Mute Poetry, Speaking Pictures
Princeton University Press (Footprint Books), $31.95 hb, 207 pp
The eye's trade
Simonides of Ceos is said to have declared that ‘Painting is mute poetry, poetry a speaking picture.’ All of us know something of what he means, about our thirst for information from the arts: and, if you like, our scrabbling for the visible within a text. One half of his mirrored pronouncement is verified by those people who, in an art museum, hurry to the curatorial information alongside a picture. They want to discover what the painting is about. But the sought-after ‘aboutness’ keeps slipping away from the viewer, much as the point – but is it a point? – of a poem does.
Continue reading for only $10 per month. Subscribe and gain full access to Australian Book Review. Already a subscriber? Sign in. If you need assistance, feel free to contact us.