The Opaque Decanter: Words to the Music of Painting

Poetry, art, and art history mingle in the crucible of James E. Dammann's new book, The Opaque Decanter: Words to the Music of Painting. The resulting alchemy creates an intensely evocative, you-are-there experience that transports the reader straight into the world portrayed in each of the paintings in the book, most of which are instantly recognizable masterpieces by such artists as Van Gogh, Picasso, Goya, and Manet.

Dammann's poetry is robust and masculine, yet is presented with subtlety and wit. Here is a brand new structure that is fine poetry, classic prose, succinct and witty art history, and a wise, unique viewpoint, all rolled up together and integrated and streamlined into its own form. Standing in the Musée d'Orsay or making sketches in a sidewalk café on the streets of Montmartre, Dammann is a regular guy with a thoroughly contemporary mind who uses art and poetry as a means of inhabiting the imaginative world of the artists who made those environs great.