Sadness of the Moon
"Sadness of the Moon"Painted with acrylics on Arches Aquarelle paper, 640 gsm.
Sadness of the Moon is a contemporary work on paper inspired by the poem of the same name by Charles Baudelaire, one of my favourite poets.
This painting is my personal response to his words and to the enduring relationship between poetry, music, and the visual arts.
As long as I can remember these three creative languages, including nature, have always fascinated me for their ability to reflect and enrich one another.
For this artwork, I deliberately restricted myself to black and white acrylic paint and liquid wax, pushing the mediums to its limits to create a rich spectrum of grey tonal values.
Through contrasts of light and dark, layered textures, gestural marks, and intuitive forms, I sought to evoke the atmosphere and emotional resonance of Baudelaire’s poem rather than illustrate it directly.
🔹 Intuition and expressionism have always played a vital role in my creative process.
As an abstract artist, I use painting to express thoughts, emotions, and experiences that cannot always be articulated through words.
Rather than depicting the visible world, I allow myself movement, texture, rhythm, and form to communicate what I am feeling and thinking.
My process is a continual balance between instinct and intention.
At times I follow an immediate impulse, responding spontaneously to the surface before me; at others, I step back and make considered decisions about composition, tone, and structure. It is this dialogue between freedom and control that gives the work its energy and direction.
🔹 I’ve always been fascinated by the connection between music, poetry, and visual art, and how each can reflect and amplify the other.
More than anything, I hope my paintings offer viewers a moment of reflection, a space apart from the distractions of everyday life where they can connect with their own thoughts, memories, and emotions.
Sadness of the Moon is both an homage to Baudelaire’s extraordinary poem and an exploration of the quiet, contemplative power that can exist between literature and abstract painting.
🔸 Title: "Sadness of the Moon"
Medium: Synthetic polymer and liquid wax on paper.
Size: 106cm x 73cm.
Painted on Arches Aquarelle paper, 640 gsm.
SOLD
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Below the actual poem:
The Sadness of the Moon
By Charles Baudelaire. 1821-1867
Tonight the moon, by languorous memories obsessed,
Lies pensive and awake: a sleepless beauty amid
The tossed and multitudinous cushions of her bed,
Caressing with an abstracted hand the curve of her breast.
Surrendered to her deep sadness as to a lover, for hours
She lolls in the bright luxurious disarray of the sky —
Haggard, entranced — and watches the small clouds float by
Uncurling indolently in the blue air like flowers.
When now and then upon this planet she lets fall,
Out of her idleness and sorrow, a secret tear,
Some poet — an enemy of slumber, musing apart —
Catches in his cupped hands the unearthly tribute, all
Fiery and iridescent like an opal's sphere,
And hides it from the sun for ever in his heart.
Translated by — George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)
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And now below in French:
Tristesses de la lune
Ce soir, la lune rêve avec plus de paresse;
Ainsi qu'une beauté, sur de nombreux coussins,
Qui d'une main distraite et légère caresse
Avant de s'endormir le contour de ses seins,
Sur le dos satiné des molles avalanches,
Mourante, elle se livre aux longues pâmoisons,
Et promène ses yeux sur les visions blanches
Qui montent dans l'azur comme des floraisons.
Quand parfois sur ce globe, en sa langueur oisive,
Elle laisse filer une larme furtive,
Un poète pieux, ennemi du sommeil,
Dans le creux de sa main prend cette larme pâle,
Aux reflets irisés comme un fragment d'opale,
Et la met dans son coeur loin des yeux du soleil.
— Charles Baudelaire
Should you wish to read more translations in English by other translators visit here at FleursDuMal.org
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