Art and poetry have always been powerful expressions of human emotion and creativity.
In times when we need to broaden our horizon, you know you can always run to art to enrich your imagination and soul.
Here are 10 evocative poems about art, each one a masterpiece waiting to touch your heart and fuel your passion.
Let’s get straight to it!
My favorite poem about art for artistic women
#1 “Orpheus” by William Shakespeare
Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
This poem captivates me because it vividly shows how Orpheus’s music transforms nature, highlighting art’s power to inspire and heal.
It beautifully illustrates music’s ability to bring harmony and soothe the soul.
I also like the idea that music and art can be something that I can ran to when I need comfort.
9 more poems about art for artistic women
#2 “Art” by Richard Le Gallienne
Art is a gipsy,
Fickle as fair,
Good to kiss and flirt with,
But marry – if you dare!
#3 “Art’s Discipline” by Robert Fuller Murray
Long since I came into the school of Art,
A child in works, but not a child in heart.
Slowly I learn, by her instruction mild,
To be in works a man, in heart a child.
#4 “The Artist And His Work” by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
How can that be, lady, which all men learn
By long experience? Shapes that seem alive,
Wrought in hard mountain marble, will survive
Their maker, whom the years to dust return!
Thus to effect cause yields. Art hath her turn,
And triumphs over Nature. I, who strive
With Sculpture, know this well; her wonders live
In spite of time and death, those tyrants stern.
So I can give long life to both of us
In either way, by colour or by stone,
Making the semblance of thy face and mine.
Centuries hence when both are buried, thus
Thy beauty and my sadness shall be shown,
And men shall say, ‘For her ’twas wise to pine.’
#5 “Art” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Artist, fashion! talk not long!
Be a breath thine only song!
#6 “Art and Love” by James Whitcomb Riley
He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken
Pierces the crust of this existence through)
And smiled beyond on that his genius knew
Ere mated with his being. Conscious then
Of his high theme alone, he smiled again
Straight back upon himself in many a hue
And tint, and light and shade, which slowly grew
Enfeatured of a fair girl’s face, as when
First time she smiles for love’s sake with no fear.
So wrought he, witless that behind him leant
A woman, with old features, dim and sear,
And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming tear,
And with a voice, like some sad instrument,
That sighing said, “I’m dead there; love me here!”
#7 “Before a Painting” by James Weldon Johnson
I knew not who had wrought with skill so fine
What I beheld; nor by what laws of art
He had created life and love and heart
On canvas, from mere color, curve and line.
Silent I stood and made no move or sign;
Not with the crowd, but reverently apart;
Nor felt the power my rooted limbs to start,
But mutely gazed upon that face divine.
And over me the sense of beauty fell,
As music over a raptured listener to
The deep-voiced organ breathing out a hymn;
Or as on one who kneels, his beads to tell,
There falls the aureate glory filtered through
The windows in some old cathedral dim.
#8 “Art And Heart” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover,
It is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.
Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in Heaven will mind it,
And the finest phrase falls dead if there is no feeling behind it.
Though perfect the player’s touch, little, if any, he sways us,
Unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us.
Though the poet may spend his life in skilfully rounding a measure,
Unless he writes from a full, warm heart he gives us little pleasure.
So it is not the speech which tells, but the impulse which goes with the saying;
And it is not the words of the prayer, but the yearning back of the praying.
It is not the artist’s skill which into our soul comes stealing
With a joy that is almost pain, but it is the player’s feeling.
And it is not the poet’s song, though sweeter than sweet bells chiming,
Which thrills us through and through, but the heart which beats under the rhyming.
And therefore I say again, though I am art’s own true lover,
That it is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.
#9 “Art” by Herman Melville
In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt–a wind to freeze;
Sad patience–joyous energies;
Humility–yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity–reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel–Art.
#5 “Sonnet: Art” by Washington Allston
O Art, high gift of Heaven! how oft defamed
When seeming praised! To most a craft that fits,
By dead, prescriptive Rule, the scattered bits
Of gathered knowledge; even so misnamed
By some who would invoke thee; but not so
By him, ―the noble Tuscan, — who gave birth
To forms unseen of man, unknown to Earth,
Now living habitants; he felt the glow
Of thy revealing touch, that brought to view
The invisible Idea; and he knew,
E’en by his inward sense, its form was true:
‘Twas life to life responding,―highest truth!
So, through Elisha’s faith, the Hebrew Youth
Beheld the thin blue air to fiery chariots grow.