Ekphrasis Introduction
Although ekphrasis has roots in classical Greek etymology - ek and phrasis, meaning ‘out’ and ‘speak’ respectively - it is more of a modern coinage to describe art that is inspired by another form of art. This website deals with ekphrastic in the form of a verbal representation (a poem) of a visual art (a painting), specifically Vernon Scannell’s ekphrastic poem They Did Not Expect This on Walter Sickert’s Ennui.
“The first point to make is that writing for art exists and thrives under the knowledge of failure, indeed it seems to be spurred in by the certainty that there is something hopeless in what it is attempting to do” (Stephen Cheeke). Ekphrasis, writing for art, is problematic, in addition to its lack of formal rules or stable definition, because of the gap between the media and the typical difference in authorship. Visual art exists in space and captures an indivisible moment of time, whereas literary forms use words to convey meaning and thereby exists in time. Furthermore, Cheeke argues that in ekphrasis, by attributing words to art, we bring the silent aesthetic into the ethical because of language and potentially subconscious or unintentional connotations that exist in language.
One of the most famous early examples of modern ekphrasis is John Keat’s Ode to a Grecian Urn. In this, Keats describes the designs on a classical Grecian urn and comments on the everlasting, frozen state of a lover pursuing his beloved; thus exemplifying the inherent discourse between an eternal image and, in attempting to describe the image, the narrative given to the image by the poet. Keats ends his ode with the lines, “beauty is truth; truth, beauty - that is all / Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know”, which begs the question of the relationship between the aesthetic beauty of art and the ethical truth of poetry.
As for authorship and construed meaning, Plato from his The Republic argues that “the illusions of artwork may be so convincing that they are mistaken for the real thing, and this is potentially dangerous.” Hence ekphrasis, operating as writing for art, also exists in the knowledge of failure that the poet can never appropriate all of the nuances and meaning that the artist may have communicated in his/her work, and, perhaps even more dangerous, is that the poet may attribute his/her own meaning or dialogue to the work of art, which therefore may distort the viewer’s opinion of the work of art.
Further Readings:
http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/ekphrasis.htm
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-10-03.html
Although ekphrasis has roots in classical Greek etymology - ek and phrasis, meaning ‘out’ and ‘speak’ respectively - it is more of a modern coinage to describe art that is inspired by another form of art. This website deals with ekphrastic in the form of a verbal representation (a poem) of a visual art (a painting), specifically Vernon Scannell’s ekphrastic poem They Did Not Expect This on Walter Sickert’s Ennui.
“The first point to make is that writing for art exists and thrives under the knowledge of failure, indeed it seems to be spurred in by the certainty that there is something hopeless in what it is attempting to do” (Stephen Cheeke). Ekphrasis, writing for art, is problematic, in addition to its lack of formal rules or stable definition, because of the gap between the media and the typical difference in authorship. Visual art exists in space and captures an indivisible moment of time, whereas literary forms use words to convey meaning and thereby exists in time. Furthermore, Cheeke argues that in ekphrasis, by attributing words to art, we bring the silent aesthetic into the ethical because of language and potentially subconscious or unintentional connotations that exist in language.
One of the most famous early examples of modern ekphrasis is John Keat’s Ode to a Grecian Urn. In this, Keats describes the designs on a classical Grecian urn and comments on the everlasting, frozen state of a lover pursuing his beloved; thus exemplifying the inherent discourse between an eternal image and, in attempting to describe the image, the narrative given to the image by the poet. Keats ends his ode with the lines, “beauty is truth; truth, beauty - that is all / Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know”, which begs the question of the relationship between the aesthetic beauty of art and the ethical truth of poetry.
As for authorship and construed meaning, Plato from his The Republic argues that “the illusions of artwork may be so convincing that they are mistaken for the real thing, and this is potentially dangerous.” Hence ekphrasis, operating as writing for art, also exists in the knowledge of failure that the poet can never appropriate all of the nuances and meaning that the artist may have communicated in his/her work, and, perhaps even more dangerous, is that the poet may attribute his/her own meaning or dialogue to the work of art, which therefore may distort the viewer’s opinion of the work of art.
Further Readings:
http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/ekphrasis.htm
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-10-03.html