Sister Arts: Three Ways to Write About a Painting

By Elissa Greenwald

Ekphrastic writing offers us inspiration through art forms such as music, dance, or architecture, but the connection is most often made through the visual arts, so much so that painting and writing are called the “sister arts.” Here are three approaches to how you might respond to the visual in your own writing, with examples from W.H. Auden, John Keats, and William Carlos Williams.

1.Write a story about a painting.

The two figures in Matisse’s mid-career painting...