Ø moving beyond art history into aesthetic and emotional experiences with an object
Ø examining a work of art closely, becoming intimate with details and getting to know it like a familiar room
Ø considering where historical and geographical placement meet the creative mind
Ø crafting words to express what one sees
Ø understanding image and imagery: the differences between the two and the use of each
While the muses in Greek mythology suggest that inspiration for art comes from “above,” the Greek concept of ekphrasis might suggest that inspiration for art can come from art. Just as the composer Mussorgsky wrote “Pictures from an Exhibition” after viewing Victor Hartman’s paintings or poet John Keats wrote “Ode on a Grecian Urn” after a museum trip (or, for the older among us, the cheezeball but stirring “Starry, Starry Night” of Don McClean, responding to the life and work of VanGogh), creative minds have been responding to creative minds for millennia. Terry Blackhawk puts it far better than I, so here’s a section from her chapter on ekphrastic poetry from Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art (see full citation):
“It was only after several years of using art to launch students’ poetry (and my own) that I learned the process had a formal name—‘ekphrastic poetry’ (or, alternately, ‘ecphrastic’)—from the Greek, meaning poetry that takes its inspiration from visual art. In its earliest, most restricted sense, ekphrasis referred to the verbal description of a visual representation, often of an imagined object such as the shield of Achilles in the Iliad. With its principle of ut pictura poesis (poetry as a speaking picture and painting as mute poetry), Horace’s Ars Poetica expressed the ekphrastic ideal of giving voice to painting. From Ben Jonson to William Blake to the Romantics, many poets, most famously Keats with his urn and Shelley with his fallen statue, have allowed art to tease them ‘out of thought.’ Rainer Maria Rilke, the Surrealists, W.B. Yeats, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, and William Carlos Williams continued the tradition into the twentieth century.”
Beyond merely describing a work of art in detail, Blackhawk discusses ekphrastic poetry as a more intense process, often as the concept of “entering” a work of art, as having a sensory experience with the piece. Rather than description, the language is creative, responsive and the inspiring work gets a life of its own. Referring to a writings by Rilke on Cezanne’s paintings, Blackhawk says, “Instead of a language that labels, Rilke gives us language that responds: a ‘deeply quilted blue,’ a ‘listening blue,’ a ‘self-contained blue,’ and more – all coming from a realm of words far removed from such tags as indigo or cerulean.”
The approaches can be many. Keats’ "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is one of the questioning spectator. Czeslaw Milosz’s poem “Realism” is more participating. He writes, “…I enter those landscapes, becoming one of them who vanished long ago.” More modern poets have tried other approaches still, from a fictional dialogue with the subject to blending of the artist’s biographical information or details of the history during which the piece was created. (If you’re familiar with Mussorsky’s “Pictures” for example, his music responds not only to the Impressionism, but to the newness of it, the refreshing shock of it, amid the more venerated Realism.)
Even at its most basic, as description, ekphrasis brings a new perspective on a work. Blackhawk quotes Duchamp: “Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.” Elizabeth Bishop’s “Poem” or even Billy Collins’ “Not Touching” bring attention to works unlikely to make it on museum walls, but in that attention lend meaning and worth to their considered pieces.
Introduce the students to the concept of ekphrasis: Since we've just learned about Greek vase painting, Keats' “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a great place to start. It's a particularly helpful origin, since Keats sketched the urn just as our kids will sketch their art inspiration in the museum. As a tie-in to Homer, consider the Iliad passage on Achilles' shield. For a wider Greek net, consider Rilke's “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” Shelley's “On the Meduse of Leondardo Da Vinci,” and Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts." (Looking for more? Try William Carlos Williams' poem on Auden's subject or Shelley and Smith's two poems for Ozymandias competition) While you can structure this investigation any way you see fit, feel free to consider any of the following questions:
What's the perspective of the poem? Does the poet "enter" the painting and join its world? Does he/she become a figure in that depiction? Is the poet a spectator? Participant? Art critic?
What part of the art work has inspired the sentiment? Is the poet sympathetic? Compassionate?
To what is the poet responding: the subject? the technique? the history? the artist?
Does the poet make mention of the time difference between when he/she writes and when the work was created?
What special language does the poet employ to deal with the art work?
Is the "point" of the poem the same as that of the art work?
Have the kids try ekphrasis: Before the museum trip, it might be wise for the entire class to write one ekphrasic poem on the same art work and compare their approaches. A second choice (and this would mimic an assignment some of them are doing in Art I) would be to write a few different poems about one work of art. If they chose the Discuss Thrower, for example, they could write one poem as the thrower, one a Greek spectator to the Olympics, and a third as themselves responding to this glorified body and athletic endeavor.
At the museum: Per the museum's request, the students will be limited to which galleries they may explore freely. Within the designated galleries, though, they should find a work of art to which they respond in treatment, subject, or technique. First, they'll sketch the work and note its title, artist, medium and date/place of creation (some of which they may end up including in their poem). They should then spend some time getting to know the painting, imagining being in it, or being it, or creating it, or being a part of the time or place in which it was created. This work and its details should be familiar to them (sketching some details is advisable). Finally, after much contemplation, they should begin their poem, choosing their treatment as they see fit.
Over break (or shortly thereafter): Students should refine their poems. The first week back, they should scan their sketch (and their hand written poem if they wish) as well as a typed version. They should record themselves reading their own work and post it on the page as well. If an image of the original work is available and copyright free, that should be posted too. You may wish to have the students reflect on the degree to which the poem is different if one knows or is looking at the art work than when it is not present.
Foster, Tonya and Kristin Prevallet, ed. Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art. New York: Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 2002.
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