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- Herausgeber: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Serie: Schweizer Anglistische Arbeiten (SAA)
- Sprache: Englisch
This work analyses the relationship between visual art and contemporary art fiction by addressing the problem of the ekphrastic re-presentation and re-interpretation of an Impressionist figure painting through its composition, selected details of the painting and allusion to specific techniques used in the process of creating the masterpiece based on the examples of the following novels: Luncheon of the Boating Party (LOTBP) by Susan Vreeland (2007), Mademoiselle Victorine (MV) by Debra Finerman (2007), With Violets (WV) by Elizabeth Robards (2008), Dancing for Degas (DFD) by Kathryn Wagner (2010) and The Painted Girls (TPG) by Cathy Marie Buchanan (2013).
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Lyutsiya Staub
Revisiting Renoir, Manet and Degas
Impressionist Figure Paintings in Contemporary Anglophone Art Fiction
Narr Francke Attempto Verlag Tübingen
© 2019 • Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen www.narr.de • [email protected]
Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.
ISBN 978-3-7720-8700-4 (Print)
ISBN 978-3-7720-0213-7 (ePub)
Inhalt
To my grandmother, Katusha, who taught me to love books.
List of Paintings1
Manet, Édouard. Olympia, 1863, oil on canvas, 130 x 190 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Manet, Édouard. Le Repos (Repose), 1869, oil on canvas, 147 x 111 cm, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, USA.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Le déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party), 1880-1881, oil on canvas, 1.3 m x 1.73 m, The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., USA.
Degas, Edgar. Two Ballet Dancers, c. 1879, pastel and gouache on paper, 46 x 66 cm, Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT, USA.
Degas, Edgar. Danseuses bleues (Dancers in Blue), 1890, oil on canvas, 85.3 x 75.3 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Manet, Édouard. Berthe Morisot au bouquet de violettes (Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets), 1872, 55 x 38 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Degas, Edgar. La danseuse chez le photographe (Dancer at the Photographer’s Studio), 1875, oil on canvas, 65 x 50 cm, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia.
Degas, Edgar. Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (La Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans or Grande Danseuse habillée), 1878-1881, sculpture (pigmented beeswax, clay, metal armature, rope, paintbrushes, human hair, silk and linen ribbon, cotton faille bodice, cotton and silk tutu, linen slippers, on wooden base), overall without base: 98.9 x 34.7 x 35.2 cm, weight: 22.226 kg, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Bal au Moulin de la Galette (Dance at Le moulin de la Galette), 1876, oil on canvas, 1.31 m x 1.75 m, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Veronese, Paolo. The Marriage Feast at Cana (Nozze di Cana), c. 1562-1563, oil on canvas, 6.77 m x 9.9 m, Louvre, Paris, France.
Manet, Édouard. Le balcon (The Balcony), 1868-1869, oil on canvas, 170 x 124.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Goya, Francisco de. Majas on a Balcony (Majasen el balcón), c. 1800-1810, oil on canvas, 194.9 x 125.7 cm, The Met, New York, USA.
Manet, Édouard. Vase de pivoines sur piédouche (Vaseof Peonies on a Small Pedestal), 1864, oil on canvas, 70.2 x 93.2 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Manet, Édouard. Young Lady, 1866, oil on canvas, 185.1 x 128.6 cm, The Met, New York, USA.
Degas, Edgar. L’Absinthe or Dans un café (The Absinthe Drinker or Glass of Absinthe), 1875-1876, oil on canvas, 92 x 68,5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Da Vinci, Leonardo. The Last Supper (Il Cenacolo or L’Ultima Cena), 1495-1498, fresco-secco, 4.6 x 8.8 m, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy.
Degas, Edgar. A Coryphée Resting, c. 1880-1882, pastel, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Degas, Edgar. Portrait de Mlle Eugénie Fiocre: à propos du ballet "La Source" (PortraitofMlle Fiocrein the Ballet"La Source"), c. 1867-1868, oil on canvas, 130.8 x 145.1 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA.
Degas, Edgar. Dancer with a Fan, c. 1880, pastel on grey-green laid paper, 61 x 41.9 cm, The Met, New York, USA.
Degas, Edgar. Dancer Resting, c. 1878-1890, chalk, pastel board, dimensions unknown, private collection.
Manet, Édouard. Street Singer, c. 1862, oil on canvas, 171.1 x 105.8 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA.
Manet, Édouard. The Railway, 1873, oil on canvas, 93 x 112 cm, National Gallery of Art West Building, Washington D.C., USA.
Manet, Édouard. The Bunch of Violets (Bouquet de violettes), 1872, oil on canvas, 22 x 27 cm, Private Collection, Paris, France.
Manet, Édouard. Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass), 1863, oil on canvas, 2.08 m x 2.64 m, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Manet, Édouard. Mlle. Victorine in the Costume of a Matador, 1862, oil on canvas, 165.1 x 127.6 cm, The Met, New York, USA.
Manet, Édouard. La Prune (The Plum), 1878, oil on canvas, 74 x 50 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA.
Degas, Edgar. Four Dancers, 1899, oil on canvas, 151.1 x 180.2 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Madame Monet Reading “Le Figaro,” 1872, oil on canvas, 54 x 72 cm, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal.
Cassatt, Mary. Reading ‘Le Figaro,’ 1878, oil on canvas, 104 x 84 cm, private collection.
Degas, Edgar. Criminal Physiognomies, 1881, pastel, dimensions unknown, private collection.
Degas, Edgar. The Dance Lesson, 1879, oil on canvas, 37.9 x 87.9 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA.
Manet, Édouard. The Dead Christ with Angels, 1864, oil on canvas, 179.4 x 149.9 cm, The Met, New York, USA.
Manet, Édouard. La Lecture (Madame Manet and Leon), 1848-1883, oil on canvas, 61 x 73.2 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Degas, Edgar. Dance Examination (Examen de Danse), 1880, pastel on paper, 60.9 x 45.7 cm, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO, USA.
Degas, Edgar. After the Bath, 1876-77, pastel over monotype, dimensions unknown, private collection.
Degas, Edgar. Cabaret, 1875, pastel over monotype, 24 x 43 cm, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA.
Degas, Edgar. Woman Ironing, 1876, oil on canvas, 81 x 66 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA.
Degas, Edgar. Room in a Brothel, c. 1879, monotype in black ink on laid paper, 22 x 15.9 cm, Stanford University Museum of Art, Stanford, CA, USA.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Alphonsine Fournaise surl’île de Chatou (Alphonsine Fournaise, Daughter of a Restaurant Owner of Chatou), 1879, oil on canvas, 93 x 73 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. La Grenouillère, 1869, oil on canvas, 66 x 81 cm, National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. At the Inn of Mother Anthony, Marlotte (Mother Anthony’s Tavern), 1866, oil on canvas, 194 x 131 cm, National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary, 1878, oil on canvas, 174 x 105 cm, Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Sleeping Girl with a Cat, 1880, oil on canvas, 120.3 x 92 cm, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Madame Charpentier with Her Children, 1878, oil on canvas, 153.7 x 190.2 cm, The Met, New York, USA.
Degas, Edgar. Women on a Café Terrace (Femmes à la terrasse d’un café le soir), 1877, pastel, 55 x 72 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. The Swing (La Balançoire), 1876, oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Cup of Chocolate, 1877-78, oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm, Private Collection.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Lovers, c. 1875, oil on canvas, 130 x 175 cm, National Gallery in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Confidences, 1878, oil on canvas, 61.5 × 50.5 cm, Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur, Switzerland.
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste. Woman with a Cat, c. 1875, oil on canvas, 56 × 46.4 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA.
Chapter 1. Introduction
The visual arts have always been a source of inspiration for writers, from classical antiquity (starting from Homer, who included a description of the Shield of Achilles in Book 18 of the Iliad) to the present. However, it seems that early twenty-first century literature, more than ever before, is geared towards visuality through the use of visual images in verbal texts. The recent upsurge in the popularity of the word-image relationship is especially noticeable in the contemporary novel, which not only focuses on works of art, artists’ and models’ lives and the artist-model relationships, but also, while fictionalising the story of the very process of creating an artwork, seeks to test and evaluate its historical interpretation. While a variety of definitions of this particular genre have been suggested – “fictions about painters” (Bowie), “artist novels” (Beebe), “atelier narratives” (Joyce) and most recently “art-historical fiction” (Chapman) –, this paper will address it simply as art fiction. My concern is primarily with contemporary novels that allude to two-dimensional works of art, Impressionist figure paintings by Renoir, Manet and Degas in particular. Although my work focuses on literature, I hope this research will also be of interest for art experts, as art fiction does not only re-present a painting to make the reader see it through its description but creates a story around it, and by that delves deeper into the question of possible meanings of an artwork.
The purpose of this study is to analyse the relationship between visual art and contemporary art fiction by addressing the problem of the ekphrastic re-presentation and re-interpretation of an Impressionist figure painting through its composition, selected details of the painting and allusion to specific techniques used in the process of creating the masterpiece based on the examples of the following novels: Luncheon of the Boating Party (LOTBP) by Susan Vreeland (2007), Mademoiselle Victorine (MV) by Debra Finerman (2007), With Violets (WV) by Elizabeth Robards (2008), Dancing for Degas (DFD) by Kathryn Wagner (2010) and The Painted Girls (TPG) by Cathy Marie Buchanan (2013). The reason for choosing the corpus of five novels about Impressionists is twofold: the scope of the study is narrowed down, on the one hand, to a single period of literature and, on the other, to a specific period of art history. The overall aim of reducing of the scope of the corpus of texts is to avoid further risk of the study being too broad and unintentionally ambiguous.
Impressionism1 is probably one of the most popular movements with audiences – it is light, pretty to look at and easy to understand. Barbe-Gall points out that Impressionist paintings do not require prior knowledge and thus offer certain comfort to contemporary viewers who are usually able to “recognise something familiar in the paintings, something they have once experienced, or simply glimpsed, an ordinary situation or a passing sensation” (4). According to Brettell, the main attraction of these “joyous works remains the sense of spontaneity they impart, the pure pleasure they suggest in the artist’s act of looking and in the ability to capture a quick visual impression, seemingly without second thought or the aid of theory” (7). In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, in comparison to the mainstream work of artists accepted by the Institut2 and the Salon, Impressionist paintings looked rushed, incomplete and utterly incompetent, and thus caused bitter opposition and received fierce criticism from both the art critics and the audience. Impressionists step aside from traditionally approved historical or mythological subjects and find theirs in everyday ‘real’ life. They depict what they see and illustrate their subjective point of view. The work that emerges from this personal vision becomes rather relative.3 It is both the subject itself and the effects of the natural light on this subject that interests Impressionists and makes them rethink and adjust the manner they paint and by implication the dynamics of the painting process. According to Baxandall, Impressionism offers “canvases that [play] on a tension between an openly dabbed-on plane surface and a rendering of sense-impressions of seen objects that put emphasis on their hues” (45). The practical innovation of ready-made paint in tubes was one of the reasons why Impressionists could paint much more quickly than their predecessors and were able to take their work outdoors. They developed various techniques – visible brush strokes, impasto, alla prima, en plein air – and tried to adapt them in order to reveal the subject through soft forms, representing a shimmering texture of light, fostering an illusion of movement and depicting the instancy of a ‘real’ moment of modern life. Many talented artists are known as Impressionists and although there are certain similarities in their philosophy of painting, their works appear materially different – the style and preferred subject matters of each painter can be clearly distinguished. Therefore, Impressionism cannot be reduced to just a few aspects and be spoken about in general terms – each painter should be studied individually.
Impressionism has been so popularised through countless reproductions on posters, calendars, napkins, umbrellas, chocolate boxes and the like that people are sometimes surrounded by Impressionist art without even knowing it. Now Impressionist paintings and painters are subjected to another form of recycling – they penetrate the pages of art fiction. In the last ten years many contemporary writers (Vreeland, Finerman, Robards, Wagner, Buchanan, Cowell, Oliveira, Figes, Lasky, Scott Chessman, Gibbon – to name just a few) have turned to the subject of Impressionism, creating portrayals of famous Impressionists and their models, developing the stories of their relationships, yet also focusing on re-presentation (by describing the process of their creation and exploring it from both the artist’s and the model’s perspectives) and interpretation of the artworks. Analysis of ekphrastic re-presentation of an Impressionist artwork is particularly interesting in view of the fact that in Impressionist painting attention is diverted from separate details to the overall effect of the image, yet it is usually the composition and the details of the painting that help to re-present the visual source verbally. The aim of this study is therefore to examine how Impressionist figure paintings are re-presented through the composition of the painting and selected details and how such re-presentation affects the re-interpretation of an artwork alluded to in the narrative as well as the understanding of an extant work of art.
Chapter Two lays out the theoretical dimensions of the research, addressing the question of the visual and the verbal and emphasising the complementary function of arts. It examines the idea that the semiotic duality of an intermedial artefact facilitates close interaction between spatiality and temporality and by doing so creates great potential for generating new meanings in a cultural product, thus leading to new interpretations. There are different ways of manifesting visual arts within a literary text; however, the present analysis focuses solely on the actual subject matter captured directly in both media, bringing ekphrasis and the variety of ekphrastic relationships into the primary focus in contemporary art fiction. The first section presents a brief diachronic overview of the evolution of the definition of ekphrasis (Webb, Lessing, Heffernan, Krieger, Mitchell, Cheeke, Clüver, Yacobi). The study suggests a contemporary reading of the phenomenon of ekphrasis based on the tripartite principle of the representation of an art object and its multiple re-interpretations and proposes to define ekphrasis as a verbal re-presentation and re-interpretation of a visual representation (painting). The chapter moves on to consider the diversity of ekphrastic relationships by introducing several typologies of word-image relations (Hollander, Heffernan, Yacobi, Torgovnick, Robillard, Sager Eidt). I adapt and challenge the existing categories of ekphrasis by making them more specific for my study and finally elaborate a framework of intermedial interaction (communicative, re-presentational and interpretative categories) that is further applied to the study of selected contemporary art fiction narratives. While the communicative category is concerned with paratexts of contemporary art fiction, the re-presentational category focuses on ekphrastic descriptions of details, composition and the process of creation of an artwork, and the interpretive category considers perception and interpretation of a painting as well as meta-commentary on art movements in general provided by the story’s actants. In the chapters that follow I will examine different types of ekphrasis as well as their combinations in the novels in order to analyse to what extent the visual source is used in the text, which aspects of it are highlighted, which are omitted altogether, what is added and why. The overall objective of this research is to examine if and how art fiction influences the way the painting is perceived and to determine what effects the transmission of a painting through one or several ekphrastic categories (communicative, re-presentational or interpretative) has on its general understanding.
Chapter Three concentrates on the communicative category and analyses how the co-presence of media is established in the paratextual zone (Genette) of contemporary art fiction, with main focus being on the verbal and visual elements of the book cover. This chapter promotes the approach of judging the book by its cover. As the first manifestation of an intermedial artefact the book cover frames the future reading of the text. It provides the reader with verbal (the name of the author, title, genre indication, press blurbs) and visual (cover illustrations) information that aims to attract attention to the product, establish a relationship with a potential reader, encouraging the reader to interpret the conveyed meaning of the literary work in question, and eventually to persuade the reader to purchase the book. In this chapter, it will be argued that in the case of art fiction based on extant works of art, the book cover becomes a manifestation of the intermedial nature of the product (referring to the content of the book, naming or illustrating the characters, or alluding to the artist, an artwork or an artistic movement in general), often giving the reader an opportunity to engage with an art object both visually and verbally and thus activating new reading skills. I will analyse the form in which the textual and iconic images appear, the location of the image and the text, their referents and their inter-relationship on the front and back covers. The main purpose of this research is therefore to study the role of the book covers of art fiction, to interpret the functions of displayed verbal and visual elements and, most importantly, to examine the effects they produce.
The fourth chapter focuses on the re-presentation of visual sources in art fiction. Contemporary writers tend to take the reader on a journey around the painting and show it gradually coming to life. That is why in this section I examine how the artwork is re-presented through the process of its making – considering the labour that goes into a creation (obtaining inspiration, finding locations and models, choosing colours, applying paints, confirming composition, considering details, dealing with the problems of artistic creation and the like). I will argue that by narrating the process of making, the novelists – delving deeper into the images and their stories – on the one hand accentuate the dynamic and experimental activity of art making and draw attention to the fact that artworks are neither really static nor unchanging, while on the other, by examining the artist’s intentions in the process of creating an artwork, suggest a new narrative interpretation of the image.
As the central element of a figure painting is a human model, the process of making an artwork naturally involves posing. During the modelling process, the reader is introduced to the model as an element of a painting. However, in art fiction models also have the ability to move within and beyond a given artwork, live and act on and off the canvas, interact directly with the creator (thus becoming a mediator between the creator and the artwork), discuss the intended meaning of an artwork and even influence the resulting representation. On this basis I propose and further examine a hypothesis that the model performs a threefold function in the narrative, being 1) a human subject with a life outside the canvas, 2) an object of the painting, and thus a representation of art itself, and 3) a co-creator of the end product or an artist tout court. My analysis is divided into two sections, firstly addressing Renoir’s boating party in LOTBP (Alphonse, Alphonsine, Jeanne, Aline, Angèle, Antonio, Gustave, Ellen, Charles, Jules), and, secondly considering the opportunists, dancers and lovers who pose for Manet and Degas (Victorine (MV), Berthe (WV), Marie (TPG) and Alexandrie (DFD)). In this research I aim to study how the models contribute to the creation and interpretation of the artworks and how the modelling process described in the narrative helps to re-present the painting.
The chapter moves on to consider the re-presentation of fragments (selected details, compositional components and colour) of Impressionist figure paintings and the role they play in art fictional narratives. By describing or alluding to the details of the painting, contemporary writers take control of the selective process, guide the reader’s attention and eventually affect his/her visual perception of an artwork. I will discuss both the limitations of this guiding principle and the advantages of creating new effects en route of exploring the artwork, analysing the impact these effects exert on the reader. Further I examine which details tend to be singled out in Impressionist figure paintings, analyse them as focal points of the re-presentation, and analyse how they assist in re-presenting and contextualising the painting in its socio-historical and cultural settings as well as how they affect the visual perception and influence the interpretation of an artwork in contemporary ekphrasis. Finally, in view of one of Impressionism’s main concerns, I distinguish colour as a significant component of re-presentation and track the meaning that is assigned to colour in art fiction. I argue that the description of colour solution allows the novelists to re-direct the reader’s attention to specific details and to refer to the style and painting techniques of the artist, and thus reinforce the idea of creation, enhance the experience of ‘seeing’ and enrich the aesthetic value of the re-presentation as a whole.
Finally, the fifth chapter investigates how the re-presented artworks are perceived and interpreted by various actants and how the Impressionist art movement in general is commented upon in the narratives. The use of actually existing works of art in fiction allows novelists to explore and recycle ready-made interpretations of the image and, by using them as a foundation, create new meanings of a re-presentation. However, regardless of the derivation (ready-made or newly created) of the meaning, it is generally conditioned by a certain framework used for viewing art pieces and is thus determined by art historical method. The discussion will include the most popular and influential art historical methods usually used in regard to Impressionist paintings, such as connoisseurial (or biographical), formalist, iconographical, Marxist, social art history and feminist methods. This part will examine which approaches the novelists apply and in which combinations, what effects they create in the narrative and, most importantly, if and how they embellish the understanding of the re-presentation. Therefore, central questions raised within the interpretive category are: who are the transmitters; what type of transmission is offered; how do interpretations given by characters differ, and what impacts do they exert?
Within this section I will focus on the issue of the perceived versus intended meaning of an artwork, considering a painting to be a visual form of communication between a sender-artist and a receiver-viewer, in which the viewer is invited to decode or translate the message the artist has intended to send. The study will show how meaning making occurs in fictional visual communication, and suggest that the perceived meaning of an artwork is relative to the artist’s intentions, standard conventions, established systems of painting, familiar socio-cultural circumstances, and the viewer’s aesthetic values and ability to interpret. Moreover, it will draw a conclusion as to how the meaning given to re-presentation supplements the way the original extant artwork is perceived and interpreted. Furthermore, this chapter focuses on the paintings viewed on display (in either museum spaces or the painter’s studio) and the resulting multiple interpretations. The analysis intends to explain how the spatial distance dictated by museum culture (the viewer’s inability to touch the object), the temporal distance established via the separation of an object from the artist’s labour (experiencing the ready-made artwork not in the process of its creation) and the viewer’s emotional and aesthetic distance to the art object influence the understanding of the art piece.
In addition, I will explore the effectiveness of making characters revisit the same image and look at collections in the narratives. The discussion will centre on the re-presentation of Impressionism through the interpretation of artworks of several artists. It will argue that the novels introduce the readers to a heterogeneous group of painters, allowing readers to see the contrast between the individual styles, techniques, depicted subjects and artists’ intentions, and hence enrich the assembled collection of re-presented artworks, on the one hand, and extend the reader’s knowledge about the Impressionist art movement in general on the other. Additionally, this section investigates the historical and socio-cultural re-presentation of Impressionism through the medium of art criticism illustrated in the novels, seeing it as an ekphrastic meta-commentary on both a specific work of art and art movement. It is interesting to see how a combination of historically accurate settings, factual knowledge of Impressionism, authentic information about the paintings and fictional stories around them complement each other and eventually manipulate the reader’s understanding of the re-presentations. Ultimately, this study deliberates the question whether contemporary art fiction, which re-presents and interprets actually existing works of art through the lens of contemporary culture, can be considered a new guide to understanding art, acknowledged as a distant form of art history, seen as a contemporary aesthetic discipline or simply regarded as an à la mode intermedial product.
Chapter 2. Intermediality: Narrative Texts and Visual Arts
2.1.Visual and Verbal Overstepping of Boundaries
[P]ainting and writing have much to tell each other; they have much in common. The novelist after all wants to make us see. (Woolf 22)
Visual art has never been as quantitatively and qualitatively available as in the twenty-first century. Due to its accessibility beyond the traditional gallery walls, art has become a desired, inseparable part of one’s everyday life. It is no longer possible to speak about an artwork being unique, nor is it necessary to go to the gallery to see the original, as “the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction” (Berger 21). Not only are the most famous masterpieces copied, photographed and reproduced, but due to the advent of online galleries, they are also visible on a round-the-clock stage. The fact that works of art are reproducible and easily accessible allows for them to be used and recycled in many possible ways. Therefore, it is not surprising that visual art penetrates the works of contemporary writers, whose texts serve as representative examples of intermedial relations between visual works of art (paintings) and narrative texts.
However, the semiotic differences between the two media have given cause for serious concern among scholars: “A great concern with the production and understanding of painting as a visual text to be decoded seems to lie at the heart of the [contemporary] novel, constituting as it does one particular form of a general epistemological questioning” (Wagner, Icons – Texts – Iconotexts 9). This concern demands that the very concept of intermediality be defined. Wolf proposes two definitions of intermediality: an ‘intracompositional’ definition that dislimits intermediality in a narrow sense while focusing on “the participation of more than one medium within a human artefact” (“Relevance of Mediality and Intermediality” 19) and, opposing it, an ‘extracompositional’ definition of intermediality, which, taken in a broad sense, “applies to any transgression of boundaries between conventionally distinct media […] and thus comprises both ‘intra-’ and ‘extra-compositional’ relations between different media” (19). Intermediality in its narrow sense deals with a concrete cultural product and its functions in a literary text, such as in evocative descriptions of a work of art, formal imitation through structural analogies to an artwork, reproduction or re-presentation of a work of art, and discussions about it within a novel (32). Since the ‘intracompositional’ definition of intermediality presupposes directing all attention to the actual subject matter captured directly in both media, it is more suitable for the purposes of the present study, which brings the variety of ekphrastic relationships in contemporary art fiction into sharper focus.
In the same vein, in discussing intermediality, Horst emphasises not only the idea of the “fusion of the different media” (19), but also recognition of the fact that a combination of two media gives birth to something new (19). In general, therefore, it seems that an artefact that integrates two or more medial forms may be regarded as intermedial, and can be expected to produce new meaning in a cultural product in any given medium. However, since each medium carries a dissimilar semiotic system in itself, any combination of media inevitably provides potential for new interpretations. Wolf maintains that in the process of framing and transmitting information, media extend and intensify the message as well as become an integral part of its meaning:
In fact, media inevitably channel and shape information, and in the process of communication this is as relevant for the sender as for the recipient. From the point of view of the sender, this shaping quality of media manifests itself in the fact that, with reference to similar contents, different media can function as limiting filters but can also provide powerful extension and intensification. From the point of view of the recipient, media possess tendencies that prestructure certain expectations. Thus one will not always expect illustrations within the covers of a new novel but would be surprised if a film consisted entirely of moving pictures, sounds and music without verbal text. This shows that media function not only as a material basis for transmission purposes but also as cognitive frames for authors as well as recipients and are therefore not merely a neutral means of communication but, indeed, part of the message itself. (“Relevance of Mediality and Intermediality” 22)
Hence, the value of the form of the medium is enormous; it constructs, develops and regulates the meaning: “Form is constitutive of content and not just a reflection of it” (Eagleton 67). By merging different semiotic forms, the sender transfers the meaning from one semiotic system into another and by doing so disrupts the conventional homogeneous practice of producing meaning; this, in turn, is relevant to each of the forms independently, and bewilders the receiver by applying heterogeneous or multiple perspectives to the construction of meaning. Albers points out that
[…] uniting word and image and merging them into a new type of work will at first have a confusing and even defamiliarising effect on the reader, an effect that will eventually be evened out when new meaning is created from the merged product. This new meaning is unique and impossible to construct from non-intermedial works, which points at the salient possibilities that intermediality can provide. (19)
However, the combination of the verbal and visual elements has not always been treated as a mutually profitable alliance. The most eminent supporters of the idea of disruption of the unity of arts are known to be Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1482) and Lessing (1766). Both set clear limits to the verbal and the visual: da Vinci delineates an opposition of eye and ear; Lessing suggests the dichotomy of space and time, which correspond to painting and literature respectively. Their oppositions contradict Horace’s tradition of ut pictura poesis (“as a painting, so a poem”) and, as a result, deny analogies between painting and literature. Moreover, da Vinci and Lessing believe in the inferiority of one of the arts to another – da Vinci subordinates literature to painting, whereas Lessing subordinates painting to literature. The latter refers to the visual arts as fundamentally spatial in that their “signs or means of imitation can be combined only in space” (Lessing 90). Furthermore, he defines the verbal arts as fundamentally temporal due to the fact that their signs “can express only objects which succeed each other … in time” (90). In other words, the natural barrier between visual arts and literary texts is manifested through the unequal nature of the method of the perception of ultimate artefacts. In effect, one is perceived simultaneously in space, the other successively in time. Although Lessing’s distinction between space and time has been challenged by a number of art critics and art historians, its validity cannot be denied – one art can never faithfully mirror another: “Writing cannot represent the visible, but it can desire and, in a manner of speaking, move towards the visible without actually achieving the unambiguous directness of an object seen before one’s eyes” (Said 101). Speaking to the profound difference between words and images, Mitchell sees their relationship as essentially paragonal, a contest for dominance between the visual and verbal arts:
[D]ifferences between words and images seem fundamental. They are not merely different kinds of creatures, but antithetical kinds. They attract to their contest all the dualism that takes as one of its projects a unified theory of the arts, an “aesthetics” which aspires to a synoptic view of artistic signs, a “semiotics” which hopes to comprehend all signs whatsoever. […] Words and images seem inevitably to become implicated in a “war of signs” (what Leonardo called a paragone) in which the stakes are things like nature, truth, reality, or the human spirit. (1)
Comparative work in the field of intermedial studies of literature and art aims to breach the historical boundaries between verbal and visual arts by focusing on the complementary function of different forms of art. As Mukařovský notes: “the real development of art shows that every art sometimes strives to overstep its boundaries by assimilating itself to another art” (207). Even if arts do not assimilate to one another, they do complement each other by offering new productive approaches and additional resources, thus enriching each other. Unity and complementary interrelation of arts is what interests Hagstrum, who uses the metaphor of kinship when referring to word and image relationship as sister arts. By the same token, Meyers points out the advantages of aesthetic analogies between literature and the visual arts:
Aesthetic analogies express this inherent relationship of the arts, and add a new dimension of richness and complexity to the novel by extending the potentialities of fiction to include the representational characteristics of the visual arts. The novel is essentially a linear art, which presents a temporal sequence of events, while painting fixed reality and produces simultaneity of experience. Evocative comparisons with works of art attempt to transcend the limitations of fiction and to transform successive moments into immediate images. (1)
Although both painting and text may recount stories, the key difference between visual and verbal forms of representation remains. While a painting is capable of visualising subject matter and transmitting its basic content by illustrating detectable objects, a literary text commits to commenting on and interpreting their meaning by contextualising these objects in narrative through the use of ekphrastic descriptions. Even though an image suggests a narrative interpretation through its title, such an interpretation is fairly limited. A verbal representation of the image, on the other hand, allows it to be read narratively; that is, it provides information about the scenery, depicted details or models, their relationship, their life before, during and after the sitting, their reaction to the artwork and the artist’s intentions. As such, the text provides the image with an extended storyline that, instead of being guessed at, develops temporally. Wagner argues that to a reader a painting will “always be more attractive than a text; and yet in order to mean something, it needs mendacious and/or distorting words: a title, an epigraph, a signature, an ekphrasis” (Icons – Texts – Iconotexts 31). Hence, ekphrastic continuation of the story of a painting allows paintings to trespass the spatial-temporal border and turns them into “new verbalised intermedial products” (Albers 22). An implication of the synthesis of two such media, therefore, offers the possibility of a direct encounter between – and open interaction among – spatiality and temporality. Of course, the nature of a given intermedial product, as well as its effect on the reader, may be qualitatively different, depending on how the visual artforms are manifested within a literary text.
First and foremost is the question of whether an artwork referred to in any given text is real or fictional, in other words, whether the text can be supplied by a reproduction of a given image or not. The re-presentation of an existing piece of art might trigger the reader’s curiosity to consult the image (by flicking through the pages to find the reproduction, looking at the book cover, if it contains the image, or even viewing a reproduction of the painting online), which would naturally increase the intensity of intermedial experience. Then again, the way the painting is re-presented in contemporary art fiction – be it through direct or indirect referencing, through the selection, association or interpretation of an artwork, or through individual, complimentary or collective relationships that the artwork develops with other art objects mentioned in the text – influences the level of intermedial sophistication. Indeed, the aesthetic experience of an intermedial hybrid will bear little or no resemblance to the isolated experience of either just looking at a painting or reading a narrative text. New meaning emerges from the combination of two different semiotic systems. According to Albers:
Whereas visual art works are usually claimed to only represent on a surface level, they in fact do create something similar to what narratives achieve in the reader’s minds, and the gaps that appear through the static representation of the painting are then filled in by the beholder. (23)
As a matter of fact, both a reproduction of an image and a narrative text contribute substantially to the general perception of an intermedial artefact by filling in visual as well as textual gaps that might be left open in art fiction. In the case of ekphrasis of an extant artwork, the reader has an opportunity to examine visual and verbal evidence; hence, the reader is no longer expected to rely solely on his/her imagination. A work of art translates a story into a visual form, while pictorial descriptions of an art object allow a back-translation from verbal into visual. Therefore, pictorial elements introduced in a literary work merge intermedial boundaries. Krieger points out the advantages of incorporating a work of art into a literary text:
If an author is seeking to suspend the discourse for an extended, visually appealing descriptive interlude, is he not better off – instead of describing the moving, changing, object in nature – to describe an object that has already interrupted the flow of existence with its spatial completeness, that has already been created as a fixed representation? Surely so: if he would impose a brief sense of being, borrowed from the plastic arts, in the midst of his shifting world of verbal becoming, the already frozen pictorial representation would seem to be a preferred object. His ekphrastic purpose would seem to be better served by its having as its object an artefact that itself not only is in keeping with, but is a direct reflection of, that purpose. Further, if one justification for the verbal description is to have it – for all the uncertainties of its words and our reading of them – complete with the visual object it would describe, the comparison would seem to be stabilized on one side by fixing that object so that, as an actual artefact, it can be appealed to as a constant, unlike our varying perceptual experiences of objects in the world. (“The Problem of Ekphrasis” 8)
Confronted with a representation of an artwork in intermedial form, the reader is therefore exposed to a new, as it were contemporary, experience of producing intermedial meaning, the characteristic feature of which is the possibility of multiple interpretations. As noted by Eco, “every reception of a work of art is both an interpretation and a performance of it, because in every reception the work takes on a fresh perspective for itself […] like the components of a construction kit” (4). Furthermore, McLuhan points out that the moment two media are merged is “a moment of truth and revelation from which new form is born, […] a moment of freedom and release from the ordinary trance and numbness imposed by them on our senses” (55). Therefore, the binary semiotic form of an intermedial product influences the perception of a given re-presentation and leads to diverse re-interpretations. The question is bound to arise as to whether such a hybrid work challenges conventional doctrines of the disciplines involved. With regard to narrative and the visual arts in particular, this challenge might presumably face art historians by urging them to consider intermedial artefacts as possible perceptual and interpretive models of a piece of art. Moreover, as Albers points out, a narrative text can, as a part of a verbal-visual hybrid, “shed additional light on aesthetic topics in that it employs art as taking on different forms and carrying various functions within and beyond the narrative [and can] address several of the reader’s senses through its spatio-temporal extension” (26). In other words, by making an artwork ‘speak’ a narrative text raises pertinent questions not only about the elements of art (line, shape, form, colour, value, texture and space) but also about the meta-textual aspects of painting, such as socio-historical and cultural issues, as well as the functional value of an artistic creation. Consequently, art fiction transfers historical knowledge into fictional discourse and, at the same time, offers a potential re-interpretation of the work of art, which in turn may enrich its original meaning.
The ways visual arts can be incorporated into a verbal medium are myriad. The most common practices of registering the co-presence of text and image in an intermedial artefact based on an extant work of art, however, can be reduced to the following three possibilities: 1) the integration of image reproductions that establish the physical co-presence of the medium; 2) ekphrastic re-presentation through direct or indirect referencing (the description of all or of selected details and association to, e.g., a particular art movement); 3) interpretation given by a story’s actants, whose perception of art not only classifies them into various types of viewer (by revealing their attitudes and opinions) but can also be seen as a meta-commentary on both a specific work of art and, e.g., art movements in general. By considering these intermedial practices, the present study suggests a framework of three categories of intermedial relations. However, before examining perception, re-presentation and interpretation of an artwork in the field of intermediality, it is necessary to make explicit what exactly is meant by ekphrasis and ekphrastic re-presentation, the central concepts in the study of the interaction between verbal and visual media. The following section provides a brief overview of the diachronic evolution of the definition of ekphrasis and the diversity of the intermedial relationship it produces.
2.1.1.Evolution of the Definition of Ekphrasis
There is no consensus on a single definition for the phenomenon commonly referred to as ekphrasis,1 either on its meaning or its function. One of the key problems in providing a single, legitimate definition of ekphrasis is the diversity of word-image relationships it encompasses. Situated in the field of intermediality, and loosely defined as “a particular relation […] between conventionally distinct media of expression or communication” (Wolf, The Musicalization of Fiction 37), ekphrasis allows different types of intermedial interactions, not only between verbal and visual artforms, but also across other media, such as architecture, photography, music2 and cinematography.3 The present study, however, focuses only on intermedial interaction between the verbal and the visual, more precisely, on rendering physically existing paintings (the visual) in the context of contemporary ekphrastic art fiction (the verbal). As Wagner points out: if, in fact, “critics agree at all about ekphrasis, they stress the fact that it has been variously defined and variously used and that the definition ultimately depends on the particular argument to be deployed” (Icons – Texts – Iconotexts 11). This chapter will provide a diachronic overview of various definitions given to ekphrasis and analyse the points of agreement and controversy among scholars.
The word ekphrasis is of Greek origin; according to its etymology it is composed of two Greek words: “ek (out) and phrazein (tell, declare, pronounce)” (Heffernan 191), which renders its meaning as “to speak out” or “to tell in full”. However, the meaning of ekphrasis has undergone many revisions throughout its existence:
First employed as a rhetorical term in the second century A.D. to denote simply a vivid description, it was then (in the third century) made to designate the description of visual art… But it has not been confined to that meaning. In its first recorded appearance in English (1715), it was defined as “a plain declaration or interpretation of a thing” (cited OED), and in a recent handbook of rhetorical terms it is called simply “a self-contained description, often on a commonplace subject, which can be inserted at a fitting place in a discourse…”(Heffernan 191)
The earliest definition of ekphrasis is found in the field of classical rhetoric, and appears in a late classical Greek collection of rhetorical handbooks, called Progymnasmata.4 It is given as “a speech that brings the subject matter vividly before the eyes.”5 The effect of vividness, or enargeia, is seen as a defining quality of ekphrasis and, therefore, as central to its understanding. Enargeia is an “impact on the mind’s eye of the listener who must […] be almost made to see the subject” (Webb, “Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern” 13). In antiquity, ekphrasis was studied to be used as a rhetorical technique (28), as a means of “achieving persuasion [and] altering the listener’s perception of the subject in a way that helped the orator to win their assent” (10). The subjects of ekphrasis (as presented in Progymnasmata) range from descriptions of persons, mute animals, plants, places, events, festivals, times, seasons, states of affairs and the manner in which something is done to descriptions of paintings and statues (56). Hagstrum points out that “[t]he skill to create set descriptions, intended to bring visual reality before the mind’s eye by means of words […] was an admired and fully approved trick of the rhetorician’s trade and as such was a regular scholastic exercise” (29). Therefore, the ultimate goal of ekphrasis as a rhetorical device lies in rendering any given subject into words and delivering it in such a way as to transform the listener into a viewer. Consequently, the referent recedes into the background, being less important than the optimal effect of enargeia produced on the listener:
Enargeia implies the achievement in verbal discourse of a natural quality or of a pictorial quality that is highly natural. Enargeia refers to the actualization of potency, the realization of capacity or capability, the achievement in art and rhetoric of the dynamic and purposive life of nature. (33)
However, when ekphrasis is applied to the field of literary studies, the subject matter draws special attention from scholars, and it is subject to restrictions that are outlined in this chapter. These restrictions are registered in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. In its first (1949) and second (1970) editions, ekphrasis is defined as “the rhetorical description of a work of art, one of the types of progymnasma (rhetorical exercise, q.v.)” (Hammond 377). In the third (1996) and the fourth (2012) editions, it is interpreted as “an extended and detailed literary description of any object, real or imaginary” (Hornblower 495). The difference between ekphrasis as a rhetorical device and ekphrasis as a literary device has been studied by Goehr, who argues that:
Whereas modern ekphrasis, especially from the late nineteenth century on, focuses on artworks and their mediums, ancient ekphrasis focused on speech and written acts performed within a wide range of practices necessary for the education of citizens. Modern ekphrasis focuses on works that bring other works to aesthetic presence; ancient ekphrasis focused on speech acts that brought objects, scenes, or events to imaginary presence. (397)
In other words, the essential difference between the late classical definition and the modern understanding of ekphrasis is that ekphrasis is no longer characterised by an effect on the listener and the metamorphosis of listener into viewer, but rather by its reference to an artefact, more specifically, an artwork.
One of the earliest definitions of ekphrasis as a literary device is provided by Saintsbury in 1908, who interprets it as “a set description intended to bring person, place, picture, etc., vividly before the mind’s eye” (491). By and large, Saintsbury’s interpretation resembles the understanding of ekphrasis as a rhetorical device that aims to make the reader envision a given subject; not only is the subject matter not clearly defined, but the pictorial source – if that is what is meant by “picture” – is not separated from any other object that can be described verbally. In 1955 Spitzer makes ekphrasis more specific by giving it a more restricted definition: “the poetic description of a pictorial or sculptural work of art, whose description implies […] ‘une transposition d’art’, the reproduction, through the medium of words, of sensuously perceptible objets d’art” (218). Krieger delimits the subject matter as “a pictorial or sculptural work of art”, yet at the same time he limits ekphrasis, claiming that it pertains to only one form of literature. Spitzer’s interpretation is later commented on by Krieger, who says that “[e]kphrasis, according to this definition, clearly presupposes that one art, poetry, is defining its mission through its dependence on the mission of another art – painting, sculpture, or others” (Ekphrasis: The Illusionof the Natural Sign 6). Initially, Krieger (1967) interprets ekphrasis as “the imitation in literature of a work of plastic art” (“Ekphrasis and the Still Movement of Poetry” 265), thus emphasising the importance of ekphrasis as going beyond only poetry and, later on, insisting on extending “the range of possible ekphrastic objects by re-connecting ekphrasis to all ‘word-painting’” (Ekphrasis: The Illusionof the Natural Sign 9). Krieger’s definition is later rephrased by Piltz and Åström, who claim that “ekphrasis is a descriptive discourse that clearly brings before our eyes the things, persons or actions depicted […] [it] is a word-picture” (50). However, Krieger develops his original definition, becoming more explicit about what is meant by plastic art: “I use ekphrasis (as it has commonly been used for some time), to refer to the attempted imitation in words of an object of the plastic arts, primarily painting or sculpture” (Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign 4). A further interpretation is suggested by Bender, who refers to ekphrasis as a “literary description of real or imagined works of visual art” (51). By the same token, Kurman identifies ekphrasis as “the description in verse of an art object” (1); Weisstein correspondingly interprets it as “literary works describing specific works of art” (23), while Howatson states that ekphrasis is a “type of rhetorical exercise taking the form of a description of a work of art” (203).
Description, une transposition d’art, reproduction, imitation and descriptive discourse – these are the words that are used frequently to define ekphrasis. The scholars quoted above emphasise description as the main function of ekphrasis, agreeing that an ekphrastic text contains a description of an artwork (physically existing or fictitious) that is reproduced or imitated through the medium of words. However, understanding ekphrasis as having a merely descriptive function is rather limited and misleading as it ignores the interpretative potential of ekphrasis, which in turn suggests another way of perceiving an artwork via a literary text. The art historian David Carrier tries to draw a distinction between ekphrastic description and interpretation:
An ekphrasis tells the story represented, only incidentally describing pictorial composition. An interpretation gives a systematic analysis of composition. Ekphrases are not concerned with visual precedents. Interpretations explain how inherited schema [sic] are modified. An ekphrasis only selectively indicates details; an interpretation attends to seemingly small points, which may, indeed, change how we see the picture as a whole when they are analysed. An interpretation treats the picture as an image, and so tells both what is represented and how it is represented. (21)
Although he admits that ekphrasis incidentally refers to details of pictorial composition, he does not believe that ekphrastic description of carefully selected details can create and/or influence the interpretation of an artwork. In other words, and similarly to many other scholars, Carrier separates ekphrastic texts from Bildgedicht texts (Kranz).6 This distinction may sound plausible in theory; however, it fails to function in practice due to the simple fact that the act of describing involves an inherently interpretative function. Description becomes a means of representing an artwork and it is affected by many factors, including the subjective opinion of the viewer, the general understanding of the composition of an artwork, the ability to relate to the period of its creation and interpret the encoded meanings. The attempt to represent verbally what is represented in a pictorial source, without knowing the original intention of the artist, leads to the creation of new meanings and therefore new interpretations of the artwork. As such, it may affect the way it is perceived by others. In Oscar Wilde’s essay “The Critic as Artist”, one of the characters, Gilbert, discusses assigning new meanings to a painting and suggests the following:
And so the picture becomes more wonderful to us than it really is, and reveals to us a secret of which, in truth, it knows nothing […]. It treats the work of art simply as a starting-point for a new creation. It does not confine itself […] to discovering the real intention of the artist and accepting that as final. And in this it is right, for the meaning of any beautiful created thing is, at least, as much in the soul of him who looks at it, as it was in his soul who wrought it. Nay, it is rather the beholder who lends to the beautiful thing its myriad meanings, and makes it marvellous for us, and sets it in some new relation to the age, so that it becomes a vital portion of our lives, and a symbol of what we pray for, or perhaps of what, having prayed for, we fear that we may receive. (985)
Therefore, ekphrasis is an example of both “the creative act itself – through the Greek mimesis, imitating, copying – and of the secondary critical act of commentary, description, revelation” (Cheeke 185). Similarly, Sager Eidt applies an “expanded definition of ekphrasis as an interpretive tool” (10) and demonstrates how “different genres in either modality influence the way the reader or viewer reconstructs the implications of a work of art” (10). Such an understanding of ekphrasis is crucial for the further analysis of texts in the present study, where the term ekphrasis is used to refer to texts in which a pictorial source is described and interpreted.
One of the most influential and widely cited definitions of ekphrasis has been formulated by Heffernan, who interprets it as “the verbal representation of a visual representation” (3). On the one hand, by regarding ekphrasis as “verbal representation”, Heffernan departs from seeing it as exclusively descriptive. On the other, he limits ekphrastic practice to works of representational art. Heffernan points out that his definition
excludes a good deal of what some critics would have ekphrasis include – namely literature about texts. It also allows us to distinguish ekphrasis from two other ways of mingling literature and the visual arts: pictorialism and iconicity. What distinguishes those two things from ekphrasis is that both of them aim chiefly to represent natural objects and artifacts rather than works of representational art. (3)
In seeing ekphrasis as a “narrative response to pictorial stasis” (4), Heffernan disagrees with Krieger’s understanding of ekphrasis as a device used to “interrupt the temporality of discourse, to freeze it during its indulgence in spatial exploration” (Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign 7). He also disagrees with Krieger’s idea that “language – in spite of its arbitrary character and its temporality – freeze[s] itself into a spatial form” (“The Problem of Ekphrasis” 5). This applies equally to Steiner, who defines ekphrasis as the “mode of representing temporal events as action stopped at its climactic moment” (Pictures of Romance 13), or a pregnant moment “in which a poem aspires to the atemporal ‘eternity’ of the stopped-action painting” (13-14). Conversely, Heffernan recognises ekphrasis as “dynamic and obstetric” (5) and argues that it “typically delivers from the pregnant moment of visual arts its embryonically narrative impulse, and thus makes explicit the story that visual art tells only by implication” (5). According to Heffernan, “[t]o represent a painting or sculptured figure in words is to evoke its power – the power to fix, excite, amaze, entrance, disturb, or intimidate the viewer” (7). The storytelling impulse of ekphrasis is closely allied to its interpretative nature, namely, that of creating new meanings and giving new interpretations to an artwork. The work of art is integrated into the narrative process to such an extent that it acquires life of its own and shows its meaning from a different perspective.
Heffernan’s theory has attracted many followers, one of whom is Clüver, who modifies the original definition of ekphrasis by accepting the first part – “verbal representation” – but introducing major changes in the second. Clüver’s definition of ekphrasis becomes: “the verbal representation of a real or fictitious text composed in a non-verbal sign system” (“Ekphrasis Reconsidered” 26, emphasis in original). This definition clearly expands the range of the objects for ekphrastic representation; “it covers architecture, as well as […] music and non-narrative dance” (26). One year later Clüver reformulates his definition by replacing “verbal representation” with “verbalization”: “ekphrasis is the verbalization of real or fictitious text composed in a non-verbal sign system” (“Quotation, Enargeia” 49, emphasis in original). He validates this final adjustment by differentiating between “verbalization” and “verbal representation”:
Verbalization is a form of verbal re-presentation that consists of more than a name or a title […]. The verbalization may form part of a larger piece of writing or, as in the case of a number of Bildgedichte, may constitute the entire text. It can take forms that are not descriptive in a conventional way; but as verbalization it would retain a certain degree of enargeia. (45)
Thus, verbalization has less of a connection to mimesis than verbal representation, but at the same time is still linked to enargeia, a concept central to ekphrasis. Among Heffernan’s other followers is Blackhawk, who regards ekphrasis as “verbal description of a visual representation” (1) and Bilman, who maintains that ekphrasis is “the verbal representation of a visual work of art” (1). However, due to the variety of texts that can be grouped under the rubric of ekphrastic writing, as well as a growing number of au courant inter-art encounters in ekphrastic practice, the modern approach to ekphrasis is based on an understanding that there cannot be only one exclusive definition. Therefore, Yacobi extends the concept of ekphrasis by referring to it as an umbrella term that “subsumes various forms of rendering the visual object into words” (“Pictorial Models” 600). By the same token, Robillard refrains from interpreting ekphrasis at all, mentioning the possible risks of working towards a single definition:
One of the risks of trying to arrive at single definition of ekphrasis, then, is that these immediately define the boundaries of both art and literature, neither of which have, in the course of their history, proven particularly stable entities. (54)
