A Poet with a Paintbrush: Georgia O’Keeffe and Blue and Green Music CHRISTINA MARTINEZ
1 9 2 0 s, American artist
Most people with working knowledge of
Georgia O’Keeffe made several paintings
O’Keeffe’s significance in the art world and her
based on the “idea that music could be
overall contribution to Americana can attest
translated into something for the eye” (The
to her fame for her observations of flowers and
Art Institute of Chicago). This idea may be
natural landscapes. O’Keeffe’s greatest works
familiar to us ekphrastic poets, who see art
capture photographic fantasies only possible
and attempt to translate its beauty into our
through her meticulous eye towards all aspects
own medium so that we can describe our
of the natural world. Even with the abstractness
reaction to our chosen work. In O’Keeffe’s case,
in the expression of music, her skill molds it into
she endeavored to invent a corporeal form for
familiar shapes of nature. O’Keeffe transformed
music, translating this invention into the oils
melody into tangibility with strokes of oil
on her canvas. Just as we poets want to imitate
paint, capturing music’s profound effect to
art by applying words to a page, O’Keeffe
grow new feelings and sensations for human
strived to imitate music and its beauty; her
beings. In Blue and Green Music, this growth is
paintbrush was her instrument. Blue and
represented as floral flourishes. The way the
Green Music is one of these attempts, a study
shapes emerge suggests O’Keeffe’s belief that
of music with the goal to unlock synesthesia.
music blossoms from natural observations
After close observation, I believe this work
of life, whether from the earth where humans
is both a poem and a symphony. The shapes,
were made or the release of a trumpet’s roar.
IN
THE
E A R LY
colors, and textures of O’Keeffe’s composition
The twin colors of Blue and Green Music
successfully create a synesthetic experience
are synonymous with the title, and aid in
possible only through art.
symbolizing O’Keeffe’s idea. Blues and greens
C H R I ST I N A M A RT I N E Z (’21) is a senior English major. She wrote this essay for
36
Sarah Maclay’s Ekphrastic Poetry course in Fall 2020. Her essay utilizes processes of ekphrastic poetry to analyze Georgia O’Keeffe’s Blue and Green Music.
»
