ARTISTIC VISION
Ekphrasis
Ekphrasis is an ancient rhetorical device that “brings a subject matter vividly before the eyes”[1]. Though early definitions of the word encompass any form of descriptive language, over time the term has been further defined as "literary descriptions of visual works of art.”[2] As with other forms of rhetorical language, such as hyperbole and metaphor, Ekphrasis is a device that aids in creative expression, persuasion and depth felt by the audience in response to a given text.
“The creative force that distinguishes ekphrasis from normal narrative is the vividness (ἐνάργεια) and clarity (σαφήνεια) of the description. Vividness enables hearers to ‘almost see’ whatever is described.”[3]
The musicologist Siglind Bruhn defines Ekphrasis as applied to music as a “transmedialisation of a work of literature or art into music”[4], in other words, an inter-art or inter-disciplinary transfer. Most importantly, philosopher Lydia Goehr makes the point that “for a work to be Ekphrastic, it must not only represent or express but also explicitly re-present or re-express another work.”[5] It is this precise notion of re-expression where the "work of art leaves the domain of representation to become experience".[6]
When musically describing an extra-musical subject, we are able to refer to the concept of Ekphrasis as a compositional tool to drive vivid expression and artistic expression. One could achieve this through using strict musical parameters in a work that corresponds to concepts from extra-musical subjects, including physics, painting, architecture etc. These concepts are used not just as an inter-art transfer, but they involve a study of technical concepts of other-disciplinary areas outside of music that are re-communicated through musical expression. As Deleuze has it, the "work of art becomes an experience."[7]
[1} Nicolaus, Progymnasmata, 69.4-11 Felten, quoted in Eric Cullhed, "Movement and Sound on the Shield of Achilles in Ancient Exegesis," Greek, Roman and Byzantine studies 54 (2014): 194.
[2] Andrew Laird, "Sounding out Ecphrasis: Art and Text in Catullus 64," The Journal of Roman Studies, 83 (1993): 18, doi: 10.2307/300976.
[3] Theon, Prog. 119.31-32; Hermogenes, Prog. 23; Nicolaus, Prog. 68, quoted in Robyn J. Whitaker, “The Poetic of Ekphrasis: Vivid Description and Rhetoric in the Apocalypse,” Mohr Siebeck (2015): 229-230.
[4] Siglind Bruhn, "Some Thoughts Towards a Theory of Musical Ekphrasis," University of Michigan, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~siglind/ekphr.htm.
[5] Lydia Goehr, “How to Do More with Words. Two views of (Musical) Ekphrasis,” The British Journal of Aesthetics 50, no. 4 (2010): 404, doi: 10.1093/aesthj/ayq036.
[6] Gillies Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (Columbia University Press, 1994), 50-57.
[7] Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 50-57.