The Great Figure 5
The painting and the William Carlos Williams poem
There’s joy in looking things up, finding the unexpected, the surprising, and, most satisfying, the connections. When reading, I keep a dictionary nearby — these days it’s on my phone. Looking up new words is something I am compelled to do. I recently encountered these great words: oubliette, catafalque, and ukase. The latter is an edict from a czar. If the other two are unknown to the reader, I leave the joy to you. I often wonder about an algorithm that can tell what book I’m reading from the words I look up, and if such an algorithm exists, how many words does it take to guess the book correctly.
My son mentioned that his friend’s birthday was tomorrow. Her last name is Cinque—five in Italian. I wondered aloud if she knew the painting with the number 5 at the Metropolitan Museum. “For one of her birthdays, you should take her to the museum. Go check it out with her,” I counseled my son.
I’ve always liked that painting, attracted by its poster-like feel that is anachronistically modern. I couldn’t remember the artist, so I fed Google, “painting 5 met.” Google’s algorithm only needed three words to understand me perfectly, returning the Met’s webpage for the painting on the first hit. “I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold” was painted in 1928 by Charles Demuth, and it was based on the poem, ”The Great Figure” by William Carlos Williams. I knew the poem, a typical Williams’ poem, short and accessible, but with a jolt.
Williams has been a favorite since my college days when I had to submit imitations of his style for my modern poetry class. Besides his poetry books, I own his book of essays and one on Paterson, his hometown. (I have a special affinity for poets who led other lives, those who are not professional poets. Williams was a medical doctor.)
I examined a higher resolution image of the painting. Zooming in on the details, I spotted, on the bottom left, Demuth’s initials, C. D. in a red san-serif type. On that same line, in the center of the painting, are the initials, W. C. W. Not expecting they would be there, I was delighted with my discovery. Now, I was fully engaged. In the foreground, the bottom half of the word “BILL” became an obvious reference to William. Did Demuth call his friend Bill? Of course he did. The painting’s background is a city scene, and there, in marquee bulb lighting, is a billboard with the letters CARLO, the S cut off by a building in the foreground. Demuth’s homage to W. C. W. was explicit, not subliminal. I zoomed back out to admire the full image, thinking Demuth limned the poem perfectly. The painting reminded me of the comic-book overlays used in the 1960s Batman TV show with Adam West — the firetruck engine number popping out at the bystander, Pow!
With my newfound knowledge, I craved to be my son’s and friend’s tour guide, to experience the painting close up armed with copies of the poem — and a tour guide’s umbrella so they couldn’t easily ditch me. But, with the pandemic lockdown, we’ll have to defer the visit.
The Cinque family can now make new eponymic claims, a painting and a poem, adding to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” and Italy’s Cinque Terre.
The Great Figure
by William Carlos Williams
Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.
For other essays on Medium.com, see matiz.medium.com
