Model
Digital Document
Publisher
Florida Atlantic University
Description
William Hogarth in The Analysis of Beauty, first published in
1753, names the pineapple as the almost perfect form. It combines
the oval and the cone and, further, is ornamented to achieve a
balance between variety and simplicity. Wallace Stevens, always
concerned with forms and the metaphors they engender, uses the
pineapple as subject of a major poem, "Someone Puts a Pineapple
Together," and elsewhere in his work it appears as a forceful
image. Hogarth recommends that the artist study his subject from
within the form, to achieve a fuller realization of its exterior,
a technique often practiced by Stevens, whose thinking may
proceed from the center of a given form--or idea--to the outside.
Hogarth's stated belief that variety is essential to beauty finds
confirmation in the poetry of Stevens, who is known for the
diversity of his vision.
1753, names the pineapple as the almost perfect form. It combines
the oval and the cone and, further, is ornamented to achieve a
balance between variety and simplicity. Wallace Stevens, always
concerned with forms and the metaphors they engender, uses the
pineapple as subject of a major poem, "Someone Puts a Pineapple
Together," and elsewhere in his work it appears as a forceful
image. Hogarth recommends that the artist study his subject from
within the form, to achieve a fuller realization of its exterior,
a technique often practiced by Stevens, whose thinking may
proceed from the center of a given form--or idea--to the outside.
Hogarth's stated belief that variety is essential to beauty finds
confirmation in the poetry of Stevens, who is known for the
diversity of his vision.
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