Writing to other art forms Ekphrastic Poetry Writing to other art forms

Ekphrastic Poetry Ekphrastic poetry: Ekphrasis or ecphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art. In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name. Questions to answer: List the first words that come to mind when you look at this artwork. In your opinion, what is happening in this artwork? What story is being told? Who or what is the subject of the piece? How would you describe them? What is the mood of the work? What sensory details could you associate with it? How does this artwork connect with you personally? After closely observing the artwork, how would you summarize its main idea?

Examples of Ekphrastic Poetry "Number 1 by Jackson Pollock" Nancy Sullivan No name but a number. Trickles and valleys of paint Devise this maze Into a game of Monopoly Without any bank. Into A linoleum on the floor In a dream. Into Murals inside of the mind. No similes here. Nothing But paint. Such purity Taxes the poem that speaks Still of something in a place Or at a time. How to realize his question Let alone his answer?  Number 1 Jackson Pollock (1948)

Example of two different ekphastic poems for one painting "Musée des Beaux Arts" W. H. Auden (1938) About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating  On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse  Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. Fall of Icarus Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1558)

Example of two different ekphastic poems for one painting Cont. "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" William Carlos Williams (1962) According to Brueghel  when Icarus fell  it was spring  a farmer was ploughing  his field  the whole pageantry  of the year was  awake tingling  near  the edge of the sea  concerned  with itself  sweating in the sun  that melted  the wings' wax  unsignificantly off the coast  there was  a splash quite unnoticed  this was  Icarus drowning

Madame X or Portrait of Madame X is the informal title of a portrait painting by John Singer Sargent of a young socialite named Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of Pierre Gautreau. (1814)

The Opening of the Fifth Seal, before 1908 El Greco's painting was referred to as Profane Love. (1608-1614)

The Starry Night is a painting by the Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. (1889)

Christina's World is a 1948 painting by American painter Andrew Wyeth, and one of the best-known American paintings of the middle 20th century.

The Persistence of Memory is a 1931 painting by artist Salvador Dalí, and is one of his most recognizable works.

Broadway Boogie-Woogie is a painting by Piet Mondrian completed in 1943, shortly after he moved to New York in 1940. Art critics consider Broadway Boogie-Woogie to be Mondrian's masterpiece, and a culmination of his aesthetic.

Lacey Schwimmer and Kameron Bink “Dancing”

Jasmine Harper and Comfort Fedoke “Who Run This”