Johan Krouthén, Swedish
Of Course Bernard Could Have Just Removed That Atrocious Wallpaper Left By the Previous Owner, But Instead He Went With Plan B, 1886
Oil on canvas
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Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here, and here (Google translated), perhaps in addition to what's in his Wikipedia page (Google translated Swedish Wikipedia page has more).
/// On most library walls you’ll find books,
in their cases, on shelves and in nooks.
But in this athenæum
you may think you don’t see ‘em.
They are up there, framed, hanging on hooks.
/// The librarian was a book lover.
While he read, at his side, Mom would hover.
And she so cramped the style
of this bibliophile,
that he now loves a book for its cover.
/// The wood rocker the reader’s Mom sat in,
where she once studied Virgil in Latin,
she’s now off— driven mad.
(He had “gaslit” her bad.)
Now she lies in a box lined with satin.
/// All those gilded framed pictures look great.
In profusion, but not too ornate.
The most massive of all
crowd the room’s long left wall.
(It’s collapsing now under their weight.)
/// A cat burglar broke in with elation;
(he had learned of the vault’s combination).
But frustration would chafe—
in which wall was the safe?
Behind which painting? No indication!!
/// On a chair that was going to waste
sits a painting that, to us, is faced.
In a stray beam of light
the frame gleams, golden bright,
but the landscape just cannot be placed.
/// And, so why does Johan make this small
little detail most central of all?
It may be subliminal
(but, surely, that’s criminal).
Does it look like a work you recall?