Alfred Stieglitz + William Carlos Williams

Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1919

William Carlos Williams, Naked

What fool would feel

His cheeks burn

Because of snow?

Would he call it

By the name, give it

Breasts, features,

Bare limbs?

Would he call it

A woman?

(Surely then he would be

A fool.) (...)

Would he forget

The sight of

His mother and

His wife

Because of her? -

Have his heart

Turned to ice

That will not soften?

What! Would he see a thing

Lovelier than

A high-school girl

With the skill

Of Venus

To stand naked -

Naked on the air?

Falling snow and

you up there - waiting.

Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was an active artist for over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form. Besides photography, Stieglitz was also known for running art galleries in New York in early 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S. He was married to a painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), also known as WCW, was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin; but during his long lifetime, Williams excelled at both.


In both works, we can see a body, a body without a head, a feminine act. Without identity.
Of course, in the work of Stieglitz, it is Georgia O'Keeffe. Those who visited his exhibits knew it well. He was very brave going beyond conventions, beyond the established rules. In the name of passion, love and beauty.
In Williams' poems it is an unknown woman. We know that she is very different from a mother-woman or wife-woman. She is a sexual object, and she does not show any responsiblity. She is like a metaphor, also in the name of beauty and fascination. She is "a young Venus."
Imagism, is a literary movement in English and American poetry taking place from 1910 to 1918. This movement was an opposition to romanticism and idealism. For the imagist poetry, the picture was the most important - it was characterized by clarity and precision of details - based on a metaphor. Many authors modeled the poetry of the Far East (Japanese and Chinese). Poetic image, indeed, in both works is based on a metaphor.
In Stieglitz: the metaphor is the female body. Why metaphor? Because this act is nor obscene nor vulgar. But it is a gentle and subtle drawing of woman's body, showing the curves of her bosom, hips, thighs. Amazing shilouette.
In Williams: the whole landscape is built on metaphor, metaphor of "a young Venus". „Venus de Milo” is inscribed in the canon of beauty, of proportion. She became the archetype of beauty. O'Keeffe is presented without her head, only her body. Like an ancient sculpture and she is suspended in the air.
"With The Skill
Of Venus
To stand naked -
naked on the air? "


(Jagienka Szymańska, e-mail: jagienkaszymanska@gmail.com)