Simran Thakkar

Manchu Poem Reflection

Period 3

“Early Summer” by Naxun Lanbao

The curtain hanging in the doorway lightly sweeps the ground

As floss and fallen petals float around the roof and pillars.
The courtyard filled with shade of green, from red dust of so far-
From time to time one hears a bird descending to the ground.

On a small bench in the shade of the pines I enjoy the cool of noon.
Floating gossamer is caught by the long strands of the willow.
When the sky clears up, all of a sudden the roses are blooming:
I smell their fragrance on the other side of the gauze window.

Spider webs add to the gossamer, magpies fight over nests,

At the horizon, dense and towering trees join each other.
This is the idle life of watering plants and raising cranes-
Sitting down I write out my own copy of The Many Flowers.

This poem gives me the feeling of a bright summer day with a light breeze in the background
(which is understandable considering the poem is called “Early Summer”). When someone reads
it, it should give them a warm and calm feeling inside, as the tone of the poem is relaxing. The
pictures that this painting presents allowed me to see exactly what I wanted to paint. I chose to
represent the last verse of this poem in my painting because it reminded me of my own house and
our backyard with trees towering in the background. I was able to see exactly what I wanted to
paint when I just looked out of the window. Seeing my backyard always gives me a calm feeling,
so I thought it was appropriate to paint an image that calms me from a poem meant to make the
reader feel calm.

Art allows people to see the life and experiences of others. Today, we are able to look at art from
the past and see how people lived during that time. We are able to see some of their experiences
through the images that artists present. Similarly, we are able to look at art from recent years to
see other perspectives of what is happening around us. Most of the time, we just think of our own
perspectives. With art, we are able to get a glimpse into what other people believe.

Transferring an image from the poem was not too hard for me as I already had the image that I
wanted to paint. The hardest part was actually painting. As I am artistically challenged, I had to
change a couple of things in my original image to make it easier to paint. But for others, it may
have been difficult to synthesize the poem into a painting as they could not imagine what the poem
was describing. I was able to see what I thought “Early Summer” was describing, but I was not
able to imagine anything from my own experiences from other poems.

Even though I am artistically challenged, I do not have much experience with mixed mediums.
The experience that I do have are experiences in which I made collages, mixing photos with
painting. I also used mixed mediums when creating my C-SPAN Student Cam video. We mixed
videography with photography and paintings.