Silent Poetry, Speaking Painting

TO THE READER.

...namely, that painting is speaking poetry, while poetry is silent painting. original Greek: "ζωγραφίαν μὲν εἶναι φθεγγομένην τὴν ποίησιν, ποίησιν δὲ σιγῶσαν τὴν ζωγραφίαν." This famous paradox is attributed to the Greek lyric poet Simonides of Ceos (c. 556–468 BCE). Painting is indeed a certain Silent Poetry, while Poetry is a certain Speaking Painting. For truly, nothing is more commonplace than the "colors" of words, with which poets are accustomed to paint their rhythmic verses in manifold ways. Silent images, too, are the mute poems of painters, as it were: because the reed-pen calamus: a pen made from a sharpened reed, used for both writing and fine-line drawing can create nothing that the paintbrush penicillus: literally "little tail," referring to a fine brush made of animal hair cannot also produce. Pliny the Younger, Letters, Book 6, Letter 17. Farewell, my reader, and keep that sentiment of Pliny's in mind. Whether it be more, or less, or the same