The Design
The design is a relief etching, with pen and watercolour, touched with gold.
The dimensions of the printed impression, including all three poems (see illustration), are: 14cms x 9.4cms (based on the King's College, Cambridge, copy - copy "W").
The "Ah, Sun-flower" design forms the middle part of the overall layout (the positioning is mentioned below in the "Themes and interpretations" section).
"The text and title appear in a cloud (which...may indicate the speaker's confusion)."
A "tiny golden human form of the Sunflower, with petal-like arm, root-like leg, and hair flowing back" appears in the top-left, but, other than a blue patch of sky at the top-right, there seems to be little direct connection with the poem. Grant discusses the illustration in some detail. Leader points to the unbridgeable distance between the Sunflower and the blue space as illustrative of unfulfilled aspiration.
Read more about this topic: Ah! Sunflower
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)