Everyone knows the remark by Williams that if canvases were less cumbersome, he might have been a painter rather than a poet. Williams earnestly believed that more than any other art painting held the power to change modern culture. One of his many criticisms of his friend Ezra Pound was that the expatriate "missed the major impact of his age" largely because of his insensitivity to painting…. Bram Dijkstra has assembled a fine volume of Williams's writings on art [William Carlos Williams on Art and Artists], including essays on Walker Evans, Charles Sheeler, Marsden Hartley, Alfred Stieglitz, Bosch, John Marin, Brancusi, and others…. Many of these essays concern American artists, which is just what would be expected from the champion of the American Idiom and the Local. However, the truth is … that Williams pretended to greater naiveté than he possessed. His taste in painting was distinctly European; this...