The Art of Literature, Art in Literature

The Art of Literature, Art in Literature
The volume consists of twelve essays centred
around the idea of dialogic exchange between
literature and visual arts (mainly painting), which
since the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries has
been steadily growing into prominence among
literary explorations. Through their readings of
modern and post-modern texts, the authors
attempt to approach selected literary works in
the context of the works of art invoked by poets
and writers through the medium of language.
Such instances of artistic synthesis, whether
realised as traditional ekphrasis and commentary
or through the complexities of intersemiotic
discourse, bring out the evolving nature of
perspectives on art and literature, and point in
the directions of expressive possibilities offered
by a simultaneity of words and images.
The Art of Literature,
Art in Literature
Edited by Magdalena Bleinert
Izabela Curyłło-Klag
Bożena Kucała
www.wuj.pl
Jagiellonian University Press
The Art of Literature,
Art in Literature
The Art of Literature,
Art in Literature
Edited by Magdalena Bleinert
Izabela Curyłło-Klag
Bożena Kucała
Jagiellonian University Press
REVIEWER
prof. dr hab. Mirosława Buchholtz
COVER DESIGN
Marcin Klag
This volume has been published thanks to the financial support of the Institute of English
Studies, Faculty of Philology at the Jagiellonian University
© Copyright by Magdalena Bleinert, Izabela Curyłło-Klag, Bożena Kucała & Wydawnictwo
Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
First edition, Kraków 2014
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any eletronic,
mechanical, or other means, now know or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers
ISBN 978-83-233-3779-9
www.wuj.pl
Jagiellonian University Press
Editorial Offices: Michałowskiego St. 9/2, 31-126 Cracow
Phone: +48 12 663 23 81, +48 12 663 23 82, Fax: +48 12 663 23 83
Distribution: Phone: +48 12 631 01 97, Fax: +48 12 631 01 98
Cell Phone: + 48 506 006 674, e-mail: [email protected]
Bank: PEKAO SA, IBAN PL80 1240 4722 1111 0000 4856 3325
For Professor Krystyna Stamirowska
CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................................
9
1. Wacław Rapak, Crafting Between Codes – Henri Michaux ...........................
13
2. Šárka Bubíková, The Urban Energy of American Modernism:
Charles Demuth’s Portrait of W.C. Williams ...................................................
23
3. Anna Walczuk, Ekphrasis as a Path to Epiphany .............................................
33
4. Bożena Kucała, The Colours of Life: A.S. Byatt’s The Matisse Stories ............
45
5. Magdalena Bleinert, “A Less Uneasy Time”: Vita Sackville West’s Portrayal
of Knole in The Edwardians ..............................................................................
55
6. Wojciech Szymański, Aretino’s Eyes: Looking at Paintings in Hilary
Mantel’s Wolf Hall ..............................................................................................
65
7. Robert Kusek, Against Iconicity: The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín ...
77
8. Karolina Kolenda, A Different Kind of Longing. Image and Text
in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz ................................................................................
93
9. Izabela Curyłło-Klag, War and the Visual Arts in Pat Barker’s Life Class
and Toby’s Room ................................................................................................. 101
10. Marek Pawlicki, The Art of Writing and the Art of Remembering
in The Book of Evidence, Ghosts, Athena and The Sea by John Banville ........ 111
11. Sławomir Kozioł, “Life is more difficult for the serious artist” – Question
of Art in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition ............................................. 123
12. Jan Rybicki, Visualizing Literature: Artistic Statistics ..................................... 137
INTRODUCTION
The aim of Art is to present not the outward appearance of things,
but their inner significance; for this, not the external manner and
detail, constitutes true reality.
Aristotle
That art has continued to fascinate human beings since they developed the
faculties which enabled them to practise it is a fundamental fact of life. Arguments about art’s role and ontological status have reverberated throughout
the centuries, from Plato’s theory of mimesis to recent claims about art’s roots
in the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution. Whatever hypothesis one chooses to follow in one’s understanding of art, it is never very far from the sense
of art’s expressive potential, which again and again reveals its powers of emotional and intellectual appeal.
The art of literature is fortunate in that its medium allows it to form relationships with other arts relatively easily: after all, no art exists outside of
language, in which it is discussed and commented upon. It is thus only natural to see writers interpreting and responding to works of art, analysing the
creative process, reflecting on the role and status of the artist, or asking questions about art’s complex ties to our so-called “reality.” In this volume, twelve
authors take up the issue of “art in literature,” focusing on selected aspects of
the presence of art in literary works. The selection is obviously nowhere near
a comprehensive survey: to attempt anything of the sort would require an
entirely different scope and methodology. We hope, however, to suggest some
patterns in identifying the ways in which visual arts have made an impact on
literary texts.
The volume focuses on modern and post-modern literature and reaches
beyond the frontiers of English-speaking countries. The turn of the 19th and
20th centuries saw a range of turning points in all artistic activity, and formal
experimentation – so characteristic of the modernist period – resulted in revisions and adjustments in the perception of works of art, ultimately ushering
in our current postmodern age, with its passion for eclecticism and boundary-crossing. Literature began to make a point of deliberately entering into
10
Introduction
a dialogic exchange with other arts, looking for ways of enhancing what we
traditionally refer to as “meaning.” Such artistic synthesis, in some cases bordering on syncretism, seeks to explore the possibilities opened by a simultaneity of words and images, which poets and novelists have come to recognise as
a unique means of expression. Among the former, the Belgian-born poet and
painter Henri Michaux draws attention as a highly original artist whose work
may be seen as quintessentially “crafting between codes” and exploring the
complex interrelations in the arts’ affinities (Wacław Rapak). A variety of
the latter may also be seen in juxtapositions of literature and art: in American
modernism, the poetry of William Carlos Williams and Hart Crane on the
one hand, and the art of Charles Demuth on the other reveal a similar fascination with the urban, signalling a turn towards making pictures into images
which visualize human existence (Šárka Bubíková).
Another direction in the explorations of intersections between visual arts
and literature is indicated by writers and poets who deliberately choose to
address a work of art as an integral part of literary discourse. W.H. Auden’s reflections on Bruegel’s masterpiece (or, as is now commonly thought, an early
copy thereof) are among the best-known instances of ekphrasis within the literary canon and have often been looked upon as an illustration of the manner
in which words and images may be merged into an inseparable whole (Anna
Walczuk). In A.S. Byatt’s The Matisse Stories, Matisse’s paintings determine
the characters’ self-perception and correspond to, or contrast with, developments in their lives, foregrounding the recurrent theme of transience (Bożena Kucała). Vita Sackville-West constructs her semi-autobiographical portrayal of the Edwardians almost entirely out of images suggestive of the many
painters whose names reverberate through her novel (Magdalena Bleinert).
Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Thomas Cromwell is an important element
in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, and the positioning of this painting in the Frick
Collection in New York, where it hangs beside a portrait of Sir Thomas More
by the same artist, provides an additional dimension to the historical narrative of the novel (Wojciech Szymański). In some cases, however, a work of
art may not even be explicitly referred to in a literary text: Colm Tóibín’s The
Testament of Mary was written partly in response to Titian’s and Tintoretto’s
representations of the mother of Jesus, or rather the tension between divinity
and humanity which emerges from their juxtaposition (Robert Kusek).
A different focus may be seen in the works of writers whose interest lies
in mind processes triggered after a coherent (and false) vision of self and
the world has collapsed, often following the experience of a trauma. In
W.G. Sebald’s much-awarded Austerlitz mysterious images scattered throughout the text are part of the eponymous protagonist’s quest for lost identity and
cultural heritage (Karolina Kolenda). Pat Barker’s Life Class and Toby’s Room,
Introduction
11
portraying a generation of Slade School painters whose careers were marred
by the outbreak of the Great War, focus on the responsibilities of those who
served as official war artists or utilized their drawing skills to help reconstruction surgeons, and ultimately reveal the therapeutic dimension of painting
(Izabela Curyłło-Klag). In his art trilogy The Book of Evidence, Ghosts, and
Athena, as well as in the Booker-prize winning The Sea, John Banville concentrates on the function of memory which, like art, can freeze significant
moments in time and turn them into images, thus bringing the past into the
present (Marek Pawlicki).
Along with attempts to define and redefine art and its function, the 20th
century saw yet another aspect of creative work come to prominence: the
emergence of new media, which entail entirely new methods of the production and reproduction of art. William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition highlights
the mutual interdependences of art, marketing and business in the contemporary world, demonstrating how the traditional opposition between “high”
and “popular” art becomes blurred in the dynamics of production and reception (Sławomir Kozioł). Finally, as new trends appear among the wellestablished approaches to literature, new insights may be gained by applying
them. A stylometric analysis of 19th-century novels yields colourful computer
graphics which might arguably be considered as a form of abstract art themselves, but which at the same time have a classificational, interpretative, and
representational value (Jan Rybicki).
The essays in this collection point in some of the directions which literary
criticism may take, following poets and writers who have expanded their discourse to include non-literary forms of art. Such directions are countless, as
perspectives on art will continue to evolve, along with changes and developments which shape and modify human existence from decade to decade. Literature will continue to record and reflect on this process in its own unique
voice, sharing in art’s purpose, which is – to quote the famous aphorism of
Glenn Gould’s – “the lifelong construction of a state of wonder.”
TECHNICAL EDITOR
Anna Poinc-Chrabąszcz
PROOFREADER
Monika Skowron
TYPESETTER
Wojciech Wojewoda
Jagiellonian University Press
Editorial Offices: Michałowskiego St. 9/2, 31-126 Cracow
Phone: +48 12 663 23 81, +48 12 663 23 82, Fax: +48 12 663 23 83

Download Report