An Old Abandoned House – Kay Whitaker

An old abandoned house,
White frame, stands on the hill
And looks down here on me.
A feeling always still Lingers about its walls
Each time I look around.
The windows, vacant, stare.
There never is a sound. And yet it seems to live.
Its memories float inside
In rooms I cannot see,
A former life to hide Of some time in the past
When children’s voices called
Where grasses now stand still
And dead tree limbs are sprawled. I wonder on the house,
The life that once was there.
But it stands silent, mocking me,
Continuing to stare.

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Samuel van Hoogstraten – A Peepshow with Views of the Interior of a Dutch House

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The peepshow is a rectangular box; the interior is painted on three sides, as well as on the top and bottom

 

The sixth side is open; originally light would have entered the box from this side, perhaps through specially treated paper stretched across it. The box would have been placed close to a window or illumination provided by a candle. There are peep-holes in the two shorter sides which provide the illusion of three-dimensional views of the interior of a house.

Hoogstraten’s box is an unusually elaborate example, decorated on the exterior with allegorical paintings which correspond to chapters in a theoretical book that the artist was to write later. The long side illustrates