Seeking a poem about blurry vision
April 25, 2011 11:31 AM   Subscribe

I am looking for a poem I read once online about an artist (Matisse? Gaugin?) who confronts his eye doctor about not wanting to wear eyeglasses. In the poem, the artist talks about how his blurry vision allows him to experience the world as connected. It's a really beautiful poem, but I can't find it through all of the eyeglasses spam on Google. Can anyone point me to the poem?
posted by salishsea to Media & Arts (5 answers total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Lisel Mueller, Monet Refuses The Operation.
posted by holgate at 11:34 AM on April 25, 2011 [12 favorites]


(Backstory on Monet's eyesight.)
posted by holgate at 11:37 AM on April 25, 2011 [3 favorites]


Wow, what a beautiful poem. Thanks, salishsea, for asking the question, and thank you to holgate for the link!
posted by Falwless at 11:40 AM on April 25, 2011


Response by poster: Thank you holgate!

Now...I have to get my contacts in to be able to read it!
posted by salishsea at 12:22 PM on April 25, 2011


Monet wasn't the only one. There's a theory that the blaring, idiosyncratic colour schemes of Turner's later work were born of red-brown cataracts that blocked out all the blue and green while Degas' eyesight gradually deteriorated too, leading to a much less detailed, more impressionistic style as he got older in the 1880s and 1890s.
posted by joannemullen at 2:23 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


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