< SOLO 2019
INTERFUSED
Dove Cottage | Lake District | United Kingdom
Interfused: Wordsworth’s Chair | Scott Bennett | 2019 | Oil on canvas | 30″x40″ | Private collection
The work was inspired by a visit to Dove Cottage while staying in the lovely Lake District. Notice the position of the legs on his writing chair, it is a cutlass or corner chair.
“And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking [beings*], all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”
– William Wordsworth (Tintern Abbey)
*Every time I had reread these lines, the repetition of the word “things” seemed out of place and not quite the right way to end the stanza. I’d tried many ways to think of alternative wording and therefore, in the end, I’d realised the master had good reason to write it this way.
However, today (29/9/2021) an inspirational idea requiring only a two letter change popped into my head, that seemed minimally offensive! I like to imagine Wordsworth condemning my impertinence but at least agreeing that the meaning is largely unchanged and despite the extra syllable the wording does sound a tiny bit better! 😉