Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch
“Oh, Hello There. You’re Probably Searching For Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets Department.’ This Is a Tortured Poet’s A-partment. Now If You Don’t Mind, I’m Trying To Finish This Stupid Stanza,” 1631
Oil on canvas
Follow That Is Priceless on Social Media and GoComics (the Link button):
Click to Follow This Blog or Share This Masterpiece:
Artist info is pointed to in my comment and reply at another blog entry.
/// Rembrandt painted this hard-working Scholar
at his desk in a stiffly starched collar.
Here he’s writing a note
about what Plato wrote.
Although brilliant, he still lives in squalor.
/// He self-published ground-breaking essays
which have garnered him scholarly praise.
Without doubt erudite,
but successful? Not quite.
Great respect is all anyone pays.
/// Rembrandt’s typical treatment of light:
background dark, foreground figures are bright.
And because of the gloom
we can’t see this man’s room.
It’s a shabby, disheartening sight.
/// Still, he’s managed to scrounge up enough
to own one good black suit with a ruff.
For the Dutch, de rigueur,
it would never occur
to him, “I need to buy other stuff.”
/// He writes now of the muse called Urania,
but there’s no market for miscellanea.
Scholars have little worth,
(there’s a glut, not a dearth).
Cash, instead, is spent on tulipmania.
/// He’s a scholar and one-time professor
who admitted sins to his confessor.
So he’s now unemployed,
and must minors avoid.
His cute student? He tried to caress her.