David Frazer by DeWitt Cheng

For many, contemporary conceptual and multimedia art have eclipsed earlier notions of art as exploration, self-expression, and craftsmanship. Art, however, is large, as Walt Whitman put it; it contains contradictory impulses. The 5th-century Latin phrase, ut pictura poesis (as painting, so poetry) expressed one concept of art that has lasted millennia, and one that David Frazer claims in his essay, “On Painting as Poetry.”