James Harvey

TRIPTYCH OF THREE ABSTRACT PAINTINGS


Mondrian's Composition With Grey, Red, Yellow And Blue


A painting where the facts,
Themselves appearing,
Aren't merely reported,

Twinned lines holding apart
Make the space, and listen
To their conversation, without adding
Anything that takes away,

Aware conversation,
As it dances around its point,
Cannot be abstracted.



Ellsworth Kelly's Dark Blue Panel

deep blue water overshadowed with storm clouds
is held perfectly still within a shape
a part of a rectangle with only two right angles
a crooked kite without depth and incapable of movement
      holding itself in the foreground hanging aslant
      a lung holding onto a deep breath
      manages to stay detached while vulnerable
      freeing itself in its twinned constraints



Bridget Riley's Entice 2

On a surface of curves are four muted colours
running parallel forming veiled bodies
that make sets of swaying muted colours

between sets of colours are white spaces
where the body of one set can't find the body of another
and no colour dominates white that appears in pairs

the white pairs the shape of endlessly swaying
stretched Ss running parallel to the muted colours
two muted colours splitting the white curves into two

then diagonals appear at regular interval across
the surface pulling away from the curves
each diagonal beginning as a muted coloured line

continues obliquely until swayed by a curve
and the place taken by another muted coloured line
that continues obliquely until swayed by a curve

and the curves hold still and the diagonals hold still
and where the white spaces appear
they are held in place by a pair of one muted colour.