Weekend Mini-challenge - Ekphrasis

Hi toads, tadpoles and other amphibians, today I thought I would bring you something truly challenging, a form or some technical detail of creating poetry. Maybe some aspects in the vast area of sonnets or haiku.

But...

Still there is some summer in the air, Sometimes when I lack inspiration I go to the wonderful site wikiart.org and try to find a picture or painting that inspires me. But alas, one thing that I have found is that this is often less successful than if I try to illustrate a poem already written. Often I get more comments when the poem reflects more indirectly the content in the picture.

So today want to do ekphrastic poetry. Ekphrasis comes from Greek and means to use a description of art (your poem) as a rhetorical or imaginative description.

Many might be familiar with haiga, and you all know that in a good haiga, the poem and the picture complement each other and create a wider wisdom than could be gained from the haiku and picture separately.

So today I will challenge you with just a single piece of art, and this time I would like you to find a poem that does not just describe the painting, but how it speaks to you, what stories do you find in it?. You might find a detail in the painting, or it might bring back some stories from your past, it might bring back dreams or hopes. But make sure you do not merely describe the picture, you have to find your story in it.

There are no requirement on form, you can write a poem, a vignette a news-article, an essay or maybe a novel (though that might be tough for me to read).

I have chosen this image for you:

Artist in his Studio by Rembrandt