Commenting on his own work and that of his contemporaries in the teens and early twenties, William Carlos Williams said "I think it was the French painters rather than the writers who influenced us and their influence was great. They created an atmosphere of release, color release, release from stereotyped forms, trite subjects" qtd. in Buttel 154 . Stereotyped forms, trite subjects; chiaroscuro, sentimentality? With regard to the development of the American avant-garde in poetry, it would seem that the painters, to paraphrase what Freud said about "the writers," were there first. Stevens likewise trumpeted the French influence and its usefulness as a tool for reorienting art. "There seems to exist a corpus of remarks in respect to painting," writes Stevens, "which are as significant to poets as they are to painters."1 Indeed, the influence of painting on Stevens and his contemporaries has never really been questioned. But how are we to discuss Stevens’ own peculiar and complex relation to painting?