Anna Andreyevna Gorenko aka Anna Akhmatova
(23 Jun [O.S. 11 Jun] 1889 – 5 Mar 1966)
"A portrait of Anna Akhmatova", Nathan Aldman, 1914
Reading that Anna was an old friend of Sofka Dolgorouky, I was instantly reminded of our daughter's poem on the subject of Aldman's portrait. Why Andrea should have chosen this will never be known, but the coincidence is too remarkable not to commemorate.
Neither Aldman nor Anna herself could have foreseen her heroic role as dissident in the Soviet nightmare unleashed upon Russia by Lenin in 1917 and perpetuated by his henchman Stalin from 1924 onwards (in many respects it continues to this day). Oddly enough, all three of them used pseudonyms.
But the poem is of course concerned with artistic rather than political matters.
Sounds of the Soul: Adventures in Time
Andrea Waddell, publ Scribbulations, 21 Jun 2013
scribbulations.com
Anna Akhmatova
some reflections on "A Portrait of Anna Akhmatova": a painting by Nathan Aldman
stirred from my scrutiny
of the painting my ears pricked up
when they heard an old lady complaining
to her companion that she was getting very
distressed looking at it because it was
full of optical illusions
"it just can't be a true representation
of reality" she opined and she was on the point of
declaiming Nathan Aldman as a fraudster and a liar
she was further distressed that
her companion did not share any of her misgivings,
who merely kept repeating her mantra that
"its just a difference of outlook";
clearly she was either a secret fan of cubism
or she just wasn't that bothered
and was happy just skating along
on the surface of things
I came across the duo again in the next room
where I was surprised to find Old Lady A
as we could call her, now starting to sob,
and wailing that she was at a loss to know
why the issue affected her quite so much
now an old man came into the picture
and intoned that 'It really doesn't matter'
just as he would to a child, when attempting to insist
that the lack of strawberry jam isn't actually
the end of the world
still seeking answers through
her veil of tears, her clogged up voice
pierced through the cloying atmosphere
which had surrounded her
and exclaimed 'I'm intrigued by that
one over there' and she gesticulated
towards an arrangement of pieces of wood
but now came the kill, now she turned
murderer, if only words could crush
the soul out of earthly habitation,
that is
'maybe you're not supposed to be intrigued
by art, maybe you're just supposed to stare at it passively';
her companion did not betray a flinch as
her friend accomplished this deft character
assassination
no, she just stared at the pieces of wood,
staying neatly outside the other's field of view;
they were like two men
urinating in two neighbouring urinals,
wanting to make sure they avoided being seen to look
at the other's hose-pipe
I could see lady B itching as six
words playing on her lips:
"its just a difference of..."
but this time she kept mousey quiet.
Andrea Waddell 2008