Visual Narratives

Paratext plays a critical role in shaping viewer’s perceptions of enclosed material in a book before even opening it. As mentioned in class, the range of book covers for Homer’s Iliad spanned from modern and stylized, to archaic and dark. Some were simple and others were heavily symbolized; all of which intended to emit some kind of message and reach a specific audience.

In comparing and analyzing some of the many book covers of Homer’s Iliad in class, I was interested in looking at another classic novel that has various versions of cover art: Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In some of the pictures I have attached below we can see that some paratext highlights a specific symbol, such as the rose (just like some versions of the Iliad emphasize the shield), and others focus on the characters. Some Romeo and Juliet covers are dramatized and serious, while others are playful and romantic.

Is it necessary to continuously remake the covers of classic literature such as the Iliad or Romeo and Juliet? I think it may be. As time progresses and generational interests, norms, and values shift, it is important for editors, publishers, and even marketers to consider what exactly will attract their target audience to a classic work, because a book’s exterior is instantly, maybe even unconsciously, perceived in a judgmental way. If paratext of classic literature continues to adapt to attract certain readers, it will not only benefit the reader, who was intrigued by the artwork and soaked up the content, but the author as well seeing as they made a profit. While I recognize that creating new cover art for classic works can potentially take away from the history or origins of a piece, I believe it is acceptable for creative minds to construct alternate versions of paratext through their own interpretations.

W.J.T. Mitchell opens the chapter on ekphrasis by saying “ekphrasis is impossible” because “No amount of description […] adds up to depiction” (Mitchell 152). While it is true that in most cases it is not possible to explain every detail of a visual piece of art so thoroughly that anyone reading the description would be able to perfectly visualize the original work, this fact is what makes the literary genre of ekphrasis so interesting. Presumably, one would only put in the work required to write  poem describing a piece of art if that artwork had a truly profound effect on the poet, made him feel some emotion or appreciation of beauty that he wanted to share in his own way. I find poetic ekphrasis fascinating because it allows a writer to honor a work of art and share it with others while simultaneously making it his own. The general sense of the artwork, or at least the parts the poet finds most significant, can be conveyed in a way unique to the writer.

In writing such a poem, the poet in a way creates an infinite amount of new pieces of art, the ones his readers picture in their minds while reading his work. It is seemingly impossible for any two readers of an ekphrastic poem to visualize the exact same thing, which was demonstrated by our drawings of the Shield of Achilles in class. However, I would not consider this to be an example of a failure of ekphrasis, but rather an instance of the potential it creates for one piece of art to inspire the creation of many more.

I find the concept of ekphrasis rather ambiguous, in that Mitchell states that on a semantical level, there exists essentially no difference between images and language. The same amount of information and meaning can be articulated through speech and through an image. However, the relationship between the two and the degree to  which they correlate with one another becomes the obstacle. In certain cases, an illustration can serve to support a speech or verbal element, as a picture is worth a thousand words. In other cases, the opposite occurs: speech can help better understand an image.

Although this signifies that verbal and pictorial factors are correlated on some level, the exercise we did in class with Achille’s Shield proved that while images and language are able to support one another, they are not a replacement for each other. The exercise demonstrated just how limited the practice of ekphrasis can be. No matter how detailed and descriptive the passage was, there still remained infinite ways to depict the shield because while images are concrete and straight-forward, textual and verbal descriptions leave room for imagination. Hence, interpretation obstructs the practicability of ekphrasis.

As I read Mitchell’s “Ekphrasis & the Other” I couldn’t help but mutter “duh.” Ekphrasis, which can be simply defined as a verbal representation of a visual, is a practice we students have been using since we learned how to write.

“Hw would you describe this flower?” a teacher may ask, to which we would responds, “It has red petals and a green stem.”

However, the more I read about ekphrasis and the more I began thinking about ekphrasis as a complication or a mixing of representations (image vs. language), I began to wonder what others mixings could be made to create a new perspective. Could I use dance to represent a body of text? What about painting to represent music?

Take for example “Burning Down the House” by Martin Klimas. In this piece of artwork, Klimas chose to visualize sound. More specifically, Klimas reinterpreted the music of Jimi Hendrix into a visual piece. This visual representation of music, called visual music art, is similar to ekphrasis, and how writers turn image into text.

The result of Klimas’s interpretation (in my opinion) is both striking and beautiful. It gives the viewer a whole new perspective on “Burning Down the House.”

Exploring visual music art helped me better appreciate ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is not just a retelling or a description of an image, it is a reimagination.

It’s interesting to consider the definition of illustration and how we understand it. When I think the innumerable movie versions of books, it makes me realize how often we interpret ideas across different mediums. From the various covers of the Iliad that range from images from greek pottery to comic strips, it becomes clear that in the realm of written and visual arts, we are very familiar with the interchange of visual and verbal representations. There is a constant dialogue between the two whether we are conscious of it or not and the complex iterations of this dialogue are evident through ekphrasis.  As a verbal representation of a visual object, Ekphrasis provides the reading of the work with another dimension, pulling in issues of identity and culture that make the experience both provocative and personal.

I thought the exercise we did in class with the Shield of Achilles was a very clear illustration of both the limitations and complexities of ekphrasis. Although it’s a passage filled with incredible description and vivid imagery, it became clear with the variety of interpretations and illustrations that it didn’t necessarily conform the images we saw in our minds. Quite the opposite, it seemed as if the complexity of detail actually resulted in even more interpretations of the shield.  Whats even more interesting is how the ekphrasic passage allowed us all to make into reality an object that never existed in reality.  And this perhaps speaks to the limitations of art forms that don’t hinder the written word. When we see a picture there is little left to imagination but, as in the case of the shield, any one description can result in any number of imaged interpretations.

It is interesting to consider the concept of paratext in terms of how the editors, printers, and publishers choose to illustrate the text. It is especially fascinating to me that the authors of a book are relatively uninvolved in the creation and selection of their cover art. Covers of books are the selling point, the image that draws us in as readers, and whether we like to admit it or not, we do judge books on their covers. So why are authors often detached from this process?

A book cover is a marketing tool; it is ultimately designed to engage and more importantly, sell. Even if the cover doesn’t represent the text in the way the author intended, the cover is still illustrating something, thus it will always convey meaning. This makes the cover art away to convey a text’s meaning in addition to the author’s text, giving this form of paratext even more power in its affect on the audience.

I experienced this inconsistency in meaning on a smaller scale this past winter break. My dad recently decided to self-publish a novel he had written, and hired one of his friends, a graphic designer, to produce cover art for the novel. I had read the book a while back, and saw the final copy this past month. The cover art, in my opinion, poorly represented the meaning I found in the book when I read it. While the art itself was relevant to the plot of the novel, I felt the stylized nature of the images gave off a vibe that I felt was inconsistent with the story. My point is that everybody has a unique reaction to a text, and no one’s interpretation will be exactly the same. Cover art serves a purpose, to pull in the reader, and everybody has their own tastes and opinions about what serves this purpose the best. The intersection between paratext and illustration poses a conflict of interest between the marketing tools of materials supplemental to text and the author’s intent of the meaning their text should convey.

After class this morning, I left wanting to look at more Banksy graffiti art. Whether you believe graffiti is vandalism or not, the artistry and commentary behind Banksy’s work is both relevant and inspiring.

Metapictures, as defined by Mitchell in Picture Theory, are “pictures that refer to themselves or to other pictures; pictures that are used to show what a picture is” (Mitchell 35). In class, we discussed how Banksy creates artwork that seamlessly utilizes the exterior world as part of the display. These meta-“graffitis” are incredible to analyze. After class, I found this Banksy image online:

This Banksy creation was done on the side of a house near the UK Government Communications Headquarters. Three men dressed in trench coats “wait” patiently next to a telephone booth with recorders, microphones, and camera equipment. To me, the artwork seems to suggest a lack of privacy. Potentially, even deeper, commenting on encroaching government surveillance… especially due to it’s location. Not only does this piece kind of make me laugh (as it’s pretty comical to envision yourself going into the telephone booth), it also makes me think critically about government surveillance. Are we being watched at every turn?

By simply incorporating the outside world (aka the telephone booth) into the piece, Banksy successfully creates a metapicture worth talking about.