The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

Sex and Art: Valentine's Day Surprise Ekphrastic Challenge

1/27/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt (Austria). 1908.

On Valentine's Day, we collectively celebrate romantic love. The giddiest, most wine and chocolate soaked day of the year is also one of the most widely reviled holidays. The lonely are either depressed or cynical, and many of the amorous reject being told when and how they should express their love. 

Even so, who can resist the annual ritual of Dollarama red crepe hearts and love poetry from the Barret-Brownings? The tangled roots and history of this holiday lie partly in the mists of mystery, partly in the brutal and bloody orgiastic sex rites of Roman Lupercalia, and partly in the Church's hopeful holifying of pagan sex with new emphasis on matrimony and committed love. Today's version is utterly dependent on tacky trinkets, and fuzzy red handcuffs, but it's also a chance for couples to  rekindle their romance and commitment.

Whatever one's thoughts on Valentine's Day, its themes have been important to writers and artists from the beginning- and all year around. Love, romance, marriage, relationships, erotica, lust, sex, loneliness, and loss are evergreen themes of literature, right up there with life, death, and God.  What poem or book or painting or film or song would be possible without love? A paltry selection, to be sure.

Sex is everything: it is life and death, it is all that is banal and all that is profound, it is all the children we have and all those we don't.

It's about memories of parking with dashboard dice and Meatloaf, about the men we've married, and the men we've locked in jail. It's about women, our mothers and daughters and lovers. It's all the big stories from the Bible and from classical mythology, and it's our petty and profound fears, and our need for beauty, for which we will live and die and kill.

It is the risks men take and sacrifices they make, and their biggest mistakes; it is the ultimate fulfillment of being a woman  and also the worst and most painful stories of her life.

Your ekphrastic challenge up until Valentine's Day is to write about art about sex. 

It takes courage to write about love and sex. It's easy to fake it...a few dirty words, a tawdry joke, an insipid romance scene with shallow characterization. But what if we find the courage to write honestly, what if we write from the heart, or from the most religious part of our loins? What if we write about the deepest betrayal and grief we have experienced in sex and romance? What if we write about our most ecstatic unions and truest loves? What if we mourn a marriage or menopause or a violation, or try to encapsulate the beauty of the strangest relationship you've ever had? What if you release your anger, recall an unexpected kiss?

As usual, the rules are lax. Try to write about all the artworks, for the full immersion into the exercise. But if you can't commit to that, write about a few. Study the picture. Research the artist and the image if you like, or take the image at face value as a flight of fancy.

Write poems of any kind, or short prose.

I can't wait to see what you are inspired to write. Send your best only, and send them on or before February 14, the sooner the better.

theekphrasticreview@gmail.com
VALENTINES in email subject line please!

Picture
Two Figures, by Francis Bacon (Britain, b. Ireland). 1953.
Picture
The Bolt, by Jean-Honore Fragonard (France). 1776.
Picture
The Kiss of the Sphinx, by Franz von Stuck (Germany). 1895.
Picture
Pluto and Prosperina, detail, sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italy). 1621-1622.
Picture
The Merchant's Pearl, by Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma (Chile). 1884.
Picture
The Grasshopper (detail),by Jules-Joseph Lefebvre (France). 1872.
Picture
Adieu, by Alfred Guillou (France). 1892.
Picture
Erotic fresco, from Pompeii, 1st Century.
Picture
I Have Loved You Since the World Began, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada). 2016.
Picture
Widow, by Konstantin Makovsky (Russia). 1865.
Picture
The Jealous Cat, by Nicolas Octave Tassaert (France). 1860?
Picture
Rolla, by Henri Gervex (France). 1878.
Picture
Untitled, by Zdzislaw Beksinski (Poland). 1984.
Picture
Title Unknown, by Mihály Zichy (Hungary). 1907.
Picture
The Sin, by Heinrich Lossow (Germany). 1880.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead