The Poet Drinks

by Michael R Hayter · Bristol, GB

This image, painted solely in inks, is one in a series in which I started experimenting with a more graphic style. It is a process I am still working on, and is influenced by Japanese print-making - the heightened blocks of colour and emphatic outlines making bold and simple images. Also, the subject matter - the poet seen as close to nature - is a familiar one in Japanese classical image-making. However, I wanted the poet to be in sharp contrast to his colourful surroundings - a sink-hole for light and colour - a sensation I have experienced when in profound depression. Despite this darkness, the poet revivifies himself through drinking the light blue water - a reference to the spiritual, emotional and mental sustenance provided by contact with Nature. One of the most-cited aids for people coping with the lockdown and social isolation created by the Covid-19 pandemic has been contact with the natural world. It is a universal panacea, and one which modern humans have only just come to rediscover, after at least two centuries of increasing alienation, with its attendant mental and spiritual sickness.