Tableau!

 

The selections which appear on this site with the label “found poetry”, are so chosen by reason of a certain pithy verbal felicity, which makes the phrase (or sentence, or distich) stand forth from its prose context;  it may or may not reflect any excellence specifically visual.

Aesthetically  related, yet distinct, are “tableaux”, in which some striking, static,  visualization  sends a sight, or a passage describing it,  suddenly forth from its otherwise prosaic context.  

[Morphological footnote, for lexicophiles:  The English noun tableau  is borrowed from French, and retains the Gallic spelling, its plural in -x, and the oxytone pronunciation.  In French, tableau  is formally a diminutive of table, though its current semantics does not reflect that origin, and indeed tableau itself admits a further, double diminutive:  tabl-eau-tin.] 

But what lies specifically behind the selections that shall appear here so labeled, is the use of tableau as a one-word exclamation -- the rough equivalent of framing the scene with your fingers, displayed as cater-corner right-triangles.   This use is perhaps commoner in French than in English;  in any case, Harrap’s French-to-English dictionary  explicitly recognizes the idiom:

 

Hier on l’a surprise  assise sur les genoux du chauffeur; tableau!

Yesterday she was caught sitting on the chauffeur’s knee; tableau!

 

As a plain noun, rather than a holophrastic exclamation, this particular sense of a visually frozen, striking moment, is also denoted tableau-vivant (French pl. tableaux-vivants), literally a ‘living picture’.

 

An example, with picture-frame supplied:

 

She’d disappeared into the building, and a few seconds later  yellow light awakened the second floor, spilling through gaps between the shutters.  Her silhouette, disconcertingly large and bulky in her abaya, moved from one side to another, adjusting the shutters, then disappearing.

-- I.S.Berry, The Peacock and the Sparrow (2023)

 

And, again graphically framed (describing an escape, in semi-darkness, through serpentine and unfamiliar subterranean passageways, from the secret police):

 

He teetered at the top of a landing, reeling a bit as he peered down into the dimness of a steep wooden stairway, which then went black  as the door slammed shut behind them.

-- Dan Fesperman, Pariah (2025)

 

Another from a thriller -- an ominous sedan  looms into view:

 

She saw the Bentley and hesitated, watering-can poised in midair,  appearing every bit  in the late morning light  as if Renoir had captured her by surprise.

-- Elizabeth George, A Great Deliverance (1988)

 

Thus, in this case, a overt comparison to a painting.

 

For further examples of this toothsome micro-genre, try these:

    https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/search/label/tableau