TEXT and IMAGE-Ekphrastic poem-`Walker Skating` by Brian Morris

Brian Morris 's poem , visually salient as it is in relation to Sir Henry Raeburn 's painting is an interesting example of intertextuality and intermediality in contemporary fiction

An ekphrastic poem is "the literary representation of visual art , real or imaginary , as Murray Krieger defines it . There are two types of ekphrasis , according to the author of The illusion of the Natural Sign enargeia I ' and enargeia II . The first type describes a one-to-one reference- if that should ever be quantifiable - almost like a direct translation from the visual medium into the

verbal medium . The first type is characteristic of the classical ekphrasis . The latter is a double degree imitation in the sense that it puts into abyss (mise-en-abyme ) the original iconic reference through an effort of semiosis where the coordinates of the visual experience are renegotiated and even subverted into another zone of the imagery . I believe this type emphasizes on the differance and it is specific to post-structuralism and postmodernism

I read Brian Morris 's poem as a classical ekphrasis , a meditation on likeness , rather than difference , as Stamelman puts it . The poem is nakedly constructive vis-a-vis Sir Henry Raeburn 's painting , to the point that it even manages to reflect the lines of movement embedded in the stylistics of painting as well as in the rhetoric of the painting In this sense , it belongs to the Enargeia I type of ekphrasis , the type that emphasizes the Aristotelian idea of mimesis , where the "real , the "sensible " of the visual perception is translated or mediated into words . Specifically , Brian Morris 's poem does not seem to question the idea of verisimilitude inherent to Raeburn 's painting neither in form nor in content : it does not question the framework of self-sufficiency of light esoterism . Furthermore , the voice of the poem is cosubstantial with the ideological symbolism of the painting . Paradoxical as it is as an approach , because it pertains mainly to visual arts , I would like to employ Panofsky 's iconological method to elaborate on the above statements

The first level of outlook is the "Primary or Natural Subject Matter It is the elementary , most direct level of understanding : how the simple composition is perceived , devoid of any implicit cultural cues or knowledge . The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duggingston Loch ' is the representation of a man , dressed in black , is seamlessly skating on a blurry surface , most probably a lake . Additionally , if we look at the "narrative , Walker Skating ' is a rhythmic eye-witness of a character who skates and plays on a frozen lake despite the potential perils that lay bellow . The minimum information coming with a glance or a reading in diagonal already bands together a composition (blurred background with moving figure in foreground , both for the poem and for the painting

The second hermeneutic level belongs to the "Secondary or Conventional subject matter " which does an iconographical reconstruction similar to a historian 's approach . The broader cultural matrix of the two works can be revealed , regarding...