🖼️ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Greetings Readers!

Welcome back to another edition of — The Wisdom of Art. As a reminder, this series is an invitation to pause from our busy lives to explore the wisdom of art and poetry. Why art and poetry, you might ask? As Leonardo da Vinci observed, “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is a painting that is felt rather than seen.” Here is a painting, a poem, and a bit of prose to contemplate!

Stag at Sharley’s by George Bellows (1909)

Stag at Sharkey’s by George Bellows (Painting)

Stag at Sharkey's is a 1909 oil painting by George Wesley Bellows depicting two boxers fighting in the private athletic club across from his studio. It is part of the Ashcan School movement, known in particular for depicting scenes of daily life in early twentieth-century New York City, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods. Bellows used quick strokes to create a blurred image, simulating the two fighters in motion. He also chose a low point of view to put the viewer among the crowd watching the fight.

“Try everything that can be done. Be deliberate. Be spontaneous. Be thoughtful and painstaking. Be abandoned and impulsive. Learn your own possibilities.”

— George Bellows, 1920

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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (Poem)

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

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