Ut pictura poesis:

The classical basis of word & image studies

Ut pictura poesis:

meaning as is painting, so is poetry

OR as it is in painting,

so let it be in poetry

(many poets have said the reverse, i.e., as is poetry, so is painting)

Ut pictura poesis:This key phrase hails from the Ars Poetica, or Art of Poetry, written c. 20-10 BCE by the Latin poet Horace

(65-8 BCE).

(AP is one of the most influential works of critical theory from the classical period –

it was first translated into English by Queen Elizabeth I, in 1598!)

Ut pictura poesis:

Horace did not invent this idea that poetry is like painting, or vice

versa;

he simply gave definitive expression to what was already a

commonplace comparison.

Before Horace:

The first classical figure credited with this comparison was

the Greek poet Simonides of Keos (way back c. 556-469? BCE),

well prior to Horace –

After Horace:

– but Simonides’ ideas were not recorded until much later, more than a century after Horace in fact,

by the Greek historian & philosopher Plutarch (c. 46-122? AD),

in his essay De gloria Atheniensium [On the glory of the Athenians ]

According to Plutarch:Simonides said,

Poema pictura loquens,pictura poema silens,

meaning Poetry is a speaking picture, painting a mute poetry

or Painting is silent poetry, poetry is eloquent painting

(Some have said, poetry is blind painting!)

Mimesis

Both the Plutarchan Poema pictura loquens, pictura poema silens & the

Horatian ut pictura poesis reflected the long-held belief (codified by Aristotle,

Horace, et al.) that the goal of literature & visual art alike was representation, more specifically, the ideal imitation

(mimesis) of human actions.

Mimesis

Because of this belief, classical commentators on visual art adopt

prevailing theories common to all the arts, rather than creating theories specific to specific media such as

painting or sculpture. They apply what we would consider literary or dramatic

standards to painting, rather than concentrating on painting’s unique

materials or form.

Mimesis

In the Renaissance and after, this POV inspired European neoclassical critics, who exhorted artists & writers alike to seek the

same ends (general truths of a morally instructive nature) through much the same

means (imitations of an empirical yet idealized “nature,” as well as allusions to widely-known classical and Biblical stories

& characters).

The Sister Arts

Thus the doctrine of ut pictura poesis inspired the “Sister Arts”

tradition, which affirmed, or simply assumed, a fundamental kinship between literature & other arts,

e.g., painting, sculpture, music, & architecture.

The Sister Arts

“Sister Arts” criticism encouraged a broad humanistic approach to the

arts, and the use ofinter-art analogies

as a way of appreciatingindividual artistic works.

(Obviously, this is not a formalistic POV.)

The Sister Arts

This point of view greatly influenced neoclassical art (theory & practice) in

Europe, particularly in

14th to 17th c. Italy, France, & England.

Neoclassical aesthetics took the Horatian ut pictura poesis as a basic principle.

Challenges to the Sister Arts

However, in the 18th & 19th centuries, the Sister Arts POV came under question.

See for example James Harris’ Three Treatises (1744), which still assume

mimesis as the common ground of the arts but begin to stress the differences between

poetry and painting.

Challenges to the Sister Arts

Instead of simply assuming the parallels between the arts, critics began

increasingly to stress the paragone, meaning comparison or contest,

between the arts. Criticism became more self-conscious about this

comparison.

The Paragone

Whereas the Sister Arts tradition stresses kinship, harmony & unity, the idea of the paragone (contest, debate, struggle) stresses difference, contrast

& exceptionality.

Note: This intellectual debate was joined by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his Paragone –

he claimed painting to be the highest of arts!

Laocoön – a seminal text

This is where Germany’s G.E. Lessing (1729-81) comes in, with his

Laocoön: An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766)

(Laokoon: oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie)

Laocoön – a seminal text

Lessing stresses the differences between the arts, departing from (and criticizing) the works

of his near-contemporaries, e.g.,

Antiquarian/archaeologist & art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768)

Antiquarian/archaeologist

Count Caylus,aka Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières (1692-1765)

Laocoön – a seminal text

In his stress on the exceptionalism of each art form, and his insistence on separating what poetry can do from

what painting can do,

Lessing anticipates the aesthetics of MODERNISM, as developed in the 20th

century…

Laocoön – a seminal text

See for example art critic Clement Greenberg’s famous essay, “Towards a Newer Laocoon”

(Partisan Review, 1940)

So, just what is Laocoön?

Here is the sculpture, called Laocoön or the Laocoön Group,

that inspired Lessing’s

argument & title…

(This is a copy.)

William Blake’s engraved interpretation of the figure (c. 1826-27)

Just what is Laocoön?

Inspired by an incident recounted in Book II of Virgil’s Aeneid, the sculpture hails from perhaps

the 1st century BCE, and is generally credited to a band of three sculptors

(often said to be a father and his two sons!).

This ancient sculpture was rediscovered in Rome in 1506 and bought by Pope Julius II, and became the subject of a contest

among artists to see who could restore it best. See http://www.idcrome.org/laocoon.htm for more info!