By Leonard Barkan

Why do painters occasionally want they have been poets--and why do poets occasionally want they have been painters? What occurs whilst Rembrandt spells out Hebrew within the sky or Poussin spells out Latin on a tombstone? What occurs while Virgil, Ovid, or Shakespeare droop their plots to explain a fictitious portray? In Mute Poetry, conversing photographs, Leonard Barkan explores such questions as he examines the deliciously ambiguous background of the connection among phrases and images, concentrating on the interval from antiquity to the Renaissance yet supplying insights that still have a lot to assert approximately sleek paintings and literature.

The concept that a poem is sort of a photo has been a common for the reason that at the least historic Greece, and writers and artists have often mentioned poetry via discussing portray, and vice versa, yet their efforts elevate extra questions than they solution. From Plutarch ("painting is mute poetry, poetry a talking picture") to Horace ("as an image, so a poem"), obvious readability speedy results in confusion approximately, for instance, what characteristics of images are being recommended upon poets or how pictorial houses should be switched over into poetical ones.

The background of evaluating and contrasting portray and poetry seems to be in part a narrative of makes an attempt to advertise one medium on the fee of the opposite. while, analogies among be aware and photo have enabled writers and painters to contemplate and perform their craft. finally, Barkan argues, this discussion is an expression of wish: the painter longs for the wealthy signification of language whereas the poet yearns for the direct sensuousness of portray.