Writing about Ekphrasis

    In The Ekphrastic Writer, the author states, “Writers new to ekphrasis will often forget auditory descriptions entirely” (Baugher). This idea intrigued me because I have never considered describing a work of art with auditory descriptives. In addition, the author questioned the importance of including visual descriptives of art, considering our ability to search on the internet for any piece of artwork at any moment (Baugher). I think the internet augments the assertion of the importance of auditory descriptions. When it comes to “actual” ekphrasis, defined by the author as ekphrasis that concerns actual artwork, adding additional sensory descriptions (ie. The perceived sounds or smell of a piece of art) is necessary to ekphrastic writing at this time (Baugher). Therefore, it is something I want to include in my future ekphrastic works.

    After looking back at Everything an Argument, I also considered that using auditory, olfactory, or even gustatory descriptives would craft a stronger argument. Taking an image and describing specific sounds and smells familiar to the audience, such as the smell of cut grass or the sound of a car going by, can appeal to the reader's emotion, an appeal coined by Aristotle as pathos. In Everything's an Argument, the author suggests that proper emotional appeal can “dramatize an issue” (Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz). Including descriptives not cemented to solely visual descriptives can appeal to the reader's emotions in a whole-body fashion. Reading not just how something looks but the sounds and smells of an environment can make for better rhetoric because it draws on the whole body experience of everyday occurrences or nostalgia.

    After finishing just the first section of The Ekphrastic Writer, the last thing I thought about is the importance of writing ekphrastic writing that is persuasive. After some thought, I realized that rhetoric should be a vital component of ekphrastic writing. Reading about a painting with solely visual descriptives would put me to sleep. Adding persuasive techniques such as the pathos appeal of familiar noises adds excitement to a piece of ekphrastic writing. My goal as I start to write ekphrastic blog entries is to not bore the reader by discussing brush strokes but to excite and, in a sense, argue my interpretation of the art piece with the sweet, tangy, and pungent smells of an orange or the piercing screech of a fire alarm.

Works Cited

Baugher, Jenée. The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction, ebook, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2020.

Lunsford, Andre, and John Ruszkiewicz. Everything’s an Argument. Eight Edition, ebook, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019.