On the influence of modern painting art on American poet william carlos williams

Among many European and American artists and painters, Duchamp's great influence on Williams cannot be ignored. 19 15, Duchamp immigrated from France to the United States, and soon became the most striking figure in Walter Arensburg Salon. Williams and Stevens often go to Arensburg Studio to admire Duchamp's paintings. Williams (1967: 136) also admitted that although he could not understand Duchamp's paintings very keenly, it made him restless and fascinated. In fact, Williams understands Duchamp's works and thoughts better than other American painters and writers, and has benefited a lot from them. Because Williams, who grew up listening to French, is the only writer who can communicate freely and fluently with Duchamp in French.

Williams first noticed the uniqueness of Duchamp's title. For example, a picture of Duchamp entitled Fountain is actually an ordinary urinal. Duchamp named his works with poetic spring, mainly to attract the attention of the audience and arouse their interest. Duchamp often attaches great importance to and is interested in titles. He believes that titles are a very important and indispensable part of works of art. He believes that "there is something like an explosion in the meaning of some words, which is more valuable than the meaning in the dictionary." (Marling, 1982:57) Duchamp's soft spot for the titles of his works prompted Williams to rethink the role of poetry titles. As a result, Williams also began to regard the title as a tool for poetry creation. He leads readers to a new framework by re-projecting the context of poetry. For example, his unique titles, Overture to the Dance of Motorcycles, Lonely Theme and Attic of Desire, have attracted readers' attention.

In addition, in Williams' works, we can also find traces of Duchamp's "ready-made". (mcleod, 2000:2 10) Ready-made is a famous art form initiated by Dadaism. In the process of creating ready-made, artists put common objects in unusual environments, that is, transposition, creating a strong and strange atmosphere. The fountain in Duchamp mentioned above is a typical ready-made art form. It is not difficult to imagine that the ordinary urinal, as a work of art, was placed in the exhibition hall and caused a sensation at that time. This is exactly what artists want to pursue. Williams transplanted the strong and peculiar artistic effect produced by this ready-made artistic technique into poetry creation. For example, The Red Cart expresses the most ordinary scenes and life scenes in daily life through three unrelated and unpretentious images of "car, water and chicken", and readers will involuntarily realize that the most ordinary and ordinary things are the simplest and most beautiful. And this is the touching and charming place of this little poem. This is also a true portrayal of Williams' view that "anything can be made". (halter, 1994: 13)

Although Williams started his literary career, the idea of becoming a painter still lingered in his mind for a long time and never gave up. At the same time, a famous American painter often has the ambition to become a writer. This painter is William's first closest friend, Charles Demuth. Williams and Demusi share the same interests and hobbies and have the same understanding and views on modernism, which makes them lifelong friends. In addition, through Demoute's introduction, William made many friends in painting and literature. It is no exaggeration to say that Demoute introduced Williams to the avant-garde of new york modernism. In order to show respect for Demoute, William dedicated his poem Spring and Everything to Demoute. Demoute also dedicated his paintings "Machine" and "I saw the golden number 5" to his close friend Williams. In addition, it is worth mentioning that Demos' futuristic painting "I saw five words in gold" was inspired by reading Williams' poem "The Great Man". The three striking gold words on the screen are very striking. The five largest words occupy the whole picture, as if floating in front of our eyes. Second, the words "three or five" recede far away as the background of the picture, suddenly focusing people's attention on the center, producing a deep, tense, unstable feeling of speed and movement, and the whole picture is full of visual tension. Interestingly, to some extent, the atmosphere and effect created by this painting were obtained by the painter Demos adopting Williams' suggestion of "using overlapping pictures". (halter, 1994: 102)

In addition, William collected many painters' works in his life, such as Demeter, Hartley and Shearer. In his spare time, he appreciates, appreciates and studies these paintings and creates poems based on them. Although Williams never stopped exploring modernism in his later works, his keen interest in classical painting remained undiminished. For example, all the poems in his collection of poems "Paintings from Bruggaier" are based on the paintings of his favorite painter Bruggaier, such as Dance, Children's Games and The Fable of the Blind. Williams tries to show the effect that Bruggaier wants to show in his paintings in these poems. In fact, in many of Williams' poems, we can find the shadow of his favorite painter or artist's works. For example, The Young Indus reminds us of Alfred Staiger Leeds' photography "Spring Rain" and "Classic Scenery", and reminds us of Charles Sheeler's oil painting "Classic Landscape".

3. Combination of poetry and painting

3. 1 Williams and Cubism

"The painter is the first person to explore modernist innovation, so painting is the pioneer of art form. Modernist writers often imitate visual art and try to create literary experiments. Therefore, if you know nothing about the most basic knowledge of modern art, you can't fully understand the development of modernist literature. " (mcleod, 2000: 194) This is exactly what Williams said in his autobiography: "It was the works of Cezanne and impressionist followers that opened the era of Stein, Joyce and many other writers." (Williams, 1967:380) has a similar result.

/kloc-at the end of 0/9th century, a new idea appeared in western painting circles: abstract painting elements such as shapes and colors from realistic images, and remold or show internal images different from nature. At the beginning of the 20th century, Picasso and Braque created a brand-new painting language, which is far from the traditional law: analyzing objects with the structural relationship between blocks and surfaces, showing a decent overlap and interlacing. It is worth noting that these paintings give the audience a non-stereoscopic real impression, because all the fragments of objects are laid out on the "plane" of the canvas, and the background has no sense of depth. Theoretically speaking, the painter wants the audience to make a "panoramic view" of the object divided into small cubes, sometimes catching a glimpse of the left side of an object and sometimes catching a glimpse of the right side of an object. As a result, "Cubism" painting, represented by Picasso and Braque, has gradually emerged, which indicates that modern painting has entered a brand-new stage.

The early cubism was called "analytical cubism". Gradually, this method of "analyzing cubism" came to the end, so the cubes in the painting became flat squares and overlapped with each other. Then, triangles, rectangles, letters and words appear in the picture, and real objects, such as cigarette wrapping paper, a piece of music or a newspaper article, appear in the picture. Finally, the prototype of the object reappears in the picture, partly or completely, which is interspersed between geometric compositions. The color has also changed from a dull monochrome to a bright composite color. At this time, "synthetic cubism" stepped onto the historical stage. In short, cubism advocates presenting many different views in one picture at the same time, and subjectively combining all objects. Cubism advocates resisting purely abstract ideas, but tries to reach a compromise on the key issues of art forms that are not imitated but related to reality. These artistic views deeply attracted Williams and had a certain influence on his poetic style.

The Controversy, for example, has obvious traces of cubism. In the poem, Williams uses the expressional technique of Cubism School, and presents the seemingly messy and intertwined three-dimensional still life paintings to readers-bowls, branches, leaves, petals, flower tips, forks, breadcrumbs and plates. And let readers "synthesize" these messy objects into a whole object in their minds according to their own thinking.

Here, the poet uses the decomposition form of natural disintegration to decompose these objects into various geometric sections, and then subjectively combine them. By overlapping and interlacing each other, the different faces of the objects are combined on the same picture, thus achieving the four-dimensional space pursued by cubist painting school. In this kind of cutting, decomposition and interweaving, "flowers enjoy the cool", but the people who talk calmly with flowers while drinking coffee at the table reach the same agreement, and get calm in the chaos, forming the center of the picture. This "static braking" makes "a speaker as weak as a variety show". Here, readers also entered the creative process. In this intellectual game art, a non-social individual's artistic thinking mode has invaded the creation and appreciation of painting. The objective visual art is rapidly transforming into subjective conceptual art. If we read this poem from another angle, we will feel that the relationship between the objects in the poem does not look like the orderly and organized combination in Expressionism painting. That's because in cubism, the spatial independence of each unit in the picture is determined by effective visual means, and one of the effective methods used by cubism is to emphasize the law. Everything described by re-method is transparent. This makes his poems particularly unique and modern.

3.2 Williams and Futurism

Futurism is an avant-garde movement in European art and literature. Futurist artists believe that the evolution of art, like the evolution of human history, is a process of continuous progress. They attacked the traditional old culture and art most violently and tried to destroy it. "Declaring war on the old world, destroying all modern forms of civilization, and creating and expressing a new world-a new world full of movement, speed and kinetic energy-is the fundamental spirit of futuristic art" (He Qing, 1998:5) Futuristic works of art are all about new themes of modern life, and have nothing to do with the old themes of the past: "We must get rid of all the old themes to show our pride and enthusiasm. (He Qing, 1998: 12) The favorite themes of futurist painters are the speeding of trains and cars, the shuttle of planes, the noise of stations and festivals, and the electric lights at night.

The concept of futurism is vividly expressed in Williams' poems. For example, in the poem "Huge Numbers", Williams described the wonderful feeling of seeing a red fire truck with the words "Golden Five" galloping by on his way home, which left him with an extremely deep instant impression. Rainy night, galloping red fire engine, huge golden number 5, banging gong, sharp alarm and rumbling of wheels are intertwined, presenting a series of clear visual impressions in front of readers: red fire engine, golden number 5 in the gloomy night rain, huge golden number 5 flashing constantly, increasing the sense of tension, speed and movement instability, making the whole picture full of visual tension and forming a picture. (Heqing, 1998:6) at the same time, it reflects the speed of modern social life and the fundamental spirit advocated by futuristic art-creating and expressing a new world-a new world full of vitality, movement, speed and kinetic energy. The impression at this moment was so sudden and profound that Williams took out a piece of paper from his pocket and improvised the poem. It is worth mentioning that the famous painter Demus was deeply inspired after reading this poem by Williams, so he created a futuristic painting "I saw the golden number 5".

4. Concluding remarks

Williams once told his interviewer, "I really want to be a painter." It can at least give me the same satisfaction as a poet. (Marling, 1982:35) He also said, "If it weren't easier to transport manuscripts than wet canvases, I would definitely become a painter." (Marling, 1982: 1) It sounds like a joke, but it is not difficult to see Williams' love and nostalgia for painting, even though he finally chose to write poems, novels and plays. Williams' love for painting art and his abandonment of painting complex played an important role in his literary and poetic creation in his life.