September 12, 2012

The Beggar Boy: Murillo, Langston Hughes



If you see Murillo's painting and read Hughes' poem, it seems that time has been frozen those 300 years between both pieces of art...


Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Beggar Boy (Louvre, 1645 - 1650)


The Beggar Boy

What is there within this beggar lad
That I can neither hear not feel nor see,
That I can neither know nor understand
And still it calls to me?
Is not he but a shadow in the sun-
A bit of clay, brown, ugly, given life?
And yet he plays upon his flute a wild free tune
As if Fate had not bled him with her knife!

 Langston Hughes (1922)


No comments:

Visitors