(after Nicholas Poussin, Charles Debussy and Paul Verlaine)
This large painting was created over a period of 9 months and exhibited in my solo exhibition ‘as below, so above’ at The Waterford Gallery of Art, 2026. The painting hung in the main gallery where it acted as a connecting piece (or bridge) between my ‘Interruption’, lace and miniature paintings.
The painting’s title comes from a translation of the first line of Paul Verlaine’s 1869 poem ‘Clair de lune’:
Your soul is a chosen landscape
On which masks and Bergamasques cast enchantment as they go,
Playing the lute, and dancing, and all but
Sad beneath their fantastical façades
Singing all the while, in the minor mode,
Of all-conquering love and life so kind to them
They do not seem to believe their good fortune,
And as their song mingles with the moonlight,
With the calm moonlight, sad and lovely,
Which makes the birds dream in the trees,
And the plumes of the fountains weep in ecstasy,
The tall, slender spires of the fountains among the marble sculptures.
The reason this line became the painting’s title is quite by chance; I found myself consistently (and repeatedly) listening to Debussy’s 1905 ‘Clair de lune’ work while painting this, the music almost becoming a soundtrack to it’s creation. On nearing completion of the painting I started to research the music’s origin, leading me to Verlaine’s poem.
For me; the tattooed figure, standing sculpture-like, cloaked with flora and fauna, amongst scenes of decay, big skies and destruction seemed to link well with the poem’s first line, as though a series of choices lay all around while all seemed in continuous flux.
I am very pleased and grateful that the painting is now part of the Waterford Gallery of Art permanent collection.
