examples of ecphrasis

Cafe Society
1

[FONT=Verdana]In the Forum, “Comments on Cecil’s Columns,” in the thread, “Don McLean Speaks Out (American Pie),” ‘brendon_small’ observes (in Post 3), “Obviously, Don McLean is a fan of the Straight Dope…or at least knows it exists… Now, was he ever a poster here on the boards?”

‘Fear Itself’, in Post 4, answers, “I am pretty sure he [Don McLean] was either ‘Whiskey’ or ‘Rye.’

‘Elendil’s Heir’ mentions, in Post 10, she (or he) is fond of the Don McLean song Vincent.

I am a Guest at SDMB so cannot access Member Profiles, so don’t know whether ‘Whiskey’ and ‘Rye’ was said tongue-in-cheek. (Nor whether someone is he or she.)

But I’m another who highly regards Don McLean as a songwriter, and especially Vincent, so I replied in Post 17:
In any case, [FONT=Times New Roman]if you are reading this, Don, thank you for giving the world[/FONT][/FONT] [COLOR=Navy]Vincent. It is on the short list of works of art that illuminate, interpret, define or redefine, and become forever associated with another work of art.[/COLOR]

There’s actually a term for this, ecphrasis, and, again, Guest status precludes my Searching so I don’t know if other threads have discussed it.

My niece, Rebecca, at a July 4 picnic, came up with another example, W. H. Auden’s Musee des Beaux Arts, a poem Auden wrote after viewing Pieter Breughel’s painting, Fall of Icarus.

Examples don’t have to be limited to poems or songs reflecting on paintings. Any work of art enhancing and becoming associated with another work of art is ecphrasis. Can anyone mention some others?

  1. Vincent, by Don McLean >>> Starry Night, by Van Gogh
  2. Musee des Beaux Arts, by W.H. Auden >>> Fall of Icarus, by Breughel
2

Since this thread is about the arts, I’ll go ahead and move it to Cafe Society.

3

Well, keeping in the spirit of Don…

“Killing Me Softly (With His Song)” —> Don McLean

4

There’s nothing relevant on the boards for “ecphrasis” or “ekphrasis”, but I’ve waiting more than twenty years to impart this bit of knowledge gleaned from my Higher English teacher:

William Wordsworth - “Peele Castle”

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"Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess" inspired William Carlos Williams’s poem The Dance.

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I notice, on that same webpage, William Carlos Williams also wrote a poem, Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus. Also there are one or two other poems there related to the painting. Thanks for the link. I’ll share it with my niece.

Brings it full circle. Good one.

7

Keats: “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
King Crimson: “The Night Watch” (about the Rembrandt painting)

8

“Mona Lisa” - Nat King Cole

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Keats - Ode on a Grecian Urn maybe not since this isn’t about a known Greek urn .

hmmm would dance fit into this? Isn’t dance an interpretation of what the music is saying? Many ballets have become so connected to music it is rare to think of Swan Lake without the Ballet or the music.

10

There are tons in classical music.

Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
Hovhaness’ “Fantasy on Japanese Woodprints.”
Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells” and “Isle of the Dead.”
Coates’ “Three Bears.”
Daugherty’s “Metropolis Symphony” and “Bizarro.”

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West Side Story —> Romeo & Juliet

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Certain works of literary criticism are so brilliantly written that they can stand as works of art on their own. Anything by Hugh Kenner or Christopher Ricks, for example.

And also Can’t Buy Me Love. :smiley:

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And any book or author review by George Orwell.

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Sunday in the Park With George, a play inspired by the painting A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a Tom Stoppard play which follows the misadventures of two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

15

I don’t think that meets the criteria. WSS is based on R&J, but it’s not *about *R&J. If this qualifies, we’d have to include at least half of the operas and musicals.

16

I mentioned one recently in another thread:

Roger Zelazny’s “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai”.

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The New Colossus, the poem by Emma Lazarus about the Statue of Liberty.

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And “Ozymandius” by Percy Bysshe Shelley sort of qualifies, since it was inspired by the arrival in London of a colossal statue of Ramses II (minus its legs).

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It’s an excellent example. The urn fits my short definition of art – [FONT=Times New Roman]something able to be contemplated. Keats contemplates it. Even if I’m too dull to see its beauty, Keats shows it to me. I never see a Grecian urn (in a museum) without the poem’s first line coming to mind.[/FONT]

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Exactly. Impossible to think of the statue without [FONT=Times New Roman]Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …[/FONT]