The Painter

In Ashbery’s sestina “The Painter,” the reader first finds the titular character “Sitting between the sea and the buildings” (Line 1). Before any action or characterization is introduced, the artist is firmly located in a liminal space—caught between the ineffable sea and the society of “the buildings” (Line 1). The painter “enjoy[s] painting the sea’s portrait” (Line 2), though he approaches the project with childlike “prayer” (Line 3). Instead of painting in the conventional sense, the artist “expect[s]” (Line 4) the sea to paint itself, to “rush up the sand” and “seiz[e] a brush” (Line 5). Despite the painter’s own enjoyment of this artistic practice, its failure to produce “any paint on his canvas” (Line 7) disturbs the people in the buildings around him.

An artistic practice that does not produce tangible art is, for the building dwellers, unacceptable. For this reason, they “[p]ut [the painter] to work,” encouraging him to use “the brush / As a means to an end” (Lines 9-10). So far, the painter has approached his art as a practice whose value his inherent. Now, he is pushed to understand practice as a means of producing a concrete product. For the building dweller, art is valuable only insofar as it produces art works—works that can, presumably, be bought, sold, exhibited, and understood. Toward this end, the building dwellers urge the painter to abandon the sea as a subject and instead search for “[s]omething less angry and large” (Line 11) to paint. The building dwellers believe the sea is too ineffable and out of the painter’s control. For this reason, they suggest the painter find something “more subject / To a painter’s moods, or, […] to a prayer” (Lines 11-12). This request demonstrates a discomfort with aspects of art (and, apparently, reality) that lie outside the bounds of human control and understanding on the part of the building dwellers. For them, art should capture what it depicts, it should lay out limits and definitions to make its subjects digestible.

Unlike the building dwellers, the painter hopes that “nature, not art, might usurp the canvas” (Line 14). Both “nature” and “art” (Line 14) are large and difficult to define terms, but they refer here to a distinction between the boundless world as it is and the bounded limits of a representational work of art. The painter wants nature to leap up and imprint itself in all its irreducible complexity upon his canvas, but the building dwellers want a reduced and framed symbolic representation of nature on the canvas—in other words, art. However, perhaps out of peer pressure or a desire to appease his audience, the painter relents and changes portrait subjects. Now, instead of trying to paint the sea, he “[chooses] his wife for a new subject” (Line 15). This choice backfires on the building dwellers, however, who hoped for a limited and “less […] large” (Line 11) subject for the painter. Rather than representing a typical human form, the painter depicts his wife as “vast, like ruined buildings” (Line 16). The poem describes this painting as if it made itself “without a brush” (Line 18).

The almost self-made portrait leaves the painter “[s]lightly encouraged” (Line 19) because it partially realizes his earlier hopes—that the sea can paint itself. While the painter depicted his wife, the vast and unruly complexity of the representation made it closer to what he considers “nature, not art” (Line 14) than what those around him requested. On the heels of this success, the painter “dip[s] his brush / In the sea” (Lines 19-20) and tries to paint it once again. Instead of waiting for the sea to “seiz[e] a brush” (Line 5) and paint itself, the painter now meets nature halfway. The painter takes up his own brush but dips it into the sea instead of an intermediary paint. Rather than hoping the sea will grasp a brush, the painter now simply makes a “heartfelt prayer” (Line 20). Instead of praying the sea represent itself, however, the painter now asks his own soul: “when I paint […] / Let it be you who wrecks the canvas” (Lines 21-22). The painter has returned to his original desire but has amended it based on his success with the portrait of his wife. Instead of wishing the sea would grasp its own brush, the painter now wants “nature” to “usurp the canvas” (Line 14) by means of a pure expression of the painter’s own soul.

Unfortunately, this return to his original project—amended or not—does not sit well with those who live in the buildings, among whom “[t]he news spread like wildfire” (Line 23). Although the painter has somewhat changed his approach, he still doesn’t “even […] lift his brush” (Line 26), and this non-product-oriented approach bothers the building dwellers. The poem requests readers to “[i]magine a painter crucified by his subject” (Line 25), although the point of view here is somewhat ambiguous. Do the building dwellers assume that the painter seems crucified by his subject, or does the poem view the painter in this way? Regardless, it does foreshadow the poem’s narrative conclusion and preemptively infuse it with Christological allegory. With the painter now compared to a crucified Christ, the mockery and anger from the building dwellers can only conclude one way.

Before the painter’s “crucifi[xion]” (Line 25), the poem describes “some artists” (Line 27) among those who live in the buildings. This development shows that the painter is not merely a stand-in for artists in general but a particular kind of artist—one who faces persecution and misunderstanding from both the general public and other artists. These artists make fun of the painter with “malicious mirth” (Line 28). The building dwellers have various theories about the painter’s new work, with some even “declar[ing] it a self-portrait” (Line 31). This declaration, while not precisely accurate, is close to the truth of the painter’s private prayer. Though he intends to depict the sea, the painter wants that depiction to be infused with truth from his own soul.

In its penultimate six-line stanza, the poem describes the painter’s portrait as a painting in reverse. All representational elements of the painting, “all indications of a subject / Beg[in] to fade” (Lines 32-33) until the canvas is left “[p]erfectly white” (Line 34). Once the painting has reached this utterly blank state, the painter “put[s] down the brush” (Line 34) in a gesture of conclusion. However, while the canvas might seem blank, it’s “[p]erfect[ ] white[ness]” (Line 34) refuses to capture nature and reduce it to a simpler, symbolic representation of itself. For the painter, this openness of the work is a success. However, it provokes “a howl, that was also a prayer” (Line 35) from the building dwellers. This indeterminate art is unacceptable to them but, more than that, it is a threat to their ability to safely capture and control nature by means of art.

In their outrage, the people “toss [the painter and] the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings” (Line 37). At this point, the poem ceases to mention the fate of the painter, only discussing what happens to “the canvas and the brush,” which are “devoured” by the sea (Line 38). The painter seems to vanish, perhaps as a nod to Christ’s conquering of death and ascension in the Christian narrative. The portrait and its associated instrument, on the other hand, are captured and subsumed by the sea rather than the reverse. In this way, the building dwellers’ fears are realized and their attempt to punish the painter backfires. The sea refuses to be captured and reduced and instead remains itself, remains nature, as “though [the painter’s] subject had decided to remain a prayer” (Line 39). Even the painter’s death does not curtail his bold project. In fact, his death finally realizes his artistic vision in a way his life could not—producing a portrait that is swallowed by its subject, which portrays a subject too large to confine itself to a painting.