Visual Art In Literature

1757 Words8 Pages
Abstract: This endeavor is to present a unique combination of visual art with literature. Visual art in literature is commonly referred to as “Ekphraisis”*, or as Horace coined his famous dictum “Ut picture poesis”*. Several other writers have rejected the idea of Ekphraisis, based on the fact that language is linear while visual art is spatial. I suggest that our ancients were correct in instituting a relation between the words and art. I feel that one can accomplish a greater understanding of the two if they are either compared or understood in camaraderie reading, running parallel to each other. In this paper I am trying to elucidate upon one such example which would add reasonable strength to Ekphrasis using the examples from Lorraine Constable’s…show more content…
Metaphysical poets - they are all highly intellectualized, use rather strange imagery, use frequent paradox and contain extremely complicated thought.Literary critic and poet Samuel Johnson first coined the term 'metaphysical poetry' in his book Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1179-1781). In the book, Johnson wrote about a group of 17th-century British poets that included John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughan. He noted how the poets shared many common characteristics, especially ones of wit and elaborate style. Caravaggio represented his psyche and perception through art. From a drift from Mannerism to Baroquewas natural at the time Caravaggio. Baroque painting was a reflection of the profound political and cultural changes emerging across Europe. Caravaggio’s work is characterized under this genre. The sense of grandeur (or sensuous richness) and an overt emotional content both dominate Caravaggio’s paintings. Naturalism was another aspect of Baroque art and was found high in content in Caravaggio’s work. His paintings depicted sturdy peasants, inn keepers, gamblers, though they sometimes are dressed as saints, apostles, and fathers of Church etc. This represented reality in its most crude and harsh…show more content…
An example of this is in his equation of lovers with saints in the poem “the Canonization”: “For god sake hold your tongue, and let me love you…” begins his love poem, plunging the reader into the midst of an encounter between the speaker and an unidentified listener. Similarly in Caravaggio’s “fortune teller” and “calling of St. Matthew” or the angel violinist in “Rest on the flight to Egypt”, the figures are suspiciously sensuous and curvaceous for a supposedly asexual and grammatically masculine creature. The critical question that many art historians wonder is that whether this homosexual content is merely a reflection of the artist’s erotic ideals and an individual attraction for his audience or is expressively purposeful. (The calling of St Matthew by

More about Visual Art In Literature

Open Document