Battling with Questions of Honesty I encountered Gauguin

for the first time, today, in the Gallery. Viewed later

there's inevitability about a good picture:

but before the act of creation the canvas is blank,

an immense void with no fixt points or preset scale.

 

In this desert “Success” & “Failure” are irrelevant,

Only 'Experience' exists. Yet simply to fling wide

the shutters of perception is, for some, alarming.

But if one dismisses received canons there springs forth a brook

which, if channeled, becomes in time the river itself.

 

Unoccupied children question their vacant lives

which the Great and the Good are careful never to do -

thats why they seek success while I seek myself.

In the long run Ill be richer: tho wealth

itself is subjective. How can I reconcile You

and It and Them with the simplicity for which I strive?

 

 National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh 24viii79