Uncle Walter (Walt Whitman)

watercolors

11×15” (Winsor & Newton Cotman and Loew-Cornell Metallics on Strathmore CP 300 series paper)

Walt Whitman was a Revolutionary, so is part of my Revolutionaries Series. This portrait is inspired by parts of his book, Leaves of Grass.

leaves of grass:
verse 41;
I am not an earth, nor an adjunct of an earth
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as
immortal and fathomless as myself;
They do not know how immortal, but I know.

Messenger Leaves:
Walt Whitman’s Caution.
To The States, or any one of them, or any city of
The States, Resist much, obey little.
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this
earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.

To A President.
All you are doing and saying is to America dangled
mirages,
You have not learned of Nature – of the politics of
Nature, you have not learned the great ampli-
tude, rectitude, impartiality,
You have not seen that only such as they are for
These States,
And that what is less than they, must sooner or later
lift off from These States.

To You.
Stranger! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to
speak to me, why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?