Man Study

This image is based on an original 8x8 inch oil painting study of a male figure. As I painted him, I wondered what he was thinking. Then I read a... more

by Nancy Merkle

Title

Man Study

Artist

Nancy Merkle

Medium

Painting - Oil On Board

Description

This image is based on an original 8x8 inch oil painting study of a male figure. As I painted him, I wondered what he was thinking. Then I read a poem by D.H. Lawrence which I then imagined was what was on his mind. Here is the poem:
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How Beastly the Bourgeois Is
by D. H. Lawrence
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How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--

Presentable, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?

Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the
thing

Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another
man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life
face him with a new demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new
demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--

Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable--
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life
than his own.

And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.

Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty--
How beastly the bourgeois is!

Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp
England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.
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I have been selling original paintings and reproductions online for quite a few years. People all over the world have purchased my work. It is nice to connect with so many.
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Please follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallimpression
and
read my blog: http://small-impressions.blogspot.com/

Uploaded

March 26th, 2013