DR.

SWALEHA NAQVI

ENGLISH ASSIGNMENT No. 2

Comparison of Painting and Poem

Aleem hasan & Darain Syed

BBA-2K11-A
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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

Step 1: Mourning Picture

The painting by Edwin Romanzo Elmer

Edwin Romanzo

Elmer(1850-

1923), Mourning

Picture, 1890.

Oil on canvas, 27

⅞ × 36 in. (70.9

×91.4 cm.), Smith

College, Museum

of Art,

Northampton,

Massachusetts,

purchased

(1953:129)

The painting envoices the dead girl, Effie depicted in the memorial painting by her father, Edwin

Romanzo Elmer. is in memorial to Elmer’s daughter Effie. The painting shows the artist, his

wife, and their 9-year-old daughter. They are shown in front of the Victorian house that Elmer

and his brother built in Western Massachusetts, around 1875.

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

The catch is that when Elmer painted it, Effie was dead. Hence the picture’s title given much later by

others “Mourning Picture.’’

The poem by Adrienne Rich

They have carried the mahogany chair and the cane rocker

out under the lilac bush,

and my father and mother darkly sit there, in black clothes.

Our clapboard house stands fast on its hill,

my doll lies in her wicker pram

gazing at western Massachusetts.

This was our world.

I could remake each shaft of grass

feeling its rasp on my fingers, draw out the map of every lilac leaf

or the net of vines on my father’s

grief-tranced hand.

Out of my head, half-bursting,

still filling, the dream condenses—

shadows, crystals, ceilings, meadows, globe of dew.

Under the dull green of the lilacs, out in the light

carving each spoke of the pram, the turned porch-pillars,

under high early-summer clouds,

I am Effie, visible and invisible,

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

remembering and remembered.

They will move from the house,

give the toys and pets away.

Mute and rigid with loss my mother

will ride the train to Baptist Corner,

the silk-spool will run bare.

I tell you, the thread that bound us lies

faint as a web in the dew.

Should I make you, world, again,

could I give back the leaf its skeleton, the air

its early-summer cloud, the house

its noonday presence, shadowless,

and leave this out? I am Effie, you were my dream.

This poem is written by Adrienne Rich who was born in 1929 in Baltimore and the painting

inspired her to write this poem in 1965. Throughout her work, Rich exercises paragonal

prosopopoeia (personification of inanimate things) ; spoken by a girl whose language strives to

outdo the painting of her black-clad parents sitting with the remembered image of their child of

their clapboard house overlooking Western Massachusetts. The poem has 3 stanzas.
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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

Step 2: WORKSHEETS

1. List words that come to mind as you examine the painting.

ANS- The painting looks at first like a summer reverie but soon it transforms into that of family

separation, alienation, abandonment, haunted, loneliness, grief and death.

2. How does the painting make you feel? What emotions does it evoke?

ANS- The painting gives a sense of longing, suggesting that something has happened in the

family that gives rise to this feeling of grief and despair. The painting is upsetting in a way that

the girl has separated from her parents and that she has taken all her belongings with her, giving

rise to further desolation.

3. Does the painting spark any associations for you? Any memories? Does it make you

think of any other paintings you know? Any other art, literature, or music?

ANS- This reminds me of a song titled “precious child” by Karen Taylor that suggests that even

though the “precious child” has left her, the child will live in her heart and mind forever. Though

a gaping hole has been created after the early loss and that it can never be filled but the child will

always live on in her heart.

This painting also rings bell of a similar event where my younger cousin suddenly died who

was only six years old at the time. The sudden demise was hard to be swallowed by the whole

family, let alone his parents who were devastated at the news. Now they are thinking of moving

from the house in which the sad event had taken place to escape from his memories.
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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

Q: How many rooms do you think are in this house?

ANS- The house appears to have around eight rooms. The house is quite large, enough to accommodate

two to three families.

Q: Which objects are man-made? What natural landscape forms are depicted?

ANS- The Italianate house, the parlor furniture, the pram, the hat and the clothes seem to be man-made

objects.

The landscape appears to be quite scenic, with a hill-top house overlooking the mountains. Tremendous

amount of attention has been given to each butterfly, blade of grass, and distant leaf as well as sharp,

green hue used throughout.

Q: Point out areas of light and dark. Where are the lightest lights? Where are the darkest darks?

ANS- The figures seem to occupy different planes of existence, all vivid but none quite real. The

overall imagery appears to be dark and dreary. The parents in the dark, adorning black clothes that

symbolize death, look up with cheerless expressions depicting their fractured lives as they mourn the loss.

The strangest thing is that though the parents appear to be sitting under the tree’s shadow, vivid light

reflects on their chairs. Their features, including Effie's, are heavy with sadness.

Effie meanwhile, has the sluggish, artificial air of someone posing for a photograph. She is standing in

the sun amidst all the spot-light, giving a longing look to her parents who are both looking generally in

her direction. 

The house, the landscape and the pets and toys in the background are well-lit, suggesting some relevance

to the family.

The artist in his painting has used dull colors rather than bright ones. This gives a very lifeless image to

the viewer. Oil paints have been used to give a serious picture and show the depth of grief .
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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

Q: Where is the sun?

ANS- The sun appears to be in the south-eastern direction since it is creating shadows in the north-
western direction.

Q: What kind of shapes do you see? What kind of shape predominates?

ANS- Besides giving a geometrical shape to the house, Edwin has used puffy shapes to illustrate the
clouds. Behind Effie, the artist has used the expanse of sky and green hills. This gives a sense of
openness and vastness of the surroundings. From a novice’s point of view, I believe that cylindrical
shapes predominates the whole painting.
Q: What can you think from the size of the subjects in the painting?
ANS- The size is perhaps more important than the shape in this painting. The parents are shown as half
the size of their ten-year-old daughter. Hence portraying its subjects in proportion to emotional
importance rather than physical size.
Q: Anything you noticed in the painting that caught your eye?
ANS- The thing that I noticed upon a careful analysis was that Effie’s left leg wasn’t visible. Though the
artist tried to hide it behind the lamb, it was clearly evident that Effie didn’t have a left leg. It was only
after researching for the assignment, I found out that apparently she had had to have her left leg
amputated for some reason, probably because of the disease that led to her early demise.

Read Rich’s “Mourning Picture (1929)” at least three times, and be sure to read it twice

aloud. First, list all the subjects you can find in Rich’s poem.

Rich’s poem revolves around the girl Effie. She has given her a voice and it is if she is

telling her tale in the poem. In the poem one can tell by the tone and the words used by the poet

that it is a mourning poem. The theme a reader would find is grief. Also there is sadness in the

poem. A reader can notice this by the way one gets the picture that, she is a soul moving about

where she lived and she knows that all her things will be given away. Along with this the image
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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

she is portraying is that life without her seems to her as if it is dull and she can return back all

the life in the things which she left behind, after her death.

Now choose a few of the subjects—those you think either especially important or most

evocative of the subjects in Edwin’s painting—and list them in the left-hand column. In the

right-hand column, note those words and images from the poem most directly related to

those subjects. Add more boxes as necessary:

Subject Related Words and Images

Grief In the poem: Grief-tranced hands

In the painting: the parents sitting

in the dark.

Mourning and Death In the poem: “Mute and rigid with

loss my mother”

In the painting: Black clothes of the

man and his wife.

Painting Poem

Dominant moods and tones: Dominant moods and tones:

Dullness and Haunted. Sadness, Grief and Mourning.

Explicit subjects: Explicit subjects:

Sadness Grief and wishing to give life to the dullness

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

Implied subjects: Implied subjects:

Painted in the memorial of the painters daughters, A voice has been given to her. She tells about how
who passed away. she feels after death and what will happen now that
she has left.

Noteworthy images: Noteworthy images:

The lamb which Effie has kept her hands on. Her leg How she wishes to give energy back to what she has
which is not shown in the painting. The abandoned left. The importance given to the mother of how she
toys of the girl. The flowers beside her. is mute and rigid and that she will leave the house
after Effie’s death.

Other: Effie has been put in day light while the Other: Effie says in the end that life for her was a
parents in the dark. The cat does not show dream which is stated in the last line of the last
significance of any sort. stanza.

Step 3- Thesis Statement

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

“Although both pieces of art are based on grief but both have been portrayed

from a different point of view. The painting is from the father’s perspective who

is engrossed in grief after the loss of her daughter. The poem on the other hand

has been described from the girl’s perspective. Elmer has used the vastness of

the canvas and the dull impressions to give a sense of grief. Adrienne on the

other hand, has used specific words and phrases to suggest the whole scenario.

Each artist has given reflective grief by giving importance to certain things,

stressing on some things while implying others. The poet has used some literary

devices such as metaphors and prosopopoeia having a blank verse while the

painting has brushstroke just like Renaissance artists. Hence, both have been

able to give a profound impression of the grief surrounding Effie’s death.”

Step 4- Comparing the two pieces of Art:

Mourning Picture,” is a title shared by two pieces of artwork created by two distinct artists.

Adrienne Rich illustrates a young girl’s view of her life after death in the poem, “Mourning

Picture.” Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s painting entitled, “Mourning Picture,” shares certain

symbolic similarities in comparison with Rich’s work. Adrienne Rich’s poem smoothes the

process of understanding the painting by creating a natural composition. She focuses on the

images portrayed in Elmer’s painting to embody personal emotions.

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

In the painting of Elmer appropriate symbols are used to represent death. In the painting the

couple wears black symbolizing that someone has passed away, it symbolizes death and grief.

The lilac bush in the poem also bring mixed emotions of love and death, it itself is a best loved

flowering shrub. Also the parents are sitting in darkness and in the shade of the lilac bush while

the daughter is bathed in sunlight. This focuses the viewer’s attention on her. Her features in the

painting are heavy with sadness. There is a sense in the painting of Edwin and Mary sitting

chained to their chairs, frozen in their longing gaze in the general direction of Effie. In the poem

Rich also has put light on the girl, as she is the one who is speaking and is about death from her

point of view. It also symbolizes grief as the painting does as written in the poem “draw out the

map of every lilac leaf or the net of vines on my father’s grief-tranced hand” not only does this

metaphor depict the lilac leaf’s veins but also shows how the father is feeling and she could

notice it by the veins of his hands. The image given is dark, dreary and depressing. Hence in both

these pieces grief has been shown by symbolic figures. “Effie’s detachment from her family in

the background is given new dimension by the epigraph of the poem, which reports her recent

death”. (Wilkinson, 2010:54)

The words and terms used by the poet are very dull and depressing. Such as “shadowless” and

“grief-tranced”. Which stresses upon the point that grief is being signified in the poem. The

upset tone can be noticed in many parts of the poem and the tone is much emphasized in the end

such as:

“I tell you, the thread that bound us lies

faint as a web in the dew.

Should I make you, world, again,

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

could I give back the leaf its skeleton, the air

its early-summer cloud, the house

its noonday presence, shadowless,

and leave this out? I am Effie, you were my dream.”

In this she clearly states how dull everything has become after she has died. In the poem she first

talks about the current scenario as she is witnessing it and talks about how dull it has become.

Then she wishes if she could give life back to everything that has become lifeless and hence she

wishes to bring joy and life back to the place. The artist in his painting has also used dull colors

rather than bright ones. This gives a very lifeless image to the viewer. Oil paints have been used

to give a serious picture and show the depth of grief rather than using water colors and poster

colors to give brightness to the image. Also the poem has a blank verse.

What a viewer would get after looking at the painting is how the mourning parents missed her

and thought of her if she were alive and playing with her toys and the animals. Also no reference

has been made about the cat and the lamb in the poem. The lamb symbolizes Jesus as “the lamb

of god” also it has importance because the lamb is humble, gentle, and innocent; lambs are often

engraved on the tombstones of children. It can also be seen that she has abandoned her toys and

is close to the lamb. “The little girl Miss.Elmer said was painted with the lamb to show that she

was dead” (Elmer, 1964:136). In the poem Massachusetts has been mentioned because the

painter lived there. Although by looking at the painting one does not get the idea which place

was being painted.

Also in the poem it is stated as if Effie is seeing a dream describing things that were not in the

painting such as mentioned in the poem:

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

“…shadows, crystals, ceilings, meadows, globe of dew”

Along with this the lilac bush has been given much importance in the poem. As shown in the

part:

“Under the dull green of the lilacs, out in the light..”

And in the first stanza:

“...draw out the map of every lilac leaf..”

While in the painting one does not recognize if it is a lilac bush or a tree behind the mother

sitting on the rocking chair. With this in the second stanza she describes the area

“Under the dull green of the lilacs, out in the light

carving each spoke of the pram, the turned porch-pillars,

under high early-summer clouds,”

which are shown in the painting and also she talks about how she is being remembered by her

parents. Also in the third stanza she tells what would happen now that she has left. Comparing

this part to the painting there is nothing which can trigger what would happen as a result of her

death.

The main focus of the poem is to show how life would be now that Effie has died. She is the one

telling how everything will turn around and where it would go about. The painting is noted for its

intricate detail and the contrast between the mourning family, who sits in relative darkness, and

the dead daughter, who is bathed in sunlight. Hence its main focus is on the daughter who has

died and left behind her house and family.

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

In the poem it is stated “its early summer clouds..” the time of year has been given in the poem

and also can be judged by the mentioning of the lilac because lilac symbolizes death of winter

and birth of summer. While in the painting a viewer can get an idea of spring by looking at the

flower besides Effie. As one cannot recognize the bush if it is a lilac bush or not. The textured

carpet of flowers at Effie’s feet might also indicate knowledge of similar symbolic flora and

concentrated attention given to each butterfly, blade of grass and distant leaf as well as sharp,

green hue used throughout. By looking closely at Effie one of her leg is imputed for some

reason, for which reasons have not been found and also not mentioned in the poem.

In the poem it has been mentioned

“..my doll lies in her wicker pram

gazing at western Massachusetts..”

There is no such symbol in the painting from which one might get an idea that the place was

Massachusetts. But by looking at the history of the painting the painter Elmer lived in

Massachusetts and the house painted was built by his brother over there where he used to live.

Sources, references and critics

NOVEL- The painting inspired a novel titled “Every Past Thing,” authored by Pamela

Thompson. In this, Pamela reveals the pain and desire of one woman, the wife of 19th Century

painter, Edwin Romanzon Elmer, as she searches for her lovers in New York City over five days

of wishes and regrets in November 1899. Though the novel covers the course of a week,

flashbacks expand the story's breadth and scope.

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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

The theme of the novel is- when your heart is broken, every past thing becomes strange.

It sets out in 1899, when the streets of New York were as unsettled as the heart and body of

Mary Jane Elmer, the main character of the novel. The ideas of the transcendentalists had taken

root, and thoughts of a second revolution were rising. Women were redefining their roles for the

coming century. And, at 40 years of age, solitary in marriage to a brilliant and talented man, she

was still grieving the death of their daughter ten years past, Mary tries her best to find a future

she can endure.

Writing in a voice that is filled with longing, Thompson captures an emotional whirlwind of art,

politics, family, and desire with an authenticity that is absolutely breathtaking. Every Past Thing

is an enduring novel, as personal as it is historic.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS by Michael Thurston @ Massachusetts Reviews

Elmer’s painting is strange, haunting. The painter depicts his recently deceased daughter, Effie,

in the foreground, formally dressed, beside a lamb. She looks out of the frame and over the

viewer’s shoulder into the distance. In the background, by a lilac, the grieving parents, dressed in

black, sit, the father not looking at the newspaper in his lap, the mother ignoring the knitting in

hers. In her poem about the painting, published in the 1966 collection, Necessities of Life, Rich

captures the strangeness. She speaks from the point of view of the dead child and explores, from

that defamiliarizing perspective, the ways we are bound by our bodies to the world, the ways

those bonds are at once reinforced and dissolved by language. “I am Effie,” she writes. “I was

your dream.” (Thurston, 2012)

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In the book, Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery

What Hedley, Halpern, Spiegelman think of Rich’s poem inspired by Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s

painting “Mourning Picture”, in which it is not the artist himself who speaks, according to her it

is his gaze that confronts us from directly within the painting. But the daughter for whom he is

mourning “I am Effie you were my dream,” Rich has her say to the world she is prophetically

reclaiming for herself. (2009)

Step 5- Reflection

At first sight, this painting seemed to be a very ordinary one. It was only after a careful analysis

and deep insight that I realized that the painting has a lot more to it. While doing this assignment

I found out the depth of each painting and how after looking closely at every detail the meaning

of the painting can change. Along with this a true picture can be derived by looking at every

detail in a painting. A viewer can figure out a reason why the painting has been made. Each

object in a painting has certain significance which act like “pieces of a puzzle” to give a

complete picture. It made me realize that even a simple painting as this, as I thought earlier it

would have been, has a deep background related to it. Not only do the main characters have a

profound story to tell, but even the pets, the flowers, trees, and the clouds, the landscape, the

colors and the contrast had a far-reaching influence on my mind as an analyzer.

Along with this I realized that whatever image I get in mind of a painting does have

significance as some portions of what idea I got from the painting was mentioned in the poem. I

also found out that the mood one gets by a painting is greatly influenced by the colors and brush

strokes used by an artist. The brighter the colors and bigger brush strokes the more eye-catching

it is. Hence putting a better idea in a viewer’s mind. Also the poet would use words accordingly
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Ekphrastic Poetry- “Mourning Picture”

to put the same mood and image in a readers mind.

Upon looking at the poem, I was impressed by how the poet summed up the whole scenario in

a few lines. Not only did she include every detail related to the painting and the characters in it,

Adrienne was able to tell the whole story of the family by amassing their emotions and

expressions.

Studying ekphrastic poetry has been something new to me. So at first this assignment did

look difficult. By following the worksheets given I was able to write a very detailed comparison

of the poem and the painting. Overall, ekphrastic poetry analysis turned out to be very helpful in

ascertaining the deep meaning associated with and related to the two types of art.
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References:

Elmer .M.V (1964), The Massachusetts Review: Edwin Romanzo Elmer as I Knew Him, vol: 6
no: 1, autumn, pp: 121-144

Hedley .J, Halpern .N, Spiegelman .W, (2009), In the frame: women's ekphrastic poetry from

Marianne Moore to Susan Wheeler, pp:136.

Thurston .M (2012), AND YET, WRITING WORDS LIKE THESE.

.http://www.massreview.org/blog/and-yet-writing-words-these

Wilk .J.M (2010), Poets on teaching: A source book, pp: 54