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What Is Ekphrasis?

In the epic poem The Iliad by Homer, we find what most consider the first ever instance of ekphrasis: The description of art using writing. The ancient god of fire and the forge, Hephaestus, creates a shield for the great hero Achilles. And while the shield is imaginary, its detailed description makes it feel real, or perhaps beyond real, since the shield is said to have images of cities, wars, dancers, fields of grain, vineyards, and herds of marching oxen. Even as far back as the earliest literature, writers utilized the tool of image to draw a reader into a story.

Image is the basis of all fictional writing: it lets the reader imagine a scene, a character, a place. The writer who can’t express an image can’t write. One way to practice creating vivid images is via ekphrasis.

This is the subject of my upcoming writing workshop starting in March. Entirely online, this workshop meets four times in March with interactive Zoom sessions focused on helping writers learn to see like an artist.

In its earliest usage, the term ekphrasis dates back to Greek and Roman scholars. The term comes from the Greek word “ekphrázein”, which means “to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name.” Ekphrasis was highly studied and even had complex rules for describing anything. The goal was to create a vivid mental image that stirred the reader’s emotions.

Early orators also used images in their mind to organize an argument. This was called “ars memoria” and continues today in how students memorize basic concepts using Mnemonic devices.

Today, we use the word “ekphrastic” to refer to any writing that describes art. “Writing” and “art” are both loose terms here. An ekphrastic writing might be inspired by and describe a famous work of art like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. But ekphrasis contains multitudes: I’ve also seen fan fiction described as ekphrastic. It’s common to use ekphrasis to describe other works like music, landscapes, or architecture.

The most common form of ekphrasis is poetry. There’s something particular about a poem’s ability to encapsulate a work of art in just a few lines that a longer story might struggle to recreate. I think this is in part because poetry at its heart can be about description and image, while story is rooted in narrative. Ekphrastic poets often describe a work of art, while ekphrastic storyists make a narrative out of the art, imagining the characters as real, living people. Both are worthwhile methods to explore when trying out ekphrasis as a writer.

One poetry form that uses ekphrasis is the ode. It is often used to describe a person, place, or object, but is more commonly used to describe art.

The most well-known Ode is probably John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, written after Keats visited the British Museum with friend and painter Benjamin Robert Haydon. There, the two visited the department of antiquities, and Keats wrote a series of Odes based on the experience. Keats’ poem seems to suggest that the value of art is that it lives on even when humans have died:

“When old age shall this generation waste,

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

— John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn, 1819

While not directly inspired by a specific painting, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel inspired by art. In 1884, Oscar Wilde visited the studio of Basil Ward, a painter working on a portrait of a beautiful young man. “What a pity that such a glorious creature should ever grow old!” Wilde remarked. Basil Ward agreed and added, “How delightful it would be if he could remain exactly as he is, while the portrait aged and withered in his stead!” Wilde would go on to put Basil Ward in his story as the painter Basil Hallward, and the plot mirrored the exchange.

Wilde’s book has one of the most fascinating descriptions of an imaginary painting ever written, as the protagonist in the book stays young forever while his portrait ages (and shows evidence of his moral depravity). For obvious reasons, it has also inspired many paintings:

Art criticism and the art essay have also been seen as ekphrasis. Yet writing that aims to critique should perhaps be put in a different category.  The central aim of the ekphrastic work is not to cast judgment, but to create an entirely new and original work inspired by the first.

From medieval times through the Renaissance, highly descriptive writing was the norm. Writers like Edmund Spenser used heavy, flowery description in works like the Faerie Queene (1590). These passages of description went on and on, and probably feel difficult to comprehend for the modern reader.

As writing evolved, a simpler approach became more popular, and these days it is common for writers to receive advice to avoid “purple prose”. Writers are taught to be as sparse as possible, “like Hemingway”, aiming for “showing, not telling”. The downfall of this focus on scarcity is that it limits the writer’s ability to craft image. Writers don’t learn the art of description, which is in many ways where the writer’s best skills should lie.

Yet time and again, writers return to ekphrasis, the art of describing art. It’s my fundamental belief that all forms of art—from writing to painting to photography to knitting—benefit from a deep engagement with other art forms. This borrowing and inspiring and acknowledgement of a wider world of art serves as a kind of living ecosystem where everything is in conversation with everything else.

A conversation goes two ways. And that is the aim of a good ekphrastic piece: To talk to the past. 

Why Ekphrasis?

Early writers used ekphrasis because images were rare. It’s hard to believe that in today’s image-heavy world. In the palm of our hands, we can pull up the Mona Lisa and zoom in to view Da Vinci’s hidden message in her iris. On a computer in our lap, we can take an interactive tour of the Louvre. Many people live in a city with a museum where art is on display and can be viewed by anyone. Works of art that once hung on a rich man’s wall are now democratized (insomuch as museum access is democratized by free ticket days and school visits).

In ancient history, artistic renditions were for the few and privileged. Access to art has grown exponentially with the advent of the internet and museums open to the public. Ekphasis was a necessary tool before this because it helped the average person see art.

In today’s world where anyone can view a work of art: What role does ekphrasis have? Why bother learning to describe art?

The Power of Description in Learning

One surprising thing I’ve learned teaching art and writing is that not everyone knows how to look at a piece of art, let alone how to write about it. Before you can describe something, you have to be able to observe it.

This isn’t to say that there is a wrong or right way to look at art. But many people often feel that art, like writing, is inaccessible. They look at a work of visual art and don’t know how to react, or even what they are looking at. They feel they have to understand how the art was made before they can relate to it. Reading the little label next to the art is often unhelpful because it may not explain the key aspects of the art. Or it may explain the art, but not the context of who made it, when, and why. The viewer might wish for an authority figure, someone with experience who can demystify the art.

That privilege of who gets to see art still exists today because while art is more available, our ability to interpret it has fallen away. That’s where ekphrasis can be helpful. Describing something is often used as a method of learning. By describing what we see, we learn how to see it better.

Ekphrasis provides a way of having a deeper engagement with art. Like journaling about our feelings, writing about what we see in a piece of art can help us understand it. Simple conversations about an object can provide insight into its meaning.

In the art world, we call this “object-based learning.” It’s the concept that by discussing and describing an object to others, we are better able to connect with and learn about the object. Object-based learning can occur as a discussion or as ekphrasis: creating an artwork inspired by another artwork.

Writing about a piece of art suddenly forces the writer to use a new toolbox: color, texture, movement, figure, perspective—describing the elements of a painting asks the writer to expand their skillset.

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Beyond Description Lies the Personal

When writing about art, there’s a point where the writer goes beyond just description. While ekphrasis can be a simple description of an artwork, what makes a good piece of ekphrasis is personal connection.

After all, writing about art is a connection between the writer and the artist. If I took ten writers to the museum and asked them to choose a painting to write about, they would probably all choose different works of art based on what they like.

Think of the amateur painter. They might start out by trying to truthfully depict what they see on the page. They might copy other works, trying to learn the basic techniques of brush to paper. But once the basics are mastered, the amateur becomes a master by creating their own unique style.

Writing works the same way, and to be a good ekphrastic writer means you bring something of yourself to the page. Really excellent ekphrastic works contain a few simple elements:

• A description of the artwork in the writer’s own voice and style.

•  A narrative or story told about or inspired by the artwork.

• A personal connection that makes the experience unique.

After all, we couldn’t love John Keats’ simple poem on a Grecian urn if we didn’t also love Keats himself. When we learn that Keats was an orphan (having lost his father, brother, and mother) and only 23 at its writing, the lines praising the urn for its ability to live forever give new insight into the grieving young man who would die only a few years after writing the now-famous poem.

And Oscar Wilde’s portrayal of a flamboyant, flippant young man has formed the basis for an entire queer persona. The “dandy” Wilde played in life was just as tragic as Dorian Gray, in many ways, obsessed with beauty and secretly concerned with how the world might view his hidden transgressions.

Ekphrasis isn’t just a mode in which the writer can develop their description skills. It’s also a way of connecting with the world, of imprinting your personal voice and style onto a larger conversation.

References

(Rippl, Gabriele. "Ekphrasis." In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Literary Theory. Oxford University Press, 2022. https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.rice.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780190699604.001.0001/acref-9780190699604-e-1057.)

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