1 - The Floral Artist
‘A stocky figure with elephantine limbs,
(not Picasso’s fleshy paintings)
a head like a large, flat Dutch cheese,
thick lips; a hollow voice;
crooked fingers; a repellent appearance;
yet beneath the surface…
The most celebrated flower painter of his day,
the most popular indeed
in the whole history of botanical art’
2 - 'the Strelitzia Reginae'
‘From a perennial stringy root
shoot forth a considerable number of leaves,
standing upright on long footstalks,
from a sheath of someone of which,
near its base,
springs the flowering stem,
arising somewhat higher than the leaves,
and terminating in an almost horizontal
long-pointed spatha,
containing about six of eight flowers,
which becoming vertical as they spring forth,
from a kind of crest,
which the glowing orange of the Corolla,
and fine azure of the Nectary,
renders truly superb’.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem