Ekphrasis

 Ekphrasis is when you write in response to art. Saramago uses real-world art in his novel in several places.

On p. 123, Saramago writes of "...the blind people in the painting, walking together, falling together and dying together." This is the painting that Saramago is referring to, by Bruegel from the 16th Century:

 

And on p. 233, after the doctor's wife and the others are free from the mental institution and she leads her band of survivors, the narrators says, "...this was not liberty leading the people, the bags fortunately full, are too heavy for her to carry them aloft like a flag." This is a reference to French 19th century painter Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, commemorating the French Revolution of 1830:

On pp. 128-129, the "unknown voice" in the ward tells of the painting that he was looking at when he went blind. This painting is actually several very famous paintings. He describes "a picture of a cornfield w/ crows and cypress trees and a sun that gave the impression of having been made up of the fragments of other suns." This is probably a reference to Wheat Field with Crows by the Dutch painting Vincent Van Gogh:

Then he describes "...a drowning dog...already half-submerged, poor creature..." This is probably Spanish painter Francisco Goya's The Dog:

And then "there was a cart laden with hay, drawn by horses and crossing a stream," with "a house on the left." This is probably Hay Wain by British painting John Constable:

The "thirteen men" eating is probably Italian painter Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper:

And finally, a naked woman with fair hair, inside a conch that was floating on the sea, and masses of flowers around her" is obviously Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus:

The unknown voice describes all these paintings as being a part of the same painting. The paintings are painted by different painters, exist in different museums in different countries. What do you make about this experience in the context of the novel?