{"id":1216,"date":"2015-10-08T14:45:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2015-10-08T15:55:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T15:55:41","slug":"the-natural-relationship-between-art-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/the-natural-relationship-between-art-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"The Natural Relationship Between Art & Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

For centuries, art has inspired poets and poetry,\u00a0especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. \u00a0Some might say that ever since both art and poetry existed, they have inspired each other.\u00a0In\u00a0both art forms, you receive something from it, usually some kind of\u00a0emotion or an expression. They have an\u00a0immediate effect of being able to take you away from where you are.<\/p>\n

For instance, much of David Hockney\u2019s work has been inspired by poetry.\u00a0The first writer to appear in his art was Walt Whitman. David read his poetry in\u00a01960 and in the\u00a01961 etching Myself and My Heroes<\/em>, Whitman appears as one of the two figures standing beside the young Hockney (the other is Gandhi), along with the words ‘For the dear love of comrades’ from Whitman’s poem.<\/p>\n

\"Credit:
Credit: Tate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are many works of art where poetry is written on the painting or other piece of art, such as this East Asian piece below. The calligraphy they use is a visual art form, making a clear connection between the two art forms immediately.<\/p>\n

\"
Painting by Tawaraya Sotatsu (Japanese); Calligraphy by Hon’ami Koetsu (Japanese)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Likewise, art can inspire poetry. Poems inspired by art are called Ekphrastic poems; they are vivid descriptions of a scene, or more commonly a piece of art. They reflect on an action of a painting and many poets will expand on the meaning.<\/p>\n

One example is The Great Wave at Kanagawa<\/em> by Hokusai. The poems that have been written about this artwork tend to focus on the tension. In this piece of art, you have a\u00a0tiny mountain\u00a0with a\u00a0huge towering wave that is poised to crash. This can seem frightening to some, and individuals will take different meanings from it.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Great Wave at Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Penelope Unraveling Her Work at Night<\/em> is based on the major ancient\u00a0Greek epic Homer’s Odyssey<\/em>. Penelope is\u00a0taking apart her weaving so that she can keep suitors at bay as she waits for the return of her husband. Dora created this design of Odysseus’ faithful wife Penelope while studying painting in Paris. The piece has now faded and the fibres have started to unwind – the work itself is unravelling which adds something special to the artwork.<\/p>\n

\"Painting
Penelope Unraveling Her Work at Night by Dora Wheeler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In\u00a0Beata Beatrix<\/em> by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he draws a parallel between the Italian Poet\u00a0Dante Alighieri’s despair of the death of his beloved Beatrice and his own\u00a0own grief at the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal, who died eight years earlier.<\/p>\n

The art is inspired by the\u00a0story of Dante’s\u00a0unrequited love and subsequent mourning for Beatrice Portinari in the poem\u00a0La Vita Nuova<\/em>. The original poem\u00a0was written in 1295 and Rosetti painted it in 1870 after translating the poem and publishing it.<\/p>\n

\"Beata
Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many other writers and artists have commented on the parallels between the expression of art and poetry throughout the years. In Plato’s The Phaedrus<\/em>, he\u00a0observes that when paintings and poems are put together, they ‘seem to talk to you as if they were intelligent’.<\/p>\n

Acclaimed author\u00a0Jan Greenberg,\u00a0<\/em>who produced award-winning books for children that explore the lives of artist, explains her belief in the power of art to inspire language.\u00a0She writes in Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth Century American Art, “<\/i>What the poet sees in art and puts into words can transform an image . . . extending what is often an immediate response into something more lasting and reflective.”<\/p>\n

Do you have a\u00a0favourite piece of art that has been inspired by poetry? Let us know in the comments.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For centuries, art has inspired poets and poetry,\u00a0especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. \u00a0Some might say that ever since both art and poetry existed, they have inspired each other.\u00a0In\u00a0both art forms, you receive something from it, usually some kind of\u00a0emotion or an expression. They have an\u00a0immediate effect of being able to take you away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1247,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/1247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zippi.co.uk\/thestudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}