Hermits in the Indian epic Ramayana are depicted in Thai temple paintings photographed and presented in a web-based slide show by LearnNC, a project of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Artistic hermit wanted
Manchester (England) Museum is looking for an ornamental hermit, but with a twist: the solitary resident for a two month stint in the museum’s tower should have an arts or performance background, get to know the collection ahead of time, and produce something that communicates what the museum is all about.
URL: http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART63681.html
“Guests of the Hills”
The Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art presents an exhibition from August 2008 to February 2009 titled “Guest of the Hills: Travelers and Recluses in Chinese Landscape Paintings.” The exhibition, to quote the Gallery’s description,
presents depictions of recluses and recreational travelers in Chinese landscape painting over a seven-hundred-year period, from the mid-eleventh to the mid-eighteenth century. Chinese landscape painting particularly appealed to members of the scholar-official class, who were intrigued by images of the free-roaming mountain sage or retired gentlemen living amid nature’s beauty. Other works depict actual excursions or journeys, or they were created as a gift for someone about to embark on a trip.
Hermits in music & poetry
Of interest because of its themes of solitude and eremitism is a music program reviewed by the New York Times under the tile “Exploring Solitude, With the Help of Others.” The program by pianist and baritone Julie and Nathan Gunn, including choreography and visual projection, featured Olivier Messiaen piano works, Samuel Barber’s “Hermit Songs,” and Frank Ferko’s “Five Songs on Poems of Thomas Merton.”
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/arts/
music/17gunn.html?_r=1&ref=music&oref=slogin.
Lew Welch: “Hermit Poems”
Lew Welch was one more tragic figure of the Beat Generation poets. His poems were honed and persuasive little images, as in his “Hermit Poems” series, of which “The image, as in a Hexagram” is an example.
The image, as in a Hexagram
The hermit locks his door against the blizzard.
He keeps the cabin warm.All winter long he sorts out all he has.
What was well started shall be finished.
What was not, should be thrown away.In spring he emerges with one garment
and a single book.The cabin is very clean.
Except for that, you’d never guess
anyone lived there.
When Welch read this poem in Santa Barbara in 1967 he added, after the first line, “as in the I Ching.” He mentions in the introduction to the series that a poem is a score for voice and that he never reads a poem the same way each time.
A wonderful audio collection (no text) of Welch introducing and reading his “Hermit Poems” (and other poems) is held at the website of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing. URL: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Welch.html