Impressions

Impressions 

 It was in the short days after Christmas Day when I counted the remaining twelve days with hope and reluctance I was despatched by my well meaning mother to art classes for children in town. The first few years saw me take the 61 bus across town to Parnell Square and the Hugh Lane gallery. Aged ten or eleven  I was smitten by the impressionist paintings I saw. Few in quantity but high in quality. Then began a lifelong long affair with Impressionism.  The venue changed around 1964 to the National Gallery of Ireland when James White became its charismatic director.  

My wife and mother in law were big Van Gogh fans with his prints adorning the walls of their homes. Our children were steeped in the impressionist vernacular.  Then in the nineties the French had the brilliant idea of opening an Art Gallery to Impressionism in the condemned railway station Gare d’Orsay. Lorraine and I spent hours there when in Paris.  The nearby Louvre held certain charms because Lorraine’s uncle Jim Morris spent some years overseeing the renovation of the museum with its glass dome on behalf of his New York employer, the architectural firm I. M. Pei. But by comparison the Louvre seemed stuffy and stilted.  Seven ‘camping’ holidays en famille in France reinforced the conviction that only Impressionism could capture the French countryside, especially seaside Brittany.

 Impressionism suggests rather than instructs, whispers rather than shouts. It was this approach to life that led me to Quakerism aged sixty and to rediscover poetry a year later.  Thirteen years later I am still occasionally writing verses more or less as an aide memoir. Like a private diary with a possible use for others.  I have concluded my verses are impressions - simply that. With short brush strokes, composed en plein air, rarely retouched or revisited. Existing for themselves in themselves.  We are generally aware of our first impressions but last impressions are rarely within our control.