Word...Painting...Poem

I learned another new word the other day while researching for a post.
The word: ekphrasis.

From Wikipedia:

Ekphrasis or ecphrasis, from the Greek description of a work of art, possibly imaginary, produced as a rhetorical exercise; often used in adjectival form, ekphrastic. A graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art. In ancient times, it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name. According to the Poetry Foundation, "an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art." More generally, an ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired or stimulated by a work of art...........

Poems inspired by paintings are more common than I had realised. A quick Google search can bring up several lists of such literary gems. Here's a link to just one such website.

I was led to the word ekphrasis by a poem that I didn't find in any list, but happened upon while randomly reading some of William Carlos Williams' poetry.

The poem:

THE DANCE - by William Carlos Williams

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess.

The poet, William Carlos Williams is featured in an archived post from 2011:
William Carlos Williams and his natal chart


The painting:

Pieter Brueghel The Kermess oil on canvas 45" x 64.5" (1567-8).
Click on image for larger, clearer version.

A kermesse was originally a special celebration on the feast day of the saint who stood as patron for the town or village in which it occurred. It was common in the southern Netherlands and in Flanders. Over time, however, the concept came to mark any special town or village oriented celebration, often organized to some charitable purpose, and indeed the concept of the kermesse made the jump across the Atlantic to Dutch and Flemish communities in the United States, in New York and Michigan, for instance. (More HERE.)