#wright barker

Circe (1864-1941)

Wright Barker (1864-1941). Clumber Spaniels. Oil on canvas.

Circe, Wright Barker (ENG) - 1889 138.0 x 188.0 cm - Oil on canvas - Presently held at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford.

Palast

“I learned to braid my hair back, so it would not catch on every twig, and how to tie my skirts at the knee to keep the burrs off. I learned to recognize the different blooming vines and guady roses, to spot the shining dragon flies and coiling snakes. I climbed the peaks where the cypresses speared black into the sky, the clambered down to the orchards and vineyards where purple grapes grew thick as coral. I walked the hills, the buzzing meadows of thyme and lilac and set my footprints across the yellow beaches. I searched out every cove and grotto, found the gentle bays, the harbor safe for ships. I heard the wolves howl, and the frogs cry from their mud. I stroked the glossy brown scorpions who braved me with their tales. Their poison was barely a pinch. I was drunk, as the wine and nectar in my father’s halls never made me. No wonder I had been so slow, I thought. All this while, I have been a weaver without wool, a ship without the sea. Yet now look where I sail.”

-Madeline Miller, Circe

Wright Barker (1864-1941)

Wright Barker (1864-1941)