David Cottingham

Diptych on Canvas

This painting is inspired by
the Poem of the same name by the great Poet W.B.Yeats who was a Chiswick
resident.

He lived in Bedford Park as a young man and wrote some of his most famous poems
there. A memorial in his honour can now be viewed at St Michaels Church,
Turnham Green.

The poems title refers to
Byzantium which we knew as Constantinople and now as Istanbul.

The canvas was created after
a trip to Istanbul and view of the Hagia from the Bosphorus at sunset.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

(The last verse of the poem)