Nicholas Poussin the. great French classical painter of the seventeenth century.The painting is called the inspiration of the epic poet.Apollo is seated beneath a laurel and dictates to a young poet,Calliope,muse of epic poetry stands to the left.In the foreground there are three books,the Illiad the Odyssey and the Aeneid,great epics of antiquity.Poussin in my opinion,is a painter of sublime stature,he seems to me to be both classical and very naturalistic in the way that his figures echo the classical Greek and Roman periods but are at the same time very much figures painted from a great understandingof the human form.I have brought in the painting to illustrate how the Greeks understood the process of creativity ,from the muse!Please look at my thoughts of the day below.Actually the idea is closer to Shri Aurobindos concept of the superconciousnessNote the concentrated look of Apollo and the almost absent minded trance like state of the Poet !Calliope stands in a beautifull relaxed way as the sublime observer.she seems to be waiting also for something beautiful to be born .Note the rather poetic hint of a landscape behind the figures ..