Description

Giclee print on canvas,

Size: 900 mm x 620 mm

This is one of my favourite paintings. Some viewers have told me it has four dimensions – it expresses the passing of time. As I was painting it, a line of poetry kept echoing in my mind, though I could not recall where it came from. It was “The old order changeth”. I later found the poem. It is Tennyson’s “Death of Arthur”. As Sir Bedivere, the last of King Arthur’s knights, places the king in the barge which will transport him to Avalon, Sir Bedivere is bemoaning the passing of an age. Arthur answers him from the barge:

“The old order changeth, giving way to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”

I wrote the following poem, a pantoum, for my book, “Paintings with Poems”.

“The Old Order Changes”

The old order changes all the time,

No flash of perfect beauty can forever last.

Creation wills the spirit must forever climb,

And every season must replace what’s gone and past.

No flash of perfect beauty can forever last,

Though artists always try to catch one.

And every season must replace what’s gone and past.

While memory strives to hold what now is done.

Though artists always try to catch one,

To bind the moment tight in paint or word,

While memory strives to hold what now is done,

Spirit continues on, the future heart is stirred,

To bind the moment tight in paint or word,

Creation wills the spirit must forever climb,

Spirit continues on, the future heart is stirred,

The old order changes – all the time.