Ekphrasis

This paper considers the nexus between creative and critical thinking in the making of original work as it relates to what Susan Sontag calls ‘an ethics of seeing’. In particular, it examines a way of expressing this thinking in terms of grammar and method (syntax, vocabulary, drawing, inventory, cartography), and how the structure or genre of the work emerges from, or out of the act of writing, both critically and creatively. ‘Parsing an Ethics of Seeing’ posits and presents possible approaches where the form of writing is in keeping with subject matter, in this case, an interrogation of absence and presence as poetic response in concert with what Roland Barthes calls ‘that-has-been’. It begins with the tongue and a drawing of a mother in ICU as referenced in the novel-cum-memoir Bite Your Tongue and ends with photographs of a father's body the day before he dies, which forms part of a ‘mer-mer’ or memoir-in-progress. Through language and grammar, the to and fro of sound and silence as Hélène Cixous thinks of it, and in a digressive and circumambulatory manner, this paper probes ‘what to look at’ and ‘how to think’.

This paper focuses on Lars Von Trier΄s Melancholia in a double relation, with his previous filmography and with disaster film genre, investigating how Melancholia stands apart from both series of film, both Trier΄s and the apocalyptic genre.

The paper aims to investigate the lecture given by Günther Anders of John Heartfield’s peculiar art of expressionistic montage, in 1938, focusing the connections between aesthetics and politics. The role of the photomontage is, following this text, to put on the surface the reality which is hired under the cover. In this sense, so Anders, Heartfield’s photomontage is a falsification, aimed to reveal the truth. It does not mean a hoax, in order to trick, but rather a way to show the real connections between the things of the world.

La poetologia della conoscenza di Heinrich von Kleist si configura come un viaggio nella mente umana, nelle sue capacità conoscitive e immaginative, nelle sue labilità e nei suoi trascendimenti. La totalità romantica è infranta e il linguaggio è il materiale magmatico di attraversamento del reale e della mente: in ciò si esprime un progetto epistemico che, muovendo dall’orizzonte biologico della corporeità, si realizza, in virtù della forza poietica del linguaggio, nella narrazione.

To consider the specifics of ekphrasis at the present time offers a welcome opportunity to review some of the commonplaces that remain tenaciously attached to ekphrasis studies. The most tedious of these is a " narrow notion " (Johnston et al. 2015: 1) of ekphrasis which adheres to its standard definition as " the verbal representation of visual representation " (Heffernan 1993, 1). Many theorists now feel that a critical revision of this limited idea of " representation of representation " is long overdue (Kennedy 2012: 7). Moreover, the narrow concept of ekphrasis foregrounds its intermedial quality by insisting on the binary opposition between two sign systems. In introducing Visual Culture studies almost three decades ago, W.J.T. Mitchell deconstructed the dichotomy of visual and verbal, claiming that all meaning arises from the interplay of visual and verbal and all media are mixed media (Mitchell 1994: 5, 161). If these two modes are always inextricably mixed, then the above definition by James Heffernan is reductive. A broader view of ekphrasis would take account of an expanded domain of visual images available for ekphrastic writing as well as of the fact that it is not a visual representation being represented but the perception of a visual image that is translated into verbal form (Barbetti 2011: 11). By concentrating on recent instances, the present volume shifts the focus from a difference between sign systems or characteristic features to an interest in adaptive and collaborative processes. It no longer concentrates on representation but rather on cultural performance. This shift in interest and interpretive frame is occasioned partly by the changes in ekphrastic practice due to digital technologies and by the attendant need to revise theoretical considerations. Semiotic or representational considerations are no longer adequate to what is going on in a large and multifarious field and should give way to concepts that perceive phenomena like ekphrasis not as static entities, but as cultural agents with the power to elicit certain effects and to perform certain functions. By understanding ekphrasis as a performative gesture, we can avoid the contested representational inflection as well as the need to define visual content. A performative approach to cultural analysis in general understands culture not as a container of works and texts but as a fluid network of processes and events made up of embodied practices that impact on society. In other words, the approach avoids a purely media-centred examination and directs attention to what ekphrastic agency achieves for the text, the reader and the wider cultural field (Brosch 2015).

Viajero incansable, Rubén Darío (1867-1916) se establece en Buenos Aires por un lustro, desde 1893 hasta 1898. El período argentino es de una riqueza extraordinaria en su producción literaria. En Buenos Aires Darío publica dos de sus obras consagratorias, Prosas profanas y Los raros, pero escribe además para una multitud de periódicos rioplatenses. Este volumen compila una serie poco conocida de crónicas darianas dedicadas a la tercera exposición de arte del Ateneo de Buenos Aires. Como homenaje a cien años de su fallecimiento esta tarea de rescate de sus textos pretende impulsar nuevas investigaciones en los archivos y ofrecer una compresión más acabada de un género insistente en su producción cronística, la crítica de arte.

This article examines Marina Tsvetaeva's modernist perception of the personality and paintings of the greatest representative of the Russian avant-garde of the 20th century in the essay "Natalia Goncharova. Life and Work" ("Наталья Гончарова. Жизнь и творчество", 1929). Goncharova's paintings that Tsvetaeva describes in her essay are indicated. The principles of modernist poetics and ekphrasis are revealed (lyrical subjectivism, ontology, consonance, anagrammatic disclosure of the inner form of a word, mythologization, reader co-creation, dialogism). The similarity between Tsvetaeva's understanding of painting and poetry is compared to the ontological understanding of art by Martin Heidegger. This can be explained by the tradition of ontological poetry (Friedrich Hölderlin and Rainer Maria Rilke), which is important for both. The ontology of Goncharova’s painting is also considered in the context of the ontology of animals in Russian philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century (Vasily Rozanov) and in the Tahitian Painting of Paul Gauguin. Special attention is paid to ekphrastic poetics (style, tropes, consonance), with the help of which Tsvetaeva authentically transfers the ontologism of Goncharov’s painting in its stylistic diversity (cubism, neo-primitivism, rayonism) to the verbal level. Tsvetaeva and Goncharova in the respective Russian and European context (Gauguin, Rozanov, Heidegger, Rilke) appear as exponents of the ontological turn in the culture of the first half of the 20th century.

Аннотация: Георг Гейм-поэт, стоявший у истоков экспрессионистской лирики и заложивший основы поэтики этого направления. Его творчество, однако, является малоисследованным в российском научном пространстве. Одной из основных особенностей поэзии экспрессионизма было обширное использование цвета и цветовых метафор. Они были главным инструментом передачи смысла, настроения, тона стихотворения. В нашем исследовании мы осуществили попытку сопоставительного анализа раннего и позднего творчества Г. Гейма на предмет использования цветовых метафор с целью проследить эволюцию приема и динамику его развития. Также в задачи работы входило установление изменений в цветовых предпочтениях. Анализ проводился на примере 294 стихотворений раннего и позднего периодов творчества. Ключевые слова: Георг Гейм, экспрессионизм, цветовая метафора, XX в., символика цвета

Résumé
La partie « Nom de pays : le pays » dans À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs se passe en Normandie. Quelle est son importance et quel rôle assume-t-elle dans l’œuvre ? Nous examinerons des passages de certains écrits de Proust et des extraits de la critique proustienne concernant ce sujet. L’objectif est de faire émerger les impressions que cette terre évoque dans l’œuvre proustienne.
En réalité, la Normandie de À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs peut être considérée comme une galerie d’art: un véritable musée d’œuvres impressionnistes représentant les paysages normands. Certains personnages même du roman sont présentés à travers une sorte de regard impressionniste. Pouvons-nous donc parler de Proust comme écrivain impressionniste ?
Dans la partie centrale de notre étude, nous analyserons trois tableaux littéraires tirés de À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs : la description de la Gare Saint Lazare (JFF, p. 6), trait d’union entre Paris et la Normandie, la description d’une falaise normande (JFF, p. 254-255) et la description du Port de Carquethuit (JFF, p. 192-193). Ces passages seront analysés et comparés respectivement à trois tableaux de Monet : La Gare Saint-Lazare, Claude Monet, 1877, (Musée d’Orsay), L’Aiguille et la falaise d’Aval, Claude Monet, 1885, (Massachusetts Musee Giverny) et Bateaux dans le port de Honfleur, Claude Monet, 1866, (Musée Marmottan Monet).
Nous présenterons enfin les résultats des analyses des significations des lieux dans les transpositions littéraires et figuratives « impressionnistes » de Proust et Monet.

En el mundo cultural del Siglo de Oro tiene lugar una fuerte resurrección de la hermandad entre pictura y poesis, que alcanza una gran difusión en un amplio abanico de alcances, formas y funciones. Por ello, la pintura —todavía más que otras artes— constituye una clave fundamental para acercarse a la poesía de Quevedo, una perspectiva de lectura que permite tanto perfilar asuntos ya trillados como descubrir algunas dimensiones novedosas. Entre otras cuestiones muy variopintas, una mirada a la luz de la pintura permite acercarse a cuatro aspectos de la poesía quevediana: con el aval inicial de las relaciones de Quevedo con el arte pictórico, se examina una galería de poemas artísticos imbricados en la política del momento para pasar seguidamente al canon pictórico preferido por el poeta en relación con su propia práctica poética y, finalmente, se ofrece una revisión de la participación de Quevedo en las polémicas pictóricas de la época a partir de la silva «El pincel» y una empresa editorial como botones de muestra. Al final del recorrido, Quevedo se delinea como un poeta muy cercano —tanto en ideas como imágenes— al universo de la pintura de su tiempo y especialmente amigo del arte ita - liano, que aprovecha con gran partido en su obra.

A arte contemporânea representa um desafio novo na tradição da écfrase. A abertura irrestrita das linguagens e temas leva-nos a questionar como a transposição dessa arte pode torná-la presente para o leitor. A partir da análise de duas narrativas contemporâneas – Não há lugar para a lógica em Kassel (2015), de Enrique Vila-Matas, e O museu da inocência (2011a), de Orhan Pamuk –, em que a écfrase desempenha papel fundamental, esta pesquisa de doutorado busca entender até que ponto as mudanças no universo das artes visuais levam à necessidade de atualizar a teorização existente a respeito da écfrase. Chegamos a duas categorias que buscam iluminar pontos relevantes da écfrase de arte contemporânea, sem se restringirem a ela e sem inviabilizar o uso concomitante de demais categorizações existentes. Falamos em écfrase curatorial, para as passagens ecfrásticas que destacam os procedimentos de seleção e arquivamento de obras, relacionando-as em um contexto de exposição, ou ainda, obras de arte fundamentadas sobre tais procedimentos, como delimitado por Filipovic (2013). Outra categoria delineada nesta pesquisa é a écfrase fática, a partir do conceito de convivialidade explorado por Blommaert e Varis (2018), inseridos na lógica dos Atos de Percepção e de Recepção, como definidos por Elleström (2021). Por fática, entendemos a écfrase que explora os aspectos comunicacionais da obra de arte contemporânea, centrando-se na experiência de teste permanente da capacidade de proposições artísticas produzirem comunicação, entre artista e espectador e entre diferentes espectadores, estabelecendo a convivalidade, um convívio fluido mas nem por isso desprovido de significado. As obras analisadas utilizam, cada uma à sua maneira, a écfrase como elemento de indefinição, ou seja, inserem a abertura da arte contemporânea na amplitude da narrativa em sua incorporação de gêneros e registros. Por esse motivo, discutiremos nesta tese a écfrase como passagens que nos permitem entender melhor o funcionamento da ficção, a partir da comprensão de que a écfrase é um procedimento exemplar e agudo de reconstrução do olhar, da percepção e da memória.

This article examines the phenomenon of ekphrasis from an intergeneric comparative approach, centring on the study of Jorge de Sena’s Metamorphosis (1963) and José Saramago’s Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (1977). Although the reception of aesthetic objects in these works results from visits both writers made to museums and monuments of European cities, Sena’s ekphrastic poems and Saramago’s ekphrastic prose are not mere exercises of aesthetic appreciation but meditations on the historicity of human materiality elicited by the contemplation of the museological and architectural heritage. The type of ekphrasis practised in Metamorphosis and in Manual of Painting and Calligraphy stems from an inquisitive itinerant gaze that continuously transfigures reality, transgressing the conventional descriptivity of this rhetorical device. The ekphrastic practices of Sena and Saramago consist of analogous strategies of ontological inquiry which question personal, autobiographical memory and collective cultural memory, while also performing a meta-textual role by setting the trajectory of what Saramago calls the ‘voyage of writing’.

Following Hans Blumenberg, this essay studies the genealogy of the idea of originality in a medieval metaphor characterizing the church interior as a "meadow" or λειμῶν (leimôn). Scholars focusing on this metaphor have neglected its use as a description of artistic process. Procopius of Caesarea, John of Damascus, and Leo VI, "the Wise," form the basis of this study, which argues that compiling anthologies (Lat. florilegia, lit. "gatherings of flowers") provided a preliminary description of invention. This metaphor, in turn, laid an initial groundwork for modern writers, including Montesquieu, who sought to theorize originality against the language of manual labor.

Der Beitrag verortet Friederike Mayröckers Texte zur bildenden Kunst im Kontext des Sprachdenkens der literarischen Moderne. In der medienreflexiven Literatur zu Beginn des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts fasziniert das Bild als das Andere der Sprache, es verspricht eine Grenzerweiterung der Sprache ins Unsagbare hinein und birgt ein Evidenzversprechen, das die literarische Sprache nicht mehr einzulösen vermag. Anhand von Textbeispielen wird aufgezeigt, wie Mayröckers Sprache sich am Bild als dem Unsagbaren konturiert.

What is the relationship between art history and its objects? Responding to Jaś Elsner’s claim that art-historical writing is inevitably ekphrastic, this essay revisits a site of intense disciplinary anxiety—Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s 1759 description of the Belvedere Torso and its revised version in his 1764 History of Ancient Art. Description has been cast as the “scapegoat” (or pharmakos) of Winckelmann’s art history—that which must be excised yet is fundamental to the operations of the whole. But although it often serves as a site of perceived excess and sublimation in his work, the ekphrastic elements of Winckelmann’s prose are nevertheless some of the most historicist aspects of his scholarship, shaped by a deep engagement with Greco-Roman ekphrastic literature. Description, in this sense, serves as a Platonic pharmakon—both affliction and cure for classical art history’s medial and ontological separation from its ruined and fragmented objects. In Winckelmann’s description of the torso, ekphrasis holds out the potential for the statue’s “completion” (Ergänzung). But understood according to eighteenth-century practices of visual restoration, this raises the question of whether such “whole-making” should be understood as proper or supplemental to the original image. What does it mean to “re-member” the Belvedere Torso through ekphrastic strategies drawn from antiquity itself? And what does this imply for our own textual (and pharmacological) mediations of the visual?

The article briefly discusses the origin and the scope of Neobaroque, the notion of theatrical performance, including theatricality of life, and the way the above can be illustrated by Miranda Glover " s first novel, Masterpiece. Neobaroque as a trans-historical set of ideas concerning the nature of reality and the question of representation, manifests itself in the tension between major and minor strategies. The two strategies are at work in theater whose particular form, tableaux vivant, is used in a revised form by Miranda Glover in her novel. Ekphrases, that is, the descriptions of artworks, tableaux vivants and other performances are used in the novel to construct a powerful image of both the individual female artist and femininity in general.

Media Borders, Multimodality, and Intermediality is a collection of essays that have found their final forms in dialog with each other. The initial question that was posed was simply ‘what is intermediality?’ To answer this question, one must also ask what a medium is, and where we find the ‘gaps’ that intermediality bridges. Clearly, the supposedly crossed borders must be described before one can proceed to the ‘inter’ of intermediality. We also set out to investigate how the two notions of intermediality and multimodality, rarely discussed together, are related. The aim was to facilitate communication and theoretical cross-fertilization over the borders between the esthetic disciplines, media and communication studies, linguistics, and so forth.

В статье предлагается монографический анализ рассказа Кузмина "Портрет с последствиями" и выясняется, какой из современников писателя "спрятан" в главном персонаже и почему. Статья в электронном виде "публиковалась" на сайте Рутении - http://www.ruthenia.ru/document/551826.html .

L’articolo tenta di delineare un’analisi comparata fra Artemisia (1947) di Anna Banti e To the Lighthouse (1927) di Virginia Woolf, con particolare attenzione ai personaggi di Artemisia e Lily Briscoe, entrambe pittrici. Sebbene la scrittrice inglese sia stata più volte evocata dalla critica bantiana, infatti, mai le due autrici sono state oggetto di uno studio comparativo sistematico: approfondire i possibili legami intertestuali fra Artemisia e Al faro, cui spesso vengono preferite altre opere woolfiane come Orlando o A room of One’s Own, potrebbe pertanto rivelarsi interessante per indagare da un’ulteriore prospettiva la costruzione del primo personaggio di finzione ispirato alla vicenda di Artemisia Gentileschi – a maggior ragione perché nei decenni successivi la pittrice barocca sarà oggetto di un vero e proprio processo di “finzionalizzazione”, fra romanzi, opere teatrali, film, graphic novel, docufiction ecc.

The essay aims to outline a comparative analysis between Anna Banti’s Artemisia (1947) and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, with a focus on the characters of Artemisia and Lily Briscoe, both painters. Indeed, even if the English writer was often mentioned by Banti’s critics, the two authors have never been the object of a systematic comparative study. Therefore, the article deepens the potential connections between Artemisia and To the Lighthouse (and not the most quoted Orlando or A room of One’s Own) in order to investigate from a further point of view the construction of the first fictional character inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi - particularly since the baroque painter will be the subject of a massive fictionalising process in the following decades, including novels, plays, films, graphic novels, docufictions etc.

The paper contains review of the main conceptions of a literary ekphrasis and analysis of its functioning specific in the novel “Museum of Abandoned Secrets” by the famous contemporary writer Oksana Zabuzhko. Main attention is focused on the cognitive aspects of fictional narrative.