Meet Paolo Uccello’s spine-tingling painting The Hunt in Forest, with a mysterious vanishing point right at its very heart. It is an image which has fascinated poets, including Derek Mahon and John Burnside, who both wrote collections inspired by this 600 year old painting. John Burnside joins host Lucie Dawkins in this episode, to talk about why The Hunt in the Forest has gripped his imagination, and we also hear a reading of Derek Mahon’s poem.
What do you see when you stare into the place where everything vanishes?
Poems in this episode:
‘The Hunt in the Forest’ by John Burnside from The Hunt in the Forest (2009)
'The Hunt by Night’ by Derek Mahon from New Collected Poems (2011), reproduced by kind permission of the author’s Estate c/o The Gallery Press. www.gallerypress.com
Artwork in this episode:
The Hunt in the Forest View this onlineIf you want to take a closer look at the artwork mentioned in this episode, you can view it at the link above. Visit the podcast page on the Ashmolean website: ashmolean.org/objects-out-loudHosted by Lucie Dawkins, with John Burnside, featuring the voice of Damian Gildea. With poems by John Burnside and Derek Mahon.
The producer is Lucie Dawkins.
About Objects Out Loud : From a magician who inspired Shakespeare, and poems woven into Japanese prints, to manuscripts illuminated with the ancient love story of Layla and Majnun, this new podcast series will delve into the poetry and literature hidden in the collections at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
03/05/21 • 17 min
Objects Out Loud - Vanishing Into the Dark
Transcript
Lucie:
Let’s imagine we are on a dark street in the middle of the night in the city of Florence. It’s the mid 1400s. Through a window a solitary candle burns. When we peer through the shutters, we can see an artist hunched over a wide, narrow painting. His name is Paolo di Dono.
When we peer through the shadows at the walls of the room, and we can see they are covered in paintings and drawings of birds, so lifelike that they seem to be about to take off. Paolo
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