The Pen and the Brush

Artistic Companions

The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino

Let’s begin here:

“I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.” — Van Gogh

The Power of the Painted Word:

They say a picture (or a painting) is worth a thousand words. This is either a wise metaphor or an opportune excuse for all the verbose writers to avoid editing their work. I happen to believe it to be a truism that requires further exploration.

How can an image provoke over a thousand words of meaning? The depiction is, after all, still and motionless, while a story can be fluid and dynamic. The cast involved is static, as is the number of characters within the frame. And the color, mood, and theme are stagnant, with little room for narrative growth or conflict.

Writing, specifically writing fiction, seems to be the more flexible of the two. And yet, within a moment of engaging with the Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, you immediately feel a sense of awe, of astonishment at the sheer simplicity and incomprehensible profundity with which Friedrich captures the moment. How many words does Tolkien, for instance, require to evoke the same sensation in his readers?

Evoking Epic Emotions:

At what point in Homer’s Iliad is one as consumed with rage and bloodlust as one would be within moments of admiring Gérôme’s Pollice Verso? The blood-stained sand, the screaming chants of death from the Vestal Virgins, the gladiator’s protruding triumphant chest—all these subtleties elicit a grand sensation in the beholder—one that is not easily replicated within the black and white scrolls of the Epic Poem.

But despite their many differences, both of these art forms (and arguably all others) attempt to achieve the same goal: to tell a story. Jacques-Louis David and Botticelli arm themselves with their brushes when portraying the pagan myths, while Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy choose the pen to delve into similar themes of fate, nature, and morality.

The Muse in Renaissance Florence:

I’ll make no attempt to argue for the supremacy of either—both have their place in the spectrum of artistic expression, and I am eternally grateful to both. Instead, I aim to shed light on the symbiotic relationship between the two—the manner in which they rely on each other, clinging to and giving back in the tides of history as the artistic seasons wane and return, from Ancient Greece to Renaissance Florence.

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

Take, for example, the above image: Botticelli’s famous The Birth of Venus. Although Florence in the mid-1480s was at the peak of the Renaissance, the Catholic Church remained highly influential in Italy and nearly all European countries. How, then, does a Christian painter come to depict the Greek Goddess of Love? The answer lies in literature.

This is the beginning of Hymn #6, one of the thirty-three Homeric Hymns, which had made the rounds among the creative community and the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici:

Of august gold-wreathed and beautiful

Aphrodite I shall sing to whose domain

belong the battlements of all sea-loved

Cyprus where, blown by the moist breath

of Zephyros, she was carried over the

waves of the resounding sea on soft foam.

The gold-filleted Horae happily welcomed

her and clothed her with heavenly raiment.

The Greek poem, titled To Aphrodite (Romanized as Venus), was undoubtedly a tremendous inspiration for the young painter who sought to animate the Great Poet's words on a canvas measuring roughly 5 feet 8 inches by 9 feet 1 inch. The pen uplifted the brush.

Painting the Past:

Historical events have also been a source of creative mana for painters and writers alike. The events that took place on March 15, 44 BC, have birthed countless plays, books, articles, movies, and paintings. The death of a dictator has been fertile ground for artistic exploration, and both the pen and the brush have cultivated the soil with depictions of the assassination.

The Death of Julius Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini

Seven decades later, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth ignited the minds of artists, theologians, and philosophers alike. There is no shortage of Christian works, both within the world of literature and painting, interweaving into a two-millennia-long play for supremacy in the domain of religious art.

Two noteworthy mentions that were created within a few years of each other are Giotto di Bondone’s The Crucifixion and, of course, Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy.

A Visionary Fusion:

Despite the technical differences required to master either craft, the effect on the aesthete is radically similar: an incomprehensible evocation of hidden depth within the soul. Few walked between both worlds as masterfully as William Blake, an artist, poet, and mystic who had visions of angels.

He was famous for his self-published, hand-colored books, which he wrote, printed, and made by hand. His poems were accompanied by vivid illustrations that enlivened them, while his poetry imbued the images with profundity and enchantment. It could be said that no others wielded both the pen and the brush with such success.

Urizen unloos’d from chains

Glows like a meteor in the distant north

The Ancient of Days by William Blake

Unlike our Greek-Italian collaborators, Blake devised his own cosmology with Gods and Goddesses encapsulated into an epic mythological universe. His prose, never far from the depictions of his creations, was revolutionary and is still unforgivably underappreciated.

Nevertheless, Blake, like all great artists, sat on the shoulders of giants. He was greatly inspired by Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost, and Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam to craft his own heavenly figure: Urizen.

Blake’s work is another example of the brush and pen exchanging hands, shared across the millennia and gently offered to the children of modernity. Let us take up the task and assume the responsibility.

A Rallying Cry for Art:

I’ve been greatly influenced by many of the visionaries mentioned in this essay. Although my own hands have found comfort in the pen, the brush speaks to the inner recesses of my soul, whispering of ancient tales and inciting inspiration in my craft.

I have written this article to prepare for and explain a series of short stories I will be commencing this week. Each Sunday, for as long as the Muse speaks to me, I’ll release a short story inspired by a painting. I’ll work through many classical and neo-classical masterpieces and other obscure historical pieces.

My goal is not to add to these illustrative gems, but to pay a small and humble homage to them for the tremendous power they have bestowed upon me and many others. Let us continue to carry the torch of artistic expression forward, regardless of the instrument we choose—or which chooses us.

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” — Leonardo da Vinci