Dirck van Delen, Dutch
“I Know It Looks Weird, But I Told the Artist To Paint Us Vertically So We Can Put It on TikTok,” 1630-32
Oil on canvas
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Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived if necessary), here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated French Wikipedia page has more).
/// It’s a sequence that has seven-parts,
and which highlights the decorative arts.
So they’ll fit side-by-side,
none can be very wide.
Displays Dirk’s architectural smarts.
/// This thin image is neatly bisected
by the columns and arch here erected
near three stoic Dutch men
who suspect now and then
that they’re in phallic art undetected.
/// The main mood this projects is suspense.
Some disaster awaits these three gents.
Like a horror film scene,
there’s some menace unseen
that the shadows beneath will dispense.
/// Could it be some art history sleuth
will discover the actual truth
behind this work’s proportions,
and determine distortions
came from painting it in a cramped booth?
One more guess: It’s to fit on a wall
‘neath a stair at the end of a hall,
where this odd tall thin shape,
(not a normal landscape)
is the only size they could install.
/// Something more than the light here is shady.
Three men each planned to meet with a lady.
They’ve been stood-up, it’s clear,
but another thing’s queer.
They each wait for a redhead named Sadie.
/// Why this dark meeting place now so mobbed
by three guys who with lust nearly throbbed?
For a hot late-night date,
here they’d been told to wait.
While they did, all their houses were robbed.