"The poet speaks the poem as it is,
Not as it was."
In the third book of his Mémoires d’outre-tombe (Memoirs From Beyond the Grave), François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) recounts his adolescent fantasy of a sylphide— a wood nymph— and sort of representative of feminine beauty and allure for a shy young man. Chateaubriand (the noble house originates in twelve-century Brittany with Brian, a hero of Battle of Hastings) alone among his siblings managed to avoid the guillotine, eventually becoming an aide to Napoleon and then an ambassador after the restoration. His autobiography is great reading, and it got me thinking about wood nymphs.
Such is the bitter after-taste characteristic of poetic pleasure.
When my friends Steve and Renee asked for a weathervane for their farm in Kinderhook, New York, I proposed a sylph.
And so, this is how I have been spending the last five weeks.
“It is the imagination on which reality rides.”
hi dalya!... that is 23k gold leaf (like the garlic)...very effective...it costs about $40 in material (a booklet of 25 sheets) for 1.8 sq/ft of coverage...i used 10 booklets on that one, so it is a little bit pricey, but very visible against the sky...it expresses the modulations of relief quite well, i think...this was the traditional finish for weathervanes in the 19th century (when weathervanes were more prevalent)...as to visit, i don't know...emma wants me to come and get my father's old map cabinet out of her basement, but i don't really know where i will put it either...i've got so much artwork and so many books lying around, i've run out of space...no room!
Yes, it is made of brazed copper, the same copper that is used for roof flashing (16oz/sqft) and then gilded in gold leaf.