EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Wisdom, Art and a Cat

I'm always on the lookout for written expressions of the basic ideas about visual art conveyed on EPPH. Here's one that backs up the concept that art and the practice of it leads to wisdom. A beautiful old Irish poem, now known as Pangur Bán after the anonymous author's cat, dates from no later than the 9th century AD. It has been translated into modern English by several important poets. Written in the first person by a scribe in a Celtic monastery who was probably an illuminator as well, the writer compares the practice of his craft and the pleasures of a contemplative life to that of Pangur trying to catch mice. Here are two verses in Seamus Heaney’s translation:

More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den.

Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.

The last verse has been most memorably translated by Robin Flowers and it expresses, again without the veil of allegory, that the perfection of craft makes one wiser.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light.

The search for wisdom (another word for the divine) through art long pre-dates the Renaissance and continues to this day. It's what makes art, art...and universal.

 

NB. As always, my definition of art is visual poetry.