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Vassilena Kolarova
Key words: Intertextuality — Julia Kristeva, Michaïl Bakhtin, Gérard Genette, Roland Barthes, and the author’s idea about the interartisticity; intermediality. Center for Research on Intermediality; interart – Florent Albrecht; intersemioticism – Jacques Fontanille
The overflowing of shades between literature, painting and music
In this study of the interartistic phenomenon we shall chronologically follow the development of the definitions related to this notion, and while arranging them, we shall take into account their significance for the germination of this interartistic vision, connected to the emblematic personality of Julia Kristeva, and whose chief definition is– intertextuality. We shall refer also to the works of Gerard Genette and examine the definition of transtextuality introduced by him, which he terms as literature of second degree and which by content is closer to the concept of interartistic phenomenon. Intertextuality correlates to a very wide stream of philosophical thought during the entire Twentieth Century, as a wonderful prelude, dating from ancient times. This intellectual thought was known as early as since its emergence in the 70s and does not need any elaborate presentation in this study considering the notoriety of the „semiotic adventure” (Bart). Our study is directly affected by intertextuality and therefore we shall devote it well-deserved attention. Intertextuality embodies practice open in time, subjected to constant changes triggered by the structuring of the text as it used to appear, by complementing it to achieve finished look in the future. According to Kristeva, poetic language is also a language of dialogue
We shall concentrate on certain excerpts from the text of Kristeva
The textual picture is more and more visualized, stretching to infinity. Kristeva talks about the picture of text at a moment of reorganization; the picture comes to life from the shuffling of texts, which movement is realized by „rewriting with a pencil what the brush has already drawn. The pencil started to run fast from the top downwards on the white paper while following the same vertical fields whose route was preceded beforehand by the brushes. This time no moving on to the palette, no change of the tools, no rubbing of colors, would slow down the action, quickly gathering speed. The same landscape appeared in the background, but being of secondary interest, it was destroyed by the personalities in the foreground. The gestures, felt directly and immediately as alive…the silhouettes, curiously funny, and the faces with staggering resemblance had the desired expression, at times gloomy, at times cheerful... Despite the contrast of the décor, the painting recreated the exact idea of heated street traffic. How can we miss to read the metaphor of textual activity in these lines, that surpasses
the limitations of speech (painting with a brush), swallows it and destroys it with heated
gesticulation, in its turn to freeze into a new impression that could resemble anything.”
From transtextuality to pure transcendence
Genette perceives intertextuality as a particular type of transcendence of the authorship – transtextuality, which encompasses numerous types of relations:
☐ architextuality
☐ paratextuality , whose role is to give a natural feel to the work of art ☐ metatextuality, as a critical discourse, which we cannot do without. The critical discourse is always well-respected, if good, constructive and poetic, even if secondary and not so artistic in nature. Even Butor himself, who wrote critical essays, admits it. ☐ intertextuality, which encompasses citation, plagiarism, allusion ☐ hypertextuality, whose hypotext and hypertext are two structural components of paradigm– parody, pastiche...
What we need to highlight is the interartistic nature, more clearly expressed in the last type of relations. The remaining types of relations are less prone to interartistic influence, even though it is possible to occur in them too. The Palimpsest
Genette uses the term transcendence in his study of the work of art as a whole
We shall take as reference point the most valuable of Genette's ideas, the one about
the concept of literature as art.
The work of art is immanent, in what it is and what it expresses. It is a whole
belonging to itself. Immanence originates in the ontological status of the creation. It is a
physical object in painting and sculpture. Literature and music possess the ideal
immanence. Genette allocates the works into a classification similar to the one of
Sauriau.
Transcendence is the exact opportunity for the visions of interpretation to multiply
to infinity, i.е for the work to cross the threshold of its imminence. Each potential author
views the previous creation in his/her own unique way : “ …this scream of the work to
all the rest is felt implicitly and deserves a lot, I believe the name transcendence.”
Kant and the concurrence of numerous arts in one and the same work
We cannot possibly overlook in this paper this great theologian in philosophy – Kant,
and especially a central point in his study, which appears to be central also to ours. This
point, we reckon, is of primary importance both for his fundamental aesthetics and for the
clarification of the interartistic phenomenon. A valuable idea with regards to the
unbreakable bond between arts in the work itself
We may sketch, through the prism of the transcendental aesthetics of Kant, an interpretation related to the perception of the work of art, which refers to the phenomenon, as subject to the empirical intuition. The matter of each phenomenon is given to us only à posteriori (i.е. when the work of art was already created by a given author). The feeling that arises from it exists in space and time as pure intuition, which is a form à priori of sensitivity. Space presents things the way they are in our consciousness. Time allows us to perceive the phenomenon subjectively. Therefore we believe that space and time may reach a crossing point and merge their borders, at the perception of the phenomenon, bearing in mind the overlapping of two phenomenal realities. Furthermore Kant speaks of another opportunity given à priori, which approaches the idea of the synthetic reckonings given a priori. The interartistic has the quality of an a priori. The interartistic phenomenon each time may accept a different reality in the consciousness of the perceiver of the painting or any work of art where more arts are put side by side. This is possible due to the polyvalent nature of art as a specific symbolic form – a concept, which is later developed in Cassirer’s philosophy of art based on the transcendental laws of Kant. Kant gives the following triad of branching of arts: Painting-Music-Literature.
He takes as reference point this interartistic triad, from which the synthetic strands
between them are weaved at a secondary level, to be given directly and to highlight their
relationship when present in a given universal piece of art. Krassimir Manchev
Peirce and the Phenomenon
The Phaneron (1.284) “ The phaneron is a synonym of phenomenon : this is something, which is present in a given consciousness, here and now, regardless of whether this thing is real or not.» Phaneroscopy, as a specific variant of phenomenology, studies the sign as a phenomenon, i.е in the context of a relationship. If we study this communication specifically in the field of art, we shall see that the phenomenological perception is of deciding importance for the interpretation of the meaning of context, regardless of the type of configuration of the interference between arts or of the kind of accumulation of arts at one and the same point in time, at the same spot – whether more or less intensified.
Polyvalence of the triangle...the appearance of the pyramid
Peirce’s triangle is expressed in a multidimensional way in art since it has polyvalent
meanings, which trigger the broadening of the visual range. The different planes
One object of reality reflected in the painting may be interpreted in different ways depending on how the observer perceives it. The representation of the depicted object contextually changes its meaning depending on the interpretation. Meanwhile the representation of the visually depicted object enters into a relation with the representation of the visualized on the picture. Thus a complicated dynamic structure of the sign is achieved, which may be multiplied in its interpretations since what is shown on the picture, depending on the interpretation, may change its interpreter, and respectively its representation, which in its turn changes. Likewise Kandinski breaks apart the two-dimensional space of the painting to reach
the universe. This idea is valid for any analysis of a creation, literary or musical. The
perception of the representation may be of a different kind– sound, visual, i. е. The pure
icon, which is left in the basis of the object, analyses and characterizes it, becomes sound
or visual depending on the perception. The interpreter of the painting, text or song allows
an interartistic transformation into a continuum … We insist on emphasizing that we mean
the interartistic, since subject of the study is the relation between arts within the work we
are examining at the moment, whether painting, literary text or song... The interartistic
functions during this understanding by the interpreter solely in the case of art since it is
inseparable part of the creative energy itself. This meaning of the semiosis is valid for each
semiotic relation, whether historical or other, but since the meaning acquires intermedial
expansion
The varied bonds, which the metaphor offers, are realized at the level of the Primary and the pure icon, because this is an undetermined condition of transformation. The perception of the representation (the primary) may be of a different kind – sound, visual, i.е. sound or visual icon with different kind of representation. The interpreter allows interartistic transformation into a single continuum … The hypoicon, which is something of the tertiary, allows incessant interpretation, where it itself becomes an interpreter. It is included in the process of receptive aesthetics, in the capacity of a work of art, which in its turn gives birth to another work of art.
The pyramid
All points of the pyramid symbolize the intersection, the commonness between the trichotomies of sign, established by Peirce (representation, object, interpreter). Therefore they may be perceived as a starting point for all elements of the sign (representation, object, interpreter). They become mutually replaceable. The representation is taken into a polyvalent context. The relation of the sign with its object describes exactly the ability of mutual replacement of the representation, object and interpreter. The pure icon falls into the category of the Primary and allows us to mentally envisage the configuration of the tangibly perceived image as a representation. If it is realized in the form of a hypoicon, which in its turn falls into the Tertiary and has the nature of a work of art, the latter, in its capacity as an interpreter, may give rise to the same sequencing. Whoever perceives the hypoicon, recognizes it as a starting point to another hypoicon (i. е. work of art). It appears like a representation offering a new configuration whose interpretation would trigger a new hypoicon, i.е. the interpretation, in its tertiary status, enables the open process of perception – creation, reading, writing. The process of perception is subordinate to the creative process, remains in the basis and proves the unity of the triad – representation, object, interpreter. The icon is unstable.
The metaphor
Peirce establishes three levels of iconism within the hypoicon, which are ranking as tertiary: the Image , the Diagram, the Metaphor, whose representative nature is imposed thanks to the relationships established between two representations in parallel. Fisette
The metaphor of Peirce, as he perceives it and expounds it in his theory, is most consistent with our understanding of the interartistic phenomenon, because it reflects it in the definition, which the semiotic gives it – remarkable upon the transfer in an exceptional way particularly of the idea of arts communication, and more precisely of the principle ratio between the two virtual intermedial realities, taken in the broader sense. Metaphor is a milestone stage in the process of achievement of a polyvalent interpretation of the sign, requiring the discovery of the cosmic space and time and their meeting point, which allows the weaving and crossing of abstract realities. Semiosis is dynamised, since it expands its field of study and puts aesthetic creativity in motion. It is only through metaphor that the field expands to several trends and at least two
realities layer up: “… the ones, which have a representative nature of representation,
showing a comparison into something else, are metaphors.” A representation assumes all
kinds of aspects in different contexts, hence the interpretations ad infinitum within a third
field of art. Such representation, for example, is the leitmotif
One of these days You’ll miss me honey
It exists concurrently as a song and as text in interartistic parallel. The
representation has the ability to multiply infinitesimally. And something else, a literary
citation may be a picture with words, a song, and at the same time poetry, etc. Thus, the
interartistic metaphor, becoming more and more impregnated, is gradually amplified by
the intensiveness of the spectrum of interpretation. The metaphor, as well as the
semiotics of Peirce, is studied in its abilities to interpret the literary text
The literary text, in its capacity of representation of the object in reality (immediate or dynamic), becomes the interpreter of a given painting, and in its turn, in its capacity of representation of the literary text, the latter is transformed into an interpreter of a given music and so on, in line with the context we are in and the immediate object, which is contextual. We are witnesses of a number of representations, obeying a timeless and spaceless axis, fully emotionally dependent on the art, from which it was extracted. The object is unreal; it is from the realm of the imaginary. Its level of functionality is variable. In the abstract art polyvalence would reach its highest level of fiction. While situated in the field of a given art, we shall interpret the representation of the artistic object in question – for example a text presenting an image. The literary text, in the end, will always be text, no matter how much we interpret it as melody or painting. Although on the contrary, if we interpret it in a symbolic way, i.е. in a biblical way, and if we refer to the text of Saint Paul about the Only Spirit – the Holy Spirit, applicable to any gift and to the relationship between gifts, we could give a biblical interpretation to the triangle of Peirce. This is how the points of view of science and the Bible meet, the semiotic and the symbolic, which are one whole. What actually occupies us in this study is the invisible aspect of the question, the immaterial, the form, which are in the foundation of everything. This biblical optic enables us to enlarge the frame of interpretation, from the point of view of pure form, and to include any science, which is mutually replaceable by form and subject with the ones of the other art, with what the first art has entered into relation.
Cassirer – The Divine and the Symbolic Form
Speech is rendering meaning through notions. Owing to it people have the
opportunity the understand each other, it is the core of all intellectual realities of man.
Intuition, thanks to which we perceive the world in different ways, is caused by the
creative mindset. The immediate contact with reality is recreated through art, and not
through speech. The Supersensitive, the Divine in art is one of the forms of the boundless
Spirit. Art communicates the idea of sensitivity. This is one of the reasons why we may
claim that each great piece of work is untranslatable and could never have an equivalent,
therefore interpretation invites creation. What is more, according to Cassirer, each piece
of work of this scale gives a different interpretation of nature, regardless of the art to
which it belongs. The poetic and lyrical in language are qualities, which normal speech
does not have. The vision of reality is dynamic. It prompts us to creation, to express the
emotional, to the sublime. Intuition and individuality in art are its inherent aspects.
Poetical speech is incompatible with normal speech as far as art is concerned. The poet
creates her/his work similar to the sculptor who shapes the stone every time in an original
and exquisite way: “The works of every great poet in a sense may be compared to the
creation of the alchemist who is trying to find the philosopher’s stone. … the poet must
convert the ordinary metal of the everyday language into the gold of poetry… This
becomes possible only with the help of the special gift the poet has to transform the
abstract and ordinary words of everyday language into the recesses of her poetic
imagination and to spurt them out, giving them a new shape … Art does not deceive is
with the help of a conventional fabrication of words and images. It enthralls us,
introducing us to its own world, the world of pure forms. Such is the real power that we
find in each great genius of art.”
When Cassirer deepens his study of the work of art in “Speech and Art II,” he poses
the problem of the ultimate Creation of the World, which Peirce also examines. This is an
issue of extreme importance due to its fundamental genesis and creative activity. He
transfers the idea of the open work of Divine creation (the creation of the world), which
is forever unfinished, on the work of art. According to Peirce
The work of art is incomplete, even when finished. It remains open, because it preserves its symbolic foundation, which gives rise to successive interpretations and creative sequences, lead by Divine inspiration. Cassirer expounds the idea of the constant effort, which the human spirit devotes. He describes this movement as stages of purposefulness. Each subsequent step leads to the idea of development, of the glory of spirit. Human culture is the realization of this progressive objectifying of human
experience. Wit the help of reason (logos in Greek) we organize this human experience,
which is reproduced owing to speech and art. The reflective behavior towards reality is
expressed by the words of soul. The process of reasoning, “ … includes the constant use
of mythical or religious, speech, art, or scientific symbols.”
Biblical origin
The most powerful point when the symbolic, biblical and semiotic meet, is the
point when Cassirer explains the connection of art with myth – its origin. Therefore art
always remains linked to the power of the mythical and religious thought: “ Only with
great artists – Dante and Milton, in Messa by Bach or the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo
– do we feel this power in its full strength. The most prominent modern creators still feel
this drawing force of the mythical world, captured by despair for paradise lost.”
Distinctive features of the artistic symbolic form
The symbolic form consists of energy of spirit carrying meaning, since it is related to a sign, to which spiritual meaning belongs. Art possesses a specific spiritual energy, and hence it represents a peculiar rung of human knowledge. We shall provide the following argument: the symbolic form is perceived from a phenomenological point of view. Cassirer claims that each position of a part (of consciousness) contains a position of the whole. Since symbolic forms are divided into several wholes, they are based on a unifying center of the signifier, which includes them in a whole. Consciousness as something experienced, acquires the image of a relationships structure, i. е. one related to the structure of consciousness as a whole. Thus the different symbols emerge as a relation, but each one has its own specifics. They are situated in time and space, and at the point of intersection of the latter two. Each relationship structure, such as is the symbol linked to a given content, is part of the global transcendental structure adopted in the space-time interference with interartistic nature, i.е. timeless, where time and space have no bounds, but for a single second a whole eternity may be experienced with interartistic relationships. As a whole they are different by type from the intermedial, but are defined in the space-time context. In this case the Self is the starting point, which conscience concentrates into a special focus to define the particular interpretation. The global as spiritual energy combines the process of configurations in art, therefore inside in the symbolic form itself. Therefore we may talk about interartistic phenomenon, modeled by different relations abundant in many respects but still remaining concentrated in a single fundamental center– the signifier, regardless of their configurations. Symbol is a relation, therefore the interartistic phenomenon is a symbol expressed on energy level. The proximity or line of succession in the ideas of Kant, Peirce and Cassirer,
intimated by Wildgren
Under a single polyvalent point of view we may examine one and the same phenomenon interpreting the relation of arts in particular. Our opinion runs alongside Wildgren’s and may be further elaborated more precisely in the area of art. We are talking about confronting perception that consciousness carries out at a given moment against a certain topos with regards to the creative object, which leads to the emergence of a particular symbolic form. The phenomenon, which consciousness analyses during the interartistic perception, is transformed each time when a new observer or listener rests their eyes on a painting or text, hears the music and imagines the images in their consciousness. This is so since the symbolic form that materializes, like the interpreter of Peirce, preserves its nature of spiritual energy, spilling over in all directions, but on the other hand giving to each new perception of the painting a different interpretation, changing the configuration of context in the imagination of the receiver, i.e. always produces a different effect. Thus it becomes the embryo of a new creation.
The artistic space and time
Cassirer poses the problem about space in art as a whole and its connection to
spatiality with an art and a work of art taken separately. He examines this type of
connection once again with regards to the part of the whole, in order to draw the same
conclusion. Intuition is put in the foreground and therefore the combination of colors and
geometric stylization give rise to the idea of contrast of the painting space and thence
aesthetic as compared to the scientific (cf. “Mythical space, aesthetic space and
theoretical space”). It guides the creator during the depiction in painting or literature, or
in music, at the time of placing the space-time frame, the contrasting and sequence of
events, in interdependence, regardless of whether the image is figurative or abstract.
Therefore art possesses the property to model, due to its intuitive nature. When the
creator produces its work, we may talk about intuitive objectifying. Because intuition
directs creative activity. The space-time movement, which is sketched little by little and
constructed in the scope of a cathedral, or sounded through singing, obeys the intuitive
modus, which prevails and owing to which works are pieced together. Strange is the
feeling of when we look at the work piece and see it in its pure intuitive forms. The
contemplation of Kant, the catharsis of Aristotle, all are definitions and illustrations of
the feeling and sense released during the artistic excitement that forces us towards
spiritual realms, “Beyond the oblivion”
The pure form
Cassirer believes that art, like speech, must walk the way towards imitation of the
pure symbol. Art leads to the realm of pure form. Symbolism is elevated to pure
meaning. Leonardo
Divine Love and Gifts
Nicole Everert – Desmedt refers to Anderson’s research (1987), studying the
comparison between science and God with respect to art. She compares the stages
between scientific proof and the creation of the work– a link, which constantly arouses
interest nowadays. Everert – Desmedt examines more precisely three stages
corresponding to the primary, the secondary and the tertiary, which characterize the birth
of a given creation. The primary exists in vagueness, in chaos, and this reminds of the
creative experience of the creator, mentally carries us to the boundless regions of God.
The secondary reaches perfection. While with the tertiary the end is never reached, it
always remains open, because creation requires succession. Even till now God has not
revealed Himself in full, likewise the creation may always be complemented. We arrive
to the bond of first importance: God hands over to the creator with love His gift to create
and participate in the evolvement of the Universal Spirit. Therefore each work of art,
through its perception, gives rise to another, which is handed over with love and
increases knowledge. Close to the verse about gifts of Apostle Paul and in unison with it
is the verse about love; they are even bound in art. The verses about love
It is precisely the concentrating over particular time-space relations of the intuitive cognition within any work of art that gives birth to the interartistic phenomenon which, depending on the interpretation, initiates the creation of a new piece whose nature is interartistic. Every single art in a unique way enters into dialogue with the rest of arts, because each art by itself is unique. The interartistic phenomenon may be applied to any work of art, which touches several arts. The total structure, which combines all arts, this absent structure, which is hunted along the border between the signs, can be found in each work of art. It is the component, which gives a complete, unique sparkle to the creation.
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