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Abstract

William Carlos Williams and CubismShim, Jin Ho Among 20th century American poets, William Carlos Williams is likely to be the artist who not only understood the principle and method of cubism the most but also applied them to his own writings. Cubism, which denies ‘beautiful illusion’ only by imitating nature based on traditional painting techniques such as one-point perspective and chiaroscuro, characterizes ‘simultanism’ and ‘the polyphony of voices’ which say different things. Very much under the influence of cubism, Williams does many artistic experiments in writing poems to fuse poetry and painting simultaneously.Williams feels an obvious artistic affinity with cubist painters, especially Juan Gris, so much so that he regards Gris as his artistic alter ego. Gris obtains a synthesis of realism and cubism which is usually called ‘synthetic cubism.’ Speaking highly of synthetic cubism, Williams can develop his own writing technique called “conversation as design.” He defines “conversation as design” as an artistic formation which represents a dialogue that extends beyond the limited surface of the painter’s canvas to the unconsciousness of the viewer rather than simply imitating nature. A lot of Williams’ prose and poems in Spring and All are an imaginative and sensitive exploration of the visual impact of Gris’ paintings based on synthetic cubism. In this regard, I maintain that the authentic American artistic identity, which Williams invariably tries to search for throughout his entire life, is based on synthetic cubism. Accordingly, it will be an important foundation for future study that Williams’ constant fascination with synthetic cubism is connected with his interest in ‘Precisionism’ which is now usually called ‘cubist realism.’