FullReads

Sir A. Tennyson caught the Cubical spirit neatly thus:

As the staircase is, the Nude is; thou art painted by a freak.
And I think that he has knocked thee to the middle of next week.
He will paint thee (till this fashion shall expend its foolish force),
Something like a rabid dog,–a little larger than a horse.
Semblance? Likeness? Scorned of Cubists! This th’ evangel that he sings;
Any picture’s crown of glory is to look like other things!
So thou art not seen descending in the ordinary way,
But, like fifty motor-cycles, breaking speed laws in Cathay.

Mr. C. Kingsley was greatly interested:

My Cubist Nude, I have no song to give you;
I could not pipe you, howsoe’er I tried;
But ere I go, I wish that you would teach me
That Staircase Slide!

Be skittish, child, and let who will be graceful,
Do whizzy whirls whenever you’ve the chance;
And so make life, death and that grand old staircase
One song and dance.

Oscar Wilde was moody and this was his mood:

Adown the stairs the Nudelet came;
(Pale pink cats up a purple tree!)
Hark! to the smitten cubes of flame!
Ah, me! Ah, jamboree!

Her soul seethed in emotions sweet;
(Pale pink cats up a purple tree!)
Symbolling like a torn-up street;
Ah, jamboree! Ah, me!

And still the Nude’s soul-cubes are there,–
(Pale pink cats up a purple tree!)
In writhen glory of despair,–
Ah, me! Ah, Hully Gee!

Mr. W. Wordsworth was frankly disdainful:

She trod among the untrodden maze
Of Cubists on a spree;
A Nude whom there were none to praise,
And very few could see.

A violet ‘neath a mossy stone,
Quite hidden from the eye,
Is far more easy to discern
Than that same Nude to spy.

She lived unseen. Though some few fakes
Pretended her to see;
But if she’s on the stairs, it makes
No difference to me.

Mr. Longfellow fairly let himself go:

The picture’s done! And the staircase
Falls like the crash of night.
And the Nude is wafted downward
Like a catapult in flight.

There’s a feeling of strange emotion
That is not akin to art;
And resembles a picture only
As a Tartar resembles a tart.

Such art has power to rouse
Our laughter at any time,
And comes like electrocution
That follows after crime.

And Mr. Bunner’s poetic gem has a charm all its own:

It was an old, old, old, old lady,
On a staircase at half-past three;
And the way she was painted together
Was beautiful for to see.

She wasn’t visible any,
And the staircase, no more was he;
For it was a Cubist picture
With a feeling of deep skewgee.

‘Twas a symbol of soul expression,
Though you’d never have known it to be!
That emotional old, old lady
On a staircase at half-past three.

Mr. Wordsworth treated the subject boldly, thus:

She was a phantom of a fright
When first she burst upon my sight;
A Cubist apparition meant
To symbolize a Nude’s descent.
Her eyes like soft-shell crabs aflare
Like loads of brick her dusky hair;
And all things else about her drawn
As by one coming home at dawn.
A fearsome shape, an image fierce,
To haunt, to startle, and to pierce.
I saw her upon nearer view,
Like a symbolic oyster stew;
A countenance in which did meet
The paving blocks from some old street;
The staircase, floating fancy-free,
With steps of Cubic liberty.
A perfect lady, nobly built,
Constructed like a crazy quilt.
Or a volcano on a spree,
Or herd of elephants at tea.
The staircase, by a bombshell wrecked,
With something of a burst effect.