Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Derek Walcott’s "Midsummer: 18" is a richly meditative poem that reflects on art, history, and the transient nature of life and beauty. In this piece, Walcott explores the contrast between the idyllic visions of 19th-century French art, particularly the work of the Impressionists, and the harsh realities of war and death that came to define the early 20th century. Through the lens of painting, the poem examines how art attempts to capture fleeting moments, yet is ultimately powerless in the face of time and mortality.

The poem begins by referencing "the other eighties," a phrase that evokes a distant past, suggesting the 1880s, a hundred midsummers ago. The speaker notes how those "midsummers" have passed "like the light of domestic paradise," indicating that the idyllic, peaceful summers of the past have faded from memory, much like the fading light at the end of the day. The phrase "domestic paradise" speaks to an idealized vision of life—one of comfort, beauty, and simplicity.

Walcott introduces the notion of "the hedonist's / idea of heaven," which is a French kitchen’s sideboard, adorned with "apples and clay carafes from Chardin to the Impressionists." The hedonist's heaven is a scene of everyday abundance, captured by artists in still-life paintings. Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, a French painter known for his depictions of domestic life and still lifes, represents the tranquility and beauty of ordinary objects, while the Impressionists, who often portrayed light and fleeting moments, capture the essence of this fleeting paradise. The sideboard, laden with simple, familiar items like apples, carafes, cheese, and bread, symbolizes both the material pleasures of life and the transience of these pleasures, as art freezes them in time.

Walcott’s line "art was une tranche de vie, cheese or home-baked bread" reinforces the idea that art in this era sought to represent a slice of life—its simplicity and pleasures. The light, which is a central concern for the Impressionists, is described as "the best that time offered," suggesting that the transient beauty of light, and by extension life itself, was seen as the highest form of truth. Yet the poem quickly complicates this idyllic vision by noting that "The eye was the only truth," implying that visual beauty was privileged above deeper realities. The perception of the world through the retina was considered truth, but this truth, Walcott reminds us, is fleeting: "whatever traverses / the retina fades when it darkens." Just as the light fades, so too do the scenes captured by the eye and by art.

Walcott’s meditation on the "depth of nature morte"—a term meaning "still life" in French—suggests that the still life paintings of this period, while capturing the beauty of objects, also evoke the inescapable reality of death. The speaker reflects that "death itself is only another surface / like the canvas," implying that death, like the objects in a still-life painting, is merely another aspect of life, something that can be observed but not fully comprehended or captured. This line also suggests that art, no matter how skilled or beautiful, cannot truly grasp the inner complexities of life and death, as "painting cannot capture thought."

The poem shifts from this meditation on art to a reflection on the passage of time and the historical tragedies that followed this idyllic period. "A hundred midsummers gone, with the rippling accordion, / bustled skirts, boating parties, zinc-white strokes on water," Walcott evokes the leisure and vibrancy of life depicted by the Impressionists—an image of pleasure and social ease. Yet, like the art that captured them, these moments are fleeting: "girls whose flushed cheeks wouldn't outlast their roses." The image of the girls’ cheeks fading alongside their roses symbolizes the impermanence of youth and beauty, both in life and in art.

The idyllic scenes of summer and leisure are abruptly contrasted with the horrors of war: "Then, like dried-up tubes, the coiled soldiers / piled up on the Somme, and Verdun." The shift to the imagery of soldiers "coiled" like paint tubes emphasizes the brutal transformation from the vibrant world of the Impressionists to the carnage of World War I. The Somme and Verdun were sites of some of the deadliest battles of the war, and the image of soldiers as "dried-up tubes" suggests not only the loss of life but also the drying up of the creative, vibrant spirit that had characterized the pre-war period.

Walcott then draws a chilling comparison between the dead soldiers and the flowers used in still-life paintings: "the dead / less real than a spray burst of chrysanthemums." This line suggests that the dead, though once full of life, become less tangible and real over time, while the chrysanthemums, symbols of beauty and death in art, remain vivid in their representation. The "identical carmine for still life and for the slaughter / of youth" underscores the unsettling parallel between the beauty of art and the bloodshed of war, as the same red color used to depict the beauty of flowers can also symbolize the blood of young soldiers.

The final lines of the poem return to the figure of the painter, who, in Walcott’s view, captures the essence of this paradox: "They were right—everything becomes / its idea to the painter with easel rifled on his shoulders." Here, the painter’s vision transforms everything into an "idea," a representation, reducing even the horrors of war to a concept that can be contained on canvas. The easel "rifled on his shoulders" likens the artist to a soldier, carrying his easel like a rifle, suggesting that the act of creation, like war, has its own violence and weight.

In "Midsummer: 18," Walcott masterfully weaves together reflections on art, history, and mortality. Through his exploration of French still-life painting and the transition from the idyllic world of the Impressionists to the devastation of World War I, Walcott meditates on the impermanence of life and beauty, and the limitations of art in capturing the deeper truths of human experience. The poem’s juxtaposition of serene, domestic imagery with the brutal reality of war serves as a powerful reminder of the fragility of life and the enduring, if limited, power of art.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...