“Simonides calls painting silent poetry, and poetry speaking painting.”

— Plutarch

Whether the Athenians were more Warlike or Learned, 3
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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Plutarch 251

ancient Greek historian and philosopher 46–127

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“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry painting that speaks.”

Simonides of Ceos (-556–-468 BC) Ancient Greek musician and poet

Quoted by Plutarch, De gloria Atheniensium 3.346f http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0234%3Astephpage%3D346f.
Variant translations:
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting with the gift of speech.
Painting is silent poetry, poetry is eloquent painting.
See also: Ut pictura poesis

“Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

A Treatise on Painting (1651); "The Paragone"; compiled by Francesco Melzi prior to 1542, first published as Trattato della pittura by Raffaelo du Fresne (1651)
Context: Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen. These two arts, you may call them both either poetry or painting, have here interchanged the senses by which they penetrate to the intellect.

“Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

Education: What Knowledge Is of Most Worth?
Essays on Education (1861)

“Sculpture and painting are moments of life. Poetry is life itself.”

Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) American writer and poet

On poetry

“Poetry Fetter'd. Fetters the Human Race. Nations are Destroy'd, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting, and Music are Destroy'd or Flourish!”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

To the Public, plate 3 (the last paragraph)
1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820)

“There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Aphorism 7
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit
Context: There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

“In this consists the difference between painting and poetry : the painter reproduces others, — the poet reproduces himself.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

“The arts (painting, poetry, etc.) are not just these. Eating, drinking, walking are also arts; every act is an art.”

César Vallejo (1892–1938) Peruvian writer

Las artes (pintura, poesía, etc.) no son solo éstas. Artes son también comer, beber, caminar: todo acto es un arte.
Source: Aphorisms (2002), p. 60

“Science has as many competing styles as painting or poetry. The diversity of science also finds a parallel in the diversity of religion.”

Freeman Dyson book Infinite in All Directions

Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 1 : In Praise of Diversity
Context: Science is not a monolithic body of doctrine. Science is a culture, constantly growing and changing. The science of today has broken out of the molds of classical nineteenth-century science, just as the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock broke out of the molds of nineteenth century art. Science has as many competing styles as painting or poetry. The diversity of science also finds a parallel in the diversity of religion.

“The art has to make it on its own, without explanations, and it’s the same for poetry. If the poem or the painting has to be explained, then it’s a failure in communication.”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919) American artist, writer and activist

“Simonides calls painting silent poetry, and poetry speaking painting.”

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Plutarch 251

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