Le poète face au tableau: de la Renaissance au Baroque

Abstract

"In the Europe of the Renaissance, poets are eager to draw inspiration from the painting of their time, and it was then a welcome challenge to translate into language what a painting expressed in lines and colors. The fashion of ekphrasis (description of works of art) is not new since it goes back to Greco-Latin Antiquity. The poets of the European 'Republic of Letters' (whether they write in the modern or neo-Latin languages) are consciously part of this tradition; but they are also reinventing the genre to make it the voice of their own aspirations, tastes and artistic and literary concerns. Through fifteen case studies distributed between the XVIth and XVIIth century and divided between Italy, France, Germany, the former Netherlands and Poland, this volume seeks to account for a variety of issues related to the practice of modern ekphrasis in poems. varied forms and themes, which reflect equally diverse paintings: mythological, religious or historical scenes, nude women, portraits of great men or paintings of flowers"--Presses universitaires François Rabelais.