An Ekphrastic poem by Charles Tarlton
James
McNeill Whistler’s Red and Black: the Fan
(1894) and Kenneth Paul Block’s Drawing
for the cover of James Brady’s novel, Fashion
Show (2009)
All good colors are equally beautiful; it is only in the question of their
combination that art comes in.
-- Oscar Wilde
In the austere harmony of red and black there is at once
both contradiction and beauty.
Where red is nearly all, the thinner black slithers up, punctuates the
shape of red. Oh, that long black
feathered line down the middle of her red dress! On the right, the black dress flaunts a splash of bright red
flowers or ribbons in the décolletage, and catches our eye, the black dress slinky
as the boa on the red. I would
make metaphors of these two, and have each contemplate the other in her gaze.
strike me a Grecian
coin between hard iron dies
a silver drachma
-
heads, the goddess Athena
a wise old owl comes up tails
my lady in red
leans forward in the mirror
dreaming of a black
gossamer frock dotted red
dreaming herself into it
see the girl inside
that black dress. What does she crave?
to hang on a wall
where the museum
displays
