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Art as an constitutive element of fictional worlds
Ruml, Lukáš ; Mocná, Dagmar (advisor) ; Kubíček, Tomáš (referee)
The topic of this thesis is visual art as a constitutive element of fictional worlds. The methodological basis is comparative semiotics, or more precisely intermediality research. The aim is to capture some of the possible realisations of intermedial relationships between literature and visual art. The constituent case studies are focused on the ekphrasis represented in the novel Witch Hammer by Václav Kaplický, on the transmediality as a transfer of aesthetics of one medium into another on the example of Josef Čapek's Three Proses which are traditionally perceived as cubist, and on the illustrative relationship between text and picture in František Hrubín's lyrical poems The Night of Job. The first study concerning the ekphrastic relationship confirms the ability of visual art to enrich the possibilities of literary expression thematically but also semantically through introspection into the inner lives of the characters which contributed to the overall interpretation of the work. The second study focused on the transmedia transfer in Čapek's proses does not have such an unequivocal conclusion. Given the complexity of each reader's receptive process, it is difficult to attribute the status of a literary pandanus of Cubism to the Three Proses, even with an awareness of its historical context. By...
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Description and its subject: through the eyes of the observer
Fedrová, Stanislava
The category of beholder as key mediator of the surrounding world (or its image) in an artwork results from confrontation of verbal and visual descriptivity. The paper focuses on the role of beholder and the influence of processes of her perception on the descriptive structure. It seems inevitable to inquire into the ways and devices of transforming the perspective of a character into narratorial discourse or into that of an implied beholder. Concurrently, it is necessary to differentiate between the mode of beholder where emphasize is on perception, and the mode of interpreter, i. e. such apprehension of the world, which employs e. g. pictorial models and cultural/visual concepts intently in order to induce evocation or visualization in readers. The paper examines the assumed “objectivity” or noninterpretative character of description by displaying a variety of observer’s perspectives in description and also in ekphrasis as a specific type of description.
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Description and its subject: through the eyes of the observer
Fedrová, Stanislava
The category of beholder as key mediator of the surrounding world (or its image) in an artwork results from confrontation of verbal and visual descriptivity. The paper focuses on the role of beholder and the influence of processes of her perception on the descriptive structure. It seems inevitable to inquire into the ways and devices of transforming the perspective of a character into narratorial discourse or into that of an implied beholder. Concurrently, it is necessary to differentiate between the mode of beholder where emphasize is on perception, and the mode of interpreter, i. e. such apprehension of the world, which employs e. g. pictorial models and cultural/visual concepts intently in order to induce evocation or visualization in readers. The paper examines the assumed “objectivity” or noninterpretative character of description by displaying a variety of observer’s perspectives in description and also in ekphrasis as a specific type of description.
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Ekphrasis as a Mode of Representation
FEDROVÁ, Stanislava
The submitted thesis focuses on the use of the traditional ancient genre of ekphrasis (a specific form of description of a work of visual artefact) in modern literature. Individual interpretative perspectives are demonstrated using selected works of Czech poetry and prose from the 19th, 20th and 21th centuries (by Jaroslav Vrchlický, Julius Zeyer, Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic, Alois Jirásek, Jaroslav Durych, Jaroslav Maria, František Langer, Bohumil Hrabal and Miloš Urban). The metodological focus primarily anchors the thesis in the theory of intermediality (Werner Wolf, Irina Rajewsky); concepts from art theory and visual studies are also applied (e.g. Norman Bryson?s distinction ?the gaze? ? ?the glance?). The thesis first outlines the context of the history of ekphrasis as a rhetorical category and as a genre, the existing research on ekphrasis, and the problems of defining ekphrasis as verbal representation of a visual representation. It considers the distinction between actual and notional ekphrasis (John Hollander) from the point of view of the literary theory, and also employs the category of the pictorial model (Tamar Yacobi). The next chapter examines the role of the beholder in ekphrasis, first from the point of view of his position in the fictional world (e.g. the observer is a character in a fictional world and at the same time projects himself into the ?fictional world? of the visual representation), and second in distinguishing the mode of description and the mode of interpretation. The thesis also defines some specific ekphrastic techniques and gestures, for example: How can the act of perceiving and observing a visual representation be realized in the structure of its verbal representation? How does a static description become dynamic through direct integration of ekphrasis into the structure of the narrative ? into the structure of a particular scene (microstructure of an action) or the plot as a whole (macrostructure of a story)? What are the roles and functions of ekphrastic passages in the framework of the text as a whole (ekphrasis need not be simply a pause in the narration which is easy to eliminate)? Finally, how can the verbal medium, using its own means, imitate or simulate the media-specific techniques of another type of art.
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The role of the beholder in ekphrasis
Fedrová, Stanislava
The status of the beholder, whether through the physical process of looking or his existential experience, is a principal formative element in ekphrastic texts. This study defines three possible approaches: in the first the beholder is like a character in a fictional world and at the same time a visual representation. This character is part of the story, so this version of ekphrasis is formed by the role played in the story. The second type is the character as a mediator of the world of visual experience. As the viewer sinks into the depths of the image by means of a Rückenfigur which has already entered it, this beholder is a mediator in ekphrasis, thanks to whom the reader acquires the perspective of a joint beholder. The third type, the beholder as interpreter, points to the basic techniques for the formation of ekphrasis: correlativization with another visual representation or pictorial model, the grounding of the narrative plain and associative play with the form of the observed.
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