phantasmagorical
Literature is lyrical
Cinema is whimsical
And a blend of the three is poetical;

Gustave Caillebotte's The Bridge of Europe has a bridge which has attention to detail
In the painting of the bridge and the man looking over the bridge
Looks at the gap the bridge is bridging from the side
I remember seeing the old movie, Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far, with my schoolgirl girlfriend, Anita,
And being amazed at the prominent characters in life who became war casualties
And the pathos of war in spite of the fact that it was idealistic for the Allied Forces
And they were fighting for preservation of each individual country's patriotism and
It was also a battle against world domination by a single set of forces, the Nazis
And there is a romantic novel, The Bridge, by Karen Kingsbury, in recent times
But I have not read it and will instead mention that we had the most wonderful of times
Some years ago when we went to Scenic Caves in Ontario and crossed the Suspension Bridge;

The next painting is Claude Monet's Arrival of the Normandy Train
And it, since a close-up of the train, depicts the train ending its journey
In a realistic manner and one feels the theory of relativity come alive as a person on the station
While viewing the painting
And the book by Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express,
Deals with a story in a train
And I love both the cinematic versions
But I would bet my money on John Frankenheimer's movie, The Train,
Which deals with a man's fight during the French Resistance to preserve the art
And thus the paintings of France;

The third and last painting I wish to discuss is James Tissot's The Shop Lady,
And since I paint portraits, which is an incredibly difficult task, I must draw your attention,
Dear reader, to the fact that this is the only portrait in the entire exhibit
But it brings the theme into focus and the shop lady into the forefront
In a clothing store and I would like to say that dress designers have had an audience
Since time immemorial because of these stores
I am reminded of Barbara Taylor Bradford's book, Woman of Substance, in which the heroine, Emma Harte,
Begins by opening a bakery and builds a business empire
And there is the movie, Lasse Hallstrom's Chocolat, where the heroine
Sells spicy chocolate and matches the desire of the buyer with her type of chocolate.